Skin Deep

"Lithuania’s Embassy in London has said the use of Lithuania’s name at a beauty pageant Miss USSR in the United Kingdom and invitation of Lithuanian girls to take part in it shows disrespect for Lithuania’s independence."

Leopard Spots

Lithuania, 1923. Here's a friend of Ron's family posing in her favorite winter coat. What thoughts crossed her mind?

Thanks to my friend Ron for making this photo available to us.

Inauguration Day question: When is it cool to refer to the First Lady as "regal?"

When you're British.

"You sense this extraordinary ability, I think, Michelle Obama has to be both regal and normal at the same time. And that's such a skill."

Tea with a Beauty

Suburban Chicago, April 1961. We're hosting another Sunday tea in the living room; you've seen a photo from this afternoon earlier. This snapshot shows the tea cloth that my Mom stitched; our beautiful guest has one of the matching napkins on her lap. She's also placed her red pocketbook on the end table.

When, as a child, I met this woman for the first time, I thought she was the most beautiful living thing that I have ever seen.

Heddy

Kaunas, Lithuania, about 1937. This is Heddy, the wife of my Grandfather Jake's brother, Zigmas.

Thanks to my "New" Cousin for making this photo available to us.

Happy Mother's Day

Kaunas, Lithuania, October 27, 1939. This is my Mom, as a high-school student.

Beachwear Bolero

Palanga Lithuania, August 5, 1939. My Mom heads toward the beach. I did not realize that her swimwear also featured a matching coverup.

Now, I see the bolero in her hand here.

Thoughtful

Erlangen, Germany, 1946 or 1947. Mom contemplates the blossoms. The flowers likely are Dahlias; Mom does not recall that Zinnias grew in Germany.

UPDATE: In the comments, Peter Hoh identifies the flowers as Zinnias, and he points us to the German origins of Zinnias.

Beach

Palanga, Lithuania, August 5, 1939. My Mom enjoys the famous beach resort, Palanga.

Elegance

Suburban Chicago, January 1, 1965. My Mom's best friend, Donna, relaxes after serving New Year's Eve dinner. This is the record resting against the stereo console.

Russian Self-Reflection

Natasha, a younger sister of my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, sent this photo to Tatjana in 1963:

"Penza, 1940. Take a look at your little sister as she was 23 years ago!"

Thanks again to my dear friend, D, for translating the texts from Russian to English.

Licensed

This is the photo my Mom submitted when she applied for an Illinois medical license. She flew alone from New York to Chicago to take the boards.  Even though she had been in this country for less than five years—and only had learned the English language in the last four years—Mom passed the examinations on her first try.

Mom practiced medicine in the Chicago suburbs for over thirty years. She had a great medical partner who treated her kindly and accommodated her family life.

Nonetheless, it was a bumpy road for a woman to take in the mid-1950s.

Brooklyn, New York, 1954. My Mom is ready to go to Chicago to take the boards. This was her first trip on an airplane. Mom stayed at the historic La Salle Hotel while she visited Chicago.

Stepping Out

Seligenstadt, Germany, about 1945. Mom provides another pose on some steps.

Young Jonė

Kaunas, Lithuania, about 1937. My Dad's twin sister, Jonė, poses as a teenager. This portrait was among the snapshots I found only recently. No one in the family had seen it until then.

I probably should add a "melancholy eyes" tag.  Were I to do that, though, I'd feel compelled to edit the tags of every post that depicts Jonė, Tatjana, or my Dad.

Eat like a grownup.

I mentioned earlier that Lithuanians, like many Europeans, entertain on Sundays.

My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, loved to cook and socialize. She usually was the one who proposed having parties. My Mom often was less thrilled with the idea because she regularly was exhausted. Mom worked on Saturdays, and on Sunday mornings, she would do hospital rounds while Dad and I went to the zoo. When Mom returned from those rounds, she readied the house by dusting, cleaning bathrooms, and setting the dining room table for the mid-day party.

When the family hosted Sunday dinner, the children ate at a separate table in the kitchen. We sat at the dining table only on rare holidays, like Kūčios.

An easier entertaining alternative was to invite friends over for tea. We served tea in the living room, at the coffee table. Tatjana and Mom had special, embroidered tablecloths that they would use for the tea parties: "tea cloths." The guests would arrive in the late afternoon, and we would serve a variety of pastries. Tatjana often baked a yeasted coffee cake ("pyragas ant mielių"). I was disappointed by the yeast cakes because I wanted sweet, American cakes with heavy frosting and sugary flowers.

I nonetheless was thrilled when guests came to tea because I was not banished on those occasions to a children's table. My Parents instead allowed me to sit with the adults and eat like a grownup.

Even today, I love to entertain guests in the sunny living room. It's much more fun to graze around a coffee table than to eat at the dining table. If you've eaten at our coffee table, Mr. Irene and I hope you enjoyed the visit.

Suburban Chicago, April 1961. Mom, Tatjana, and I host Sunday tea. I sit in one of the painted chairs from the Rec Room play table. Mom has me dressed in red again, and she's wearing those red shoes!  There's little other color in the gray living room.

Mom tells me that red shoes were all the rage then.

A Mona Lisa Smile

Mariampolis, Lithuania, about 1920. My maternal Grandmother, Jadzė, as a young woman.

Bewitched

In the 1930s, my Mom's maternal aunt, Dora, adopted the glamorous look that came into fashion on the eve of World War II. Think Marlene Dietrich with auburn hair.

The first stories I heard about Dora pivot on her forward-looking viewpoint. More provincially wired people found her views and behaviors scandalous. Others recognized that Dora simply was born about sixty years too early.

Despite Dora's progressive nature, she did not get out of Lithuania after the Soviets occupied the country in 1944. Many relatives fled in July 1944. We are not sure why Dora stayed behind. One explanation is that no relatives offered her and her husband a way out. Another explanation is that her husband refused to flee, and she stayed with him.

Most of those who left Lithuania that summer thought they would return home in a few weeks. People assumed the Soviets would occupy the little country for a few months, and eventually, the Germans would push the Soviets out again, as they had before. As a result, people—including my Mom—left the country with few belongings. Most refugees hid their cherished possessions with relatives or buried them in the countryside. My Mom did not even think to pack her hand-woven national folkdress. How I would have loved to have that!

Mom did pop a winter coat and two pairs of shoes into her suitcase. She still doesn't know why she packed those items. Smart move.

Kaunas, Lithuania, 1936. It's Aunt Dora! She's no longer either a Gibson Girl or a Flapper. Instead, she's updated her style to the glam Hollywood trends.

Natasha

Soviet Union, 1950. This is Natasha, a sister of my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana.

Natasha appeared earlier in this 1910 or 1911 photo in the bottom row, at the far left.

Dora Gets Her Wish

My Mother's maternal Aunt, Teodora ("Dora"), liked it when people paid attention to her. An auburn filly with green eyes and a porcelain complexion, Dora was a rare beauty in the mousy Baltic States. Her fashion sense was keen, and photos show her transforming from Gibson Girl to Flapper to Glamorous Vixen. Even in the steely, Soviet 1950s, Dora looked like an unpracticed double for Joan Crawford.

Dora also was, as relatives whispered delicately, "ahead of her time." In the 1920s and 1930s, she worked full time as a paralegal in a large notarial office whose most important clients were British. At night, Dora played the background keyboards in cinema houses for silent movies. In dour Lithuania, she wore sleeveless dresses sewn in bright colors. She waited until her thirties to marry. When she did wed, she married a twice-divorced man, and she chose not to have children.

Mariampolis, Lithuania, 1920. This is my Mother's maternal Grandmother, Zigmunta, and my Mother's maternal Aunt, Dora.