It's not that warm.

Nemunas Delta Region, Panemunė, Lithuania, about 1927. My maternal Grandmother, Jadzė, and my Mom enjoy the sand bar.

I love how Mom has a little play bucket.

On the Big River

Nemunas Delta Region, Panemunė, Lithuania, about 1927. My Mom rides in the dinghy with her Parents, Jadzė and Jake. Horses pull carts along the bridge.

Class Notes (Part 10)

Kaunas, Lithuania, September 26, 1934. On this Class Notes page, my Mom's friend wrote, "From your classmate, Irene K."

Class Notes (Part 9)

Kaunas, Lithuania, December 12, 1932. On this Class Notes page, my Mom's friend wrote:

For Memories.

I am not a princess, I have no riches
I have one heart, and that I gift to you.

Irene, your friend from school.

Class Notes (Part 8)

Kaunas, Lithuania, 1934. On this Class Notes page, my Mom's friend wrote:

For Memories!
I'm not a poet, verse I do not write
if you don't like that
then I apologize

Your friend E.

... A Secret

*     *     *     *     *

Kaunas, Lithuania, 1934. The "secret corner" reveals the penalty for peaking:

Whoever looks here
The horns of a devil must wear.

Class Notes (Part 7)

Many friends who wrote "remembrances" in my Mom's memento booklet used a then-common humor device. After a friend penned a sentimental note, she folded the bottom corner of the page. On the corner's edge, the friend wrote "Paslaptis," or "secret." When the reader unfolded the corner, she learned the concealed message only stated the penalty for her curiosity.
 

 Kaunas Lithuania, 1934. On this Class Notes page, my Mom's friend wrote:

For Memories!
My hand writes,
But it doesn't know for whom.
But the heart tells me
It's for beloved you.

From L.

 ... A Secret

 *     *     *     *     *

Kaunas, Lithuania, 1934. The "secret corner" reveals the penalty:

Mr. Secret.

Whoever looks here
On the back of a chick must ride.

(The message rhymes in Lithuanian.)

Class Notes (Part 1)

My Mom's schools did not issue yearbooks. The students therefore did not have a publication in which to scribble notes to one another. My Mom and her classmates instead carried booklets—similar to the "autograph books" I remember—in which the friends recorded messages. 

Mom still has her memento booklet. I'll be posting some images from it. Today I start with scans of the booklet's cover, interior binding, and a drawing a friend did for Mom.

*     *     *     *     *

The inscription shows Mom received the booklet as a birthday gift in 1931. Mom still lived in Panemunė at that time.

(I see a sweater design in that weave-inspired motif.)

*     *     *     *     *

 
Kaunas, Lithuania, February 16, 1934. Mom's friend, "Z.M.," wrote, "A remembrance!"

Let's meet at the Jamboree.

Panemunė, Lithuania, Summer 1938. A group of Lithuanian scouts—"Girl Guides"—gathers at the second National Scouting Jamboree. My Dad's twin sister, Jonė, sits on the far left.

 
This summer's National Jamboree is winding down in Ohio.

Wolf Path

Before my maternal Grandparents, Jake and Jadzė, built the house in Kaunas, the family lived in the Soldiers' Quarters in the city of Panemunė. My Mom used to walk to and from school. The path leading to her family's apartment went through a small, forested area. Mom describes the area as being pretty cultivated—on one side of the path grew tree roses, and on the other side, Wisteria. She recalls, however, that her father Jake admonished her to walk quickly through the path because wolves frequented it.

See what you think. Was the danger-of-wolves story a real threat, or was it a way to prompt Mom to bolt home more quickly?

Panemunė, Lithuania, 1930. This is the "wolf path" leading to the Soldiers' Quarters. My Mom's family had an apartment in the building at the end of the path.

Walking Home from School

Panemunė, Lithuania, 1934. My Mom's maternal Aunt, Dora, kept this photo in her album. On the back, she wrote, "[Irene's Mom] walks home from school."

This is not the exterior of the house that my Mom remembers as her childhood home. Instead, Mom stands outside of the apartment she shared with her Parents when the family lived on the "officers' campus" of the Lithuanian Army.

Lifelong Friends

My Mom's closest childhood friend didn't live in the same city as Mom. She instead was from Mariampolis, the town in which Mom's maternal Grandparents, Silvestras and Zigmunta, resided.

As a result, Mom usually saw this friend only during the summers and Christmas holidays.

I'll call the friend "Joy."

Joy did not get out of Lithuania. She and her family were among those deported to Siberia in 1941. Joy spent seventeen years in Siberian exile.

When Joy returned to Lithuania, she reconnected with Dora, who by then had moved into the house in which my Mom had lived. Joy kept an eye on Dora until Dora died.

Joy, like Dora, was one of the people who mailed to us many of the old photos that I post here.

Panemunė, Lithuania, about 1927. My Mom—the child on the right, wearing dark tights—stands in front of my maternal Grandmother, Jadzė, as they visit with Joy and her family. Mom and Joy grew close because their mothers had been childhood friends.

The Delta of the Nemunas River

My Mom's paternal Grandfather, Cody Sr., worked in the Customs House in the city of Tauragė, Lithuania. His children often visited Cody and his wife, Wanda, at their home in the border town.

Mom frequently summered near that house, in the small city of Panemunė. Cody Sr. kept a rowboat in Panemunė along the banks of the Nemunas River. My maternal Grandmother, Jadzė, enjoyed taking my Mom out on the river in that little boat. Jadzė packed a lunch, and she and Mom would row out to a sandbar, where they swam, tossed a ball in the water, and picnicked.

Nemunas Delta Region, Panemunė, Lithuania, about 1927. Jadzė and my Mom get ready to row out onto the river. 

*     *     *     *     *

Whenever I hear this story, I think of the Wisconsin River, the sandbars along it near Spring Green, and the dangerous undertow of the current!

I have always had a visceral fear of bodies of water, so this does not seem like "fun" to me.

 Nemunas Delta Region, Panemunė, Lithuania, about 1927. Mom enjoys the river.

*     *     *     *     *

Mom still marvels at the beauty of that part of Lithuania. I learned recently that it makes up the delta of the Nemunas River.

Today, the area lies within the Nemunas Delta Regional Park, and it is a destination for eco-tourists.