Why we don't know much about Stalin.

"Americans might be less receptive because of our own mythology of the Second World War. Anything that detracts from that simplified portrait is often unwelcome. Tales of Nazi horrors inflate the American experience and place American efforts front and center. Discussion of the central role of the Soviet Union, and its 20 million dead, deflates American experience and pushes American efforts to the margins."

Related by Marriage: From the Porch

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Bridgeport, Chicago, Illinois, May 29, 1938. Mr. Irene's Mom is on the porch, and she writes down what she thinks is important.

"You ask: How do I live?"

After I posted this photo of my paternal Grandmother's sister, Elena (the actress), I found an envelope of letters and photos Elena had sent to Tatjana in the late 1950s and 1960s.

Earlier I had wondered whether Elena ever married or had a family. This photo—and what Elena wrote on the back of it—provides more information:

January 7, 1960

My own Tanjusha, I want to send you my own portrait as well, but I haven’t had my photo taken in a long time.

I am sending you a photo of me and my husband taken six months before his death. I was trying to restore his health—

*     *     *     *     *

I so wanted my beloved to live…
But death is implacable, he is in the grave
And for the widow there is inconsolable grief…

Why did this happen?  Why?

For I loved my husband very dearly.

I look at his portrait. It is deaf and dumb,

I am left alone—a broken-off branch.

(This is my own poem.)

*     *     *     *     *

You ask: How do I live? It is already the third year since I buried my husband, but I am still grieving and sad.

I am alone; my son is working in the north. This increases my melancholy and grief—I describe my feelings in poetry.

I spent the summer in a suburb of Leningrad at a dacha. My son was with me for a month and a half, and then I was living there alone. Now I am again living in the city apartment. In January my son will come to see me again. As for my health, I can’t complain. I sleep well and have a good appetite. I receive a good pension, and in addition my son helps me.

I kiss you warmly, my dear. I often remember you as you were when we were growing up. I remember. I love you. Deeply loving you. 

Ljalja

 

Thanks to my dear friend D for translating the text from Russian to English.

 

The room faced east.

Suburban Chicago, December 1978. Dad sometimes worked in his study; this was also the room in which he learned to type.

Grading

Kaunas, Lithuania, about 1940. Here's another teacher from my Dad's high school, Aušros Gimnazija.

An Approachable Teacher

Kaunas, Lithuania, about 1940. Here's another photo of one of my Dad's favorite teachers at his high school, Aušros Gimnazija.

Related by Marriage: "Note: These duties do not bind under sin."

When Mr. Irene was a boy, his Mom taped many of Mr. Irene's childhood mementos in a scrapbook. The scrapbook contains Mr. Irene's first accordian composition, photos of his parakeets, newspapers clippings of Mr. Irene's many science awards, and the autobiographies Mr. Irene wrote for grade-school assignments.

Most of the scrapbook pieces correctly foreshadowed Mr. Irene's adult strengths: music, a love of animals, a knack for biology, and sharp writing skills. One scrapbook item did not:



 

Suburban Chicago, 1966 or 1967. Mr. Irene found a different vocation.

Homework Assistant

Suburban Chicago, December 1970. Gigi helps me focus on a research project.

Exam!

Kaunas, Lithuania, 1941. This newspaper photo, taken at Aušros Gimnazija, captures high-school students writing a Lithuanian-language essay. My Dad is in the second row, second from right.

Related by Marriage: Don't forget to write.

Camp Irwin, Barstow, California, 1952. Mr. Irene's Dad, on the left, catches on some reading while his Army buddy pens a letter.

Adapting to modern innovations.

My Dad learned to type later in life. In the mid-1970s, he replaced the Royal typewriter with an electric model.

Years later, Dad had trouble writing with a pen because of pain and weakness in his right elbow. When I moved to Italy, Dad regularly sent me vivid, typewritten letters. I still have those letters, and when I look at this photo, I imagine Dad constucting a narrative for me.

Suburban Chicago, March 1979. Dad wears the zippered, gray cardigan that Mom knitted for him. I still wear that sweater around the house.

The blog celebrates its first birthday today.

I started this blog one year ago. I began blogging as a way to preserve old photos. A handful of factors motivated me. First, a recently "found" relative—my "New" Cousin—had published an engaging family history. His account prompted me to reflect on the family narratives that lurked behind our photo collection. Second, I have been ill during the last four years. Before I became ill, I thought about cataloging the thousands of photos my Dad had left behind into a chronological index. After the illness recurred—for a second and then a third time—I wanted a vehicle for quickly saving the photos and making them widely accessible. Third, we have some "lost" relatives. Some are "lost" by their own design; others are "lost" because we lost track of them. I sought a way of preserving the shared history with those relatives. (My Dad would smile were he to think that sometimes it takes a photo, not an olive branch.) Fourth, I started a blog instead of a book because I wanted a device—namely the "link"—that allowed me to interconnect the photos and stories succinctly and with little repetition.

The blog has been satisfying. It's a great diversion—nearly as distracting as knitting. It has prompted reunions, introduced me to Lithuanians preserving scouting histories, and resulted in commenters identifying until-now-anonymous-to-me photo subjects. In one case, research deriving from the blog led us to discover that one person who had been presumed to have perished during World War II instead had survived.

When I started the blog, I hurried to post the "core" family photos. I have added about five photos to the blog daily. I may not post as aggressively in the future, but I won't let this project fade.

Morton Arboretum, October 1964. Collect ideas as if they were colorful leaves.

"I had written a letter, and I was lost in thought."

Russian Soviet Socialist Republic, November 1963. Elena keeps her thoughts to herself when she writes on the back of a photo. Elena sent this snapshot to my paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, on the occasion of Tatjana's birthday.

Thanks to my friend, D, for (again!) translating the text from Russian to English.

"[A] steaming, silvered tureen of snobbery"

An historian takes a turn at reviewing a television show.

Writing Christmas cards is hard work.

Every year, we procrastinate.

Suburban Chicago, December 1965. First, I have to think about what I'm going to say.

*     *     *     *     *

Suburban Chicago, December 1965. Then I ponder what I'm not going to say.

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Suburban Chicago, December 1965. Finally, I turn away from the camera and get to work.

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In these photos, I wear a lovely perwinkle blue and white dress that my Mom knitted.

Letter Writing

My paternal Grandmother, Tatjana, was a wonderful letter writer. Here, she sits at the mahagony desk in my Parents' bedroom. On the far side of the desk sits my Dad's pipe rack. A wooden holder displays his fountain pens.

Suburban Chicago, December, 1963. That must be some letter she's writing! Perhaps she's penning a correspondence to one of her sisters, Elena or Natasha, who lives in the Soviet Union.

Young people sometimes deliberately choose clothing that ages them.

Here's my Dad—in his early twenties—with a fountain pen in his pocket.

Schweinfurt, Germany, 1945. My handsome Dad wears a suit with truly wide lapels.

It's Friday. Let's go out to dinner.

My Parents and I posed for this snapshot in my Parents' bedroom. It was a "master bedroom" of sorts because it had a three-quarter bath attached to it. By today's standards, it was a small room. To the right of my Dad is his mahogany desk, at which he used a Parker fountain pen to write the bills every Saturday morning. The photo of me that Dad loved hung just to the far right, next to the door to the bathroom.

I am wearing the aqua and white suit that my Mom knitted.

Suburban Chicago, April 1961. I get ready to go out with my Parents. It's unlikely that we were "going out to dinner." My Parents were frugal, and we rarely ate in restaurants. Here, we probably are heading off to another, customary, Sunday visit with a Lithuanian family.