The study of genealogy is a study of one’s ancestral heritage. In the mid 1970’s, Alex Haley made this popular with his work entitled “Roots”. Our family history is interrelated to the events and cultures of human civilizations throughout time. The study of genealogy can give one a sense of involvement and participation in these events for a particular period. Genealogy gives us a sense of personal meaning within the larger society. Where we live, how we clothe and shelter ourselves is essential to our lives as we know it. The blogger’s family odyssey begins in Eastern Europe and currently continues in the United States and other countries. (Picture cited in "The Shtetl Book" by Diane and David Roskies, page 13.)
Origins in Eastern Europe
The earliest time that this blogger can trace back his roots is the early 1700’s in Eastern Europe. To be more precise our ancestral family came from the modern day countries of Latvia, Lithuania, and Belarus. This area has a multi-cultural and religious history. For example, over time there have been a number of ethnic and territorial influences including groups ranging from the Visigoths, Swedes, Hungarians, Jews, Russians, Poles, Germans, Belarusians, Ukrainians, and others.
On the blogger’s wife’s side, her family came from the urban settlement of Vilnius, today’s capital of Lithuania. Even the city’s name and spelling changes depending on which inhabitant ethnic group you are identifying. To the Belarusian’s it was “Vil’nia, to the Lithuanians it was “Vilnius”, to the Poles it was “Wilno”, to the Russians it was Vil’na, and to the Jews it was “Vilne”. Until WWII, Vilnius was a cultural center for the Jewish populations. Those that lived in Vilnius were considered part of the urban elite or “Berliners”.
Many of the blogger’s ancestral family originally came from more rural roots and they were labeled “Karliners”. The blogger’s great, great, great, great-grandparents were situated in an area of the Ukraine and Belarus known as Polesia which was traversed by the Pripet River and the Oginsky Canal. This geographic location was characterized by extensive marshlands and forests. Settlements occurred both in villages or mirs such as the community of Motol and Telekany, along with larger market towns such as Kobrin and Pinsk. Key economic and social characteristics included the timber industry, agriculture with oaks, barley and potatoes, and fishing. With communication and travel limited until the advent of the railroad, each village was self-sustaining in producing “virtually all the necessary products from bast shoes to furniture and houses.(Cited in Yehuda Reinhartz’s book entitled “Chaim Weizmann: The Making of a Zionist Leader”, page 4).
The ancestral home of the blogger’s family was constructed of wood with a primitive heating system in the center of the home and a roof made of straw. Their house was in the midst of the village, yet they had a few animals such as cows and chickens. It should be pointed out that the blogger’s ancestral family along with others could not own land. This is critical to the blogger’s grandparents who strived to own their property in the United States.
Some of the blogger’s distant relatives and community inhabitants, known as landmen, worked for the Polish nobility on their large estates such as the Radziwells. In their case it was the Polish Count Skirmunt on his family’s extensive landholding near Pinsk and Motol and one of these relatives was one the administrators of this estate. Near the time the blogger’s grand-parents moved to this country, many relatives moved to the larger community of Pinsk. Pinsk is a marketplace community that originated in 1506. Nearby there was an adjacent community known as Karlin, which was established in 1751. This latter community expanded and laterally grew outward towards the boundaries of Pinsk. Eventually the two communities merged however for several years each kept their own identity until probably WWII. Karlin was “considered on the right side of the tracks” and “the intelligentsia, wealthy industrialists, and worthies made their home there.” (Cited in “Chaim Weizmann, “The Making of a Zionist Leader", page 20.) . This blogger’s great uncle owned a tanning factory in Pinsk which by today’s environmental standards would need major modifications. This family along with others were liquidated by the Nazis in World War II. The blogger’s grandparents and parents were able to sponsor one of this relative’s sons to immigrate to the United States. The mere fact that this blogger’s family owned property on a farm was extremely helpful for sponsoring them to enter this country.
Before leaving the origin section of this blog, it should be pointed that different ethnic groups lived separate neighborhoods within these communities. Jews and gentiles had limited contact with each other, the term “ghetto” had its origins in Eastern Europe particularly with advent of pogroms and the Nazi influences.
Short Stays/Pit Stops
Manchester, England
In the early twentieth century, many of the blogger’s relatives, came to the United States via passage through England. The blogger’s grandfather spent at least six months in Manchester, England . At the end of the 18th century, Manchester became was one of the first industrialized cities of the Western Civilization. Manchester was the home of cotton textile manufacturing and was one of the largest concentrations of said manufacturing in Great Britain. Manchester itself was a community of uncontrolled expansion and played a key role in the industrial revolution. Besides the factories, there were large warehouses built to store the yarn and finished cloth. Houses were closely packed together next to factories all over the city. Housing conditions were terrible as noted in the following writings by Friedrich Engels: “one penetrates into this chaos of one-storied, one roomed huts, in most of which there is no artificial floor; kitchen, living and sleeping room all in one…Everywhere before the doors refuse and offal…this [was a] whole collection of cattle-sheds for human beings “. Cited on the web at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1844engels.html.
Over time conditions improved in this city. Reformers worked to improve the living conditions for workers in subsequent Industrial villages; yet the physical layout is somewhat modeled in Industrial villages such as Lowell, Massachusetts and Pullman, Illinois.
Bristol, Connecticut
This blogger’s grandfather immigrated to the United States in the early 1900’s and ended up in Bristol, Connecticut. At this location he worked as a painter, with his brother, and met his wife. Bristol, Connecticut has a population of approximately 60,000 inhabitants and is a manufacturing town that was particularly known for its clock making industry which dated back to 1790. In addition there was other manufacturing in machinery, electrical equipment, and metal products. Currently it is the home to the ESPN television network and the nation’s oldest continually operating amusement park..
Worcester, Massachusetts –first time
This blogger’s fraternal grandparents lived several years in this city on what was known as the “East Side.” Worcester is a city of 154,000 inhabitants and is also an industrial center with multitude of manufacturing establishments that manufacture abrasives, machinery, ceramics, and other items. A section of the city where the blogger’s father was born went through a period of urban renewal in the 1950’s to 1960’s that included the construction of a major expressway cutting right through established ethnic neighborhoods. Around 1920, The blogger’s grand parents eventually moved after saving up enough to buy a farm in Spencer, Massachusetts.
Three/Four Decades of Farming in Spencer
There was one big family on the farm which included the blogger’s grandfather’s brother, sister, and her children as well as his children and wife. Said farm was located in a valley location among a number of hills. This farm was over three miles from the center of the community of Spencer. This town was noted for textile and wire manufacturing. The population of this community is around 12,000 inhabitants and its noted for three things: one, the home of the sewer machine and truss bridge inventors; two, the home of the Trappist monastery known as St. Joseph’s Abbey; three, a yearly agricultural fair that occurs over Labor Day weekend.
The blogger’s family carried out dairy farming with some crop production. However, adult members of the family did not get along. Eventually there was a split with the blogger’s grandparents and their children moving to another farm nearby at a hillside location. This site did not lend itself to crop production and eventually the operation was transformed to a poultry farm. As for the original farming site, the remaining relatives moved out to another farm in Charlton, Mass. Where the first farm was extensive with a large house that included a spiral staircase, the Charlton farm was more primitive in scope. At some point in time both were eventually bought out by the Trappist Monks, who established the their abbey on extensive land holdings of over 1,000 acres.
According to Thomas Merton, in his book entitled “ The Silent Life”, “a monk is a man of god.” Said man has been called upon by the Holy Spirit to relinquish the cares, desires,and ambitions of other men.”(Cited on page vii.) Most monks within the monastery are “expected to have their fair share of digging in the garden, pitching hay, chopping wood, peeling potatoes, washing dishes and sweeping floors.”(Cited on page 31) The most important aspects of monastic life, are “silence, solitude, recollection, and prayer.” At the St. Joseph's Abbey, the Cistercian life “is basically simple and austere.. It is truly poor and penitential.. It is through stability that we commit ourselves to this community [and] it lives in an atmosphere of silence and separation from the world which fosters and expresses its openness to god in contemplation.”(Cited in Merton’s booklet entitled “Cistercian Life”, page nn). The “monastic buildings, and the things that are made and use there, are so beautiful…The purity of taste in a monastery…flows…from the purity of heart.” (Cited on page 29 in “The Silent Life”.)
Worcester 2nd time around and Suburbia
In the 1960’s the blogger’s parents and their children moved to Worcester. This time a simple 1950’s ranch style home was purchased on the “West Side” of the Community. It was in a suburban type location yet included urban amenities such as bus service and nearby stores and other commercial uses within in walking distance. This simple ranch style house was a major downsizing from the extensive farmhouse situated on 60 acres of land to a small lot of 7,000 sq ft lot. Other relatives also moved onto other suburban locations throughout the United States in areas that required at least two automobiles to move about for work and other activities.
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