Biographies go on forever!

This week’s blog is designed to start many of you thinking and writing. Can you tell us what you know about your grandparent’s childhood?

I don’t know much about my grandparent’s childhoods, except my mother’s mother.

Grandma was born around 1906 and that is a guess. She was given the name FreLove. She was not happy with her given name as she would say her love was not free. So she had it changed to Freda.

She was one of 20 children. Yes, you read that right 20 children. Including four sets of twins. Her mother, my great grandmother, had been married five times, outliving four of her husbands. This probably would explains the many children.

Due to the economic times, my grandmother spent most of her childhood in an orphanage, foster home and on rare occasions at home with the family.

At the age of 17 her sisters did not want her to stay in the orphanage any longer. And took it upon themselves to change the situation. They basically kidnapped her. After they got her out they knew the authorities would be looking for them either in Ohio or West Virginia. So they tag teamed my grandmother. When they knew the authorities were coming to West Virginia, they took her to Ohio and visa versa.

Eventually, one of my great aunts asked a 32 year old man, from Romania, if he would marry my grandmother. His only question; is she pretty? Yes indeed, she was very pretty. So the 17 year old and the 32 year old were married.

This is the majority of what I know about my grandmother’s childhood.

I have no details about my grandfather’s early life; nothing of the year he arrived in this country; nothing about his childhood or family that could possibly still be alive in his motherland. Sadly I have no knowledge of family I may be missing.


The point I would like to make; we all have family. Some we have lost. However, if you are lucky enough to have your older generation still with you find out all you can about their lives and write it down. Should you be the older generation, start a journal telling of your parents, your childhood, your siblings and those who have passed. This is your family’s history to be saved and shared.

September 11th

September 11, 2001

I want to take a moment to honor the victims and their families of that horrible day. Also to honor the military personnel and their families for the sacrifices they continue to make to this day.

　

The second honor goes to my Dad, Augie Montalbano.

Anyone knowing Augie saw him as gentle, compassionate, friendly, generous and any other trait you would assign to a saint.

Born September 11, 1925. He came into this world in an apartment located in Elm Grove, WV, above a restaurant known as Siebert's. His parents were immigrants from Sicily. He was not the first Augie born to Guissippe and Angela. The first child pass at a very young age so the next male child carried the same name.

This is only one of the many funny story that I want to share with you about him:

Dad loved organic gardening. He certainly did not use pesticides. He didn't have to, he had several kids to work his garden. He would give each a container and tell you to go out and remove the bean beetles from the plants. Now the problem. Since the jars were open, the beetles would fly out and back to the plants as fast as we could pull the little buggers off.  By the end of the row the beetles were back before we could reach the end of the  row.

As a gentle compassiona being, Dad would not allow us to kill the little buggers. It definitely kept us busy. We never complain about being bored, because we knew the beetle jars would be ready for us to work.