31 Days to Write the Story of Your Family - Day 6: There's No Place Like Home

Day 6: There's No Place Like Home

I lived in three different houses during my childhood.  The first one was a small ranch in Painesville, Ohio. When I was about four, we moved to a larger home in suburban Parma, Ohio and we stayed there until I was about 15.  At that point, my family had grown out of that second home, and my grandmother wanted to come live with us, so my parents decided to build a new, larger home on an open lot that was in our same neighborhood just around the corner.  

While that house was being built, we lived with my grandmother in my mom's childhood home. Even though I had to sleep in the basement (ick!), I now feel fortunate that I got to spend this time with my grandmother in her home that she loved so much.

I moved out to attend college in Indiana, and have never been back as a resident of Ohio, which makes me a little sad, because I still consider myself an 'Ohioian.'  I attended graduate school in Pennsylvania.  My first 'real' job after that was back over in Indiana and after my husband and I married, we lived in Homewood, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago.  We lived in a 2-bedroom apartment there for about a year, and then we bought a 50-year old, three-bedroom ranch.  That house gave us lots of problems and we lost money fixing it up, but, because it was our first home together, I still have positive memories of it.  

Our apartment building in Homewood, IL

Our house in Homewood, IL

From Illinois, we moved to northern Kentucky, just across the Ohio River from Cincinnati.  We bought a small three-bedroom split-level home in Covington, Kentucky.  We stayed here for almost five years. The house was quite small, but I miss it, mostly because this is where my kids were babies.  

Our house in Covington, KY

About a year and a half ago, we moved to the Indianapolis area.  We were able to buy a new, larger home, and it's nice to have the extra space, but it still doesn't feel like "home" yet.  Unless some absolutely amazing job opportunity comes up for my husband, we will be staying put for awhile.  My son has started school and I don't want to be moving around too much. I want my kids to have somewhere that they think of as HOME, even if it's not the place that I consider my 'home.'

Our home in the Indianapolis area

31 Days to Write the Story of Your Family - Day 5: Let's Talk About Babies

Day 5: Let's Talk About Babies

I was born in a hospital in Painesville, Ohio in 1978.  My delivery was vaginal, no epidural, and from what my mom remembers, it went fairly smoothly, especially for being her first child.  My mom had all five of us through vaginal deliveries, and I'm relatively sure she did not get an epidural during any of them.  Her middle child, one of my brothers, was breech at delivery and she had a very hard time with him.  Looking back, she says that that delivery would have definitely been a c-section today, and it probably even should have been back then.  My brother had some learning disabilities that she think resulted from the problematic birth. (No worries - he graduated from college just fine and now has a great job!)

My parents were born in 1951 in an urban area, so, yes, they were born at the hospital.  I'm sure my grandfathers were NOT in the delivery rooms, though, since it was normal at the time for the fathers to stay out.

My children were both born via planned c-section under general anesthetic.  I was born with vascular malformations in my left pelvis, groin, and leg, and, unfortunately, an MRI showed some non-symptomatic ones in my spine, too.  Any sort of epidural or spinal would be way too dangerous and my risk of paralyzation would be too high.  So, my doctor and anesthesiologist decided that this was the safest option. Neither me nor my husband saw our children come into the world, which breaks my heart, but they are healthy and I am NOT paralyzed.  During my second delivery, my doctor allowed me to give a small camera to one of the nurses, and she took some GREAT photos of my daughter's first moments.

My first pregnancy with my son was extremely difficult physically and emotionally.  I wrote about it on my family history blog last year on his 5th birthday:  http://kowalski-bellan.weebly.com/1/post/2012/11/mr-bub-turns-5.html   Thankfully, my second pregnancy was almost completely normal.

31 Days to Write the Story of Your Family - Day 4: Family Beginnings

Day 4: Family Beginnings

I met my husband, Tony, at Penn State University.  We were both students studying in the university's graduate meteorology program.  He had already been there a year when I started.  I'm pretty sure that we casually met through mutual friends during my first semester, but it wasn't anything memorable.  I had an awful first semester.  I was extremely lonely, I felt like the classes and material were over my head, and I was really questioning what I was going to do in life.  I stayed in my apartment a lot, really only going out to go to class, the grocery store, or church.

My second semester I felt better; I had passed all of my classes with decent grades, and I felt like I was actually going to graduate some day.  I started hanging around a little more with some of the other meteorology students - going out to lunch, going to yoga classes, going out to bars in the evenings.  Tony was part of this group, so I started to see him more often and we were even in a class together that semester. It's probably horrible to say, but I don't actually remember the day or even month when we became a 'couple.'  It was sometime in the spring of 2002.  What I DO remember is he inviting me to a BIG family picnic back in his hometown that summer, right after we started dating.  I said no - I think I had only met his parents once before that, and I was terrified of being inundated by his LARGE extended family.  He understood.

I don't know about him, but I knew within a few months of our relationship that we would be married someday.  I hadn't had very long relationships in the past, mostly because I knew right away whether or not I would get along with someone in the long run.  We were engaged about a year after we met and then married the year after that.

My parents met in college; they were both students at Cleveland State University in the early 1970s.  I'm not sure about how exactly they met, whether through friends or at a particular location.  I should ask them.

My mom's parents met at a USO event in Cleveland, Ohio after WWII.  They were both armed forces veterans and belonged to the same Catholic War Veterans group.

My dad's parents lived on the same block, went to the same church, and were both children of Polish immigrants, so it was very much a neighborhood-type romance.

31 Days to Write the Story of Your Family - Day 3: What's In A Name?

Day 3: What's In A Name?

Today's prompt explores the meaning of family names, both first and last.

My maiden name is Kowalski, which is pretty much the Polish equivalent of Smith.  Kowalski is the second-most popular surname in Poland today.

My married name is Schroeder, which comes from a German word meaning 'to cut,' so it was often given to tailors.  My husband's particular Schroeder ancestor came from Oldenburg, Germany.

My first name is Emily, which is the English form of the the Latin name Aemelia.  It means 'industrious' or 'hard-working.'  The meaning does suit my personality, because I get all nervous and twitchy if I am not planning something or working on a project.  However, I never really liked the sound of the name.  It sounds too feminine to me and I've always been a tomboy.  I am not sure what my parents would have named me if I had been a boy.

My husband's first name is Anthony, but he goes by Tony.  Anthony means 'priceless' or 'worthy of praise.' He was named after his great-grandfather, Anthony Schroeder, who also went by Tony.

My son is Benjamin Joseph.  There was no particular reason why we chose Benjamin; we just really liked it and we liked its meaning, which comes from the Hebrew words meaning 'son of the right hand.'  Joseph is a traditional name in my husband's family.  His grandpa's middle name is Joseph, his dad's middle name is Joseph, and my husband and his two brothers all have the middle name Joseph.  (And actually MY grandfather's middle name was Joseph, too.)

My daughter is Arwen Elizabeth.  My husband and I had a much harder time deciding on a girl's name than we did when we had a boy.  I did not want to give her a cutesy-type name and I did not to give her a name that was trendy and/or popular. (Don't know why I didn't care about the popular factor with the boy name; Ben is a pretty common name.)  Arwen is a Welsh name meaning fair or fine - it can also be spelled Arwyn. In all honestly, we thought of it because it is the name of one of the main elf maiden characters in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, which is one of our favorite fantasy epics.  I feel like it is a strong-sounding name and that the name will grow well with her.  If we had not chosen the name Arwen, we probably would have named her Esther, which was second on our list.  If she had been a boy, she would have been Calvin ('Cal').

31 Days to Write the Story of Your Family - Day 2: The Roots of Your Tree

Day 2: The Roots of Your Tree

Although I am a scientist-turned-stay-at-home mom, one of my current passions right now is doing genealogy - family history research.  I started doing it seriously almost three years ago, shortly after the birth of my second child.  It has ballooned into so much more than just a 'hobby.'  I maintain a family history blog entitled The Spiraling Chains, in which I share photos, stories, memories, newspaper articles, government documents - anything I can scrounge up on my and my husband's ancestors.  The blog itself is part of two larger websites on which I've listed our complete family trees.  I post links to every document, photo, and newspaper article I can find on each person.  Visitors to the site are free to download the documents.  It's been a great way to share family history with family members when you are all located in different parts of the country.

All four of my father's grandparents were poor Polish Catholic immigrants who came to America around 1910.  My mother's mom immigrated to America with her Italian parents in 1920 when she was about six years old, and my mom's dad was a child of Croatian immigrants who arrived in American in the 1890s. They all settled in Cleveland, Ohio, which is also the area in which I grew up.  Most of my great-grandparents and grandparents worked blue-collar jobs in factories and trade industries.  My Italian great-grandfather was a WWI veteran and a small business owner.  My mom's parents were both WWII vets. 

My husband's ancestors came from western Germany and northeastern France.  Most of them arrived in America between 1830 and 1860.  Like my immigrant ancestors, they also settled in Ohio, but in parts of western rural Ohio instead of in a larger city.  Most of them were farmers, and some of them also owned small businesses, like general stores and farm implement companies.  They, too, were all Catholic and their rural close-knit communities built large, beautiful churches throughout western Ohio, most of which are still in use today.

So, my children are true European 'mutts.'  I started my website and blog mostly for them, so that when they get older, they will have the opportunity to see where they came from and (hopefully) appreciate the struggles our ancestors faced in order to give them the life they have today.  And I hope that my kids will find their stories, even the simple, everyday ones, inspirational and relevant to their lives.

Here are the links to my websites.  The first one is my side of the family and the second one is for my husband's family:

The Spiraling Chains: Kowalski-Bellan Family Trees

The Spiraling Chains: Schroeder-Tumbush Family Trees

If anyone has any questions related to starting out in genealogy, or would like more information about sources to get you started, please ask; I'd be happy to help!  It's such a rewarding experience!

The Book of Me, Prompt #5: My Childhood Home

*Sigh*  I wasn't excited about this prompt when I first saw it.  I lived in three homes between babyhood and young adulthood, so I knew that I'd have to choose one of them to talk about first. (I feel like I'd get too distracted if I focused on more than one.)  The first home I lived in, I don't remember too much; we moved out of it when I was about four years old.  The third home I lived in, we moved in when I was 16, and I left for college when I was 18, so I really only lived there full-time for a couple of years.  Therefore, I'm going to talk about the house I lived in roughly between the ages of 5 and 15.

The house was located on Woodbury Hills Drive in Parma, Ohio, a suburb of Cleveland.  Both sets of my grandparents lived in Parma, but we had been living about a hour away in Painesville, Ohio, because that is where my Dad worked.  My Dad's mom was diagnosed with cancer when I was about three or four; we moved to Parma to be closer to family. (Dad continued to commute to Painesville for work for several more years.)

Location of house in relation to Downtown Cleveland and Painesville (where Dad worked).

Our house in Painesville had been a small ranch, so my parents were looking for a larger house.  My brother and I were getting bigger, accumulating more 'stuff,' and they wanted to have more children, so they needed a place where our family could grow.  They bought the house on Woodbury Hills from an older 'empty-nest' couple.  At that time they purchased it, the home was almost 20 years old.  Structurally, it was in fine shape, but it needed a lot of maintenance-related and cosmetic upgrades.  I remember my dad painting all of the shutters and siding by himself; he also put a new roof on with the help of one of his contractor friends.  My parents re-wallpapered the kitchen and bathrooms on their own and they had just about all of the carpeting on the main floor and staircase replaced. 

I do not have a great photo here at my house (my mom's probably got a better one), so I'll post the one from Google Street View.  It's a four-bedroom 'Colonial style' two-story house with a two-car garage.  The exterior is white aluminum siding with black shutters and a black roof.  There was a small amount of red brick surrounding the large bay window on the left side of the photo.  The house had a large all-brick wood-burning fire place, a poured concrete patio in the backyard and a concrete front porch (behind tree in this photo.)

Woodbury Hills house via Google Street View

The house was on a nice suburban street that had only local traffic and sidewalks, which was great because in our old house, the lack of sidewalks meant that I was only allowed to ride my bike up and down our long driveway.  We had a nice big backyard, with a small metal swing set to play on and a plastic 'tire' swing on the big tree in the back corner.  When we got our dog, Cookie, my Dad tied a clothesline from the house all the way out to that big tree, and attached an extended leash to it, so she could run the length of the yard.  

With my Uncle Bill and cousin, Jon on front porch

Instead of just describing the home's floorplan, I've attempted to piece together photos to create my own panoramas of some of the rooms. This first compilation of photos takes you almost 360 degrees around our front living room.  My parents added that nice dark red carpet after we moved in.  My mom also got new window treatments on that bay window.  When we moved in, that window had thick, mustard yellow drapes (and when I say 'drapes,' I mean DRAPES - big and bulky and not very attractive).

Living Room

A lot happened in the living room, as you can see.  We kept our extra TV in there and it was where we usually set up our Christmas tree.  For many of the years we lived there, there was a large wooden baby playpen somewhere in the room for whichever of my siblings was the baby at the time.

If you walked straight past the living room after entering the front door, you entered the kitchen. Our kitchen was way too small for a family of seven; our casual dining table barely even fit in there.  Nonetheless, we cooked in there, fed babies, celebrated birthdays, carved pumpkins, and dyed Easter eggs in this room. When we moved in, the kitchen's walls were covered in *bright* orange, yellow and green flowers - talk about a trend from the 60s!  My parents replaced that wallpaper with one that was more neutral and easier on the eyes.  We had a "lovely" avocado green refrigerator.  My mom kept a boom box on the ledge separating the kitchen from the living room.  She would put on tapes to listen to while preparing meals.  It was here, through that boom box, that my brother and I first listened to Michael Jackson's Thriller, Huey Lewis and the News' Sports and The Cars' Heartbeat City.  My parents also kept a rather flimsy wine rack on the same ledge as the boom box.  I am not sure how that thing made it through five kids and 10+ years without completely shattering all over the floor, but it did.

Kitchen

Adjacent to the kitchen was the 'formal' dining room.  We usually only used it if we had company over for Easter, Thanksgiving, or birthday parties.  There's a good shot of those mustard yellow drapes!

Dining Room

The basement door was located right off the kitchen. I don't have any photos from the basement, but my brother and I had lots of good times down there.  Whenever my parents had to buy a new large appliance, they'd throw the box down there and we would roll around in it.  My mom had a record player down there. I specifically remember listening and dancing to Linda Ronstadt's Greatest Hits albums, and, in particular, the song It's So Easy.  My brother had a TON of Matchbox cars that we would race on his track sets. And, as we got older, the basement is where we played video games: first an Atari 2600, then a Classic Nintendo, and then a Sega Genesis system.  My mom also did laundry down in the basement, and I remember helping her many times with that. (Ok, so maybe catching toys my brother tossed down the laundry chute from upstairs isn't exactly "helping," but it's a fun memory anyway.) 

Just past the basement door was a hallway that lead to our large 'family room.'  You had to take a step down in order to get into that hallway.  At one time or another, all THREE of my brothers fell in that hallway and hit their heads on that step, leaving a gash in their foreheads, which required a trip to the ER (and stitches).  For some reason, it never happened to me or my sister.

I wasn't able to make a 360 degree panorama of our family room, so I put two smaller ones together, instead.  This is one of the west wall of the room, which included our large brick wood-burning fireplace. The walls of the entire room were wood paneling, which made it look rather dark most of the time.  Along the south wall, we had a long church pew.  My parents bought it from our church when they were building a new church and getting completely new furnishings.  It was the church in which they were married, and they still have it in their current home. The door out to the garage was on the other side of that pew.

Family Room West Wall

This other photo is the east wall of the family room.  The door on the left was a tiny half bathroom and the door in the right was an exterior door that lead out to our patio.  The large bookcase held most of our childhood books.  During the summer months, the desk back in the corner had an Apple IIe computer that my brother and I used to enjoy playing games on.  (My Dad was a school administrator and was able to 'check out' one of his school's computers for the summer.)

Family Room East Wall

I don't have any photos right now of this home's upper floor.  There were four bedrooms and two full baths, one of which was in the master bedroom.  My room was painted blue and it was pretty large.  As our family grew, there was a shuffling of rooms between my brothers, but I always remained in my blue room.  My oldest younger brother got the smallest bedroom, and then my other two brothers who were closer in age shared the 'green' room.  I briefly shared my room with my baby sister, but my parents moved her crib into their room when they realized I was at that age (12ish) when I really needed some privacy.  I had a twin bed and dresser+mirror, which were painted a light gray color.  I also had a larger wooden bookshelf and a smaller one, which doubled as a night stand.  I was not a 'girly' girl, so there were not really a whole lot of baby dolls or Barbie dolls.  I enjoyed playing with My Little Ponies for awhile, so those were usually strewn across my bedroom floor.

The staircase between the home's main floor and upper floor is memorable to my brother and me.  We would collect every pillow in the house, lay them out on that staircase, and make a 'pillow slide.'  That staircase wall was also where my mom hung all of our family photos.

Me and My Brother in Front of Staircase

31 Days to Write the Story of Your Family - Day 1: Share a Family Photo

I am going to be using my Book of Me blog to participate in a month-long series of prompts entitled 31 Days to Write the Story of Your Family.  The exercise is being lead by Dara of the blog Not In Jersey.  It sounds like the prompts will be a mix of family history, current family happenings, and future family plans.  I am looking forward to it, and hope I can keep on top of the daily prompts.

The prompt for Day 1 is to share a family photo.  This is the most recent photo of our family, taken in August of this year on my son's first day of Kindergarten.