Family Ties

I spent some time with relatives this weekend in Minneapolis.  I particularly enjoyed Sunday afternoon at Franklin and Ellen Maki's in Forest Lake.  Franklin is my mom's (May-May's) older brother.  We were joined by my Aunt Aggie and Uncle Edwin, Mom's younger sister and brother.

They told some fun stories and I learned some interesting things about my mom.  Franklin said that even though he was older, she could always run faster, throw farther and hit harder than him.  In fact, he said Mom played first base on the Kalevala boy's baseball team in middle school.  (Two of her sisters also did this later, he said.)

When Franklin was nine years old (and Mom was seven) there were some family problems and they had to do all the chores by themselves for quite some time.  This included doing all the dishes, milking the cows and bringing in the firewood.  I wonder how modern kids would react to those kinds of chores?

Franklin and Ellen recently went to the Cromwell High School all-school reunion, where both Franklin and my mom used to teach.  They said that several students mentioned that mom (May Beuhre at the time) was their favorite teacher.  Franklin also told me that Mom's Lincoln Junior High Orchestra, which she led, was really good, and traveled significantly to give concerts.

Another bit of family trivia: May-May's grandfather and his sister came over from Finland as orphans.  His grandmother also came over penniless, but agreed to work in New York for a year (as a nanny, I think) to pay her freight over.

Franklin is the family historian, of sorts.  He needs to capture that history.  The world would be a lesser place without it.

Finally, we talked about the war.  Franklin was a medic in World War II.  Toward the end of the war, his division tended to the liberated Jews who were recently freed from the infamous Bergen-Belson concentration camp in Germany.  It must have been very traumatic for him.  He told about many dying from disease and malnutrition.   He recalled feeding one prisoner who could only handle a tablespoon of soup every half hour.  He said he greeted each spoonful with a big smile.