I find myself searching to discover what kind of person some
of my relatives were now that I no longer have anyone else to ask~~isn’t that
strange?
I was so young when my Granny, Uncle Bud and Aunt Jennie
died, that I find that I don’t really KNOW them. I’ve listened to the stories through the years
to the tales told of them and have formed an opinion of them~~right or wrong…
We do that about people…WE have an OPINION~~right or wrong.
I look back at the BAD MOMENTS I have had in my life and can
ONLY PRAY that people will give me another chance to know the REAL ME…but then,
maybe they do??!
We have had a lot of characters that have passed through the
life of my family. Our home was always
opened whenever a bed was needed for whatever event…or if a DISH was needed to
be baked for an event…My family practiced HOSPITALITY and I HAVE to BELIEVE
that this did not happen just by chance.
I don’t really KNOW much about My Uncle Bud and the
personality that he had, BUT I look at my Daddy and I don’t think ONLY Aunt
Jennie’s influence could have made him the MAN he was. Yes, His Father was in his life, and from
what little I know of him, he was a good man, but I ALSO have to believe that
Uncle Bud was an honorable man.
Uncle Bud held many jobs that earned him respect…he had lots
of friends that were the pillows of the community…He attended Church, and I
PRAY that the good he learned rubbed off on him…I KNOW that he SPOKE his mind
and was a bit gruff from the few stories that Mother shared with me, BUT this
tale, I THINK speaks VOLUMES of what personality he was.
Mother LOVED people and she ALWAYS saw the BEST in them,
sometimes, I THINK, through rose-colored glasses, but really, is THAT a bad
thing? She didn’t work full time outside
of our home because my parents decided that raising us was far more important
than having MATERIAL THINGS. I was taken
home from the hospital to a brother who was 2 years older than I and a brother
10.5 years older and 3 people past 80, whose health was declining. It was a full house with ONLY one bathroom
(GASP!). Mother would recount that we
SELDOM sat down to a meal that SOMETHING wasn’t spilled, and it wasn’t always
the children…There was PLENTY of love to go around. Mother would work in the tobacco market,
where her typing skills and calculator skills were AMAZINGLY fast and
accurate. For a short time, she was the
Director for the Senior Citizens at our local YMCA, long before the YMCA was
the force it is today.
Mother raised me not to believe in coincidence, a topic we
have discussed at length, because I would ALWAYS try to push her buttons by
saying, “I’d rather be LUCKY than GOOD any ole day.”…this of course, was
usually said when my favorite football player would be standing at JUST THE
RIGHT PLACE to catch a ball that had been tipped~~HOW can one PLAN
that??!! ROFL…
On March 26, 1971, Mother was hosting the “OVER 50 CLUB” (OH
CRAP…I could join THAT club NOW…sigh) at our home. On ALL the days of the years that had past,
we got a knock on our back door and it was Franz Weiss…Now, that IS an ODD name
for a visitor to a small farm in Middle Tennessee! HOW confused I was to see Mother and Daddy
hugging this short, strange talking man, but OH, what a TREAT was in store.
Mother asked Franz to tell his story. He told of His wife, Elizabeth and son,
Anton, begin prisoners of war during the reign of Hitler. His wife and son were sent to a concentration
camp together and Franz to another one…neither knew if the other was alive, but they
made it through the war and found each other.
There was a location program that was in place to bring concentration camp
survivors to America, BUT they had to have a sponsor. When The Weiss family got to their
destination, the family decided they did not WANT to sponsor them, so all
seemed hopeless and they thought surely they would have to return to a land
that was in shambles. I do NOT know the
details, BUT things came into place, and a tear streamed from Franz’s eye as he
said, “NOBODY wanted us…BUT Mr. Widick did.
He welcomed us into his home.”
At that moment I felt such pride in my Uncle Bud…He was
willing to help TOTAL strangers, who spoke broken English, make a better life
for themselves in a country that held great opportunities for those willing to
follow the laws and to work hard.
Uncle Bud paid the $151.86 for the family’s travels and the
family was to repay the debt. Daddy
laughed as he recalled Uncle Bud and Franz TRYING to communicate one day while
working on a tractor…it was HILARIOUS to see my Daddy and Franz acting as old
friends and recalling hard times that existed, but OH the JOY of that reunion!
Franz brought a watercolor drawing that his wife, Elizabeth,
had painted. He told of her struggles to
exist in the world after the abuse she took while in the concentration camp…I
don’t think we really realize the HORRORS so many endured…
Franz signed a painting that his son, Anton had painted on a
window shade as a young boy and had given it to Uncle Bud…That picture was in
the upstairs room of my brothers and it used to SCARE me when I would go into
that room…THOSE BIG EYES haunted me….
OF ALL the days and years that Franz could have visited, he
choose the day where he was able to share his story with several ladies of our
community…BUT then, not too long after this chance encounter, Mother again, had
taken the OVER 50 CLUB to the Parthenon in Nashville and WHO was having a one
man show? YEP, Anton, the son…Mother
marveled as she saw paintings with price tags in the thousands of dollars…
We’ve tried in the past to contact the son, BUT I am certain
he spent his time moving FORWARD because the hell of REMEMBERING MUST be too
much…I can’t imagine..
I just know that I feel SUCH PRIDE, once again, at the
hospitality that my family showed…It has instilled in me a desire to practice
GRACE and MERCY…we never know what little things can be life-changing~~right or
wrong!
GO through this day KNOWING that YOU are LOVED beyond
MEASURE and that a path has been planned JUST FOR YOU…Blessings to
YOU…~charlotte
