This week's themed entry will be one of the harder ones to write. Not because of a lack of information, but rather due to memory overload. Grandma Miscovitch and I had birthdays a day apart, and we often celebrated them together.
Edit: Thanks to Aunt Elaine for the correction to the paragraph about the house in Boston Bar. I've quoted from her email.
Edit: Thanks to Aunt Elaine for the correction to the paragraph about the house in Boston Bar. I've quoted from her email.
Nellie Mary ADAMSKI was born on October 11, 1917 in Fernie, BC, Canada. Her parents, Jan and Mary (Babcha) ADAMSKI, had her christened in the Holy Trinity Church. Her brothers, John and Vincent were born in 1919 and 1921. For a while, the five Adamskis were a happy little family.
- Memory: Grandma once told me that she and her father were very close. When he came home from a day of working at the mine, she would run up to him for a hug, and he often had a little treat for her - a hair ribbon, or some penny candies.
Tragedy stuck in 1929. There was an accident at the Coal Creek Mine, and (spoiler alert) Jan ADAMSKI was killed, leaving Babcha to raise the 3 children alone. They survived with help from uncles, milk cows, and veggies from the garden.
When she finished high school, Grandma decided to go to Vancouver to become a beautician. While she was there, Grandma started dating a young man who had been a neighbour in Fernie, John MISCOVITCH (my Grandpa). They married at the Holy Trinity Church in Fernie on July 23, 1936.
- Memory: Grandma clearly remembered and often told me of the day Uncle Joe came home from the mine carrying two lunchboxes, and her father wasn't with him. Babcha knew immediately and started to wail.
When she finished high school, Grandma decided to go to Vancouver to become a beautician. While she was there, Grandma started dating a young man who had been a neighbour in Fernie, John MISCOVITCH (my Grandpa). They married at the Holy Trinity Church in Fernie on July 23, 1936.
- Memory: Grandma's cousin, Anne, also lived in Vancouver, and they became great friends. When Johnny MISCOVITCH came a-courting, Anne acted as chaperone. Grandpa had a car - unusual in the 30s - and the three of them would go on road trips all around the Lower Mainland and Southern Interior. Anne was the Maid of Honour at John and Nellie's wedding.
The newlywed Miscovitches lived in a house in Boston Bar, down by the train tracks. *As the town expanded, the sawmill wanted the property for expanding their log storage yard, so it was Hampton Lumber who bought them out and got them the lot by the highway. The mill built them a basement on the new lot, and then moved the whole house up the hill onto the new basement foundation.
- Memory: The Polka Party. Was it Easter? Was it Christmas? The whole family was together, and we cranked up the volume on the record player while we danced the best, silliest polkas we could. We cousins were all young, and danced with Licky the Teddy Bear, who was almost as tall as we were. Uncle Vince helped set the tone of silliness, but all of the "grown-ups" participated.
- Memory: The shelves of the downstairs pantry were always crowded with colourful jars of preserves - tomatoes, dill pickles, beets, beans, plums, pears, peaches, jams and jellies of all types. Canned tomatoes are used particularly often in family recipes. Cabbage rolls and (my favourite) curly noodle casserole use a quart jar each. (BTW, I swear I didn't know those leftover curly noodles were set aside for you, little brother. I just couldn't resist eating them.)
The mid-60s were tough years for the Miscovitch family. We lost family members to old age, but more tragically, to accidents. Great Grandpa Miscovitch passed away in 1963. In 1965, there was a car accident at Easter that killed Grandma's brother John, and badly hurt his widow, Mary. Less than a year later, Grandma lost her middle child, Ken, in a car crash in Sweden. Her cousin Mike died of a heart attack in 1967, and Great Grandma Miscovitch died in 1969.
- Memory: In late 1965, Grandma slipped on a patch of ice, breaking her hip and pelvis quite badly. When she heard of Uncle Kenny's death, she was immobilized in the hospital. As she related the story to me 30 years later, she was still heartbroken that she had not been able to go to Europe for his funeral.
- Memory: Grandma made bread often, a holdover from the days when the store-bought variety was expensive or hard to find in a small town. If we were lucky, our visits would coincide with a bread-making day, and we were allowed to "help". Punching down the rising dough was great fun. Once it was ready for baking, we were each given a blob and some decorations - chocolate chips, cinnamon - so that we could each make our own personalized creations. Dough men with chocolate chip buttons were popular. As they baked, the smell was heavenly. Even now, fresh baking bread sends me back to Grandma's kitchen.
- Another grandfamily memory: We often spent a week or two with our grandparents in the summer, running wild in the small town. We often played elongated baseball games in the driveway. Grandma couldn't run due to her bad hip, so she always pitched for us.
- Memory: One of the first postcards I ever received was from them. Many followed, kickstarting my postcard collection.
Grandma Miscovitch was always about the 3 F's - Fun, Food, and Family. There were some tragedies in her life, but she always tried to see the best of things. "Oh well," she'd say. In her 80s and 90s, she often ended the stories she told me with words of wisdom: "Still, I've had a good life and can't complain. We were very lucky."