This small piece of paper was the only object that came to mind for this week’s post. The small yellow paper was and still is a nametag that identifies which of the Christmas presents or Easter baskets belonged to me. On one side, there is a personalized sticker that has my name on it.

My grandmother made one of these for each of her children and grandchildren to make sure that everybody got their respective gift. She cut each square out with those designer crafting scissors that leaves the edges wavy looking. Then she personalized eighteen different stickers with each of our names and put them on one side of the square. My sticker has snowflakes on it because she could use it for both Christmas and my birthday. The other side of the tag was always blank or would say something generic like Merry Christmas. This allowed her to reuse the tags over and over again for each Christmas and Easter instead of making new ones.

All of us Seipps have this money saving trait that we like to thank our grandfather for. My grandmother’s recycling of the nametags was the last great example of our frugal ancestry. Each year after we finished unwrapping all of our gifts we would have to return the tag to her to make sure that none of them were thrown in the trash or lost under mountains of wrapping paper.

Last Christmas was the last time we got those nametags. Our Christmas last year was after my grandmother had passed away. Our aunt handed each of us our present and my eleven cousins and I took a collective breath. Some of the younger cousins decided not to open them; while us older ones felt that opening it anywhere else would only make it harder. For a while I just played with the nametag. Its ownership had changed right then. Finally, we didn’t have to hand back the tags.

That’s when I realized the other side of my tag wasn’t blank. In her scribbled handwriting it read: “Love Always – Gma S”. I checked the other tags as my cousins took them off of their presents, but only mine had a message on the blank side. Later my aunt told me that she didn’t have enough time to write on everybody’s tag. A lot of the presents were not even wrapped yet. Now instead of being Grandma’s nametag, the little yellow piece of paper is my last note from her. It now stays taped to a picture frame and serves as a daily reminder that somewhere an angel still loves me.

The vibrant Latin Quarter of Galway City

For this week’s blog post, I decided to use my object, the claddagh ring, as a means of transportation. I wanted to explore the origins of the ring style and iconography and how the history of the ring has transcended time. As with much of Irish lore, the stories associated with the origins of such antiquities is a bit fuzzy. Determining a concrete history of the claddagh is a bit difficult but I’m beginning to piece together how the ring and its meaning came to be.

Here’s a shot of Galway Bay from late September–the river was quite low at this time in the day!

Firstly, the word “claddagh” means, “shore”, specifically a flat stony shore in Gaelic or Irish. Claddagh is a small fishing town of Galway Bay, outside the city of Galway in the west of Ireland. Galway lies on the River Corrib and cannels throughout the city allow for the passage of water from the harbor. I visited Galway when I was abroad in Ireland and walked from the city center to the outskirts of the city to the shore of the harbor. The city itself is vibrant and bustling and you can feel the history of the city in the air. I loved how the river was interwoven with the city itself—you could tell that the bay had a strong relationship with the culture of the city. I’m kicking myself a bit for not exploring the history of my claddagh ring while I was there, I even remember seeing a plaque for fishing town of Claddagh and the iconography of the claddagh ring everywhere throughout the city. I guess I was too caught up in the overall experience to even think about the small object on my own hand and how wearing that ring connected me to the foreign city.

Here’s one of the many shops in Galway that sold rings–particularly claddagh engagement rings as seen by the signage painted directly onto the wall of the shop!

One origin story that I read about the claddagh symbol and ring revolves around the Joyce family, a significant tribe of Galway, and their history dating back over 300 years. The story is slightly complicated but it goes something like this: Margaret Joyce married Domingo de Rona, a wealthy Spaniard. His fortune was left to Margaret when he passed and with his wealth she had bridges built in Connacht, the province of Ireland in which Galway is located. Legend has it that Margaret, who later married the Mayor of Galway in 1596, was rewarded for her charitable work by an eagle that dropped a gold claddagh ring into her lap (hmmmmm, curious). Another story that involves the Joyce family comes later in history—Richard Joyce of the Joyce Family, was captured by Algerians en route to the West Indies. In captivity, a Moorish goldsmith taught him the art of metalwork. Richard was eventually released from slavery thanks to King William III of England in 1689. Joyce decided to return to his home of Galway and became a goldsmith (in some stories, a silversmith) himself! The claddagh motif is now attributed to him, as it was a design he created in captivity. His initials appear on one of the earliest surviving claddagh rings from around 1700!

Richard Joyce’s Claddagh Ring circa 1700 http://weldons.ie/rare-claddagh-ring-by-richard-joyce/

In modern time, this particular ring has been acquired by JW Weldon, a fourth generation family jeweler located in Dublin—they specialize in modern and antique diamond rings in other antique jewelry as well as rare 17^th and 18^th century Irish silver pieces. It’s kind of crazy to think that this ring has survived all this time! What is this Richard Joyce had never been captured and taught the goldsmith craft?? Would the claddagh ring design exist? I also found out that the claddagh ring’s popularity rose so much so that it became the only Irish ring worn by Queen Victoria, Queen Alexandra and King Edward VII! The Royal Patent for the claddagh ring was later issued to Dillon of Galway where it is still made and supplied today at Thomas Dillon’s, established in 1750, located in the city of Galway. I actually went to this shop! There’s a sign on the outside of this bright red building that reads: “T. Dillon and Son / Home of the Original Claddagh Ring / The Hands are for Friendship, The Heart is for Love, And Loyalty is shown with the Crown up above”. Now I’m not sure if he gets the title of “Home of the Original Claddagh Ring” because he patented it and started the reproduction of the ring—it appears the way on the stores website where they do indeed give credit to Richard Joyce as the creator of the claddagh motif. It’s hard to be sure if this is precisely how the claddagh ring came to be but I rather enjoy the story and all its fascinating pieces! It was interesting to learn how it involved people interacting with other cultures but always returned back to Galway. It gives me a curious foundation for the rings iconography and the various peoples involved in its peculiar history.

Here is the citation to the website for Thomas Dillons. It gave me the most thorough and legitimate story about the history of the claddagh ring after looking through other abbreviated stories online.

“History of the Ring.” Thomas Dillons Claddagh Gold. 1 Jan. 2010. Web. 7 Feb. 2015. <http://www.claddaghring.ie/content/7-history-claddagh-ring&gt;.

Emilio de Jauregui, left, and Stella de Jauregui, back, and their children Emilio Ricardo , right, and little Stella, center. Thought to be a beach in San Sebastian

Having traced a tenuous link between the brightly colored ticket stub and the little family photographed on the beach, I feel a sense of satisfaction. So, this is where you come from, I think to the ticket. These are the hands that accepted you from the ticket clerk, sliding you into a jacket pocket or, perhaps, into a small clutch-style handbag. I focus on the little girl in front, my great aunt, Auntie Stella, imagining her holding out her hand for the ticket, turning it over and over before resting it (with the epic struggle between bull and steed facing out) on the top of a bureau in their temporary San Sebastian residence. Yet, as I stare at the photograph, it occurs to me that these faces, despite being directly related to me, are as unfamiliar as strangers. Indeed, as I inspect the various photos my mother has sent me, I sometimes have trouble picking out who is who. With not a little chagrin, I reflect that while I can spot a random celebrity in a crowd photo, I cannot spot my own relatives. I stare harder at the beach photograph, hoping to imprint their features in my memory. I try to connect the scene with what I have been able to discover about their lives. Who are you? What are you like?

I focus particularly on my great grandfather, the elder Emilio. In the photo, he stands just apart from his family, his head turned to his left so that he can adjust his tie. There is something in his posture that strikes me as at once as being both debonair and uncomfortable. In his handsome double breasted suit, he looks like he is ready to sit down for a dinner party not a day at the beach. When I mention this detail to my mother, she passes on an anecdote she heard from Auntie Stella. While everybody changed into their bathing outfits to jump into the surf, Emilio would sit on the beach under an umbrella, fully clothed. Auntie Stella could not recall a time when her father even took off his shoes. Glancing again at his face, pulled into a slight grimace due to his effort with the tie, I wonder what his smile looks like and how often he uses it. I look through the other photos. Hmm, not even a ghost of a smile. Why so serious? Perhaps, it has something to do with his obligation to uphold the de Jauregui reputation. Or, perhaps it has something to do with being the second son. According to my Uncle Phil, the de Jaureguis are connected through marriage and relations to some of Latin America’s most influential families at the time, with ties that crisscross not only Central America but also the United States and Europe. Although this influence brings status and power, it also brings responsibility. As the youngest of four, Emilio is the baby of the family. His elder brother (technically, stepbrother), John, would mostly likely be expected to take point, taking over as head of the family affairs. However, Emilio cannot simply be the baby of the family for the rest of his life. He must do his part to preserve the family’s image of respectability. And, what is more respectable than a dental surgeon?

The de Jaureguis, circa 1930s. Young Emilio and Stella (clutching a doll) standing with their parents on what appears to be the deck of ship.

Emilio graduates from the University of Pennsylvania in either 1900 or 1901 (my mom has graduation certificate, but could not be reached at the time I am writing this). In a recent email, my uncle mentioned that Emilio went on to practice in London during the early 1900s, helping to reconstruct the faces of soldiers coming home from the war front. I look back at Emilio’s face. Maybe I have gotten it wrong. Maybe he is serious because he realizes how fragile it all is. When he looks into the faces of those around him, does he see the wounded faces of the soldiers? Emilio retires from dentistry fairly early. By the time the photograph is taken (circa the 1930s), he is already several years into retirement. Yet, this is not a man who is not willing to let down his guard, to simply rest on his laurels. Rather, this is a man who keeps a tight grip on his image, even during a day on the beach.

A Passenger list for U.S.S Wyoming dated 1936, listing the de Jaureguis. Note their occupations.

For this post I suppose I’ll return to my grandfather’s music book. I called my mom to ask her about the book, and if she could remember him using it for anything in particular. Unfortunately she couldn’t remember anything specific, she did however inform me of a rather serendipitous coincidence. So, I was born and raised on Staten Island, as was my grandfather, and recently he was featured in an article in the Staten Island advance. The article celebrated musicians hailing from the island, sharing “vintage” pictures of musicians past. My grandfather, Rene Allegre, was part of a big band called the “Modenaires” who played throughout the island. For the most part my grandfather played the trumpet, trombone and french horn for the band, although when needed he could be called upon to play something else. Presumably, my grandfather had this book during his time with the Modenaires. I suppose using it, as one would the top 40 list of our time. Being able to entertain crowds with songs they knew and loved from that era. Although my grandfather was a professional musician, he was a contractor by trade. The man could build pretty much anything. When I was younger I worked for him, in his four garages, which basically meant me cleaning up after my cousins. However, I distinctly remember garage number two. It was a mystery that eluded my sister and I for years. He had fashioned it as a secret room. The entrance was a privilege in which we had to work to gain entrance to. When we were granted entrance, it was bit of a magical day for my sister and I. We were surrounded by twinkle lights and train sets, musical instruments, recording equipment and art projects my grandfather had worked on. It was a look into the softer side of my grandfather, who was usually amongst power tools and PVC pipes. A man who’s car was filled with 2x4s and empty coffee cups, had a sanctuary all his own. And, in this sanctuary was this blue book. Near the recording equipment, strewn about much like everything else my grandfather owned. At that point in his life, he wasn’t playing music as much. He would mess around and play it by himself, but it was rare that he picked up an instrument in front of another person. A stark contrast from his past life, of matching suits and brass songstresses. This bright blue book among the dark wires and recorders stood out, ringing with life.

I remember, after my grandfather had passed, my mom and her siblings collected things of his. Cleaning out the garages I had worked so many years in. My mom, whose one rule in life was to play an instrument until you were at least 18, grabbed the book immediately. She had always enjoyed that we shared a musical connection with my grandfather. The book had been with her for a short while, as she was sifting through his things. And, now as we all know, it’s now in my possession. I suppose it’s interesting how the purpose of this book has changed over the years. For my grandpa, it was a tool of practicality that morphed into a reminder of his youth. For me, the practicality isn’t as strong. It’s more of a sentimental piece.

It’s true I don’t play the piano as much as I should. I’m not really sure why I don’t pay more frequent visits to my friend of 17 years. But, when I do, I enjoy flipping through the pages of “America’s Greatest Standards”. I realize, I’ve romanticized this idea of my grandfather. A rather simple thing to do, when you’ve lost someone you love. I am not claiming perfection. If you flip through the pages of his life, much like those of the music book, you will find tares, spills, imperfections. But, there were some beautiful parts too. And, although he’s been gone about six years now, I’m glad to have been a page in his imperfect book.

My grandfather: second row, second from left.

Again, I have chosen a new object for discussion. This time I asked my mother to send me pictures of it from home. My object is a Passatini Press.

It is metal and hard but makes passatinis that bring me back to the warmth of my grandmother’s cooking. The tool has a cylindrical barrel with medium sized holes at the bottom where the noodle like passatini is pressed through. The bottom cylinder is attached to a long handle with finger grooves. The top long handle connects to the part of the tool that is flat and is meant to press the ingredients down into the medium holes.

I bought this Passatini Press myself while I was in Italy over the summer. My hunt for this obscure kitchen tool has always been with me. My grandmother is unable to cook anymore because she is too sick. Most of my memories with her have been in the kitchen as she cooks for me. My favorite meal of hers that she would cook for me was passatini. It is a sort of soup with chicken broth and breadcrumb noodles. It is the type of meal that I have never had anywhere else besides my grandmother’s kitchen. For years, I kept asking my mother where my grandmother’s own personal press was but it has never been found.

The hunt for the press was revived while I was living in San Marino. For the program I was in, everyone stayed at the Quercia Antica Hotel where we ate most of our meals. Claudio, the hotel owner, sat us all in their dining room downstairs right next to the kitchen. Everyone in the program took up about three long dining room tables. One night Eduardo, our waiter, brought out Passatini and I swear I almost cried. I had not had this soup in years and there it was right in front of me.

My friend, Stephanie, who spoke fluent Italian, began asking Claudio about the soup for me. He told her it was made in a chicken broth. It was also the meal that was cooked when there was not much else around besides the left over pieces of bread. Stephanie also asked Claudio’s wife where she could buy a good Passatini Press. Stephanie was told the mercato in Rimini would have them. The next Saturday I was in Rimini hunting down this press.

When I came back from San Marino with my Passatini Press, I began asking my grandfather and my mother about my grandmother’s recipe for the soup. Of course, my grandmother never wrote her recipes down but instead worked all from memory. From my grandfather, he told me to add lemon zest. From my mother, she told me to use a sharp knife tp cut the noodles from the bottom of the press. From my aunt, she told me to freeze the breadcrumb like dough before putting it through the press. From the Internet, I added nutmeg.

Over the past couple of months, I have been perfecting my own recipe taking bits and pieces from what everyone else could remember from watching my grandmother in the kitchen. For Christmas, my mother and I collaborated as she used her signature chicken broth and my passatinis. When my uncle Rob walked in to the kitchen and saw the passatini cooking in the broth, he actually screamed.

The Passatini Press is used to make soup but it is also able to bring back not only my own memories of my grandmother’s cooking but also my mother’s and my uncle’s. While the press has been used in Sammarinese house holds for years, it had finally made it into my own and it feels like a piece of my grandmother has come with it as well. Like the sari was an extension of the woman’s body, my grandmother’s cooking was an extension of her love. Her cooking brought her family together and still continues to do so today.

As I mentioned in my previous post, my grandmother’s cross is one of a small collection of costume jewelry pieces compiled during her lifetime. Curiously, though,  I don’t remember her ever actually wearing most of it. Granted, I was very little when we used to visit her–I think I was in second grade the last time I saw her in person–but the only jewelry I remember seeing her wear were her wedding rings and clip-on earrings.

Related to this fact is my grandmother’s health, or, more specifically, her allergies. This woman was allergic to practically everything, but one of her most severe allergies was to various kinds of metal. She had to cover her oven handle with duct tape and make other modifications like that to avoid her hands and wrists breaking out into a terrible rash. Considering that the cross necklace is made of an indeterminate composite metal, and also taking into account that certain “pure” metals  (like the gold in her wedding rings) didn’t cause a reaction, it is somewhat unsurprising that she didn’t wear the cross necklace but wore certain other pieces. How she originally got hold of it will probably forever remain a mystery, as the person closest to her knows nothing about it–why did she buy it if she knew she couldn’t wear it, was it given to her as a gift and by whom, etc.–but it is clear that the necklace was likely used for display or for personal comfort during my grandmother’s lifetime, rather than its intended purose as a means of accessorizing.

When I first came into possession of that necklace, I wore it more than I’ve worn any other piece of jewelry before or since. I felt as if I were taking a piece of Grandma with me, and so I wore it to church, to school, and around my home. At the time, it was much too large for me and probably looked a bit silly, but I didn’t care. As I got older, though, I stopped. I started moving out of my (incredibly short-lived) “girly” phase by the end of third grade (shortly after her death), and I didn’t wear jewelry, pretty clothes, or anything like that anymore. The necklace took a place in my jewelry box and remained there until I started looking into it more deeply for this class. Since doing that, I’ve worn it as jewelry a little more often (in keeping with its original purpose), but in my mind that doesn’t pay enough homage to what the necklace represents. I’ve considered framing it alongside a photograph of her (thus bringing its purpose back to display), but at the same time, I’d like to be able to wear it as my grandmother was never able to. Basically, although I can trace the necklace’s function, I’m unsure of what it’s function will be in the future, aside from the fact that it will always connect me to my grandmother and (hopefully) my children to their family history.

Just about two years ago I visited a Barnes and Noble in Paramus, NJ and stumbled over a used book section. So I took a look around and found the Drama section, then the Shakespeare section, and then these beauties:

They are four copies of Shakespeare’s plays (Macbeth, Othello, Hamlet, and Measure for Measure), bound in red cloth with gold embossing. The cover merely has an image of a vulture/eagle standing atop a gilt and holding a pole (I think). The titles are engraved on the spine of the books, all in gold, except for Macbeth. I am guessing that this is due to wear and tear. The edges of the pages are gold, and the inside cover is eloquently printed with floral images, vines, and two reproductions of the same gilt image that was on the front cover.

I scanned a couple of pages, noticing the single colored title page, and three of the four books had writing on them: two were addressed to a Pearl K. Merritt and one addressed to Ella A. Merritt. Ella’s was signed from Papa, Christmas 1902, and one of Pearl’s was also signed Xmas 1902. The second book of Pearl’s was signed by a Miss M.E. Bohrer.

The book missing a name to whom it belongs was also missing the blank page before the title page – I am thinking that the page of ownership shall I say, was cleanly removed, although at this point, I cannot begin to fathom why.

I couldn’t pass them up, especially when the set of four cost less than $10 – it was the perfect combination of Shakespearean literature and an authentic that I find lacking in the Norton edition and even in the single-play editions of Shakespeare that we are limited to today.

Now determined to find out something about the books, I went to Google, my side kick of confused times, and started with the actual book. When was it published? The books don’t have a copyright page, but the introduction was signed in three of the books by an H.M. and in the fourth as Henry Morley. My online search concluded that he was a prominent editor of English Classics in his day (1820s-1890s).

Additionally, the title page listed “Philadelphia, Henry Altemus” which was a publishing company from the mid 1800s to the 1930s or so. The company published mainly sets of books, with dust covers and boxes as cases. The company only published Shakespeare’s plays from 1899 until 1933, in multiple formats. Since my copies were dated, and are bound in burgundy cloth, with the title page starting with the title instead of “Henry Altemus,” I have Format 3, produced from 1900 until 1902.

The books were obviously gifted to at least two people, but separately, not as the traditional box set as they were meant. And judging by the nature of the publishing company, the presentation/binding of the book, and the gifting, the books were probably of some value to the original owners.  They weren’t everyday copies to throw around at your leisure, but something a little closer to their hearts.

But why did they receive the books as Christmas gifts? Did they study Shakespeare? Was it merely a pastime? Who were they? They had the same last name, so I searched their names together, revealing that the girls were sisters. This was recorded in a journal called The StepLadder – a national periodical of the Order of the Bookfellows. This particular volume was published in 1919.  Not knowing what this was, I continued to look for more clues or explanations. The Bookfellows consisted of a group of writers, readers, and publishers, which was started by George Steele Seymour and his wife Flora of Chicago. So the girls were literature fanatics! So much so that Ella (member 49 of the Order) recruited her sister Pearl as the 100^th member in 1919, and later a third sister, Iva, became member 299. I am curious if this third sister was the original owner of the book (Macbeth) which is without a name inside.

I still did not know where the girls were from, and since the Bookfellows were nationwide, it wasn’t likely that they were from Chicago. However, Ella joined the Bookfellows early on, being member 49, and Flora Seymour (one of the founders) spent her childhood years in Washington D.C. Not only that, but a Mary Eliza Bohrer was a resident of Washington D.C. during that time. I think that the girls might’ve resided there, and so looked into that angle. A Pearl K Merritt was born in D.C. in 1889 and later published an article in the Washington Journal in 1915, which she was the editor of in 1908. One of her poems was published in H.P. Lovecraft’s United Amateur in 1919. Interestingly enough, one of Lovecraft’s good friends was James Ferdinand Morton who married a Pearl K. Merritt in 1934 when he was working at a museum in Paterson, NJ. They did not have any children, but both took interest in labor reforms and equality for women. Assuming that this is the same Pearl K. Merritt, it would explain somewhat vaguely that her book travelled with her from D.C. to her husband in NJ, and quite possibly how I found the book in a NJ bookstore. Might be a bit of a stretch, but a think the dots can be connected.

Ella, however, was a known author of essays and books pertaining to child labor laws, which is quite similar to the interests of her sister and brother-in-law. Another source listed an Ella Merritt as a member of the American Economic Association in Washington D.C. Despite the fact that I have never known any of the Merritts, I am quite fascinated by the string of information connecting the girls with literature, writing, and different places across the country.

In summary, because my research has taken me in many directions that weren’t anticipated, I believe the girls were given the books as a collection between the two or maybe three of them when they were young, and have carried them with them. The girls were obviously part of a social reform through their writing, which would make sense that they were well educated and had the interest in classic literature. Perhaps their attachment to the books is what kept them all linked together for so many years, as three of them were members of the same Order of Bookfellows. The original purpose of the book – as a collection is gone today, it was gone when they were gifted to separate people from separate people. Maybe I will be able to find a descendent of one of the girls and return the books to their owners and the rest of their collection, seeing as the publisher published them as a set of 39 books (every play and one collection of sonnets).

I still cannot find a link between Miss M.E. Bohrer and Pearl, except that they both lived in Washington D.C. It’s also odd that she signed “Miss” in 1902 when she had been married since the 1880s. Maybe I have incorrectly drawn a connection where one doesn’t exist.

Through this research, I’ve come closer to the books that I once thought were cool because they were old. Their family is still preserved in the books and I am starting to cherish them as if they were my own family heirlooms – of course, I would love to return them to the Merritts. Perhaps their original function, as a collector’s item has returned, but for now, this collector is missing 35 books of the set, not to mention the dust covers and the box cover. Given my love of Shakespeare, the books are still a prized possession as they were over 100 years ago. Coincidently, my favorite Shakespeare play is Hamlet, the one book that doesn’t have a name written in it. Maybe it was meant for me?

This week, I’m finally able to talk about the object that’s been on my mind since the beginning of the semester. What I have here in my hands (after a week of patiently waiting for UPS to deliver my package) is nothing more than a stack of printer paper. Over 100 pages thick, and printed on both sides, this story came to me in a large manila envelope; it is held together by a large butterfly clip and weighs just about one pound. The top of the first page reads “AUGUST 1946 – MAY 1947, LETTERS FROM GERMANY,” and then in smaller type on the bottom, “Authored by: Virginia Masset Clisson & daughters (family of Lt. Col. Henry M. Clisson)”.

After the first week of this course, I became quite envious of the others in our class who had chosen objects with their own rich personal history (such as Elise’s ticket stub, or Marie’s recipe card, just to name a couple). I immediately thought of these letters, but quickly decided against it, telling myself that there were other objects that I could talk about. After the second class, I felt as if the objects I had chosen to write about were missing the mark. They were interesting and personal, yes, but their stories seemed insignificant in comparison to the one I knew I could tell. There was this sinking feeling in my gut that instinctually told me I was going to have to confront these letters or I would never stop thinking about them. Once again, I told myself that I didn’t have the time nor the energy that it would take to analyze this object, and I picked something else to write about. Then, I read Edmund de Waal’s story, and realized that I was not going to be able to ignore my own inheritance, regardless of how much I convinced myself otherwise.

My Nana’s sister, Loretta Gratzer, even saved some of the original envelopes. Here you can see the authentic United States Airmail stamp. In the letters, my Nana mentions that it could take over a month for one letter to make it from Germany to America.

From what I know, my great-grandfather, Lieutenant Colonel Henry M. Clisson, was the commanding officer of the 2^nd Battalion and in charge of the war prisoners at Nuremberg beginning in 1946. During his deployment, he sent for his wife, Virginia, and his three daughters (Catherine, Margaret, and Marilyn) who traveled on the U.S.S. President Tyler to live with him in Germany. This stack of printer paper is a copy of the collection of the surviving letters that Virginia Clisson sent to her sister Loretta between August of 1946 and May of 1947. In the letters, my great-grandmother wrote about the post-war reality she experienced everyday, and the bureaucratic nature of the US military during this time. She told her sister about the daily struggle of raising three young daughters in a country devastated by war, and about living in a community that was responsible for enforcing the consequences of that war. These letters are an honest record of a dark period in human history, and the only chance I’ll ever have of knowing my family’s story.

This is just one of the hundred letters my Nana sent to her sister. Some of the letters, like this one, were better preserved than others. She would always sign, “Love, Gin” at the bottom.

I was very fond of my Nana. She wore thick square glasses that magnified the size of her small, tired eyes. She had a big poof of white hair on the top of her head, and she had the biggest earlobes I have ever seen. The wrinkled skin on her hands and arms was so soft to the touch that I vividly remember stroking it when I sat next to her at the kitchen table. She was always sitting there when my mom and I walked in the door, with one hand on her cane and a huge quivering smile on her face. We would come in and make her tea, and I would pull out the large cardboard box of bells that she kept in her living room. By the time the tea was poured, I was up in my great-grandmother’s lap, asking her where each of the metal bells had come from and why some looked dirtier than others. Nana’s voice, like the rest of her body, was always shaking, but I loved to hear her speak because her voice always reminded me of those bells.

It has never been more important for me to spend time with these letters than it is at this point in my life. I stopped visiting Nana by the time I was in fourth grade. By the time I was in sixth grade my mother had cut off all communication with her own parents, and we lost touch with Nana by association. When she died in 2011, I was sixteen and had grown up without any idea about the time my family spent in Germany or the fact that my great-grandfather was involved with the Nuremberg trials. I did not attend Nana’s funeral, I have not written back to my still-living grandmother, and I will never be able to forgive myself for both of these shortcomings.

Here is a newspaper clipping from 1946 that my Nana must have clipped and saved for posterity. It explicitly mentions the arrival of Virginia, Catherine, Margaret, and Marilyn into the Nuremberg-Furth US military camp. Because of my great-grandfather’s high rank, the arrival of his family was big news.

I apologize for the poor quality, but the caption reads, “Lt. Col. Henry M. Clisson 2nd Battalion CO as he greeted his family at Furth last Tuesday morning.” Seen from left to right is my Nana, baby Marilyn in my great-grandfather’s arms, Catherine (my grandma), and then Margaret on the end.

Ever since I found about these letters, I’ve felt a necessity to read and digest every word. Nana’s beautiful cursive script lies waiting on the page and, yet, for years I have not been able to bring my eyes to focus on it. Any time I’ve tried to read her words I am haunted by those beautiful tired eyes and the sweet smell of her soft skin. I think of her kitchen table and those cups of tea, and how I wasted our time together by asking about bells. A large part of myself has been afraid of confronting this history because I know how much I will regret losing the relationship I had with my Nana and my grandmother. Even now writing this, I must admit that I am terrified of what I’ll discover as I finally read their story. All I know is that this fear rising within my chest feels better than the guilt that has sat in its place for too long.

As I begin this journey of learning about my Nana’s life through her own words, I share with you a piece of the first letter she wrote from Germany:

“Of all the large cities I’ve come through, I do believe Nuremberg is the most completely wrecked. Just to see the old men and women plodding along the roads with their baskets or carts of firewood is a pitiful sight. They really hate us [the Americans] and it seems to show. I know I could learn to hate too, if I had so little and the chosen few with so much. They do not want money for there is absolutely nothing to buy. There are plenty of vegetables so they are not starving but they haven’t had any sugar, good coffee, fats or oils, soap and all such things for many years even when Hitler was still head man. It’s hard for me to know there is nothing to be done about it as we really cannot come in contact with anyone outside our own household. It isn’t safe, and that can be plainly seen.” 

-Thursday, august 22, 1946

This is Nana and I playing dress-up. She is seated, as always, at her kitchen table.

For the following blogpost, I’ve decided to focus on the history of my object, the 1937 French Missal in terms of its origins and make. Reading The Hare with the Amber Eyes  has had a profound effect on my research with my object. For one, I know have a strong sense of place and how place factors into the function and importance of the object. While reading De Waal’s account of his family Netsuke, I found myself aching to go to Paris to do on the ground research about the history of my great grandmother’s prayerbook, published in 1937. Reading how De Waal couldn’t properly do his research on the Netsuke without seeing them in their original home, whether in Paris, Vienna or Tokyo, taught me the importance of seeing the object in its original form, if you will. I’ve been so interested to know more about the publisher of the missal, where it would be sold, etc.  Paris is key to my story too of the 1937 French missal and I want to find out about its origins. My search into the publisher and artist of the engravings began with an address.  On the second page of the book reads the name of the publisher, P. Lethielleux, 10 Rue Cassette, Paris. The address is printed several times on the first few pages and last few pages of the book.

Google Street view of Rue Cassette

A quick Google Maps search allowed me to see the location of the former publisher, P. Lethielleux. Located in the heart of Saint-Germain in Paris, 10 Rue Cassette now belongs to the posh Hôtel Abbaye. Starting with place seemed most appropriate so I decided to dig deeper. Researching P. Lethielleux online only led me to several Google Books entries which attribute the publisher to hundreds and hundreds of books from the late 1800s to the mid 1900s. The last book I can find online attributed to the P. Lethielleux is 1964. The books range from children’s missals to theological collections to a 1929 publication of Ben-Hur.

10 rue Cassette, Paris.

My next thought, maybe I’m typing in the address wrong if the hotel keeps popping up. My next mission was to find out what year the hotel was built. No luck on their English website or online. There’s a fun tool on the hotel’s website which allows you to call the hotel for free through an online service. So, I typed in my cell number and was promptly connected to the hotel. The gentleman picks up the phone in French and I freeze, it’s been a while that I’ve practiced my French so I shudder and  ask if he speak’s English. He says yes and I ask him when the hotel was founded. He had trouble hearing me but finally understands and tells me, in the early 1970s. This makes sense because the last trace I can find of P. Lethielleux is a 1964. I hang up and wonder why the receptionist sounded so odd. Then I realized it was about 2am French time, I felt terrible. Again, I wish I could be in Paris. Alas.

Now I have a location of the publisher but am still missing a history of the publisher, P. Lethielleux. After an exhausting Google and Wikipedia search, all I can find is different online merchants selling antique books, which include various missals and theological books. I cannot find anything on the history of the publisher. This is frustrating to me because there are extensive online instances of mentioning P. Lethielleux in terms of attributing books to the publisher, but alas, no history. So, I set my Google to French in the hopes that some history about the publisher would show up on a French website. My French is lacking, but I can make my way through the bare minimum. I search and search and….nothing. Only this time I’m directed to French booksellers selling Lethielleux’s books. What I can gather from the exhaustive online searching is that Lethielleux published hundreds and hundreds of books. There are several websites documenting these published books with accompanied pictures of little books that look just like my great- grandmother’s. What is lacking is a history.

 As a History major, I was never trained on how to research antique books. I feel like I’m grasping at a history–wanting some history of a book publisher– that’s not accessible to me right now. I wish I could be like Edmund de Wall and find some Catholic historian in Paris who could help me. I’m wondering if P. Lethielleux was also responsible for the engravings or if he just acted as a publisher.  Where was the missal sold? And how common was this book? From my preliminary research, it seems like something very common yet I feel a true connection to the missal in a way to learn more about my great-grandmother. Next week I want to focus more on finding information about the illustrator and the publisher, but I don’t know where to start.

After speaking to my dad for about half an hour or so on the phone, I began to realize that in writing these posts about the Red Wings jersey that my dad didn’t so much care about the symbolism of the thing itself, but rather the memories that he associated with the process of making Bueller and his life before and since that point. Elaborating on the previous post about the Wrigley Field game in ’02, it was a lot more momentous than I remembered.When I asked about what my dad felt when he was called onto the field, he simply said “I honestly don’t remember. It just kind of happened. I was more happy about everyone being there. You remember Michael Stepanek and his kids? And I think Tom Joyce was there too. And Jack Hickey and his kids. Something like that” and it was then that I realized that it was places like Chicago and friends like these that were far more important to my dad than any single movie or production he’d worked on. This huge swath of my mom and dad’s old Chicago friends were at the game; the Hickeys, the Stepaneks, Tom Joyce, literally all these people that I’ve only met in passing or been familiar with but never perhaps friendly and it became immediately clear to me that the jersey itself wasn’t the focus of his life. He had gotten past that. He’d moved on but looked wistfully back at who he’d met, why he’d done things, when and where too. My dad realized that a simple jersey he’d worn in a movie would simply always be just a jersey to him; it wasn’t about the shadow that that image would cast on impressionable American teenagers to him, it was about his experiences and his own personal connections with people that were far more significant to him.

Then our conversation changed, he had something to say but almost immediately forgot what it was; “God I can’t remember anything anymore. I used to have such a good memory. I don’t even remember what I did yesterday!” I said almost he same thing back to him, how I couldn’t remember much beyond what i’d done in the previous few hours until talking to him. But then my dad said something I didn’t expect, “See I think I get it from your Grandpa, when him and my mom started dating, they would go out to the movies. Because, you know, a movie would be a nickel or something. And when I’d watch reruns on tv of older stuff with him, he’d always be able to point out obscure actors and actresses. So later on when I was in college, i’d be with Jack (Hickey) and we’d do the same exact thing and Jack would always say, ‘how the fuck do you know all this stuff!?’ But I can’t remember much of any of that stuff anymore. Ah well.” From that point on in our conversation, I knew that the little details of his career were unimportant, it was his life and his experiences that really meant the most to him. Like I said before, I don’t really know Jack Hickey. From what I know, he’s a crazy college pal of my dad’s. But that’s okay, because much like how the jersey means comparatively little to my dad, I know that it’s not about the specifics, but of the big picture looming in your face. As cliche as it sounds, like a pointillism painting it’s not about the individual dots that make up the picture it’s the image that forms over time that truly leaves a lasting imprint.