Advent Calendar of Xmas Memories 12/12

Prompt for December 12:
Charitable / Volunteer Work-

Did your family ever volunteer with a charity such as a soup kitchen, homeless or battered women's shelter during the holidays? Or perhaps were your ancestors involved with church groups that assisted others during the holiday?

I wasn't really quite sure about how I would answer this prompt, until I remembered the photo to the left. It was taken around 1932 of my paternal grandmother's father, Frederick Henry Massmann. According to The American Catholic Who's Who, Volume 7 (1946 and 1947, page 300), he was named a Knight of the Pontifical Equestrian Order of St. Gregory the Great in 1932 by Pope Pius XI. The honor can be bestowed on those who, by "the renown of their deeds or the degree of their munificence, are deemed worthy to be honoured by a public expression of esteem on the part of the Holy See.”

Recently my parents hired a genealogist in the Chicago area to do some more research on the reasons he received this honor.  According to Edward R. Kantowicz in Corporation Sole: Cardinal Mundelein and Chicago Catholicism (page 177):

At the Holy Name Society Mass in the cathedral on New Year's Day, 1928, Cardinal Mundelein announced that "a vocation school for boys who have made a misstep and who deserve another chance" would be built near Lockport, Illinois, and named Holy Name Technical School... Mundelein asked the Holy Name men to raise the funds to build the school, and he planned to have the Catholic Salvage Bureau subsidize its operations and upkeep.  Frederick Massman [sic], a Holy Name officer, donated $5,000...

Although he was actually named a Knight on May 21, 1931, Massmann wanted to be invested on the opening day of Holy Name Technical School (now Lewis University), on May 30, 1932.  Apparently the opening was a very big deal, with a crowd of over 50,000 in attendance and airplanes flying over.

Massmann was also very involved in the establishment of the Catholic Youth Organization and with the Boy Scouts in Chicago, Illinois.

Pictured above, the uniform is described as a "dark green tail coat and trousers, both trimmed with silver embroidery, a cocked hat and dress sword: white gloves are worn." Detail of the sword can be seen here and detail of the badge here.

(Post #12 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com. Originally published December 12, 2009;  major additions were made this year.)

© Amanda Pape - 2010

Advent Calendar of Xmas Memories 12/11

Prompt for December 11:
Other Traditions-

Did your immigrant ancestors have holiday traditions from their native country which they retained or perhaps abandoned? Did your family or friends also celebrate other traditions during the holidays such as Hanukkah or Kwanzaa?

My almost-82-year-old dad is 100% German, I think - three out of his four grandparents emigrated from Germany, and the other was the daughter of a German immigrant. Dad says that when he was a child, they celebrated Saint Nicholas Day on December 6. He and his four siblings would hang their stockings ("the biggest socks we could find") on their phony fireplace in their Chicago area home. The next morning, they would find them full of fruit (tangerines and Golden Delicious apples), nuts (walnuts and pecans in the shell), and candy.

We didn't do this when I was a child, but I'm hoping some of my aunts and cousins read this and let me know if they celebrated Saint Nicholas Day in their families, then or now.

I have some good friends, Jeff and Kathleen, who celebrate Hanukkah as well as Christmas--at least, I assume they do, because Kathleen makes the best latkes!

When my son Eric was growing up, we tried to observe the true Advent (the period before Christmas beginning four Sundays before Christmas Day - so it would often begin in November--as it did this year, on the 28th-- and NOT on December 1). When Eric was in kindergarten, he made a lovely wreath with dried pasta, pine cones, and walnuts sprayed with gold paint. With a simple ring of candle holders added, it makes the perfect Advent wreath. I've put a lovely music box snow globe (it plays "Oh Holy Night") with the Nativity scene that my paternal grandmother gave me years ago in the center. To the right is a photo of the Advent wreath and snow globe music box Nativity scene.

(Post #11 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com. Originally published December 11, 2009;  slight variations made this year.)

© Amanda Pape - 2010

Advent Calendar of Xmas Memories 12/10

Prompt for December 10:
Christmas Gifts

What were your favorite gifts both to receive and to give? Are there specific gift-giving traditions among your family or ancestors?

Addressing just the second question--I remember in my early 20s that my family of origin would have a AM Christmas and a PM Christmas.

On Christmas morning (above left, 1981), the tree would be loaded with gifts to and from my parents and siblings. When my maternal grandmother, maternal aunt, and sometimes maternal great aunt and maternal uncle and his family would arrive in the afternoon (above right, 1981, with our basset hound Barney in front), there'd be a whole 'nother load of presents put under the tree for all of us to open.

Below are family from my mother's side opening gifts on Christmas afternoon, 1982. From left are my aunt Mary Anne Sarmiento Guokas, great uncle Don Gould, grandmother Sara Wolfe Guokas Archibald, cousin Sophia Sarmiento, family friend Sister Cecilia, and great aunt Edith Wolfe Gould. You can see my aunt Sister Jean Marie Guokas' black veil (the back of her head) in the foreground, and my uncle Charles Guokas III is on the floor.
(Post #10 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com. Originally published December 10, 2009;  slight variations made this year.)

© Amanda Pape - 2010

Advent Calendar of Xmas Memories 12/9

December 9 -
Corpus Christi Christmas -

Prompt: Grab Bag/Author's Choice. Please post from a topic that helps you remember Christmas past!

I'm writing about Christmas in Corpus Christi, Texas, where I was blessed to live April 1, 1979 until mid-October, 1984. One of the highlights was Harbor Lights, when boats in the marina downtown were decorated with lights. This apparently has since become a big festival with a nighttime illuminated boat parade where some people go all out, but it was just stationery boats lit up in their slips back then. The pictures above and below are from 1981. On the left below is my husband Mark's first sailboat (co-owned with his friend Tom, and now owned by his son Drew), the Wagon, and on the right is his second sailboat, Contagious (aka Contigo).

Another annual event back then was the Christmas Tree Forest, held in the Art Museum of South Texas in Bayfront Plaza. Local organizations and individuals would decorate trees to fit with a unifying theme. In 1982, that theme was international holiday traditions. I love the Texas tree, below left. The city Park and Recreation Department (where I worked April 1979 to October 1981) did a "Japan" tree (below right) decorated with paper fans and origami:


The Christmas season wasn't complete for me without participating in the Collier Pool New Year's Day 2 Mile Swim (I'm thrilled to see this is still going on!). Collier Pool is an outdoor pool (heated in winter) where I worked out regularly except in the busy summer season (I used the pool at Corpus Christi State University, now Texas A&M - Corpus Christi, that season). Below left is my shirt from the 1983 swim--temperatures that day ranged from 42 to 50 degrees. Collier staff even had their own tree (below right), festively decorated with race ribbons and swim lesson cards, among other things.

(This is post 9 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com. A variation of this post was originally published December 9, 2009. Slight modifications were made this year.)

© Amanda Pape - 2010

Advent Calendar of Xmas Memories 12/8

Prompt for December 8 -
Christmas Cookies -

Did your family or ancestors make Christmas cookies? How did you help? Did you have a favorite cookie?

My mother made a lot of Christmas cookies when we were growing up. I'm sure I helped - somehow. I had/have three favorites that I still make today:

The ones pictured at the top (photo adapted from Mary Jane Watson) are known by a number of names: Russian Tea Cakes, Mexican Wedding Cookies, Snowballs. We always called them Pecan Puffs. Obviously we always made them with pecans (something I can pick up from under the trees where I live), but I've seen recipes with walnuts. The recipes are all basically the same:

• 1/2 pound butter
• 4 tablespoons powdered (confectioner's) sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup ground pecans (or walnuts)

Mix. Roll in balls. Bake 40 minutes in 250-degree oven. While warm, roll in powdered sugar.

Another favorite was Lemon Bars. These are very easy. They're also pretty common. A few years ago, somebody won the "delicious" category in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's Cookie Challenge with an almost-identical recipe to the one following. Hmmph.

Mix 2 cups flour and 1/2 cup powdered sugar. Cut in 1 cup butter with pastry blender until it clings together like pie crust. Press into the bottom of a greased 13" x 9" pan and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes.

Beat 4 eggs, add 2 cups granulated sugar and 1/3 cup lemon juice. Sift in 1/4 cup flour and 1/2 teaspoon baking powder. Pour over the baked crust (which does not need to be cooled) and bake at 350 degrees for 25 minutes. When cooled, sprinkle with confectioner's sugar and cut into bars.

The last favorite is one I call "Chocolate Swirls." It uses unsweetened chocolate, ginger, allspice, and cinnamon, so they aren't super-sweet. The dough is chilled, hand-rolled into "snakes," and then coiled into a circle and sprinkled with granulated sugar. They take the longest to prepare but bake the fastest (10 minutes).

I don't remember making traditional cut-out sugar cookies and frosting them as a child, but I did do that with my son a few times when he was little. However, now he's not much into sweets, and my husband and I don't really need the calories. I probably wouldn't make cookies at all if it wasn't for my husband's grandchildren. The youngest, Luke, LOVES the lemon bars, and his dad, Mike, likes the pecan puffs. A bunch of my Christmas/winter tins are still at their house from the last time I made them some, for Luke's fourth birthday in February.

(This is post 8 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com. A variation of this post was originally published December 8, 2009. Slight modifications were made this year.)

© Amanda Pape - 2010

Advent Calendar of Xmas Memories: 12/7

Prompt for December 7 -
Holiday Parties -

Did your family throw a holiday party each year? Do you remember attending any holiday parties?

I don't recall my family throwing any holiday parties. The family of course got together on Christmas, but I'll talk about that more when we get to the gift memories.

I did attend a lot of holiday parties, particularly during my college years, and for a few years after. I went to an all-girls Catholic high school and had a pretty close bunch of friends. The Christmas season was a good time for get-togethers, and I think someone had a New Year's Eve or New Year's Day party every year.

The photo to the right is from a party at my parents' house in Houston, Texas on December 27, 1980, and that's me on the upper left. I had graduated from college two years before and was living in Corpus Christi at the time. Four years later, I had moved to the Seattle area, so no more of these parties. I miss them.

I've got a lot more holiday party group photos like that one or where I'm acting silly (I'm in the green shirt in the December 1978 party photo at the top of this post), but I've only included ones where you can see a Christmas tree in the background--to prove they're from holiday parties.

My undergraduate majors club (Recreation and Parks at Texas A&M University) also held a fancy Christmas party every December. Unlike most of our other social events, everyone was encouraged to dress up for these, and the girls often wore long skirts. To the left are the officers at the 1976 party - I was the reporter-historian that year and I'm at the lower left.

This was also the event where the "Silver Chaparral" award was given to the outstanding Fall graduate of the department. Guess who in December 1978->:

(This is post 7 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com. This post was originally published December 7, 2009. Slight modifications were made this year.)

© Amanda Pape - 2010

Remembering Pearl Harbor: Brosig Kolajajck, S1c, 1915-1941

On our trip to Hawaii this past May, I took a close-up of one of the many names in the Arizona Memorial shrine. The name is B. Kolajajck, S1c, who my aunt told me was the brother of a fellow nun. He was one of 1177 sailors and marines that died on the USS Arizona in the Japanese attack on December 7, 1941.

I did a little research and found out this was Brosig Kolajajck, Seaman First Class. I was able to find him on the 1930 census (spelled as Brozac Koleyojack), age 14. He was living in Anderson, Grimes County, Texas, with his parents, Frank (age 46) and Maggie (age 25); sisters Elizabeth (19), Martha (12), Mary (10), and Margareta (6); and brothers Lewis (8) and Howard (aka Harold M.) (4). All of them were born in Texas, but Frank's father was born in Ohio and his mother in Poland. Maggie first married at age 19, so Brosig was her oldest child, but Frank first married at age 22, so Elizabeth is a daughter from that previous marriage. Frank is listed as a farmer, and Maggie, Elizabeth, Brosig, and Martha as farm labor.

The United States Department of Veteran Affairs shows the date of birth for Brosig to be December 4, 1915.

Mary, born September 12, 1919, became Sister Juliana Kolajajck, CVI. She passed away November 6, 2004, and is buried at Forest Park Cemetery, Houston, Texas.

[This post originally published June 29, 2010.]

© Amanda Pape - 2010

Advent Calendar of Xmas Memories 12/6

Prompt for December 6 -
Santa Claus -

Did you ever send a letter to Santa? Did you ever visit Santa and "make a list?" Do you still believe in Santa Claus?

I know I made lists, and I probably sent some letters to Santa, but I have proof of the department store visits to him! The photo at left is of me and my sister Karen in 1959. I'm almost 3 and she is almost 2. This must be our first visit to Santa - don't all three of us look a little apprehensive?

We usually went to Foley's (bought out by Macy's a few years ago), and they used to do up nice cards like the one below (from 1960) to put your Santa photos in:
I'm the oldest of five, and there's a seven-and-a-half year gap between me and the youngest. Therefore, I went to see Santa for a number of years. I've seen one picture with my youngest sister in it, and I must have been about 10. I looked too old to be visiting Santa, and I think that was the last year.

Because of the younger siblings, I kind of HAD to keep believing in Santa, even if I had my own personal doubts. I have a memory from around age 12 of awakening at night Christmas Eve and looking out the window. I thought I saw something in the sky that looked like Santa's sleigh and reindeer zigzagging down - the reins made lines that were alight somehow. That was the last time Santa worked his magic on me, though.

I didn't really promote the Santa idea with my son Eric. Some of it was rebellion against the increasing commercialism of Christmas. Some of it was practical - I felt the Santa myth set up unrealistic expectations on the quantity of Christmas presents to be received, and our budget was very tight when Eric was little. His paternal grandmother did take him to see Santa in 1989, when he was three-and-a-half, resulting in the lovely picture at left.

(This is post 6 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com. This post was originally published December 6, 2009. Slight modifications were made this year.)

© Amanda Pape - 2010

Advent Calendar of Xmas Memories 12/5

Prompt for December 5 -
Outdoor Decorations -

Did people in your neighborhood decorate with lights? Did some people really go "all out" when decorating? Any stories involving your ancestors and decorations?

Unlike today, outdoor house decorating was generally pretty subdued when I was growing up in the 60s and 70s. The photo at left, taken in 1982, is pretty typical of our home and neighborhood in Houston, Texas. I do remember that for many years all of the outdoor lights on our home were blue, which looked pretty neat against the orange paint trim on our brick house.

I've continued with the subtle style of outside decorating in my own home, which is built to look like homes did in the 20s, 30s, and 40s in this town. There's usually a swag on the front door (the photo at right is the one from 2006), a cedar garland with some twinkling white lights draped above the door, red rope lights wrapped around the white posts in front, and multicolor lights in the two front windows flanking the door. In 2009, I added some lighted wreaths on either side of the door and the garage (see the photo below).  This year I added some white LED lights along the gutter line.

My town does up its historic square and a nearby park in style. The bridges and reflections off the water (at right and below) are especially nice:





----- Lights over the square that run from the top of the courthouse can just barely be seen in the background of the photo at right (in 2010, the courthouse is being renovated, so there are no lights off its top).

What I don't like are some of the cheesy decorations outside some homes. The one below from a couple blocks away and a couple years ago is a particularly bad Nativity scene. Santa as Joseph? An angel as Mary? Um, no.

(This is post 5 in the Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories hosted by Geneabloggers.com. This post was originally published December 5, 2009. Slight modifications were made this year.)

© Amanda Pape - 2010

A Christmas Card from Oregon, c. 1928 - 1942

Among the many photos and scanned items my second cousin Bill shared with me from his grandmother's collection was that of this Christmas card, pictured at left.

At the top it says "Portland, Oregon" and "Merry Xmas,"  at the bottom it is signed "From Mr. &  Mrs. Ewald T. Pape."  This card was folded such that just the home showed, and placed in a frame and hung on the wall somewhere.

Ewald Theodore Pape is the son of Lorenz (or Laurenz) Pape, the youngest brother of my great-grandfather John Pape, and youngest son of Jacob and Elizabeth Gierse Pape. Ewald was born on 10 December 1894 in Dusseldorf, Westphalia, Germany.

Ewald came to New York from Bremen on 4 December 1913 on the Friedrich Der Grosse, with his brother Joseph (or Josef) Anton and sisters Mary (or Maria) and Nellie (or Petronella). He listed his father Lorenz, living at 1043 Sherman Avenue in Chicago (the home of John & Gertrude Pape and family), as the family member he was joining. Lorenz had arrived on 27 May 1913 in Boston on the Marquette out of Antwerp, Belgium, accompanied by sons Karl (or Carl) James and August Peter, and going to the home of John Pape (again at 1043 Sherman Avenue). Karl/Carl and Joseph/Josef had apparently originally immigrated in 1909, arriving on August 31 in New York City on the Kroonland out of Antwerp, Belgium. The passenger list shows them as going to join their uncle Johann Pape at 1043 Sherman Avenue in Evanston, Illinois.

According to Nellie/Petronella's obituary, Karl/Carl James, Joseph/Josef Anton, Mary/Maria, August Peter, Ewald Theodore, and Nellie/Petronella (born in that order) apparently had one more sister named Margaret, but it is not yet known when and where she was born. There was also a brother named Lorenz Jr. who apparently stayed in Germany, according to the obituary. According to their passenger list, the nearest relative in the country of origin for Karl and August is their mother Maria at 37 Benderstrasse in Dusseldorf, but she is listed as the stepmother (same address) for Ewald, Nellie, Maria, and Joseph on their passenger list. This may not be correct, as both August's and Joseph's death records (Illinois Deaths and Stillbirths, 1916 - 1947, from FamilySearch) show their mother as Henrietta Kamp, also born in Duesseldorf.  Lorenz is listed as married on the 1920 census in Port Edwards, Wisconsin, but no wife is listed on the form, so she may have stayed in Germany.

Ewald was single and living in Wilmette, Illinois, in 1917; and in Port Edwards, Wisconsin, in 1920. He married his wife Alma D. (born 8 August 1898 in Wilmette, Illinois) on 23 November 1923 in Vancouver, Washington, and their son Albert T. was born 20 March 1928 in Portland, Oregon. They were living in Portland, Oregon, in 1930. Ewald still has a Portland address in 1936 (naturalization) and 1942 (World War II registration). Ewald died 29 May 1976 and Albert on 29 May 2003, both in Downey (L.A. County), California, while Alma died 13 Feb 1983 in Maywood (L. A. County), California.

According to Bill, "4416 Mozart" is written on the back of the card - probably an address.  I can't find that address in Portland, Oregon - but I can in Chicago, Illinois!  And amazingly, the house there on the Google Maps street view looks very similar to the one in the picture!  On the 1930 census, Ewald is listed as an architect, so perhaps he designed the house pictured.

© Amanda Pape - 2010