November 1, 2010
Where I’m going with these obituaries
I have multiple motives or angles in writing about my late parents (and other deceased relatives).
- When people die, their friends and acquaintances have some curiosity about their lives. I am inclined to oblige that, perhaps at greater length than is common.
- As you can see from the fact that this blog exists, I am generally interested in recording history. In writing about my parents, grandparents, and so on, I can touch on:
- The general history of various eras. My maternal grandfather engaged in quite a few hijinks wearing top hat and tails.
- Certain political high- or low-lights. The story of the “Mischlinge” in the Holocaust is not widely known. In an era of increasing Holocaust denial, I generally want to add to its documentation. I’ll touch briefly on McCarthyism as well.
- Business history. When I’m not repurposing it for personal subjects, this is a business history blog. My father helped make retail business history. Some of his insights influenced my own thoughts about other industry sectors.
- To a remarkable extent, I am my family’s last survivor. I am not just an only child but, on both sides, an only grandchild as well. I do not plan to have children of my own. In essence, there is nobody to tell my family’s stories to except “the world at large.”
- I’d like to lay out some “lessons learned” about elder care, medical care in general, and perhaps other topics as well.
That’s a lot. If it ever is completed, it will cover a lot of different blog posts. So please understand if any one post in particular feels a little bit sparse or incomplete — it’s just a piece of a larger whole.
The series so far
- Introduction to the lives and marriage of Peter and Anita Monash. The first post in the series, it also has details such as time of death.
- Religion and the Holocaust in the lives of Peter Monash, Anita Monash, and my grandparents.
- Peter Monash’s life before he immigrated to the United States.
- Peter Monash’s life his first quarter-century in the United States.
- The peak of Peter Monash’s working life, and the overall business movement in which he played a key part.
- Anita Monash’s life until she got married.
- Anita Monash’s life from marriage through retirement.
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2 Responses to “Where I’m going with these obituaries”
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I’m so sorry that you lost your mother and father. I’ve read your blog entries, and follow your work, albeit rather silently.
My father passed away on 16 July 2009, and I miss him so terribly much. I read his old research papers in the Bulletin of Mathematical Biology and cry. I cried when I read your series about your parents. My father used to say that one’s children are one’s immortality. I am a widow, now unlikely to have children (although still hoping to find a Jewish husband, and not too old for children, yet), nor is my brother likely to have a family. So we too are the last of the line, like you.
This is what I did: I paid the yearly membership fee for Ancestry.com and created as complex and detailed a family tree as I could. I couldn’t get past the turn-of-the-century departures from the shtetls of Zhytomir and Kiev. But that was okay. Instead I collected as much information, photographs, census records, marriage announcements, everything, and uploaded it all, where it is chronologically and semantically linked in a family tree, safe and secure with the careful group that runs that website. Doing this has not eased the sorrow, unfortunately. But at least there is something tangible by which to remember these ancestors of mine. So I very much understand your sentiments.
I mentioned you briefly in a blog post today, and follow your updates in the Twitterverse.
Be well, Curt Monash. PLEASE: Remember that your parents loved you and were very proud of you. I read about your achievements somewhere and the age at which you accomplished those things. Unlike Steven Wolfram, you were remarkably modest and self-aware, which is why I am writing this. Few people retain perspective. You have, and are not self-aggrandizing. I am sure your parents were proud of that too.
Best wishes,
Ellie K