One day when I was about 12 years old, my Uncle Bob came to the house with a leather-bound, yellowed passport. While he talked excitedly about how his Aunt Lucille probably didn’t realize the value of this when she sent it to him, I paged through it slowly, along with a sheet of paper which translated the words from Hungarian. The passport, issued in 1905, recorded my great-grandparents, Jozsef and Julianna Gerencser and their two sons immigrating to Buffalo, New York from a small village in central Hungary.
This was the first time I heard that my grandfather had changed his name from Istvan Gerencser to Stephen Granger. The first time I understood from my mother and uncle that their dad, Stephen, had denied his Hungarian heritage his whole life.
Being twelve years old, I was much more fascinated at the time with the fact that the passport described my ancestors as having “regular” noses. But over many years, as my Uncle Bob continued with his research – a slow process in the 1970s! – I started to ask more questions when he arrived with new stories about the people in my Granger-Gerencser family. Like Christmas in Buffalo, where Stephen and his brother would receive – in “a good year” – an orange and a nickel. How Stephen’s sister, Julie, nearly froze when being taken to church for her baptism in a traditional, but flimsy, dress during a frigid Buffalo winter. Uncle Bob also had plenty of tales about growing up with my mom St. Catharines, Ontario: the piano that fell through the floor at Mr. Zabut’s; my mother wearing her mouse costume on backwards during a skating program. And the story that began one day with his question to my mother, “So, Sis, what is the word for people whose parents were never legally married?”
It was the stories that hooked me. When my mother passed away, I decided I wanted to record what I’d come to think of as “the Uncle Bob stories.” So I arranged to meet him in St. Catharines, in the neighbourhood where he and my mother grew up. We walked the neighbourhood; he talked and I recorded. This afternoon of reminiscing became the genesis of my book, “Strength Within: The Granger Chronicles,” published in 2005 to celebrate the 100 year anniversary of the Gerencser immigration.
By the time I wrote that book I had learned to ask much more often, the question, “why?” Why did they immigrate? Why did they “skip town” to get married? Why did he deny his heritage? This question, of course, leads to the stories. But it also led me to much more. I learned about historical events and their direct impact on my family members. I learned how to counsel other family historians about what the options might be to dealing compassionately with family secrets. I learned how to take genealogical data and turn it into stories that people might read and enjoy.
I got started in genealogy thanks to my Uncle Bob, one of the best storytellers I know. I stay in the game because I’ve discovered I love to tell stories too. For me, genealogy is not about building a huge database of records, but about reaching beyond those records and turning data into story.
How about you? Who are the storytellers in your family? Can you think of ways to tap into those stories before they are lost?
Wow, that is a great story. So why did your grandfather leave Hungary? I love the stories you tell and now I know some of the reason. Did you ever get to know or correspond with your original family in Hungary? This is so cool!
Hi, Yolly,
The family left for the promise of a better life in America. I believe my great-grandfather, who was a peasant labourer, had the ambition and my great-grandmother had the contacts, in the form of relatives who had already immigrated. So Jozsef came over first for two years to earn enough money to return to Hungary for his family. My grandfather was 7 when they arrived in 1905. I compare the strangeness of Buffalo for them as being the equivalent of us going to Mars today: it was that different from home, and also so expensive and taxing a voyage that it was understood to be a one-way trip!
Wonderful family story! It is so true that the genealogy records, the data, open the doors to the stories, and to telling those stories. Doesn’t our story define us as humans? After writing my late son’s memoir last year, I returned to my family dig on my father, his WW2 D-Day Dodger story, the war love story with Mom and more and more stories taking me back to my grandmother leaving Dad and two siblings at a Catholic orphanage in St. Agatha’s so she could be actress and piano player for a vaudeville troupe barnstorming Canada and the eastern U.S. Stories leading back to her father who was comedian, actor and theatre company manager in England, and then during the U.S. Civil War as a Confederate soldier and then up to Canada,just being born as a country where he would perform for the next 40 years. More stories. More books. It never ends. Thank God….
Yes, I agree, Rick! Thankfully there always seem to be more stories to unearth and share. I think you have some fabulous books to write!
You did a great job learning about your family history and writing a book. Unfortunate everyone in my family are dead…even my 4 older brothers…..and aunt &uncles and cousins. Why I am still here is beyond me but I am very thankful and do enjoy my life.💕💕
Oh, Patsy, that is so sad! The last of a generation. So many people are very happy you are still here, including me! You are someone who enjoys life to the fullest and you’ve been one of my best mentors for many years! XO
Hi, I enjoyed your write up. I’ve been asking mu Aunt about our background.
The elders have so much history to tell.
The older we get the more important it is to find out our history.
All the best in 2018! Keep writing.
Take care Teresa
Hi, Teresa! Thanks as always for checking in. Good for you to be pursuing your background via your Aunt. I agree completely – we need to connect with our elders before they leave us, and we regret not taking the time. I’d love to hear some of what you find out.