52 Weeks - Movies - "Mr Sardonicus" and "Mothra"

The Laconia was my local movie theater, located under the elevated subway line running along White Plains Road in the Northeast Bronx. One of the earliest movies I remember seeing without my parents (but with my twin, thank goodness!) was Mr. Sardonicus.

If you haven't heard of it, there's a good reason: It's a horror movie and not even a good one. But it was Saturday afternoon, and there were cartoons as well as two movies (who remembers the other feature?), so sis and I sat and shivered and probably had nightmares about Baron Sardonicus's grotesque face.

Far better -- and from the same year -- was Mothra, a Japanese monster movie that comes to mind because it deals with the aftermath of atomic radiation. It was a favorite movie of my childhood and decades later I still remember the foot-high twins who summoned Mothra to help them. Oh, if only Mothra could help Japan now.

52 Weeks: Illness, Injury - Mouth full of metal

"Look ma, no cavities!" Remember that ad slogan (named by Advertising Age as one of the most memorable of the 20th century)? Crest put fluoride into toothpaste and presto, no more cavities.

Well, fluoride came too late for me and my teeth. Not long ago, a young relative noticed my mouth full of metal (while I was laughing out loud, of course) and asked what it was all about.

I explained that, in the brief period after dinosaurs ruled the earth and before American Idol and Dancing with the Stars ruled the airwaves, the technology for sealing teeth and keeping them healthy hadn't yet been invented.

Instead, when a tooth broke (try explaining cavities to a 4 year old), the dentist would fill the hole with metal. Put that way, the process sounds medieval, doesn't it?

She took one last look, nodded that she understood, and that was the end of that. I bet she brushed extra long that night!

Fearless Females - 6-word tribute to Tillie Rose Jacobs Mahler

My Fearless Female tribute to great-grandma Tillie:

Brave, long-lived matriarch with heart

I was a baby when Tillie died but she touched the lives of everyone in my family. If she hadn't come to America with her husband Meyer, we wouldn't be who we are. She was brave!

Sentimental Sunday: Cherry Blossom Time in Japan

The news about Japan's devastation is so disturbing that I hereby interrupt my regularly-scheduled genealogy blog to remember a trip there, just four years ago, during beautiful cherry blossom season (late March into early April).

Above is one of the most unforgettable moments--standing in a park during a "cherry blossom blizzard"--that's when cherry blossoms fall off the trees and are carried on the wind, scenting the air as they swirl all around you.

And here's another unforgettable moment: attending a baseball game in which the Yokohama Bay Stars beat the Yakult Swallows. The relief pitcher for the Bay Stars was a fast-ball specialist from the Bronx (my home town) revered for his speed and his ability to pull out a win, which he did that evening. Above, sis and I emulate his pitching stance.

Japan is in our thoughts and prayers.

Fearless Females: Grandma worked as a "finisher" on fine ties

On Monday, February 21, 1977, my mother (Daisy Burk) wrote me a letter about her family's background, which--happily--I kept even though I wasn't as crazed about genealogy then as I am now (!).

My question was prompted by the repeat of the Roots miniseries. Here's some of what Mom wrote about her mother, Hermina Farkas Schwartz:

"I remember Mom telling us that some relative 'did her a favor' for $2.50 a week; she became a finisher on fine ties and worked about 12 hrs. a day and between her and her father [Moritz Farkas] they couldn't earn enough for the family; but she always said she had a good relationship with her father, which was a comfort to her all her life. She became a citizen on his papers (common then, not permitted now) and went to night school for awhile to learn to read and write [English]. She still figured in Hungarian, all her life, though.

"Mom wasn't permitted to do dishes or laundry when she worked because her hands would become too rough for the fine materials she handled; but there was a sewing machine and she did her share at home by sewing for the household. And after she was married she had the girls [her younger sisters] come one at a time to visit (and take care of my brother Fred after he was born) so she could make clothes for them to enable them to go to school here. She never forgot; but I don't ever remember anyone of her sisters mentioning this. I know her 2 bachelor brothers, Julius and Peter, had hard times and she always poured money into their hands when they needed things. Of course, when she and Pop [my grandfather, Theodore Schwartz] needed to open a new store, they gave generously also, I'll say that, too."

Update 2022: The man who did grandma a favor was a Roth cousin who owned a necktie factory. Many other relatives worked for him when they arrived as new immigrants in New York City!

Grandma when she was young (in Hungary?)

52 Weeks- Disasters? Just the Usual, So Counting My Blessings

This week's challenge is "disasters" and I have to say, my family hasn't had any particularly unusual disasters. Let's leave aside WWII for the moment, of course. The disasters that made a big difference to my parents were more personal than environmental:

• My father Harold Burk's first heart attack was a disaster (for his health and for our family's finances). He lived nearly 20 years after that first attack, I'm happy to say.
• The Savoy Hilton Hotel in NYC being pulled down so the GM building could go up, another disaster--because my father lost his travel agency concession and never was able to secure another one, a devastating financial blow.
• My mother Daisy Burk's cancer was a disaster (she lived only 3 years after her diagnosis).

Despite these disasters, this week I'm counting my blessings. I have a wonderful extended family (that's getting larger all the time--now that I've met Cousin Lois and Cousin Lil, descended from Meyer and Tillie Mahler, my pat g-grandparents). And I'm counting my blessings that I have a bit of time and energy to trace back my ancestors and those of my extended family.

Right now I'm on the trail of the Pietroniro family from Casacalenda, Italy. Piacentino (Peter) Pietroniro and his brother Paolo (Paul) came from Italy to New York City on the Taormina on July 10, 1923. Paul went to Montreal, Peter went back and forth between Montreal and Cleveland and ultimately settled in Cleveland, marrying Anna Yurko (whose father I mentioned in my last blog entry). More info to come, I hope!

Wordless Wednesday - Josef Yurkov

This morning I made a discovery: Naturalization petitions are now available online for Joseph (Josef) Yurko (Yurkov) and his wife Anna, my step-children's maternal great-grandparents.

Thanks to the petition, I know that Josef was born in Hazlen, Czechoslovakia on May 7, 1873 and he was married to his wife, Ann Mary, in that town on Nov. 18, 1896. Josef and Ann had 7 children. The oldest, John, was born in 1899 in Czechoslovakia. All the others were born in Ohio, including Anna, my step-children's grandmother.

None of us had ever seen a photo of Josef, so this one (from his petition) is a first--leaving me almost wordless!