I recently joined Amy Johnson Crow’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. I’ll receive a prompt for each week to write and share something about an ancestor. This week’s prompt is “First” – it can be interpreted however I choose. I’m going to write about the first time I learned about family history and genealogy, in other words, what started me on this lifelong journey of family exploration.
In 1984, I was in the 9th grade at C. E. King High School in Sheldon, Texas. My English teacher gave my class an assignment to fill out a family tree chart (just myself, my parents, and my grandparents, if I remember correctly). The chart was basic, asking for names, and dates of birth, marriage and death.
I enjoyed looking at old family photos with my grandparents, but I didn’t pay attention to details about either side. I brought the chart home and my Mama, Sally, sat down to help me with what she knew. Three of my four grandparents (Grandpa Buntyn, Grandma Buntyn, and Nana Irwin) were living at the time, easy to visit during the upcoming weekend and ask questions of them directly.
Mama shared information about her father, Fred Mendel Irwin (1899-1977). Pawpaw Irwin died when I was 8 years old, and I didn’t have a lot of strong memories about him. My memories of him mostly revolve around food, funnily enough – he loved making fried baloney sandwiches for us grandkids, walking us down the road to get ice cream, and taking the bus to downtown Houston to sit at the lunch counter in Foley’s Department Store.
Mama told me that Pawpaw was born with the name “Fritz Mendel Israelske”. Wait, what? I was floored – I didn’t know that my grandfather had a totally different name; it had never been mentioned to me before.
More information Mom shared that I didn’t know:
- Pawpaw was born in Denver, Colorado on 28 October 1899 (he was 43 when my mom was born)
- He had been married to and divorced from another woman decades before he met my Nana
- He had sons my Mom had never met (her half-brothers)
- He was a polyglot, fluent in 3 languages (English, German, Yiddish) and passable in 4 more (Spanish, French, Italian, Hungarian)
- He had “ridden the rails” during the Great Depression (he was a “hobo”)
- He had worked all over the country as a “carny” in traveling carnivals
- He was a non-practicing Jew – he didn’t keep kosher and rarely attended religious services
I was fascinated! I had no idea my Pawpaw Irwin had lived such a colorful life and I wanted to know more about him and his branch of the family.
My other grandparents shared interesting details about their own lives:
- My Grandpa Joe Stanley Buntyn (1909-1985) dropped out of high school, put himself through law school, passed the bar exam, and became a practicing attorney in Houston in the 1930s.
- My Grandma Alma Louise (Ware) Buntyn (1912-1997) moved from the countryside of Pflugerville, Texas, to the bustling suburbs of Dallas in her early years. Alongside her mother and sister, she sold bread door-to-door during the Great Depression. She moved to Houston by herself in the early 1930s.
- My Nana Grace Varine (Clements) Irwin (1915-2006) lived in tents in the oilfields of northwest Texas as a young girl. Her father worked in the oilfields with a team of huge horses. After her mother died in 1923, Nana was pulled between her mother’s family and father’s family before ending up in the Reynolds Presbyterian Home in Dallas. She graduated valedictorian of her class at Vickery High School. After dropping out of nursing school at University of Texas, getting married and having a family, she eventually went back to school and became a licensed vocational nurse.
All of these little details of the lives of my elders sparked an interest in me to learn more, an obsession that has continued for nearly 35 years.
#52Ancestors #FamilyHistoryObession
