Notes on America on the 250th anniversary of its birth: Part 1– the random migratory patterns in America
My father-in-law died recently in an assisted living center in Westfield, Indiana. We held the memorial service last Thursday at a Mangiano's in Indianapolis. He would have been 90 years old at the end of this month. Alzheimer's stole his brain and his memories some years ago; his death was a release. Since his death, my husband has been gifted with some family documents, including a letter with the memories of a distant family member about the history of my husband's family in the US. My own side of the family is pretty new to America - my mother herself was an immigrant from Ireland - intending to stay in America temporarily but met my father in a bar in Chicago and is now buried in a Catholic cemetery in the suburbs of Chicago. Of my four grandparents, three were born in other countries – my maternal grandparents were obviously born in Ireland and my paternal grandmother was born in a shtetl in Tsarist Russia. Her family came to America in 1907 fleeing Tsarist pograms. ...