Sold!

My mother called us yesterday to tell us they'd sold their house.  This was not unexpected; they've been planning on moving for several years now, and--despite the market--now was the time.  By the fall, they'll be living in Boston, and will be a more visible part of our daily lives. My childhood best friend was the one who made the sale.

I think that the sale is understandably bittersweet. Looking forward, I'm excited they will be a natural part of my son's life, in the same way my grandmother was a natural part of mine. Looking backwards, I'm nostalgic about both the physical space of the house I grew up in and the community of places and people in which it resides. 

My mother's family had a summer cottage in Lake Hopatcong in Sussex County, NJ. It wasn't much, space wise, but it seemed that every other story she told about her youth took place there. I asked her to describe it to me once, and she was able to paint a vivid mental picture of the layout and decoration. It was imprinted in her memory.

In my mind, the house in White Meadow Lake is apart from time. It exists as it did when I was both 5 and 15, including toys on the floor and CD packaging on the walls. I'll miss the physical space, but these images are mine to keep.

Old Photos

My college a cappella group, the Binghamtonics, is having a 20th Anniversary show next month. I'm going, wife and baby in tow, to the reunion. I'm looking forward to seeing friends who still live in the area and to the other folks coming in for the concert.  The current group members asked for photos, and I decided to scan all of the photos I had of the group from 1995 - 1997. 

Binghamtonics 1995 & 1996

Going through these photos (and the non-Tonics photos surrounding them in the three college albums) made me nostalgic and reflective. But they also made me happy. There were people in those photos I haven't seen in 10 years, friends and family who are no longer with us, and a guy who vaguely looks like me, only lankier and a few pounds thinner. It was nice to enjoy those moments again. 

I'm sure the reunion and the remodeled campus will make me feel even more sentimental. I'm looking forward to it.

Genealogical Success Story

I've been tracing my family tree for the better part of the last 10 years. It has been one of the few things that I've felt passion about and that has truly absorbed my attention. I've had some remarkable successes; I've discovered the names of ancestral shtetls lost to the living members of my family, recreated details of my ancestor's siblings' lives a century after their passings, and reconnected with cousins several generations after family rifts. I've put a website together to share my findings with my family--which I promise to update eventually!
One way to find other people who may be distant relations is to post your information to a common database. The JewishGen Family Finder is one such repository that focuses on, well, Jewish Genealogy. It is a family tree "net." Because I have a dozen or so postings there (e.g., Name: Broitman; Place: Savran, Ukraine), I get e-mails about twice a month from people asking if I could be related to them.  Most of the time the answer is "I don't see a definite connection, but I'll keep your family's information in mind as I continue my research."
A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from someone asking if we were related, and the answer was Yes! My great-grandfather, Meyer Golder, immigrated from Bivolari, Romania--near Iasi--around 1912. He was one of five brothers, three of whom emigrated to the US. The person who contacted me was a descendent of one of the two brothers who had remained in Romania! She, my third-cousin, lives in Israel, and seems as excited as I am about the connection. We've traded photos and a few stories, and I expect we will do more in the future.
I don't know much more, but I am excited to have reconnected with this part of the family. I've always been as interested in the "tree" aspect of genealogy as much as the "roots" aspect--this is the best kind of genealogical success.