Today, we'll look at the Weigel side of the family...The Paternal Grandparents. Their story is relatively short, despite the fact that a distant cousin of Daddy's, named Helen Hall, researched and put together a genealogy of the Brungardt clan, of which Daddy was a member. I don't think I'm telling you more than I know when I write that his mother was a Brungardt.
And, I don't think we'd ever heard of Helen Hall until she showed up at our door one afternoon, and proceeded to move in for a few days more than Mother was comfortable with. Mary, by this time, was either in college or living in California so she missed our Helen Hall. Helen talked a lot, basically dominating any conversation. She was an expert on nearly everything, so the rest of us remained rather quiet...including Uncle Joe, who was an expert on everything but, with Helen, surprisingly polite.
Mary has the actual genealogy books, and I have a book of stories that Helen wrote, called Grandfather's Story. It's a little blue book on the shelves in the den in case you're looking, and does go back into the years in which the family was in Russia. I've never read the entire book, but I have good intentions.
My paternal grandfather was Joseph Valentine Weigel. He was born in 1869--I assume in Russia--and died in Victoria in 1947. I would have been two, going on three when he died and my only memory of that event was being put down for the night in a bed that was already occupied. Maybe it was Aunt Hattie or Aunt Ida? I don't know, I only have that brief flash. Just enough to remember I didn't like it. And, thinking about it now, hoping I was beyond the bed wetting stage. Especially if it was Aunt Hattie or Aunt Ida. I'm sure they didn't make plastic pants then...although, even thirty years later they didn't really work worth a darn.
Mary has memories of going to Victoria, but I've only seen photos. Aunts and uncles, other kids older than I, and older men and women who might have been related, but I don't really know. I do know that fishing was a popular activity there, simply because the aunts have talked about it and I've seen the occasional photo of everyone holding stringers of fish. It's a pretty flimsy memory to hold onto, I know.
It sounds silly, but I don't really know what Joseph Valentine Weigel did for a living. He fathered thirteen children--twelve survived, so he had to be doing something besides just resting up. I think they lived in Victoria itself...maybe just across the street from the Catholic church, and I don't remember any talk about a farm...so, that's a mystery.
Katharina Margaret Brungardt was my paternal grandmother. I love her name--Katharina seems so glamorous. So Russian...or maybe German. She was born in 1872, and died in the fall of 1962. I'm assuming she also was born in Russia, but I don't know. She did pop out a lot of kids, but when my Aunt Helen (Uncle Ed Weigel) went into labor during a visit to Victoria a year or two before Mary was born, Grandmother Katharina is said to have panicked because she only knew how to have a baby, not how to deliver one. Thanks to my Mother and unnamed others, Cousin Tom Weigel arrived all in one piece.
I can give you a roll-call of the uncles, in no particular order: Joe (oldest), Ray, Wendell. Bus (Bernard), Doc, Bill (Daddy), and Ed (youngest.) Now for the aunts: Ida (oldest), Hattie, Elsie, Eleanor, and Alice (youngest.) There are interesting facts and figures about the Weigels. Let me share just a few of them here...
Joseph Valentine and Katharina had twelve living children. Those twelve children produced twelve more children...which would be my generation. I've always thought that was quite ecologically responsible and an example of German precision. Of the seven boys, only Doc had a college education, although Ed would have liked to have you think he did. Out of five girls, four had college educations--two nurses and two teachers. I can't explain that anomaly, but I like it. Elsie (the only girl to miss college) married early, lost her first baby, then moved with her husband to California. They returned to Kansas only for infrequent visits. In fact, not a one of the twelve children remained in Victoria...which had to be unusual in that day.
If you're interested, there is the tiniest bit of gossip of the fairly harmless variety. Uncle Doc may have had a fondness for the drink and, unfortunately, for drugs. He married, divorced, and then married again. He had one son with each wife. When he was killed in a car accident, I was old enough to remember Daddy hearing the news on the phone. I'm sure it was a few years later that my Mother told the story of the Catholic priest in Victoria, telling my Grandmother that Doc could not be buried in the Catholic section of the Victoria cemetery because he had been DIVORCED and RE-MARRIED and so, was obviously living in MORTAL SIN...and I know you know what that means. Doc could, however, per the parish priest, be buried outside the fence of the cemetery near the Weigel section. Katharina did not take kindly to the exclusion of her son from sacred, hallowed ground, and she answered the priest that, no, he would not be buried outside the fence, and took Doc to Gorham, Kansas, where he was buried in blessed soil...inside the fence. I'm proud of Katharina.
Many years later, heaping insult upon injury (although that's just my opinion) when Uncle Joe died, and his estate was dispersed, it was equally divided into ten shares...not the twelve shares you might expect for his twelve nieces and nephews. I had mentioned Uncle Doc's two boys a paragraph or so above. They were cut out of Uncle Joe's will--not just not mentioned, but excluded by name. I think it was a "Sins of the Parents being visited on the Children" sort of moment, but I've always been taken aback by that. Now, I wish I could remember if Ida, Hattie, or Alice included them. Part of me thinks that at least one of them did...but I can't be sure.
It's interesting to me, at least, that we never really knew the twelve cousins. I have never met Doc's two boys, and they might not even be living now. We saw Tom and Chris occasionally...occasionally meaning every few years. Elsie's two children were Dorothy and (I think) Rick. I don't know anything about them. I have met Wendell's son once or twice in Kansas City, but I don't think I've met his sister. We grew up with Barbara although, she was probably ten years older than I. Bill was another five or so years older than Barb and, sadly, he died a number of years ago. And that leaves Mary and me.
There is no doubt that Mother and Daddy loved their families, but neither needed to be surrounded by them. I know they enjoyed the times when there were gatherings...but years could pass between those visits. I don't know that I ever met Uncle Doc, and only met Aunt Eleanor two or three times. It was the same with Aunt Elsie...I saw her less than a handful of times. I met Wendell at least once--he did live on a farm outside of Kansas City until they moved to Oregon, and I dearly loved Uncle Bus who visited now and then. He was, I believe, my Godfather--in the Catholic sense of the word. I visited Ida, Hattie and Alice when they lived in Kansas City and I was in school at K-State. Of course, Joe and Ray lived in Dodge City so I grew up with them, and Ed and Helen were a huge part of my few years in Omaha.
Katharina was unable to cope with life after my grandfather died, and her daughters (Ida, Hattie and Alice) decided she should move to Kansas City where Ida was living. Hattie would resign her teaching job in Detroit to be a full-time caretaker for Katharina, while Ida continued to work--she was an anesthetist for a surgeon who taught and practiced at the KU Medical School. Alice would cheer them on from her lovely apartment in Greenwich Village and would continue to teach Home Economics in Elizabeth, NJ, but certainly visit Kansas City every summer...if she had the time. I don't think anyone questioned the arrangement, and it simply came to be. They purchased (or built) a lovely four-bedroom, four-bathroom house on an acre of land somewhere on Nall Avenue. They loved the house--it was the first of three they built over a number of years...each a little nicer and larger than the one before. Eventually, Grandmother died, Alice retired, followed soon after by Bus, and both moved to Kansas City, joining Hattie and Ida in the family home.
We took the train to Kansas City once or twice a year, visiting Ida, Hattie and Grandmother. Grandmother never spoke, nor do I think she ever acknowledged that I was there. She was in a little world of her own, rocking occasionally near a front window. Daddy always went in alone to talk to her...he was rumored to be her favorite...but I don't know if they were ever able to really communicate. Grandmother was a mysterious woman through no fault of her own. I don't know if she wanted to be moved to Kansas City, or what her state of health really was. Maybe she couldn't have lived on her own, but she failed quickly after her move. I dreaded going to visit and was always uncomfortable...maybe even a little frightened. These visits to Kansas City were always quiet affairs. Life was lived in whispers or very low tones. Laughter wasn't appropriate, and doors must shut quietly. We tip-toed around each other as Katharina slowly slipped away from us all.
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