May 24, 2007
My grandfather
With a click on the touchpad and a few strokes on the keyboard, I found my grandfather's draft registration card last night, a ghostly apparition on the web, written in his own hand more than 60 years ago.
Cpl. Harry (Weiner) Lief, somewhere in France, circa 1918.
Grandpa a veteran of WWI, as well as the pursuit of Pancho Villa down into Mexico, wanted desperately to reenlist after the attack on Pearl Harbor. But my grandmother, with three children, was afraid he'd be shipped overseas and she'd lose her husband -- and the kids their father.
And so my grandfather didn't answer the call to arms, something he regretted to his dying day more than thirty-five years later.
It gives me a chill to look at the card; I recognize Papa's writing, and for an instant I can recall the feel of his white-stubbled cheek against mine as I give him a hug, the smell of his aftershave, Nana making silver-dollar pancakes, all part of my daily after-school routine after Riverside Drive Elementary lets out for the day and I walk to their apartment.
I also found this, a page from the 1930 U.S. Census.
Go ahead and click on it; you can read the larger version. Grandpa is on line 15, along with Nana and my Aunt Phyllis; Dad and his younger sister, Leona, hadn't yet made their debut.
Grandpa is only 34, a decade younger than I am now, and Nana is a mere 24, a youngster. It's hard to reconcile the old folks I knew and loved with this young family in New York, only a year after the Stock Market Crash of 1929.
As I looked at the rest of the page, it struck me that so many of their neighbors spoke Yiddish, were born in Eastern Europe; my roots in this country are relatively recent, yet I can't imagine being anything but an American. And yes, that's my family's original name, "Lifschutz," before Papa and his brothers picked a more suitable, American name in 1940.
Grandpa's been gone more than 30 years; grandma, more than 20. I miss them both and think of them often.
I found these images on Ancestry.com.
Posted by Mike Lief at May 24, 2007 11:47 PM
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Comments
I can see why you are proud of your grandfather. He fought in a legitimate war. I would like to see more articles about peace and love then war and killing.
Don't you think you could present a more complete picture of your papa if you talked about his love of music, the artistic pursuits he enjoyed or the animals he cared for? Wars should be neatly put away rather than placed front and center in the human consciousness.
Thank you for posting the wonderful article about the Air Car. This shows me that more than just war and killing, you have some appreciation for the efforts that are currently underway to save our mother earth from global warming and the destructive capitalst slaughter of our planet.
Posted by: Brad at May 25, 2007 07:16 PM
Gee whiz, Brad, give the supercilious whining a break, will you?
Posted by: The Little Coach at May 26, 2007 11:00 PM