Poem: "American Roots"

[ysabetwordsmith]

This is today's freebie, inspired by a backchannel prompt from my partner Doug about his mother's family history.  It also fills the "familiarity" square in my 8-1-15 card for the As You Like It bingo fest.


"American Roots"


Francis Bieschke came
to America with dreams of
a place to put down roots.

He settled in Detroit, and
for the next five generations,
nobody moved more than
fifty miles away.

They became a clan,
neighbors scattered
across nearby blocks.

His descendants built
a house on Mitchell Street
where they watched the city
grow and peak and collapse
all around them.

It became a family joke --
"Some people have feet,
we have roots."

Comments

Lovely!

[dialecticdreamer]

That's what's happened in my life- I lived in a dozen cities over a dozen years, then spent thirty plus years in the same city.

I love it. Family history in places, just because some families focus that way.

Re: Lovely!

[ysabetwordsmith]

Yay! I'm glad this resonated for you. There is a counterpoint about my father's family, who did the exact opposite, scattering everywhere. I think "American Roots" and "American Wings" make a great set.

Re: settled families and their people when scattered

[librarygeek]

Some families do, when they can. Mine was three generations for both sides in an island town. On my mother's side, we could point at wards and wings of the county hospitals funded by a family charity because that's what you DO when faced with family medical catastrophes and a high level business. On Dad's side, we learned what roots could be with the local little market and laundromat. But since the city has gone downhill, we've all left, but when anyone of our generation goes home, it's STILL HOME, though I've moved away for over a decade now. Here, I'm no longer X's granddaughter, Y's grandniece, or the child of my parents, I'm just me. It's unsettling, and reassuring, and sometimes my speech patterns don't match up with local expectations and I upset others.

Re: settled families and their people when scattered

[dialecticdreamer]

Heh, that's a pretty diverse family tree!

Re: settled families and their people when scattered

[librarygeek]

It is. My maternal grandmother did NOT like my father from the wrong side of the tracks, taking Mom on European tours and such, but when Mom had whooping cough and was hospitalized, losing half a lung, Dad visited daily. Grandmother finally conceded that Mom could marry "What's his face" as she called him almost until Grandmother died. :-D

Re: settled families and their people when scattered

[mama_kestrel]

When I was 15 my family (which had moved at least a dozen times in my life by that time) moved back to the city my mother grew up in. It was very strange for me, because suddenly someone would look at me and say "you have Resnick eyes". I'd always been just me, and suddenly I was cousin, niece, granddaughter - 4 generations in a very closely-woven Jewish community.

Re: settled families and their people when scattered

[ysabetwordsmith]

Wow, that does sound disconcerting.

Re: settled families and their people when scattered

[librarygeek]

I have never gotten to see that, the opposite direction of my family. That would be pretty unsettling too! I'm Jewish too, but again division, Mom's side was Reform, Dad's was Conservative. My paternal grandmother was very snippy about being surprised that Mom could actually read the Hebrew and knew the prayers better than my dyslexic father. I have my dad's eyes, which were his mother's, and are now also my daughter's. :-)

[gingicat]

Where in Detroit did Doug grow up, and when? My Dad's family hung on in Detroit for as long as they could manage - my Aunt Bernice was among the very last white, not Greek, people to leave, and that was the early 80s.

They moved around the city a lot but "the house on Prairie" is frequently mentioned. Dad was the youngest, born in 1943. His oldest sister was born in 1925.

Reply from Doug

[(Anonymous)]

Pretty much the opposite side of town: Prairie Street is on the west side, a little bit north of halfway between the River and 8 Mile Road; I grew up on the near east side, and quite a bit further south. If you drew a triangle with the points in Downtown, Hamtramck, and Belle Isle, we were about centered in that triangle. I was born in 1954, and my folks moved back into the house my mom grew up in when I was 3; Mom was the last to leave, selling the house when my grandmother died in 1994.

Re: Reply from Doug

[gingicat]

Neat! There's such a variety of experiences. I wish Detroit could somehow be renewed.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Let's hope they don't run out of Entdraught.

*laugh*

[ysabetwordsmith.livejournal.com]

Well played. You know, I always suspected that 'rooting' tendency would be a side effect of that potion.

[janetmiles.livejournal.com]

I like this poem; I know the story from your partner Doug, and it always amused me.

May I offer a (I hope constructive) small suggestion?