Tool: Informal Archives
Thank goodness for ancestors who took the time to record family history!
Edit: I originally said that Ida was my great-grandfather’s sister, but she was of course his niece.
Right now, I’m relying heavily on a family archive shared with me by my cousin Joan Weisberg I work on a chapter about Appalachian rurality and Jewishness. (Thank you, Joan!) One of the most valuable resources—though it’s all valuable—is a collection of her father’s, Simon Meyer, writing.
The folder starts out suggesting that the project began as simply a history of the Meyer family, but it expanded to include several parts of Joan’s family tree, including the Polans. (Simon was married to my great-grandfather’s niece, Ida Polan.)
Joan has suggested that not everyone found Simon’s writing particularly important or edifying at the time of its writing, but it is certainly HUGELY useful to me. ‘
For instance, this draft of a speech that Simon gave at AI’s 93rd birthday, is wonderful in the details it provides as well as in the glimpse into the voices of several long-gone family members. Not all of the facts are verifiable. (In fact, the name of the nobleman listed in this speech seems almost certainly to have been incorrect, given my research into who owned the nearby manor homes.) But that matters much less to my project than the Simon’s voice, and what matters most of all is his desire to preserve this history which—let’s be honest—it seems my great-grandfather and his siblings were more than eager to leave unknown.
I am deeply touched by the last paragraph of Simon’s introduction to this collection, which he has called “A Tzimmes: Biography, Letters, Speeches, Family Tree, Familia Vitae.”
This book is a labor of love and it is my great hope that it will make our family in the future, persons of knowledge and pride concerning their forebears.
Indeed, the book does give me both more knowledge and greater pride. So he accomplished that goal, at least for my part.
I hope you, too, discover unexpected (and wonderful) archives in your search for stories and truths from your family’s past. What have you found, friends, and where have you found it?
—Sarah
Simon is kvelling!
So excited to be following this!