1. strongly infatuated
2. of or related to grandparents, esp. with regard to their grandchildren
Most recently brother Larry is a new grandfather to Noah Bey, Laura’s firstborn son.
He recently told me that he never really understood being a grandparent until he became one. I totally agree. Noah Henry Savolaine, my first grandchid, was born in 2004 and is now ten. I was in love with him from the first moment I saw him, an hour after he was born. It has continued ever since. As each new grandchild was born, I felt the same love all over again. In just a month we will be celebrating the “littles”, Josephine Leigh Manthorne and Jack Fritz Savolaine, our last two grandchildren who were born two weeks apart during “Snowmageddon”, a huge snowstormn complex in February 2010. We treasure them all.
Once, after Beatrix Eloise, Melissa’s first daughter was one and Noah was four, we were at the beach and I noticed Noah was being kind of mean to Beatrix. When he and I were sitting quietly, I asked him if he thought that,now that Beatrix was born, we didn’t love him as much. He nodded ruefully. I told him that it didn’t work that way, that with every grandchild the amount of love just gets bigger. It never get less. He thought that over and I noticed he was nicer to her. Now they are inseparable at family gatherings.
i think that the reason it does is that we were raised that way. It goes back generations. But Mom and Dad both loved us each as the unique people we are. They leanred that in turn from their folks. As an extended family we have all had the good fortune to have parents who loved us unconditionally. The Fritz, McElligott, Bruner, Johns and Podgurski families who are part of our clan have all had loving parents who showed us how this works and we are blessed by their examples. The new generation is equally blessed.
So for those of you for whom grandparenthood (and besottedness) is still in the future, you will not feel anything is missing from your life before they come and will have no idea how you could live without them afterward.
Although the original post on this blog focused on the Fritz and McElligott families, there are other families included under this umbrella. Aunt Mary McElligott married Dr. Bill Bruner and their children and grandchildren are all part of our extended family and of this blog.
We didn’t get to spend as much time with the Bruner family as with the Fritz family because fairly early they moved to New Mexico. What summer vacations we had we went to Montana to visit my Dad’s parents and saw a lof of the Western Fritz family but not the Bruners. Even so, the Bruners did come to Kansas City to visit Grandma McElligott and we did get to see them then. Once we had moved to Maryland (in 1957) it seemed that we fairly often vacationed at the same time. so we did get to see each other.
From those times I remember most my interactions with Karen and Rita, since we were close in age. Karen was very playful and Rita was quieter, but I tend to remember them as a pair. We also saw “Dad” Bruner, Uncle Bill’s father, who lived in Wichita, Kansas. I never had the opportunity to get to know the younger Bruners as a child, although they’ve been part of my life in later years. The whole Bruner family, inluding Dad Bruner, came to our wedding in 1967, which was great. Bill Bruner lived in Kansas City while he went to the Kansas City College of Osteopathic Medicine and we saw him frequently at Uncle Ed amd Aunt Pat McElligott’s house. Bill drove a beautifukl Buick Riviera (had it been his Dad’s car?) which we all admired (and envied).
One thing I really appreciated was the presence of Bill, John and Paul at both Mom’s and Dad’s memorial services in 2013 and the lovely messages I received from the other siblings. We’ve been scattered across the US and don’t have enough opportunities to see each other but you’re all part of this wonderful family! I have high hopes for the 2015 reunion!
In the Spring of 1970 I was in the Navy on sea duty, getting ready to deploy on a 4 month cruise on USS Wasp. Grandma Fritz had never seen Eric, who was then eleven months old. Carmen and I made a trip to Butte to see her, show off our son and have some time together before I left for several months.
We flew there on Frontier Airlines, in what Uncle Bill Fritz called a “Fat Albert”, one of the then-new Boeing 737s. In those days they were not the stretch versions we fly in today. They were short and small. The one we flew in left Salt Lake City, where we stayed overnight with Bill, Gerry and family, and had a great family dinner. Then we flew on towards Butte. The weather was so bumpy that lunch (remember when the airlines fed you?) was sandwiches passed over the passengers’ heads from the front of the plane. As we approached Butte, the captain came on the intercom ans said, “Folks, the Butte weather isn’t great, we probably won’t make it in. We’ll try one approach and if we don’t get in, we’ll take you to our next stop in Helena.” I guess they would have sent us to Butte by bus.
In we went and, in the end, we made it. Butte, you see, is in a valley and the airplanes only need to get safely below the ridge before they can descend. They managed to see the runway so they could land safely. The weather was snowing, with high overcast clouds that obscured the mountaintops.
Welcome to Spring in Butte. When we left Kansas City flowering trees were in bloom and the weather was very mild. I had only been to Butte (at least when I was old enough to remember), in August. How was I to know that Summer in Butte was the first three weeks of August?
Aunt Nan and Grandma with Eric
We were met by Grandma and Aunt Nan, who took us home to Grandma’s house on John St. It was a nice, cozy 1-bedroom house. Grandma had us sleep in her bedroom while she slept on the couch. Eric slept in a sleeping bag on the floor next to our bed, between it and the wall. It was great accomodations for most of a week.
We had a great time! Aunt Nan invited us to her house, which was on on Carolina, same house as when I visited as a kid. She took us on a tour of Butte and showed us the sights:
the Berkeley pit, which among other things displaced Columbia Gardens, the former amusement park in Butte,
the only house in the city with a new coat of paint (I exaggerate, but not a lot), which was paid for by money received for its role in an episode of Route 66, a then-current TV show,
and last but certainly not least, the Montana Mining Museum, on the site of the former Orphan Girl copper mine.
The Orphan Girl mine,you will recall from an earlier post, was the mine we visited when I was a boy. The old wooden fence was torn down and replaced by the gate shown above. The old gallus frame that supported the elevator for the miners to go down into the mine is still there, along with a small gift shop. I thought at the time that the gift shop was in Grandma and Grandpa’s former cottage home at the mine, but someone told me it wasn’t. Can anyone shed light on this? Carmen bought a copper necklace from the gift shop, which she still has.
One night Nan and Jack took us to a bar called Luigi’s in Butte. There were a bunch of puppets decorating the wall, as I recall, which I found a little weird. Then, as we sat drinking a beer, the bartender hit a switch and all the puppets started to move. They were all connected via strings to a motor that made them move. It was really fun, not weird at all.
We truly enjoyed our visit, even though it snowed 5-6 inches in the middle of the week. I walked a couple of blocks to the grocery store during the storm and, when I came back, Grandma told me that as I opened the door bringing in groceries, I reminded her of my Dad doing the same thing.
While we were there Aunt Nan bought Eric his first pair of jeans. She told me it was high time he had some jeans, being eleven months old! We were sorry to go when the time came, despite the weather. We received the warmest welcome we could have imagined.
Eric with his first pair of jeans and the quilt that Grandma Fritz made for him.
The image above shows Eric with his new jeans and the quilt that Grandma made him, She made one for each of our children. Eric so loved his that they were inseparable. When Carmen just had to wash it, he would wait by the dryer until it was done. Today all that remains is a single square, which we cherish.
I remember Grandma’s house since we lived there until 1952 when I was 8.I’m not sure how we fit Grandma, Uncle Ed, Mom, Dad and three children in a three bedroom, 1 bath house, but we did. I remember one night Ed and I were sleeping in the back bedroom when a bat flew in. The back bedroom had no closet but it did have eight windows surrounding it. We called it the sleeping porch. The bat got in one window but couldn’t find its way out. Dad and Ed chased it with two tennis rackets and trapped it in the bathroom. I never learned its fate but I can guess.
The house was a three bedroom, one bath house with a stone foundation. The front porch was covered and spanned the entire width of the house. At some point Grandma had is screened but initially it was open. In those pre-air conditioniong days, we spent lot of time out there. I even remember sleeping there on hot nights in Summer. Inside the livinbg room was the entire front of the house. Off the LR to the right was a dining room with a beautiful oak built-in buffet. To the left was a hallway with steps to the second story , the door to the basment and, at the end of the hallway the kitchen. I know the house wasn’t huge but we managed to have family breakfasts in the kitchen and big dinners in the dining room. Upstairs were two big bedrooms with walk-in closets and a single bathroom in addition to the sleeping porch. It was a great house and a lot of memories were made there. My daughter Melissa bought a very similar house in Baltimore in 2000, in a sad state of repair. By the time she moved over a decaade later it had been restored to its former glory.
Recently brother Larry asked about the plantings in Grandma McElligott’s yard. Here is Uncle Ed’s reply:
At the SE back corner was a liac bush; along the N side line in back yard were irises (flags); along the N side of the house were lilies of the valley; on the frontW. edge was spirea and miniature roses; azalea on the S front yard and W same side was a peony; orange blossoms along the S back line; morning glories front W edge; trumpet vine S front porch edge and clover and dandelions and sweet clover all over. All beautiful in their time, just as mother nature intended.
Today it’s the World Museum of Mining but I remember it as the Orphan Girl mine where Grandpa Fritz was caretaker during the years we vacationed in Montana.
We would approach the Orphan Girl along a high wooden fence When we came to the gate there was a hole through which you could see a rope bell pull. We would pull it and then Grandpa would open the gate for us. The caretaker’s house was along the fence very close to the gate. It was a small, one bedroom house with an enclosed porch in the back that served as a second bedroom. When we arrived I always ran ro Grandma’s pantry, where she would usually have put some of her filled raisin cookies that we loved.
It was crowded in such a small house with our growing family. We (the chidren) slept on the floor in sleeping bags. I remember in 1953 (we were there in my ninth birthday) we were spread over the living room floor. All day long Grandpa had been threatening to give me a birthday spanking, one swat for each year. He hadn’t gotten in more than one (very light) swat all day. When we were ready for bed, I was in front of Grandpa’s favorite chair. He stepped over me to get to it and the toe of his slipper brushed my forehead. He immediately bent down with a very concerned look and asked if he had hurt me. He hadn’t, and I said so, He instantly resumed his usual gruff look and said that he still owed me seven more swats. Too late! From that moment on I knew he was really a softie inside that gruff exterior.
Every night it was Grandpa’s duty as watchman to turn on the floodlights over the mine yard. He usually let me accompany him on his rounds. One night after all the lights were turned on, he stopped in the gallus frame building (it’s in the picture above) to talk with some miners there. I guess there was a small crew still working even though the mine was not active. When Grandpa went to the bathroom they started talking about him. They really respected him as a crusty old-timer. I also learned about how Broken Ass Kelly got his name (a story for another time) and how they introduced Cabbage Ass McManus (don’t ask) to his future father-in-law by that moniker. Grandpa’s nickname was Hardface.
I made my last summer trip to Montana in 1958 for Grandpa’s funeral. I’ll tell the story of that trip later. The family didn’t go back until 1964, by which time I had a job and coud only go with the fanily as far as Kansas City. I went one more time to Butte in 1970 with Camen and Eric, who was almost 1. That trip was in April, when I discovered that summer in Butte was the first two weeks of August. April was late winter, and we had snow. That trip will also be in another post.
Time was fireworks were legal everywhere and were used in every famiy 4th of July celebration. I mentioned that we went to Montana in the summer when we could afford it. One summer (1954 I think) Mom and Dad had a firework stand on Independence Avenue in Northeast Kansas City to fund our trip.
The stand was a cheap temporary booth along the sidewalk. Mom went over to open up in early afternoon and left a meal for me to warm up for the family. When Dad got home from work the family would eat, then we would go relieve Mom for the evening. I went with Dad but I’m not sure any of the other siblings did.
At that time it was against the law to sell exploding fireworks in KC. We had cones, sparklers, Roman candles, etc. but nothing that would explode. One slow night someone wanted to buy a Screaming Fountain, which we had never sold. All he had was a $20 bill and we couldn’t make change so he didn’t buy it. ($20 went a lot farther then!) After he left we wondered what it did. Since it was a slow night, we decided to light one off. Dad lit it, and it started out with a spray and a high pitched scream. The scream slowly shifted down to lower and lower tones. When it got to a very low pitch … BLAM!!! It exploded very loudly. Dad quickly got rid of the remains and we took them off the shelf. Fortunately the frequent police patrols weren’t close by.
Not many years later there was a very tragic accident in a Katz Drugstore where a firweworks dispay caught fire and killed two young women working there. After that Kansas City banned most fireworks inside city limits.
That was the Summer after Lois was born. I don’t know that there are any pictures but if I find any I’ll update this post.
In 1955 my Grandma McElligott took me to Salt Lake City on the train to visit Aunt Gerry who was about to have a new baby. G’ma had a widow’s pass with Missouri Pacific that paid for our tickets. I remember riding in the observation car (a car with a raised, transparent bubble with several seats) while we went through Royal Gorge in Colorado. The train tracks ran along the bottom of a deep gorge with an auto bridge high overhead. What a beautiful sight!
When we made it to Salt Lake City the Fritz family lived out on the edge of the city (at the time). We used to go out and run around the countryside. There was a place we often went which we called “Purple Rock”, a short distance away through open country. When Carmen and I visited fifteen years later it was in the heart of the suburbs, with an interstate running between it and the mountains.
One thing I remember about the visit is Uncle Bill giving me a bloody rare steak which he grilled on the carport, we (my “double cousins” and I) had a wonderful time together and it was the one time I spent a lot of time with Grandma. We had almost two weeks together. I treasure that.
I mentioned my cousin Vicky Podgurski in my first post and wanted to share a story she told me.
Vicky was at school in Geneva, Switzerland in the late 1960’s and her brother Jay was in the Army in Turkey. She wanted to visit him and took the train to Turkey. At some point in the trip she found herself in a rural train station in what was then Yugoslavia, waiting for the next connection. She hadn’t eaten for a while and was very hungry. In the station was an old man (probably younger than I am now!) cooking some stew on a pot-bellied stove. It smelled delicious and she was ravenous. The man noticed her watching him and, with no language in common, pantomimed an offer to share. She accepted a bowl and loved it. After a while she began to wonder what was in it and tried to ask him. You can imagine how hard that was but after a few quizzical moments realization dawned on him.
One of the highlights of my youth was vacationing in Montana. We would drive from Kansas City to Butte on the U. S.highways, a slow drive at best. Mom and Dad would alternate drving and we wouldn’t stop overnight. They had to be exhausted by the time we reached Butte!
The first vacation I can document was in 1949.I have a picture of us at the entrance to Teton National Forest in Yellowstone. Mom and Dad posed with me, Larry and Ruth.That Summer we went in July and were there for Fourth of July. I remember seeing parade floats lined up to start, Dad’s dog Ches chasing (and, sadly, catching) a lit firecracker Uncle Bill had thrown. Miraculously, Ches wasn’t hurt.
It was also my first airplane ride. Uncle Bill was part owner of a Piper Super Cub and he took me and Mom for a ride. I don’t think Mom liked it but I never forgot it. We went many times (but not every year). While we were there we got to play with Mark Johns (Dad’s sister Nan’s son) and Bill and Gerry’s children. In those innocent days they let us go out (we stayed at the Orphan Girl mine where Grandpa was a caretaker) into the surrounding country and stay all day. It was an idyllic part of childhood that lasted a decade.
Happy Thanksgiving! This is a great time to give thanks for our (very) extended family. Our children have added to this family through marriage and I include all these families in the scope of this site. We will have many memories, some happy, some sad, but all of them defining us. For them (you) all I give profound thanks.
On this Thanksgiving I want to mention that we have lost one of our own this month. Dr. Edward Savolaine, father of our daughter Stephanie’s husband Dave, died on November 17. Ed was a neuroradiologist and helped countless people in his practice but he was also my co-grandfather of Noah and Jack Savolaine, a role he relished and performed beautifully. He loved deeply and will never be forgotten by any who knew him. Steph, Dave, Noah and Jack are with Carol Savolaine and the rest of the family today remembering him and mourning his loss.
