You must admit, this venue has legs!
I thought I’d devote a post to my familial connection to France. This, although my Grandfather, who lived in Paris for five years prior to leaving Le Havre for New York in 1891, was born in Germany. Specifically, the province of Alsace-Lorraine. If he had been born two years earlier he would have been born, as birth records today state, in Moselle. It seems that Louis Napoleon (Napoleon III, he called himself) was no genius. He declared war on Prussia, and the newly united German empire pretty much walked to Paris and occupied the place. Louis Napoleon had left town by then. Part of the peace treaty ending the war ceded Alsace and a chunk of Moselle to Germany. I had a couple of grand uncles (who I never met) who were born French, but grandpa was a German. When he was naturalized, he had to forswear allegiance to the Kaiser of Germany specifically. He did. He pretty much hated the Kaiser of Germany.
That is because, in 1886, his father, my great-grandfather, had been drafted into the German army and died, as grandpa said, “in the war.” I’m not sure what war, but there it is. He, his two older (French born) brothers, and a friend were in line to be drafted next. Instead, they hid under the straw of a farmer’s cart. The farmer drove next to the river, where they slipped out, waded across, and proceeded to walk to Paris. That was 1886. Grandpa arrived in Brooklyn in October of 1891, which means that he was there for the construction of the Eifel Tower, the Grand Exposition of 1889, and other notable events of La belle epoch. I have no idea what he actually did there, outside of learn to make glass, but I have notes for a book in which I combine the things I do know with an imagined set of adventures in Paris during those years. I figure if you couldn’t have an adventure from 1886 to 1891, you couldn’t have an adventure at all, so, as I said, I have notes. The actual subject of the book is, of course, Paris in La belle epoch. If you’re interested in writing at all, check out my writing blog, the link is in the header.
Grandpa was the last to leave for America. I’ve seen the single line of information written by the customs agent at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. He travelled in steerage (deck A), had money in his pocket, a job lined up, and was a glassmaker. He made good stuff, for the Tiffin Glass company (it had various names over the years.) I have some Tiffin crystal, and maybe grandpa made it, maybe not. But, he did speak French at one time, his family was French (his grandfather was named Baltazard!) and now here I am bringing a little bit of him back home, so to speak. It’s kind of odd, really, when I consider that, in a real sense, in Europe, I am an aboriginal. I don’t know if grandpa would approve or not. Probably, he’d wonder why the Hell I moved here. I guess that would be his problem though, and not mine.