For Aidan, Manny and Liam, and the younger generations coming in— so you will have some kind of record. This was written long ago written; I am hoping you will all take it from where I left off. So much has changed since 2006- so many sadly gone, and yet, so much new Life to record and celebrate. I have also since reconnected with my dad’s paternal family so there are new details that, long as this is, will have to be omitted. For now… I have kept this true to what I wrote almost decades ago…

Sebastian’s family tree hangs proudly in a gilded frame on the first wall you see when you enter his parent’s ancient stone cottage, nestled in the loamy, verdant hills of southwestern France.

“I’m a Stewart of Appin, a royal Stewart,” my well-bred Scottish-French friend declared proudly as we stood side by side in front of his family tree, as if such a claim means anything to most Americans.

“What do I know from Stewart?” my dead Jewish grandmother would have responded in her nasally Long Island drawl had she been told of such a detail while alive. “I know from kindness. I know from art. Your grandfather knows from tennis and business. But a Stewart? What the hell is a Stewart?”

“I have no idea what that is,” I admitted, trying to shoo my grandmother’s voice out of my head. Sebastian quickly began to rattle off the deeds in battle and good breeding of his forebears. Their powerful roles in the governments of Scotland, France and England, the ways they had helped conquer and transform the world that was old Europe.

Sebastian pointed to the mapping of his family’s legacy, the tree’s heavy branches spreading out before us. This was very different from the version introduced to me in public elementary school when Mrs. Kremin drew a stick figure version of a scrawny tree in chalk without much fanfare. This one was drawn intricately with a steady, artistic hand depicting an actual tree, its leaves adorned with the family’s honored ancestors, names I could easily recognize even with a sorry excuse for an education in history: Queen Elizabeth the 1st, Queen Elizabeth the 2nd, King James the 1st, and others. In his impeccable British diction, he explained how Mary Stewart was the Queen of Scotland, Prince Charles Edward Stewart after whom Sebastian was given his two middle names, was supposed to become King of Scotland but was forced to flee by the, by the…? Well, to tell the truth, I can’t remember. And, I couldn’t even begin to comprehend how he could.

“And Banquo of Lochaber,” he articulated, pointing to the unusual name scrolled in fancy lettering, “was mentioned in Macbeth.” He continued on about the others, but my mind had drifted back to Mrs. Kremin’s fourth grade class again. None of us middle and lower class descendants of immigrants had grown up with such a thing on our walls. None of us could even approximate this declaration of familial history. The ones we scribbled in our lined composite books were pathetic attempts to remember the real first names of our parents, aunts and grandparents. Not only were very few of us able to remember last names but even fewer could include the name of a great grandparent on their emaciated “trees.” Sebastian’s was almost mythical, enviable by comparison, if one was the kind of person to whom formidable breeding was of greatest import.

My Grandpa Irving and my Uncle Loren (neé David)

But I grew up in America, the land of accomplishments done and dreams actualized in this lifetime. Immigrant families (and the pioneers before us) have always arrived on US soil with our burdens of (and freedom from) what we have left behind. If we want to survive and succeed in this ‘New World,’ the notion has usually been that we must recreate ourselves. Become “American,” whatever that may be in reality. On my mother’s side, that meant not teaching the children Russian or Polish, it meant giving them American names, it meant buying clothes in stores even though my great-grandfather was a tailor and could have made every outfit my mother, her sister and brother needed.

Family crests and lineage of the “Old Country” mean nothing at all once you arrive here. And even our American versions of “royalty” hold little clout compared to our living, breathing, Botox injected celebrities. Sure we have our Daughters of the Revolution, Bushes, Kennedys, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts, but frankly, most Americans care more about glitterati status than political accomplishments, probably because even the reputations of our politicians are so blemished, their dirty laundry aired for all to see.

Since “our” (post-Colonial) country is so young, and with it, our limited history, perhaps our sense of time is very different from people of other places. Although in some ways that’s a liberation, for many of us, it seems our own personal and family histories have become severely truncated. It is mostly current news that interests us most. It is who you know NOW, what you have built, earned, created yourself, and those of your family you have known personally.

One can agree or disagree with the American Dream and the effect it has had on the world. Meanwhile, there are uncountable success stories of immigrants who have left everything behind and with little more than perseverance in their pockets, they amassed fortunes and achieved incomparable fame on American soil.

As I studied Sebastian’s family tree, I thought about the effects of one’s family history no matter how far back “memory” extends, and how we can likewise become burdened or empowered by the legacies we inherit.

My grandpa Irving (right), maternal Great Grandma Buddy- born Esther (center) and maternal Great Grandfather, Manny (left)

My maternal grandfather grew up during The Great Depression, his Jewish parents’ arrival from Russia to the US occurring only a few years before his birth. Penniless, my great-grandfather attempted to support his daughter, two sons, and wife on his meager earnings doing I don’t know what, because the details of our family’s history are embarrassingly deficient. In fact to write this, I called up my Great Aunt Phylis, my “Uncle” Buzzy, my Aunt Ellen, my Cousin Hadria, my second cousin Linda, and my mom, none of whom knew his exact profession or any jobs he might have held. The only odd bits of information I could gather about him were:

“He loved sardines. Ate them everyday.” – My cousin Hadria.

“He carried a satchel with him everywhere. Like a leather briefcase, but God only knows what was in there. It had nothing to do with work!” –Aunt Phylis.

“I think he had TB and was in a sanatorium.” –my mom.

My paternal Great Grandmother Annie and Great Grandfather Izzy

“He was definitely eccentric. Apparently he was so odd that he kept getting fired. Maybe that was one of your grandpa’s motivations for working. He really had to support the family.” – Uncle Buzzy

“I remember Izzy bringing home large bolts of fabric, like for men’s suits. Maybe he worked in a garment factory? I do know that he was frugal beyond belief!” -My second cousin Linda.

“My Grandpa Izzy collected newspapers, but apparently at the end he got so out there that you couldn’t even walk into his apartment because there were so many. He called my dad hysterical one day to say his money was stolen. It turned out it was hidden in a suitcase, buried under mounds of newspapers.” –My Aunt Ellen.

I may not have gleaned any information on his profession but what I did learn made him more real to me than if I had been told, “Izzy Lawner was a bank teller.” Give me eccentric, flawed, and HUMAN, over a colorless title any day! But then again I am a writer who loves a good story!

By my deceased Grandpa Irving’s account, theirs had been a somber home, without much humor or affection. Life was hard, and food was often scarce. He attended public High School in Brooklyn, working odd jobs from the age of ten onwards—having a paper route, selling ice cream, selling waffle irons door to door in New York, and taking people’s blood pressure on the streets of Times Square. Is it true what my aunt Ellen said about him putting tennis balls in the washing machine when he was married to my grandma and reselling them as new? It’s another funny glimmer into what he might have been.

But probably the most formative and impacting event of my young grandfather’s life was when he got his very first tennis racket at age of thirteen. He was a natural, competing as a young student at Brooklyn College before he joined the army at the start of World War Two. He was so good that the officers preferred his presence on the base, improving their serves and strokes, rather than fighting abroad. When he was discharged in his early twenties, he began importing tennis rackets from India and selling them at a profit. My aunt Ellen told me that he began his company with a mere $100.00, loaned to him by Roz Abrams, a family friend. He soon took shelf space in Kresky’s to sell his items. Sometime later, in lieu of payment for a large order of inventory, my grandfather opted for stock in this fledgling department store. Kresky’s would become Kmart, that same stock in-turn making my grandfather the bulk of his eventual fortune.

Soon after he began his importing company, he married my young grandmother, a lower class Jewish girl from the Bronx whose parents had immigrated from Poland with their thick accents and provincial ways. Still, my Great Grandfather, Manny, was known as a lover of nature, and of an open mind. His experience as an underpaid “garmento” caused him to question the motivations of companies for sheer profit without concern for the conditions or fair compensation of the workers. My grandma might not have had a “proper education,” or “good breeding” but she had a kind heart and a healthy dose of rebellion. With these tools tucked into the waist of her seersucker dress, she questioned her new husband’s single-minded determination towards wealth. “Fuck the money,” she would say in her later years. “It’s money that destroys families.”

Grandma Frannie, Uncle Loren and Auntie Ellie

They had two daughters (one of whom is my mother) and a son. From modest beginnings, my grandfather Irv succeeded in building a multimillion-dollar sporting goods company. Along the way, the socialist leanings of my grandmother would now and then rub off on my more business minded, capitalist grandfather. Fueled by pure perseverance alone and without an inherited dollar, college education, or family clout on his side, he managed to amass a fortune large enough to donate substantially throughout his lifetime to schools and uncountable foundations, sponsored children from all over the world, not to mention was a generous and loving provider for his family. As a ranked tennis player himself, he also managed to coach generations of young tennis players on and off the court without charging a cent.

My grandmother marched for Civil Rights and Women’s Rights. She was a prolific painter and original thinker long before women were given validation for such pursuits. These ideas made her ahead of her time in many ways, and possibly caused her to clash with my grandfather more than either of them would have liked. Perhaps as a means of avoiding conflict between them, she drank at times. Still, she was a loving mother and grandmother. Fran Lawner cared so much about quality of life for all that her socialist heart had motivated her in young adulthood to organize her husband’s company against him for unfit working conditions, because her attempts at persuasion at the dinner table were not heeded. “I was a legend. Then he fired me. That was fine, it was time we started our family anyhow. I was pregnant with David (who later changed his name to Loren) soon after.”

My Jewish family had lost many family members to wars and persecution, none of whom I know by name, none of the details I carry with me because they were never told or written down. These stories were just not shared in my family, have not become an integral part of our lore or identities, maybe to spare us the pain. My mother told me recently, (and only because I asked her) that she vaguely remembered meeting her Grandpa Manny’s sister when she was tiny. She had the impression that they once had a big family but were perhaps the only two survivors. But of what war? Where in Poland exactly? Like all those immigrant families who refused to teach their own children the languages of their Mother Lands in order for them to be more “American,” I too have been denied important facets of my identity. When my aunt Ellen went to Ellis Island to do research on our family, she could find no concrete information either. Dates and names were slightly different than the little information she thought to be true before her arrival there, causing her again to question “history.”

“I’m a Lawner, a name changed from Lauvner,” my Jewish aunt Ellen said humbly as she stood side by side with her boyfriend, in front of the information desk there. “My grandmother’s name was Shapiro, Esther Shapiro, born Esther Chuvnik. She married Emmanuel Shapiro, but I think somehow that name got changed from Spiro. His identification papers from Poland said “Max Spiro,” at least that’s what I have been told.

Immigrant names were often changed, the spelling left open to interpretation by the immigration official on duty. Did my great grandparents meet on the boat that brought them to these shores and arrive together? The records would suggest that, if my aunt was in fact on the right trail. And yet my great aunt remembers the story differently: that her parents met here, in the Lower East Side.

Ellen lamented, “It’s possible that the information I was getting was not about them at all. I wish I was able to find out more.”

(Left bottom:) Great Aunt Sylvia, (above her:) Grandpa Irving, (above him:) Great Uncle Morris. Others unknown

When I recently phoned my Great-Aunt Phylis (Rosenman), she filled in a few more of the details, though they seem to again conflict with the little information I had always carried with me as “truth.” I always thought my mother’s maternal grandparents were Polish, but apparently they weren’t from Poland as we know it to be now.

“Our parents spoke Russian when they didn’t want us to understand them. As soon as they came here, though, they went to night school. They learned well, but they always spoke English with an accent. When our Bubba (maternal grandmother) came to live with us for a year, we learned some Yiddish then.”

I wondered what had prompted her parents to make the voyage to America. She said, “My father came here because he didn’t want to go to the Russian army. As a Jew they treated you terribly. He was from Brizine, or at least that’s what the name sounded like. The geographic lines changed, now you’d say he was from Poland, but I guess it was Russia.”

Meanwhile, my mom says she clearly remembers her grandpa Manny teaching her some Polish, making me think that the cultures had blended long before my Aunt Phylis thought they did.

“My mom always said she was White Russian, but I never actually learned what that meant,’ Phylis said. “I think she was from a town called Tulna, or Toulner. My grandmother, my mom’s mom, had married a widower, a man with two boys named Hymie and Sammy. Then my mom was born. My uncles were really nice, really good to Fran and I when we were little, even though we weren’t blood. And they were very musical.” The family had apparently fled from Russia because of the terror being wreaked by the Cossacks, a bunch of marauding, horseback riding, militants who treated the Jews terribly. Phylis continued, “I believe my grandfather had died, leaving Bubba with all the children. She was very afraid, and probably without a man felt very unprotected. I think that’s why they came here.”

After they came to the States, one brother eventually taught at Juilliard, the other was a conductor. “My grandfather’s father’s last name was Weintraub, but I guess my Bubba’s maiden name was Chuvnik, because she would always say she was a Chuvnik,” Phylis explained.

I spent days of research on the Internet searching different spellings of my Jewish families’ names. I could find no apparent evidence of “Lauvner” or any variation on the phonetic pronunciation of what my Grandpa Irving always told me was the original name in Russia or Poland, but I found the existence of a Launer family in Rzeszow, Poland. As for the correct, Russian spelling of Shapiro, I believe it was altered from Szpiro, although I also found an Ester Sapiro in Tulna, and a Ytta Schapira in Brzezany, Poland. Digging into the histories of my ancestor’s places of birth and the impact of discrimination and persecution they must have experienced, has brought me on a sad, life-affirming and windy road towards self-discovery, and gratitude for the freedoms we experience in America. How can we as a family proceed into the future without greater insight into our pasts? For my children’s sake, and the generations to come, I realized how urgent it is for me to record our history, or at least to create one with the scraps of details that I might find. (“Brezine” turned out to be a town correctly called Brzeziny, in Poland, but whose geographic lines have indeed shifted from between Russia, Prussia, and back again to Polish independence. In the meantime, Jews went from experiencing prosperity because of the booming textile business in the area to blatant discrimination and persecution. Since my grandmother’s father, Manny, was a tailor from that area, I will assume he probably learned his skills back in the “Old Country.” Also, it was common for townspeople to stick together even after the journey across the sea. The more established Poles helped provide jobs and shelter for the newly immigrated to America, at least until they got on their feet. I’m sure when Manny and Buddy first came here they were far from alone.

No, I don’t have a family tree that maps out the names and dates of my family’s experiences.

But I am beginning to realize that if I had one it would be a rich tapestry, three dimensional, unlike anything ever framed on any wall. I’d hang one of my grandfather’s REGENT tennis rackets on it, maybe his best selling baseball and glove, one of his tennis trophies, and I’d even throw in one golfing trophy because that defined him too. I think I should include some of the uncountable letters of thanks he received throughout his lifetime, and some snapshots of him with some of the friends he made along the way. If I could get a hold of Great-Grandpa Izzy’s “satchel” I would dangle it there, filled with as many cans of sardines as the old thing would hold. How about some clothes stitched by my Great Grandpa Manny’s hand, if I could resurrect them? And maybe some recipes of all the mothers that fed us so well—Annie, Esther (affectionately called Buddy), Grandma Frannie, my mom, my aunt Ellen, my great aunt Phylis, even mine.

There would be a recording of my cousin Hadria laughing that you could play and replay as many times as you like, next to a photograph of her-- resplendent, long blond hair, bright blue eyes, kindness, holding her son Wyatt, her pride and joy, her full mouth agape so you could visualize where that beautiful, contagious laugh flew out from.

Art (in all its forms) seems to be the bark of my family’s tree. As with a real tree the bark covers all the tree’s parts, acting as a suit of armor and protection against life’s hardships. In a tree’s case: insects, disease, storms and extreme temperatures. As for our family, creativity protects us from buckling under all that one faces in a lifetime: deaths, illness, separation, disappointment, change. Music, writing, and photography, are the most pervasive mediums for all of us (on both sides of my family), but there are others too that we have had the inclination or the privilege to explore at one time or another: dance, film, acting, architecture, more. There are those whose hands have attacked canvases, caressed clay, sculpted, painted with cameras, composed music, or strung words like pearls. Even my very linear thinking and business minded Grandpa Irving scribbled cartoon figures on all his letters and notes to us, as well as played violin. Most everyone in my family is creative in some aspect, but if they aren’t overtly, they have generally chosen mates who are.

On my tree I would proudly display the moody, surrealist, Picasso and Kleinholtz influenced oil paintings of my Grandma Frannie. Both simultaneously naïve and complex, her emotionally charged images revealed a world off kilter and yet full of beauty. Like life can be. And then there are the stories my grandmother told about her actually painting for Kleinholtz while he signed his name which would account for why their work is so similar…

The more realistic and alternately abstract paintings of my Uncle Loren would be displayed, as well as some of his Gods-eyes from the Sixties because they exemplified an era experienced in all it’s provocative glory and unabashed hope for change. What about his “light box:” an inventive precursor to the disco floors of the Seventies and mutating screen savers of today, those changing panels of electrified color that would entertain my cousins and I to no end.

My Aunt Ellen, too, is an artist, painting hyper-realistic portraits, landscapes, still-lifes, and animals so real that you can almost hear them growl and squawk. She has also taken countless photos of her travels, the many people in her life, as well as the breathtaking skies that surround her beautiful adobe home in New Mexico. And then even her house, like all of us Lawners, is a tribute to beauty in all its forms. Step through any of our front doors and discover a unique sanctuary, where art, design, and nature collide and settle, an oasis from all that exists on the other side of the threshold. On my tree, I would nestle numerous shots of each of our living spaces—from California, to Bali, to NYC, to Upstate New York- those photos would invite you to dream.

Paintings above: my aunt Ellen (Fuller) go to: ellenfuller.com to see more…

My mother’s photographs would hang all over the tree’s branches: portraits of people strange and familiar. Those she snapped herself in the last several years: richly textured portraits of subway travelers, and beauty in its most nuanced forms. Then there were those images she styled or conceived, while my Stepfather, Bob (my brother, Rio’s, father) or her ex-boyfriend, Sacha, got the credit for clicking the shutter. A few of the dresses and outfits would suspend there too, the ones she designed when she had her children’s company Izzy, named after my great grandfather. There would be photographs of her loft “museum” especially, which covets a lifetime’s work of collecting; a living sculpture: unusual objects, paintings, furniture, art, books, and the small displays she creates that are a kind of three dimensional still-life. And the photographs of her mates I’ve mentioned, whose own work helped ignite her self-discovery and creative exploration. They collaborated with my mother, yes, but were also visionary in their own right, seizing landscapes, people, beauty, and life in their lenses.

My tree would be unrealistic and imprecise without the recordings of my Uncle Loren playing violin and electric guitar throughout his life, some of my cousin Damon, capturing his singing, songwriting, and guitar playing talents in his Indie rock band Fader and earlier incarnations, and the base guitar riffs, and drumming forte´ of my cousin Chris. My brother, Rio’s incredible “beats” could be accessed with a mere click of a button, atmospheric hip-hop floating up and out like smoke. My father, now gone, left a wall full of gold and platinum records that he produced, wrote, or published, a time capsule of 80’s rock and roll legends including Bonnie Raitt, Pat Benetar, The Bay City Rollers, and others. I would include some of those recordings, but my favorite would be the one that was never made while there was still time. I would like a few hours of my dad telling stories, strumming solo on his guitar, telling his ridiculous and perverted jokes of which there seemed to be no end, and his laugh, from the belly, with a huh huh huh drum roll that grabbed you in its clutches and didn’t shake you until you’d let out your own.

My second cousin “Uncle Buzzy” and his brothers Ray and Bob had their own musical careers, as the teen groups The Bergen Brothers, Buzzy and his Brothers, and later forming Poetic Justice and then Brass Tax, playing rock covers and original material until a decade ago. Buzz on sax and occasionally singing (“if you can call it that”- Buzzy) Ray on guitar, and Bob going wild on the drums, the Bergen brothers got uncountable wedding, bar mitzvah and prom crowds to get up and ROCK. Though the instruments have been mostly to rest these days, their own children carry the musical torch. “My brothers each have two kids, and three of the four are very good musicians,” explained Buzzy.

His mother, my great Aunt Sylvia, who was my grandpa Irving’s sister, will always be immortalized in my memory as if playfully wrestling a piano with her adept, well manicured fingers. She had tons of energy packed into a tiny body, and when she played, she shimmied her shoulders and head, strands of her dyed red hair escaping, while fire engine nails were a blur as they moved lightning fast across the keys. She played The Boogie Woogie and other fun tunes for us kids, wore outrageous, Elton John style glasses, bright colors and patterns and a cloud of perfume, and she would belt out show tunes and ham it up like a real pro. With a larger than life personality and wit to match, Sylvia Bergen epitomized the joie de vivre of the Phylis Diller and Ethel Merman archetype, in absolute contrast to the dour grumblings of my Grandpa in his youth, and their brother Morris.

Still, no one before or since has ever been able to match the verbal dueling of those two men. They would sit for hours playing chess and punning. I don’t know which game was more riveting for them, but for me looking on, I thought the dastardly double entendres infinitely more entertaining. They would one up each other with plays of words and nuances of meaning, so sharp and quick that they jabbed and lunged like swordsman of language. My Aunt Linda remembers, “Yeah it was incredible. My father actually toted around a word book, in which he’d write definitions to new words he wanted to remember. Then he’d wait for the right opportunity to use them. Sometimes the one-liners would become too much though. Those two couldn’t get past that routine and have a real conversation! It could get annoying.”

But what of her father, Great Uncle Morris’ musical abilities, and those of his wife Alice, and the infinite generations of young musicians they affected as teachers at The High School of Music and Art in Manhattan and Bronx Science, and all the other conservatories where they taught, as well as offered private lessons in their home? I would have to include recordings of them too, and sheet music immortalizing all that they composed. Their children, Peter and Linda, didn’t become professional musicians even after all the mandatory practicing their parents imposed on them, but music shaped them anyway. Linda’s husband Reese Markewich has been a jazz virtuoso, playing flute and piano at clubs and on his numerous recordings with Blue Moon Records and others. I’d include some of his CDs because his music defines him as much as his work as a psychiatrist. Photographs of Linda and her brother, Peter’s, families with their spouses and children would definitely be strung on my tree’s branches too, because even though we have fallen out of touch, they are part of this colorful clan, Linda’s vivid memories recently filling my ears after fifteen years of absence from each other’s lives.

Okay, the original piano compositions of my twelve year old son, Aidan, would suspend there too, with recordings of him playing, and also videos of him and his nine year old brother, Emmanuel singing together, doing improv with Sebastian in our dining room, playing soccer, laughing, and laughing, and reading the poetry and incredible, fantastical stories they both write because they are so inspired.

My whole family’s stories, poems, songs, and emails—honest, descriptive, moving, funny--would have to be there in fact, so maybe I would put a computer nestled into the roots of the tree, so that you could open file after file to know each of us a little better. There would be the writings of my cousins Chris, Damon, and Hadria, wise pages from my grandmother’s journals, the letters, poems, and stories of my Aunt Ellen, my mom, and myself. The poems of Damon and Hadria’s mom, also named Melissa, would be there for the savoring, and some of her paintings that seem to be born out of my grandmother Frannie’s brushes and palette. Her son Talon’s rap music, though he is not related to me by blood, would be part of the tapestry, for he is also. His music brazenly reveals a more painful life than the one us Lawners were shielded from, because of Woodmere and the sense of family it offered us a sense of.

More of my mom’s amazing photos (above) can be found @ westmurray.com

I am beginning to realize that one wall would not serve my tree. I might need a room, or maybe a whole forest…

Clumsy videos of when the Lawner grandchildren were all younger, would also be nestled into the branches: Damon, Chris, Hadria, Rio and I sharing sacred summers at Woodmere with our grandparents. How I miss all the relatives and friends who would come to visit, Doris and Norm Tippograph, Bud and Ellen Tillis, Stan O’Malley, and Sue Heath. Uncle Howard playing chess, cards, and tennis with us so patiently, mesmerizing us with his card tricks and knowledge of how to build a pool and balance that chemistry in those little vials (a feat that seemed incomprehensible to me as a child.) And how I would look forward to Uncle Irving (Rosenman) and Aunt Phylis’ visits, for they would always bring us gifts that were both educational and fun. Irving was a gentle and loving man who had studied the dictionary, and had such an innate knowledge of language, the law, and so many other subjects that he would captivate us with his quiet strength. Uncle Kenny, Phylis and Irv’s son, would also sometimes visit, embodying many of the qualities of his parents, and sprinkled with a wry wit.

Then there were the super fun games that my Step Dad, Bob (aka “Gomebear”), would organize with us kids; homemade games he brought with him all the way from his childhood in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn: the stoop ball and Skully (an inventive game that we played with bottle caps filled with wax and a board we built ourselves), stickball, variations of tag, and especially the huge battles we had in the “black and white room” with plastic army men and boxes of rubber bands. We played tetherball, badminton and ping pong, had diving and swimming contests, and had massive water gun fights (or sometimes we just used buckets of icy water.) I cannot imagine who any of us cousins would have become without the unabashed joy of those summers.

Aaah, the raucous, bountiful dinners (“better than any restaurant!” we would all cheer), the tennis, the languid days in the pool, the performances us young cousins would put on across the gold shag carpet. The old black and white 16 mm reels captured my mother, her siblings, parents, and relatives in their youth, films of the perpetual duck-walk to the movie camera and obligatory wave for their father, mouths open, mouthing “hi,” yet again, smiles across their faces.

The photographs of my cousin Chris’ girlfriend Jean would be have to be included, stark and powerful portraits, movement suspended. Chris’ website and graphic design work, as well as his photographs would be tucked there, artistic snapshots of his travels, friends and family. I couldn’t forget the videos of Damon and his wife, Melissa, delighting in their growing daughter, Olivia, the epitome of a well loved child—all smiles and cheer. What about snippets of Melissa’s commercials, films, and print ads from her modeling career? And Damon’s raw, edgy, black and white photographs… rock-and-roll and actor celebrities, and hip, scantily clad beauties captured in the film noir style of the 1940’s and 50’s.

Not only was my mother’s family creative, but my father’s Belgian clan was as well. This lush genetic background I carry, this scrumptious feast of ingredients is making for a very unique family tree indeed. My father, John, was born in France but only spent two short years with his father and mother in the same home. Soon after, my grandparents separated, causing my young, beautiful grandmother to immigrate to the United States. My Grandma Yvette started a new life far from the man she loved deeply but who her parents inexplicably resented. Were those simple “peasants” from the Pyrenees Mountains and Italy threatened by their very cultured son in law’s education and creativity? By his “good breeding?” Apparently so much so that they forbade my grandmother to see my grandfather, Jean Marie, anymore, even threatening to steal my young father from their daughter if she did not obey them. And so she did (resenting her parents in turn for the rest of her days.)

PAINTINGS BELOW: (Top left, my paternal great grandfather’s painting:) Rodolphe Strebelle, (top center and top right, and bottom center my grandfather’s painting:) Jean Marie Strebelle, (bottom left and right, paternal uncle): Olivier Strebelle

My dad spent the remainder of his childhood in Queens in a home devoid of humor, music lessons, and other creative outlets. Kept far from his real father, and without contact between them at all, my dad was eventually adopted by his mother’s new husband, Lawrence Wonderling, who I clearly remember as a cold, severe man. Still, the genes of my Belgian grandfather were not snuffed out. The fierce genetic influence of Jean Marie Strebelle and his family manifested in my father’s joyous spirit, his natural drawing ability, ear for music, love of literature, history, and art. Not only was he accepted to Pratt for his cartooning, but forged a career for himself as a music producer and songwriter, managing to be proficient in many instruments.

When my father was twenty-two, he was reunited with his real father, Jean Marie Strebelle, his beautiful half-sisters, and the rest of the Strebelle clan. They found that incredibly, despite distance, they all shared much in common. Suddenly my father understood that he wasn’t such an anomaly at all.

What would my family ‘forest’ be without the work of the Strebelle family? Yes, I would parade the colorful, highly detailed paintings of my grandfather, Jean Marie, and the children’s books he published, revealing a great knowledge of the sea. How could I forget the modernist sculpture and architecture of his famed brothers? I have not seen my Great Uncle Olivier, the sculptor, since I was eighteen, and we have received little news of each other throughout the years. So little, that I realized I did not remember his brother’s name, though he is also the brother of my grandfather. A perfunctory search on the Internet led me to two Strebelle architects, but I didn’t know which one was my Great Uncle. I only met him when I was tiny, and my father seemed to be closer to Olivier.

A Google search quickly led me to www.olivierstrebelle.com a site that showcases my uncle’s bronze sculptures, offers an impressive list of major public works that he has created, and the prizes of honor that he has received in his lifetime. It also reveals information about the infinite documentaries, publications, and art books that has had my uncle’s work at the focus. It mentioned that both his parents were painters, a fact I did not know about my own great grandparents, but offered no information on his brothers. The site did unbelievably include a contact number. What would research be without the convenience of the Internet? Arduous and not nearly so immediately gratifying! Inspired by the process of writing this essay and the details of my family’s history I hunger for, I just phoned Olivier Strebelle in Belgium. “So what if it’s 11pm? He’s European, they all eat dinner at 10,” I convinced myself. “And if it’s the studio number I can leave a message.”

“Allo?” a man’s voice answered after one ring.

“Allo, oui, c’est Jenny Wonderling,” I offered boldly. “I am John Wonderling’s daughter,” I said, shifting to English.

My great-uncle’s voice wore signs of age, but he recognized my name immediately and was as warm and generous as if we had always been in touch. “What a nice surprise!” he announced in English, the charm of a French accent warming his words like a freshly baked croissant. “I was just about to leave my studio, and now to hear your voice after so long. What a surreal experience…” Within minutes he was inviting me, Sebastian, and my children to stay in his home, and rattled on excitedly about his upcoming project: an enormous installation for the Olympics in Beijing, China, that ambitiously touts thirty meters in height, one hundred-twenty meters long, and will require four hundred-fifty metric tons of stainless steel.

When I asked about his brother “the architect” he said that they “had only just seen each other this morning. Claude is unbelievable!” Olivier exclaimed. “He is ninety years old and he is still working from morning ‘til night.” Olivier himself is seventy-seven and is also still creating. Not only were both their parents (my great-grandparents) painters, Olivier explained, “two of my four children are also artists, and so is my nephew. This family is surrounded by artists.”

While I had lost touch with my uncles, I am still in contact with my father’s sister, Marie, and her lovely family. I would have to include photos of my joyous aunts, uncles, and cousins from that family, because their creativity and zest for life and beauty run through my blood and that of my sons as well. Not to mention some architectural designs of Marie’s husband, and my cousin Laurent. And the jokes, stories, and recipes of my sisters Morgan and Tess, also daughters of my father, but not my mom. And then, last but not at all least, there is the incredible music of my brother Rio (from my mom), whose loungy-atmospheric hip-hop music makes me swoon.

Who cares about exact dates and an intricate knowledge of our far-reaching history when I have so much physical evidence of the full lives we lived, of those I know personally and love? We may quarrel, lose touch for periods of time, make up, confide in one another, but aware of it or not, we are all, always connected. Us descendants of Lawners, Shapiros, Chuvniks, Bergens, Wonderlings, Strebelles, Markowiches, Murrays, Fullers, and now Stewart/Roche´s are the embodiment of all who came before us: eccentric, independent thinkers, students of life, funny, with a great love for family, art, and humanity. My family history may not extend back very far, but I hope that what we now know of each other is much more than a list of names and dates. And conscious or not, we are hard wired with the stuff of our forebears, lovers of language and people, championing those without and the earth, music appreciated or created, paintings poured and splattered onto canvases, stories extravagantly screamed, written, or told.

-end-

Left to right: my mom West, her sister Ellie, their maternal aunt Phylis, and me (mid-1990’s)

The Family Forest

More of my mom’s amazing photos (above) can be found @ westmurray.com

Travels, stays, (mostly stays these days) explorations of the heart and life.