Spring in Minneapolis…
For now, I have come full circle. The first weekend of my sabbatical, I drove Emma back to Madison after her Winter Break, and now during the last weekend of my sabbatical, Debbie and I are driving there to bring her home.
Perhaps more symbolically, today Debbie and I visited the cemetery here at home where we saw the graves of my grandparents Sidney and Annette (nee Lessman) Locketz, my Great Grandparents Louis and Elizabeth (nee Rochlin) Locketz, and my Great Grandmother Sarah (nee Bolnick/Lessman) Rubinger and her Second husband Sam Rubinger.
Sidney and Annette (nee Lessman) Locketz
Louis and Elizabeth (nee Rochlin) Locketz
Granny Sarah
Papa Sam
I don’t know when it was exactly, or at which funeral, but somewhere around 16 or 17 years ago while I was officiating at a funeral at the Adath cemetery, about a mile where I spent the first 18 years of my life, during the silent prayer, I looked off to the distance and I saw my name. I was startled for a minute…I considered whose grave it might be…and my focus returned to the funeral. After it was over, I walked over and was a bit shocked to find my Great Grandparents Louis and Elizabeth. I had lived a mile from their graves for so long and had never visited. It just wasn’t the culture of my family to go to the cemetery. It isn’t for most families. I had never met these people, but there I stood before the grave of the man I was named for. It was a profound moment for me. And I started asking questions.
I was lucky to grow up having Shabbat dinner many times over many years with one of my great grandparents, Granny Sarah. I remember the night she died. My grandparents were over for dinner and we got the phone call that she was “turning blue.” They left and went over to her nursing home. We got another call soon after and I remember my dad coming in to where I was watching TV to tell me she had died. She was the closet direct connection I had to the Old World. Her voice and accent, which I remember so vividly, were from the Old World. The day of funeral was rainy. And for a nine year old kid, it was a fun few days of seeing cousins I didn’t normally get to see. And soon after I found the graves of Louis and Elizabeth, I found that hers was 30 feet away. It became my practice to always visit them when I was there for a funeral.
And now, years later, Sid and Annette there too. Grandpa Sid who first piqued my interest in genealogy.
Today, it was a very peaceful place to visit people we loved and push pause on this project as my sabbatical comes to an end.
