Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Ancestry

I have a really neat binder full of photos and family tree charts from my mothers lineage. I feel really blessed to have such detailed documentation going back as far as it does, not everyone is so lucky.
My great grandmother recently turned 96, and her brother Robert is 105! My great grandmother's name is Shirley Salgo (originally Sari Halmos). She came to this country from Hungary around 1915 with her two brothers, two sisters, and mother, Johanna Halmos. Life was rough for them, but they made it through shining, each child growing up to lead interesting lives. Shirley's sister Roszika played many cameo roles in movies, and I remember watching her kiss Arnold Schwarzenegger on the cheek at the beginning of the movie 'Twins.' She also appeared in 'F.I.S.T,' as Sylvester Stallone's mother.
    The binder contains a lot of neat photos. Here is one of the 5 children:
 Shirley is at the top at age 5, next to Rozsi. Bottom left is Robert, Berta in the middle, and Martin on the right.
One of the things I loved the most about visiting my great-grandmothers house as a kid was her paintings. She did beautiful reproductions, and the walls were overflowing with these gorgeous paintings.
The top one has always been my favorite. While these are reproductions, she did do an original of her mother Johanna, from a photograph:
 At one family reunion we had, prints of this were put together by my Aunt, alongside a poem I wrote, and passed around to family members:
 

1 comment:

  1. What wonderful treasures. Keep them safe and make them precious to future generations.

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