33. What We Inherit – Jessica Pearce Rotondi
It doesn’t matter if we are in a prison, imprisoned in our bodies, or under lockdown in a pandemic: Stories are a way for us to keep the ones we love and miss close to us.
My grandfather jumped out of a burning plane over Germany at 23 and was a prisoner of war in Stalag 17 for almost three years. He was confined to a cell packed with starving men and little food, but each night, my grandfather defied curfew to read aloud to his fellow prisoners. My grandfather could have been killed by his captors, but in a landscape of so much death, his actions were a defiant reminder of life.
Years later, my mother would read from that same book during her chemotherapy sessions to treat her metastatic breast cancer. She underlined one line from that frayed slip of a book that reverberates across the decades: “Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed... I will strengthen thee.” I don’t know if Mom read those words to feel closer to God or closer to her father. All I know is that they connected her to her father’s strength.
My first book, What We Inherit: A Secret War and a Family’s Search for Answers, came out on April 21, after ten years of research and writing. With the tour canceled, I was worried that I would not be able to tell my family’s story. But the strangest thing happened: I have found myself reading aloud to strangers in the dark via screens almost every night. It doesn’t matter if we are in a prison, imprisoned in our bodies, or under lockdown in a pandemic: Stories are a way for us to keep the ones we love and miss close to us. Each generation has to face its own fears, though we can draw on the people who came before us for strength.
- Jessica Pearce Rotondi
Prompt:
Think of a story you’ve inherited from your family. It can be from your childhood or about a great aunt or someone further back whom you’ve never met. Write the story as a letter to a family member, friend or stranger told from the perspective of the protagonist.
Cristina De La Rosa
Location: Monterey Park, CA
About: My grandfather and a family secret that I undercover during my research for a family tree project when I was in college.
Age: 38
Spring 2001
Dear Mija,
First, I want to say that I love you, but I think my mom lied to you. She was not born in Colombia, my dad was a true Texan and he would have only married a Texan, he told me that himself. You know this because I told you and you are not a stupid girl. I know you listen to all my stories. Just a reminder: The Robles family lived on this land for years. When Texas fought for its independence from Mexico, our family had a choice to move south and be part of Mexico or stay here and fight. And that is what we did, we fought for Texas Independence and we have continued to live in this area of Carrizo Springs. Therefore, I am first and foremost a Texan and then American.
I talk to your mom; she thinks her grandma is not lying and did not tell her husband about her birthplace because he would have not married her. Maybe that is true maybe not. Either way my mom is lying, she has to be born here in Texas! But then again, my mom is known for keeping secrets, my sisters and I have been trying for years to get her tamale recipe, but she always outsmarts us. And then there was the time she had a boyfriend but never told me, even though my dad has been dead for 10 years.
Just remember, Cristina that you come from a long line of people who fight for what they believe in. I know that you are a De La Rosa, but you also have Robles blood in you too - you are also a Texan, just like me. No matter where I go in this country (remember I lived in CA for 20 years), I also come back to my roots - Texas. When you finish college, you should move to Texas, you can stay with me or with Russell in San Antonio. There are always plenty of jobs out here. I know you will do great things. I am proud of you.
Love,
Grandpa Andy
Kate Dimon
Location: Oregon
About: I teach college students to manage and think critically. My inspiration is the hidden world of anonymous acts of heroism.
Age: 68
In the early 1970s, a blind woman who lived several houses down from my grandmother told me this story. My grandfather, a Lieutenant Commander was serving in the US Navy in 1939 on board the USS Utah in Pearl Harbor. He had just received the news that he had been advanced to Commander. He was a reserved stout German, with a wry smile, who had been a milkman on a one-horse driven wagon in a small town in Missouri. He attended Annapolis, and when he returned his sweetheart, my grandmother had left for Stephens College. He arrived at Stephens College and stood under her dorm window as fall leaves swirled about in a delicate autumn wind for over an hour, hoping she would notice. When she finally saw him standing there, she had to do a double-take spotting the uniformed gentleman, she threw open the window and ask what in the world was he doing there. He removed his hat and asked for her hand and she shyly agreed.
She was married in a handmade Navy blouse styled after a sailor Jumper and skirt in 1918 and they set off for his assigned station with a pandemic of Spanish flu racing desperately through every military establishment, the risk was palpable.
His advancement letter came on Friday, Dec 5, 1941, and his staff was planning a small celebration for the Lieutenant Commander who had been a favorite of the crew as his gentle way and his common-sense approach to discipline had been admired by all those that fell under his command.
At the bottom of a street in Los Angeles, lined with homes built in the 1920s was a small Japanese grocery. The grocer and his wife and children lived behind the tiny shop that served the neighborhood with fresh milk, fruits, and vegetables from the local farms. My grandmother’s house sat at the top of this street, dotted with California river rock retaining walls and little green lawns. The Japanese family was always happy to help their neighbors, purchasing specialty items for immigrants who required certain spices and vegetables. In 1942 the government told all Japanese to pack up to be taken to camps. My grandmother and several others heard that the “G” men were asking around so my Grandmother set up a rotation of men who could block the “G” men from entering the store. With the mission in hand, the local church and neighborhood assisted the family to sell everything perishable and gave the money to the Baptist minister. When the family left, the neighbors barred up the windows, rented the little house, closed up the store and deposited all the money in a savings account in the family’s name. When they eventually returned in early 1946, my grandmother, who had instigated the protection of the property handed them their key, and a passbook with double the original amount.
On Dec 7, 1941, my grandfather, after hearing General Quarters left his coffee on the Officer’s Mess table and headed back to his office to make sure his staff was out on the deck, this account from a Messman and eventually a Captain in the US Navy, Clarke Simmons. His office took the first hit. My grandfather was never found and sleeps with the rest of the crew lost on the USS Utah at Pearl Harbor. The families of those who had been KIA in that theater were not informed until February of 1942. My grandmother never thought twice about helping that family at the bottom of her hill, never expected thanks, never occurred to her to take credit, never listened to those complaining she had aided the enemy, not once. Each time we walked out her door she would call out “remember who you are”. We do.
Kate Dimon
K. Dimon; Adjunct, Clatsop College
Experience is one thing you can't get for nothing.. it costs"
Patrick McDonnell
Location: Montreal, Quebec, Canada
About: A letter to a cousin to discuss a family secret.
Age: 68
My Father’s War
By the time a man realizes that maybe his father was right, he usually has a son who thinks he's wrong. ~Charles Miles Wadsworth
Dear M,
I hope this letter finds you and Y. well. Sorry about your vacation plans for Israel, as they say, “Next Year in Jerusalem.” I don't know how to address you now that you have converted to Judaism, I will straighten that out eventually. I was glad to see the photograph of your mother's parents and my father; he was a real looker. Of course we never believe that our parents were once young. I was thinking about that. Then wondered if Y. would like to find out more about my dad's service since Y. was in the IDF. We have both good and bad memories of my father. But he was once a young man. Then the war happened.
One thing that has bothered me all these years was my mother's assertion that my dad could have been a general if he hadn't refused to fly during the war. Now my dad was no shrinking violet - one of the toughest and bravest men I have known, though he did have his problems with the bottle - so it worried me for years.
Recently I went on Facebook and joined a group of B-26 enthusiasts, mostly modelers and wannabes who are like plane spotters. It got me thinking there were records that were top secret - but now declassified. I struck pay dirt and found some online. I started reading them.
I came across a passage from the unit diary that described an incident involving my father's squadron, on October 19, 1944, where they had been 'jumped' by enemy fighters when their own planes had their own defensive weapons removed to allow for more bombs/longer range. It must have been a massacre, the most harrowing moments of my father's flying career. According to his Red Cross calendar he never flew again in combat, .
At that time my father had more than 60 combat missions under his belt ( in fact the famous Catch-22 was invented in his squadron). But it was one too many. I can only assume that he told the boss man to go f....k himself or words to that effect. He was taken out of combat and put into training of pilots. He survived. After the war he re-upped in the new Air Force and rose the rank of Lt. Colonel.
You know the rest. Uncle Bud was a war hero. He was my father - for better or worse. I admire his courage and the stand he took at that moment years ago. He could have been court marshaled / shot. He never told us the story so I am glad to have figured it out on my own. Or it may be just my assumption of what happened since there is no record as the real events.
So much for family histories. One day you will have to tell me about your mom's war time experiences. Till then,
All the best,
Patrick
P.S. War is hell.
My thoughts:
When I was in my twenties I was reading Catch-22, Joseph Heller's masterful anti war novel, when my dad said, "I know all those people, I flew with them during the war." Hah, I replied, not believing. Then he said, "yes, the guy who would go up the tree naked, and the quartermaster in Casablanca who went into the newly arrived airplanes to steal the morphine from the first aid boxes, replacing them with saline."
This is the main premise of Catch-22 when the bombarder has to administer morphine to a dying crew member and it doesn't work, he dies in needless pain. My dad said the SOB went on to be a producer in Hollywood.
So over the years I researched his war experiences, because he was avarice with information, and then he passed. This is what I discovered;
He flew the Marauder B-26 bomber, know as the the Widow Maker, the Baltimore Whore, the Flying Prostitute etc. because it had no visible means of support. There is a lot of misinformation out on the internet about the B-26. It was in the Mediterranean field of Operations that the B-26 came into its own.
My dad flew B-26s with the 319 bomber group. Arriving in North Africa, they fought in Algeria, Tunisia, then flew from Sicily, Corsica and Sardinia to attack German and Italians. It took 2 years, and a lot of lives, but they finally defeated the Fascists. The famous catch-22 was invented when it was obvious that seasoned pilots and crews were better at flying the B-26 than new recruits, and the number of missions before rotating back stateside went up and up until it was the flight surgeon who determined who could fly.
During the Mediterranean campaign, the B-26's career began with the disastrous bombing of Sfax harbour in Tunisia with many bombers lost, because the attack was at low altitude. It was a turkey shoot. Regrouping and retrained to fly at higher altitude with Norton bomb sights solved this. The 319th went on to bomb Monte Casino, and bridges. Then it was assigned the delicate mission of bombing Rome and Florence. There was a reason for this, they were the best bomber crews - the most accurate bombers of the day - they could put down a bomb within yards of a target.
I asked my dad how they did it, and he explained, they flew in formation at a dive when over target so the AA guns couldn't get an accurate bearing on them. Though they did get hit and there were still casualties, and deaths. There were always deaths, and dying pilots and crews, even when flying routine non combat missions. It was a dangerous job and the life expectancy for a flight crew wasn't long.
But he survived to not tell the tales.
http://www.aviation-history.com/martin/b26.html
My father’s Red Cross calendar, the log passage from the official records and a picture of my dad.
