Giving up my heritage notions

I haven't posted in a loooong time, but not because I haven't been researching and thinking about my heritage.

I just started my second summer of intensive Lithuanian language training. It's one of the hardest things I've done. Last summer nearly did me in. I had a difficult time keeping up, and it was way over my head. Interestingly enough, I didn't feel much of a connection with the language-- I didn't feel it was familiar at all. Of course, I hadn't really learned any Lithuanian before starting the class, but it felt much more like a foreign language than a heritage language for me. I think the only factor making it a heritage learning experience for me is my increased investment in learning Lithuanian. Even though I did very poorly, I continued to try because I really wanted to learn. I wanted to be able to communicate with my relatives in Lithuania.

This year I feel more of a connection to Lithuanian. I feel like I'm remembering a few more scraps of Lithuanian from my grandmother.

One evening I was thinking about how I have always imagined my Lithuanian last name-- Paukštenaite. While discussing Lithuanian names, my teacher had gently suggested a more likely version, Paukštyte. I had trouble accepting that initially. I had always been told my name would have been Paukštenaite, and I trusted that. It was my name. So I went home and thought about the two names, I tried to remember who told me my name would have been Paukštenaite and when I heard it, or if I had maybe changed it myself, from the original. I finally decided to accept the idea that the likely Lithuanian version of my name would have been Paukštyte. It probably is. I feel a little sad about accepting that-- it invalidates what I thought my name was, what I grew up thinking my name was. At the same time, maybe it brings me closer to the place my great grandparents left, the country of my heritage.

My name is Barbara Bird, but I like to think about having an alter-ego, Barbora Paukštyte, who might someday speak Lithuanian.

My lithuanian childhood

All the language and people I’m seeing and talking to in relation to Lithuania takes me back to my childhood with my grandma, and good memories...

These are the words I remember in Lithuanian (please excuse the atrocious spelling- I never learned to spell these words, most were from grandma's dinner table!):
Driskas= salt (This is the one I remember best-I said that a lot at the dinner table because I eat way too much salt, and was sometimes scolded for doing so!)
Chaltas vondanas= cold water
Achu= thank you
Zeplins= potato things with sausage in the middle. We didn’t really like them. I just learned they’re really called zeplini.
Oi oi, oi oi= oh boy! My dad said that, sometimes my grandma
Labas= my dad said that, to say hello

I have a good memory about a little song my grandma taught me once. I don’t know if I ever learned the song completely, but I remember “dentis ke vorgorni”, meaning “teeth like an organ”… the song was about a rabbit, and the song described its body, the ears, the teeth, …but I only remember that one phrase.

I remember the big zodynas book that my grandma used to have. It was a Richard Scarry picture dictionary. We used to read it for hours, reading the Lithuanian words. I don’t think I realized it was a children’s dictionary. I didn’t realize until I said the word zodynas to Asta (the Lithuanian girl who works in the office of my apartment complex), that zodynas means dictionary. I always thought it was the title of that book.

Barbara Bird: homage to a great woman who gave me her name

I never liked my name. No one else I knew was named Barbara. It's an 'old ladies' name. I wanted a cool, modern, popular name like my friends. There were never 2 Barbaras on the soccer team or in art class. It made me feel different. Yet Barbara is not an unusual name. I just never liked it, I kind of resented it. My parents told me that my grandmother insisted I was named after her, so I always saw my name as having been forced upon me by the overbearing mother-in-law who couldn't let things be.

I certainly didn't resent my grandmother, not in the least, I just didn't love being called Barbara. My grandmother loved having a namesake though, and I was her favorite. I imagine my siblings resented this a bit, but "Pittsburgh Grandma" invited me (and me alone) to spend weeks with her in the summer. She would take me out to dinner (where I would always order a grilled cheese if I could, and a vanilla milkshake if I was feeling particularly spunky- grandma would sometimes order it for me even if I didn't want it!). She loved dressing me up to go out with her friends, teaching me manners, giving me errands when I accompanied her to work. I think I was the daughter she never had.

Barbara Elisabeth (Orman) Bird was a strong-willed woman. Her family and friends called her Bessie. Her parents came to the US from Lithuania- Her mother arrived at the age of 16, so she and her brother and sisters grew up speaking Lithuanian at home. Her father was well-educated and they say he spoke several languages. My grandmother's childhood was spent in the company homes of the coal mine her father worked in alongside many other Lithuanian immigrants.

She insisted on learning to drive, a move of independence that few women made at that time. It was a good thing, since her husband died when my dad was only 7. She got her real estate license and went to work, eventually opening her own business, "Bird Agency", and she and was well-known as the first woman in Pittsburgh to be president of the Multi-List.

She was very involved with the Lithuanian club: she was at one time president of the International Clubs and was instrumental in the founding of the Lithuanian room. She brought linens back from Lithuania to decorate the room. I remember attending Lithuanian language classes at the University of Pittsburgh with her in that room.

When I was 13, they discovered my grandmother had a brain tumor. From the hospital, she sent gifts to my brothers and sisters (toys)- Grandma Bird sent me a map of the brain and a chart of the human bones. She insisted I would be a doctor. Those were my last gifts from my grandmother, and I am proud to keep this memory of her.

I've never particularly liked my name, but I am proud to share a name with this great woman. I am Barbara Bird.

Once you get past the cousins, does it really matter?

I've been contacting (very!) distant relatives to collect information on my Lithuanian family over the past several months. Several of these people didn't know I existed, and probably still don't care too much- we are related in a very distant way- maybe 6 or 7 degrees of separation. These people, however, have been able to tell me stories about my great grandmother and my great great grandmother and both of their families. I have learned more about my grandfather's family this summer than I probably will during the rest of my life, thanks to these distant relatives, who share their old photographs and memories with me. Still, the attitude that a couple of them have had (and understandably), is that "once you get past the cousins, it doesn't really matter." I guess I understand their point of view: I'm a stranger, calling and asking personal questions about relatives from their past, with whom they may have had a very personal relationship. The reaction I'm perceiving is in relation to me (a virtual stranger), tied only by a common thread of knowledge about a person who is long gone. They probably can't understand why I care to know about people who died 70 years ago. I get why they don't understand how this could be relative to my life and pursuits.
From my perspective, understanding more about my immigrant grandparents, great grandparents, and their families, helps me understand my family better, why they left Lithuania, how they (I) came to be where they are (I am) now, and if I can see any bit of them left over in myself. Traditions, ways of doing things, stories, words... are passed down from generation to generation, and I want to know who I am, where I come from, and if there is any of Karolina Stankievicz, her sisters Josie or Tess, any Julia Brindza or her husband Constant Paukstis left in me. How far removed is "Bird" from "Paukstis", "Paukstiene' ", and "Paukstenaite"? Have all traces of Paukstis been erased from the Bird family?

Bagels and the Lithuanian army: Rumor has it I'm Jewish!

Dad likes to drop these little nuggets here and there for us to pick up on, but I can never really tell if he's serious or not. The latest, is that some long lost uncle on the Lithuanian Leonaitis branch used to make bagels. He thinks this makes us Jewish.
I was finally able to pry the rest of the story out of dad's labarynthic memory. Great great great grandpa Christus (interesting that our one link to Judaism is named 'Christ') was apparently forced into the military service for 40 years. That was how long it was supposed to take to un-Jewishize a Jewish Lithuanian boy.
So, do tales of bagels and forced military service make me Jewish?

Bluetails

Last week I sent some of my family history research to my Dad's cousin Anita. I've been calling her lately to learn about our Lithuanian family. She has interesting stories- she has one memory of her great grandmother Caroline Stankievicz: when she went to the funeral, she got in trouble for putting rose petals in her dead grandmother's nostrils. She was about 8 years old and wanted grandma to smell the flowers, and but she got in trouble for her efforts.
Anita told me that in Pittsburgh where she grew up, they used to call the Lithuanians bluetails. My dad said it was a derogatory name.

Constant Paukstis, man of many names

Constant, Constantine, Costantas, Kostanty, Kostantas, Konstantas, Stanley (yes, his name on the 1920 census is Stanley!).... Bird, Paukstis, Pauksztz, Paukstys, Paukstas, Paukstenas.....

Who was this mysterious man?

He came from the "lowlands" in southern Lithuania- probably the Vilnius area, or did he come from Sialiai in the north.

His wife (Julia Brindza Paukstis) and his daughter (Amelia Ernest) are buried next to Stanislawa Paukstiene (?-1927) and George Paukstis, so George must be related to Constant.

He immigrated from Lithuania either in 1885 (per 1920 census) or in 1894 (per 1910 census).

His wife was 8 years younger than he was, and immigrated in 1900 (at the age of 12), so they were probably married in Pittsburgh, PA.

His first daughter, Amelia Caroline, was born in 1903. Her middle name is that of her maternal grandmother.

He was naturalized in 1904.

His son Leo Joseph (my grandfather) was born in 1905. His maternal grandfather's name was George, so could Joseph be a Paukstis family name?

Stanley (nickname Oscar) was born in 1908.

In 1910 he listed "bartender" as his occupation.

He died on October 25, 1925, and was buried in the 'indigent' section of the Calvary cemetery. Why was he not buried in Saint Casimir's cemetery (the Lithuanian Catholic cemetery), where the other Paukstises are? Was it too expensive? 2 years later, when his wife died, George Paukstis bought 4 plots in St Casimir's cemetery.

This is all we know about the mystery that is the Paukstis family.