.....I got telephone calls yesterday from Bonny, Robin, and Katrina. That adds up to two daughters and a granddaughter who has been kind enough to supply Rhoda and me with two great grandsons--Huston and Brooks Owen. Of course their surnames will be Hudgens which does not carry on the name, Ross, by any means. There remains only Adam Ross who is now 32 and seems not to be in any hurry to start a family with his bride, Tucky. One day I'll learn how she came by that name and it would interest me to learn her Thai surname. I may not be around long enough to have great grandsons named "Ross" by Adam and Tucky. In fact I may not be around long enough even to see Brooks, although Robin did indicate that she and Bonny and perhaps Katrina and the babies may come here before year's end.
.....Although the name, Ross, may be in short supply for a short while, my name, until I changed it after WWII, was Rosenberg, a name of which there may be many because my cousin, Peter, from New Jersey produced a couple or even several boys who are spread around the country. My father's brother, my Uncle Morris was, of course, Jewish, but his wife was Catholic, and that is how their children were raised--Catholic if you didn't hear me. So, there are all these Rosenbergs, Catholic second cousins with Jewish names, who are carrying on the name I was born with, which is not of great concern to me. Just a matter of interest.
.....Their has been some weird events during the last several days in this house. One day the TV in the living room blacked out for several minutes, and when the picture came back it came with no sound. A real bummer trying to keep up with the closed captions. However, on the following day, the sound returned. Then my printer stopped working just as I needed it, followed by the computer which shut down with only the words, "No Signal" on the monitor. This event required for me a Tylenol and a Xanax. The printer still doesn't work, but the computer was fine on the following day. And life in retirement goes on.
What's in a name indeed, dear Baron! After all, you changed yours to Anglicize it. My maiden name, "Sokoloff," wasn't the family name: it was part of the fake Russian identity my grandfather had to buy to get out of Russia on account of the pogroms. No-one uses it any more, except my sister, and I'm not exactly sure why she does so - she didn't really like our father, or any of his siblings. There are squillions of Sokoloff chess players, diplomats, scientists, athletes, etc., but I'm related to NONE of them! I was glad to lose my maiden name upon marrying Mike, as it got in the way of communication with people in this insular country. As to my children, by husband made the kind gesture of insisting upon their having forenames that reflected my tradition, as they would all bear his surname. So we have Samuel, Rachel, and Manny (Emanuel.) That'll do for me! The original family name was "Shammes," which means "sexton." So far as Jewish surnames are concerned, there are an awful lot of African-Caribbean people who have them. Slaves don't have surnames - they don't need them. Upon manumission (the legal act involved in freeing a slave) s/he needs to be given a surname, and the freed slaves were, for want of any better ideas, given the surnames of their masters, some of whom were Jewish. All highly interesting, but not that big a deal in the great scheme of things! Incidentally, "Sokoloff" means "son of the eagle," can you think of anything more goyische that that, har har. Cuzzin Ruth
ReplyDeleteWhat's in a name indeed, dear Baron! After all, you changed yours to Anglicize it. My maiden name, "Sokoloff," wasn't the family name: it was part of the fake Russian identity my grandfather had to buy to get out of Russia on account of the pogroms. No-one uses it any more, except my sister, and I'm not exactly sure why she does so - she didn't really like our father, or any of his siblings. There are squillions of Sokoloff chess players, diplomats, scientists, athletes, etc., but I'm related to NONE of them! I was glad to lose my maiden name upon marrying Mike, as it got in the way of communication with people in this insular country. As to my children, by husband made the kind gesture of insisting upon their having forenames that reflected my tradition, as they would all bear his surname. So we have Samuel, Rachel, and Manny (Emanuel.) That'll do for me! The original family name was "Shammes," which means "sexton." So far as Jewish surnames are concerned, there are an awful lot of African-Caribbean people who have them. Slaves don't have surnames - they don't need them. Upon manumission (the legal act involved in freeing a slave) s/he needs to be given a surname, and the freed slaves were, for want of any better ideas, given the surnames of their masters, some of whom were Jewish. All highly interesting, but not that big a deal in the great scheme of things! Incidentally, "Sokoloff" means "son of the eagle," can you think of anything more goyische that that, har har. Cuzzin Ruth
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