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Family Interlude: Non Compos Mentis

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He gold curls now gone
Freckles faded, palest white.
Complains in Latin!

 

Popsie Wopsie has pneumonia. I spent a day with him, this mostly involved me sitting in his room crocheting and watching tv while he slept. I was reluctant to wake him.

After several hours, he did wake, complained his back hurt and rolled over. He asked a me few questions, and then felt grumpy at himself he didn’t recognize the name of the town I live in. He groused, I’m “non compos mentis”. The Latin made me smile a little– but then, not so much.

I thought some of you might like to see a school photo and guess which one is my Dad. (Not very useful hint: He’s the one wearing glasses which are visible in the original.)

update: Irrelevant seeming link to register with names of 3 family members and one of their neighbors on ships log. Zacapa passenger list.

62 thoughts on “Family Interlude: Non Compos Mentis”

  2. Correct. Dad was very, very blond. He mostly took after his irish-american father. His brother and sister had dark hair. My hair is darker like my mothers.

  3. We Irish are, by nature I think, inclined a bit to see life as a tragedy, since, as in all tragic plays, the protagonist dies in the end. But the memories I carry of people now long dead convince me that in some sense people do indeed live on. Life is less tragic than it sometimes seems.

  4. Pneumonia and hurt back cannot be pleasant. :/

    Pops is now on the prayer list.

    I like the rolled up pants some of the lads are sporting. 😉

    Andrew

  5. It’s funny– Right now, I’m being self indulgent and googling various names associated with the cuban part of the family. (Auza, Harding, Bacardi. Bacardi was a neighbor– not family. But combinations sometimes turn up things better than using just Auza or Harding.)

    Anyway, I found the obit for dad’s aunt Stella Auza Harding’s husband, an opthalmologist GW Black. It seems he was a socialist (in the sense of, quite possibly, communist!)

  6. I knew a fella once, a very old man, a Spanish-American War veteran in fact, dying of pneumonia, and turning his head to the wall. When encouraged to be more active to help the nurses take care of him he said ‘God will take care of me’, and died a few days later.

    God bless you, lucia, and your Popsie Wopsie.
    ==================

  7. Thanks Kim– Dad’s on antibiotics.
    Andrew_KY. Thanks. As you know Dad is Catholic, so he will definitely take all the prayers he can get!

  8. SteveF:
    Recall Yeats’ great line: ‘As an Irishman he had an abiding sense of tragedy that sustained him through fleeting moments of joy.’

    Lucia:
    I assume the passengers on the Zacapa were not fleeing the effects of climate change. Was it just the generic opportunity thing that got most of here or was there a more specific reason for your Dad’s migration?

  10. George Tobin,
    I think Joyce’s short story “The Dead” pretty well portrays the Irish sense of tragedy.

  11. George Tobin,
    Very long answer… but fun. 🙂

    First: Dad’s grandfather, Paul Harding was American. Two of the relatives on that list are “Maria Harding” and “Margarita Harding”. We’ll get back to that.

    Second: Dad’s grandmother’s family, the Auza’s were always going back and forth between Cuba and the US. I just found my grandmother Lucia’s cousin’s obit: http://obitz.us/obits/Index%20E/notesobit_e_1427.txt You’ll see it reads “Maria Auza on Dec. 1, 1915, in Santiago de Cuba,
    Cuba, and was raised in Cuba and Philadelphia. She graduated from Sacred Heart Convent in Montreal, Canada.”

    Having two addresses was typical for the Auzas of that generation. You’ll also notice that on the ships log I linked “Frank Auza” i listed as living in ” Auza,Frank, St. Davids, Penn.” Frank had two official addresses. The other was in Cuba. Family stories suggest this Frank had a third address. He was, uhm… ‘colorful’, to the extent that Dad and uncle Chico were “very confused” when their second cousin introduced himself at school. Fortunately, the asked uncle frank about this before asking uncle Frank’s wife– because, well, that subject was not to be discussed in the presence of uncle Frank’s wife.)

    Anyway, back to the comings and goings between Cuba and the US. My grandmother’s grandfather (or great grandfather?) had immigrated to Cuba from Spain, and was very interested in engineering, particularly in mechanizing various food processing things. So, he imported, and sold engines, and established or ran sugar mills etc. Because of the import/export business required dealing with Americans, he wanted his kids educated in the US. The result was that quite a few of the Auza kids ended up marrying Americans who they met while in school in the US.

    As you can see from the ships log and the obit, Frank and Maria Auza– grandmother’s cousins– lived both in Pennsylvania and Cuba. They didn’t so much immigrate as they always lived in both the US and Cuba. Their mother was an American who had married a dashing Cuban Auza man sent to school in Pennsylvania.

    Now, back to more direct lines: My grandmother’s mother (Margarita Auza) had also been sent to school in the US. Like her brother she also married an American. However, she didn’t marry an American she met in the US. She married Paul Harding, American who had come to oversee construction of a railroad. They had 8 daughters. (Maria and Margarita’s names appear on that ships log.)

    Eventually, after railroad construction work in Cuba dried up, the family moved to Staten Island NY. I have no idea what my Grandfather Paul Harding did in Staten Island or why he moved there instead of back to Missouri. He…well… vanished. (Family stories abound.)

    But regardless of what happened to him, his coming to the US wasn’t immigrating so much as just returing to the US. His 8 daughters all had joint US/Cuba citizenship — and for all I know, his wife might have had joint citizenship.

    So, the “immigration”, wasn’t entirely an “immigration”. This was a family that went back and forth.

    (Note the back and forth continued. At the age of 16 while living in Staten Island, by grandmother Lucia eloped with a handsome curly blond haired Irish American (aka “Grandpa Harry”.) During the depression, she and the three kids lived in Cuba for a while. That’s when the photo was taken. They returned to the US when dad was in highschool. He graduated from Georgetown, then later he took a job in Columbian/Guatemala/El Salvador. So, there’s been lots of moving back and forth between the US and Latin America.)

  12. Lucia, I always find family histories and personalities to be fascinating. I have learned a lot about the cultural differences in families by way of my married children’s in-laws and my in-laws. One of my sons in-laws are as Irish-American as you can get and certainly would not, as a group, fit Keats line from above. My wife’s Finnish-American mother, when she was alive, on the other hand, would.

    I hope your father recovers soon.

  13. Lucia,

    Now that is a colorful family history. 🙂

    To paraphrase Madelin Kahn: “Always coming and going, and going and coming”…. oh well.

  14. “Andrew_KY. Thanks. As you know Dad is Catholic, so he will definitely take all the prayers he can get!”

    When my Dad got out of heart surgery, one of the things I was delighted to tell him, when he finally could have visitors, was that all my online Catholic (and otherwise) friends had been praying for and thinking of him. I (with big grin) said, “You are nationwide, Dad.”

    I could tell for an instant he was taken aback, having not much of an idea that was possible, being from a generation not immersed in such things.

    He gave a “is that so” kind of grunt of acceptance. That’s my Dad. 🙂

    Andrew

  15. SteveF–
    Actually, I left the colorful ‘bits’ out. One– about Maria Auza Brault Elwell I’m not sure is true– and some bits I think I know are certain to be false. (She was a lot of fun. It’s not often a 15 year old meets her Grandmother’s cousin and thinks that elderly lady is actually, really, totally fun.)

    The other story has to do with the son of the guy whose obit is linked above. I am under the very distinct impression that Dad’s cousin Sebastian Black vanished from Oxford (Cambridge?) and… and… joined… The French Foreign Legion! (Last I heard Sebastian was living in New Zealand, where he had been a professor of English. )

    Also, my grandmother and her sisters all insist that ‘ “Uncle” Warren’ visited them in Cuba but I’ve never really gotten any solid evidence this is so. I asked deaf Aunt Dolorita about Warren, and all she told me was Florence didn’t approve of the Auza men’s influence on Warren. I laughed and said that was silly because Warren was a known philaderer. And Dolo said — but Warren only had 1 querida where as her Cuban uncles had several.

    (Dad and Uncle Chico confirm their great uncles tendency toward many queridas. At school, various “cousins” would introduce themselves. )

  17. SteveF– Biographies suggest Warren had at least 2 queridas. I’m scanning Wikipedia, but they don’t seem to discuss the two women.. I’ll look for something more scurrilous. 🙂

  18. http://americanhistory.about.com/od/warrengharding/p/pHarding.htm

    Wife: Florence Mabel Kling DeWolfe – She was divorced with one son. Harding had two extramarital affairs.
    Children: No legitimate children; One daughter through an extramarital affair with Nan Britton.

    More scurrilous versions suggesting more numerous affairs can be found online. But my impression is the truth is he had a very, very long running affair with Carrie Phillips, and later a briefer one with Nan Britton.

  19. Lucia,
    .
    About 15 years ago, I worked a couple of months each year in Colombia doing technical consulting; I usually stayed for a week at a time. It was a period that was kind of dangerous for Americans (risk of kidnapping), so the company I worked for assigned a single driver to me, who was believed to be trustworthy enough to not sell me out to the bad guys. His name was Sr. Lemos, and I got to know him pretty well (45 minutes in the car each morning and evening after all, him speaking Spanish and me speaking an odd mix of Spanish and Portuguese). I learned that Lemos had an official wife and three children (all grown) plus a querida 20 years his junior.. and two more children with her. All the children knew each other. He told me that when is wife discovered the existence of the querida by a chance encounter… Lemos was walking out of a grocery store with a 7 months pregnant young woman… his wife “flew through the air and tried to strangle” the querida. Bystanders called the police, and Lemos ended up having to bail all three of them out of jail.
    .
    So I asked Lemos what his wife did after that. Said Lemos: “She did not talk to me for two years… but she did not want a divorce.” So Lemos spends Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays with his querida, and the other days with his official wife. Odd things happen in Latin America.

  20. Yep. Mom and Dad lived in Columbia when they first married. Sounds like the sort of thing that would happen in Columbia.

    In El Salvador, Dad asked a friend of his to recommend a jeweler. So, the friend “X Jr.” took him to a jewelry shop. The jeweler was run by Charlie, who turned out to be “X’s” half brother. Charlie was born on “the other side of the blanket” as were Charlie’s brother’s and sisters. (I am using “X” for the other friend because the name is distinctive.)

    Well… at least X’s dad supported his other family too. The same could be said about Dad’s various uncles and great uncles! Dad and Uncle Chico met all these “cousins” because they were in school together and the boys all knew who their father’s were. Dad said he and Uncle Chico were told that this was not to be discussed in the presence of the various aunts– but really, everyone knew.

    I mean… the kids went to the same schools!

  22. Amac–
    That is, indeed him:

    I have not met him. Evidently, he visited roughly 10 years ago. He had my cousin Bill’s phone number, and they got together. But Bill didn’t know I had moved back to Illinois. (I didn’t send out an APB– and had just moved.)

    I would have loved to meet Dad’s most gossiped about cousin. (Only one person claims to know why Sebastian ran off to the French Foreign Legion, and he’s not talking!)

  23. Lucia,

    He seems feisty. From the New Zeland Listener (http://www.listener.co.nz/issue/3688/letters/16776.html;jsessionid=4D6E3218BE0ABA5DBF843541DA580BCA):

    CALL THAT PROGRESS?
    Brian Turner challenges the way the Resource Management Act treats “birds, fish, trees and rivers as resources” (Letters, January 8). His argument should be taken further. Employees have been transformed by administrative sleights of hand into “human resources”. The practice is widespread, and always demeaning. I taught at a university and question whether my successors are able to fulfil their responsibilities of teaching, research and, most pertinently, being the critic and conscience of society when denied their full humanity.
    Sebastian Black
    Retired, University of Auckland

    Not sure he shares the same political views as you though. 😉

  24. SteveF–
    It appears his father was a socialist — but in the sense that Americans would call “communist”.

    FWIW, Grandpa Harry (who was an absolute saint– and I am not being ironic) was heavily involved in labor law during the era when unions were just being established. And, I’m pretty sure that in addition to being influenced by his own father, Sebastian may have been influenced by Harry because I’m pretty sure Aunt Stella sent Sebastian to live with Lucia and Harry during the blitz. New York was safer than London.

    If we ever meet in person, I can tell you more even funnier family stories (some of which I am not sure are true. Some I know are.)

  27. Lucia,
    My heart goes out to you and your father.
    That he is so well loved by you speaks volumes.
    You will both be in my prayers.
    FWIW, my family has deep roots in Colombia, going back to the early 1950’s and up to today, with my wife being Colombian born and our children visiting their vast numbers of cousins there on a fairly frequent basis.

  30. 2nd row, third kid over starting from the left. The kid in the black suit and tie. Lucia’s dad was most likely a bully who stole lunch money from girls.

  31. I was actually looking into my family heritage and I found out they were coppersmiths for centuries. This is curious to me because I have always had a deep desire to go on a treasure hunt. Preferably, I would like to lead a team of adventurers/mercenaries through the jungles of Africa on a quest for a huge and rare diamond. We would of course ride mounted war hippopotamuses. I am also open to scuba diving for buried dabloons but it is less appealing without the war hippopotamuses.

  32. That’s good news Lucia!

    Dr. Shoosh, we are going out of town this weekend, and part of the agenda is to visit a tourmaline mine. We have a reservation to hunt for some gems! 😉 There are lots of places in the USA , that for a fee you can go look for gems (and even diamonds) at mines where they give you a tour and a bucket of dirt and gravel to swift through on your own. I am looking forward to it..hiking, being outdoors and treasure hunting.

  33. Liza that sounds awesome. I don’t know what I would do if I ever found a rare gem. I would want to sell it for the money but I know I would be obsessed with hoarding and coveting the gem. I think the beauty of the stone would outweigh my desire to sell it. You should look into ocean treasures. Most estimates say there are billions worth of uncovered dabloons from shipwrecks.

  34. Dr. Shoosh, I actually have a cousin whose husband worked on a crew that found a shipwreck. They became very well off overnight!

    Edit add on:.. and come to think of it; we have a treasure huntin’ friend who researches and looks for (as a hobby) old stories/and the rumored lost gold and money stolen from stage coaches here in So. Cal (the routes between the old California missions)

  35. I’m glad you shared the story with me, Liza. my stupid friends are always telling me I will never find buried treasure or anything but this gives me hope. The way I see it, not too many people are looking for lost treasure.

  37. Don’t listen to them Dr. Shoosh. My husband actually discovered a six million year old fossil forest by tripping over a stump on the beach when the tide was super low. He was collecting data that day for another project and the discovery changed his whole thesis subject (and life) when that happened. One stump is in the paleo-bontany dept. at Berkley on display. 🙂 Or it was last time we checked..it was over ten years ago. The forest was buried by a mega tsunami event. He also discovered an earthquake fault at the same time nobody knew about. Lots of treasures and mysteries yet to be discovered on this planet. Contrary to popular belief…we don’t know and haven’t found everything. 😉

  39. Ah I can see Dr.Shoosh, Phd with his bullwhip and cool Indy hat roaming the African rain forests looking for the lost ark…

  42. I came here to relate a story of my family and then I read the Shooshman comment and it makes me more than little angry. That was an immature statement no matter what the intent. Lucia has been much more tolerant of these antics than I would ever be.

    Anyway my point was going to be that I think we sometimes do not consider these stories we hear about our close relatives in the proper context or even being totally factual or with the correct implications because we see our relatives in the light of their current ages and statuses in life and cannot project them back to their younger years.

    We had always heard that my grandfather and grandmother had homesteaded in Montana early in the 1900s. These grandparents were always considered to be a serious and stolid couple and particularly so my grandmother. The details of their homesteading was never talked about in detail, but I was able to determine that they both were about 18 years old when they both moved from Illinois to Montana to homestead, my grandfather for himself and my grandmother for her father. They did not know one another until they met in Montana. My grandfather was accompanied by his older brother and my grandmother by her sister and brother. There were no parents or adult aunts or uncles on the premises, i.e. no adult supervision. Eventually my grandparents were married in Montana and that is where my father was born. My grandfather’s brother married my grandmother’s sister in Montana also.

    The point I have made with my siblings was what would young people be doing out in Montana away from home for the first time and particularly on cold winter nights. I suppose we could make their adventure somewhat akin to kids going away from home to college these days, but I think they were more alone together homesteading than would be the case of being in college with thousands of other young people. Put that together with my view of what my grandkids project as the images of their grandparents and I of mine when I was younger, and as I get older I have some rather different images of what might have held for the young people homesteading in Montana.

  43. Dr. Shooshmon,

    You owe Lucia an apology, no matter if you were only trying to be funny. You owe yourself a good deal of growing up. Were I Lucia, I would simply block your future comments.

  44. Ken–
    It is rather amazing to think of young people up and moving to Montana– especially young people you only knew when they were old. Clearly, moving out into the Montana wilderness is not quite like going to college in 2011. It’s not even similar to going to college in the 1950s!

  46. Oh come on. Who cares that Shoosh said that. Man up and get over it. It may be rude, immature or silly but sheesh.

    I have to say, talking about communism in your family as if it’s cute and quirky condition or even “acceptable” is sort of outrageous to some people too. That includes me. My father fought in a war; and has been disabled all of his life and so communism means or equals death and suffering for millions of people. Think about that and when you dish out the word “antics” and “tolerance”.

    My grandfather left his country Greece, and traveled to the USA when he was only 13 with his brother who was only 15; without his parents or family to get away from communism. He grew up without any of them here. It was a sacrifice his mom and dad made.

  49. Lucia,

    I’m sorry to hear about your dad, but I’m glad he seems to be getting better. Fingers crossed.

    Arfur

  50. Okay, the comment about Lucia’s dad was a joke. I will not apologize because I believe I would be insulting Lucia’s intelligence. I’m pretty sure the boy I mentioned in the black suit isn’t even her dad. If she requests an apology, I will give her one.

    SteveF and Kenneth Flinch are cowards, Hoi Polloi has a brilliant mind and probably a photographic memory. I would most definitely have a bullwhip to get my war hippo to speed up.

    Liza, your hysterical. I always love it when a woman tells a man to “man up”. If a woman ever has to say that to me, I will know my life has been a failure and I am a coward. SteveF’s and Kenneth Flinch’s quest for political correctness has turned them into shells of men. Hunter, is that good enough clarification for you, fine sir?

  52. Shoosh

    Okay, the comment about Lucia’s dad was a joke. I will not apologize because I believe I would be insulting Lucia’s intelligence. I’m pretty sure the boy I mentioned in the black suit isn’t even her dad.

    This is your guess for who my father is:

    2nd row, third kid over starting from the left. The kid in the black suit and tie.

    My dad is in the 2nd row from the top, third kid over, starting from the left. He is wearing a black shirt and a white tie.

  54. Okay well then that makes the joke bad and for that I am sorry. I can’t believe I guessed who your dad was on the first try. It has been a bad day for jokes with me. Here at work, we saved some cake for a guy retiring and a client of his came in to wish him well. I told my co-worker who is retiring we saved the cake for him and I told him his client was eyeing it up. To my dismay, both men are diabetics.

    Honestly though, did you think I was serious about your dad being a bully and taking girls’ lunch money? I guess correctly picking out your dad out in that crowd of kids made it seem more serious. Also, your dad has a great smile!

  56. Shoosh

    I was serious about your dad being a bully and taking girls’ lunch money? I guess correctly picking out your dad out in that crowd of kids made it seem more serious. Also, your dad has a great smile!

    I wasn’t sure if you were serious. But picking the only blond kid with milk white skin– as described in the haiku –did make it seem that you might be picking dad.

    I think he’s squinting into the sun in that picture. Dad always seemed very sensitive to bright sun. I don’t know if people with paler eyes tend to be more sensitive– but his eyes are a very pale blue-grey.

  57. @Lucia,

    Yeah your dad actually looks a lot like me, I have pale blue eyes and very fair skin. I wear sunglasses a lot because I get headaches from the sun.

  59. Liza and Drphd, I thought Lucia had a good thread going here and felt like it was with profound feeling because of a serious illiness that her father was experiencing. I like to hear about families and the characters and personalities in them. I did not want to see someone get the thread off track.

    If you want my opinion, I think Drphd made that statement much as a kid would to gain some immediate attention and from there I could see the thread going off topic. As for you, Liza, you seemed to want to discuss Communism when that is not what this thread was all about. I too think it is abhorrent, but a serious discussion about it is for another time and place.

    By the way Liza, if someone made a joke about your father, even if it were for some lame purpose of making a point about PC, I would hope you would not stand there and defend it in the name of point making.

  60. liza-
    Going forward: I fully endorse your decision to ignore all the things you find silly. Bear in mind: Ignoring involves not posting a comment.

    To all–
    I would like this post to focus as much as possible on colorful family stories. I’m going to open a thread for the “other” topics that are polluting this thread. If my “move comment” plugin is still in the plugin directory, I’ll be moving some comments over there.

  62. Shoosh, irt #67290
    The question is this: Is it enough for Lucia?
    I am (in)famous for a terrible sense of humor as well, and can sympathize with the hole you have dug. The best tactic when digging that sort of hole is to stop.
    You seem to have done just that, so fwiw, I am glad to see this.

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