Growing up and finding stories

I grew up in New York City in the Bronx. We lived in a section of the Bronx called Riverdale. Now growing up I was always encouraged to say that I was from the Bronx not Riverdale. My sisters and I didn’t grow up poor, but we certainly weren’t similar to the wealthier people and better housing that Riverdale was known for. So growing up I was from the Bronx. We didn’t want others to get the wrong impression as to our status in the world. At least that is what I was told. If you want a job (as a teenager) say you’re from the Bronx. Which was like when I moved out to Long Island and was told “if you want a job say you’re a Republican.”

We lived in the part of Riverdale that was opposite Manhattan College (which I discovered later in life was a small college when I went to Stony Brook), a subway train depot, and Gaelic Park, which was a stadium where some soccer games, some college football games and concerts were held (some of which we could see from the roof of our apartment; all of which we could hear). We were a short walk away from the end of the IRT elevated subway line, Van Cortlandt Park and a Fanny Farmer’s candy factory (which my mother worked at for a while).

As a storyteller you would think that I have many tales to share about growing up in Riverdale. I probably do, but I only recall them when I get reminded of some incident that occurred connected to something happening now. Storytelling wasn’t part of growing up as with a number of other storytellers that I have interacted with over the years. I wish it were, so I could have a better handle on where my parents came from, what they went through to get here and add a lot more non-fiction to my repertoire. All my ancestry is German. My parents and their siblings are no longer alive and my grandparents all died before I was born, so my source for generational stories, which was pretty dry to begin with, has dried up.

Luckily for me when I became a teacher I got more into storytelling and ancestry information gathering.  I managed to get some recorded stories from both my parents before they died. One of my sisters even took some videos of my mom, which she shared with all of us. The rest is up to me and digital research as the family historian. I’ve contacted a researcher in Germany that lives near where my parents’ grew up and he has given me much information about my ancestors as well as pictures. My biggest difficulty is that the German writing that was used when my parents were in Germany is no longer taught and even though I have over 100 letters that were written to my mother  and some to my father when they first came to America, very few people know how to translate the Suetterlin (old German script) that was used in them. Someday I hope to learn some german and travel to Germany to do more research. Until then I’ll keep plugging away on the web to gather more information and stick to folktales and other stories to use in my performances.