Speaking of Great-Grandma Czarnecki And En El Primero de Novembre de 2011...

Y en el Dia de Los Muertos 2011, I think of and remember Great-Grandma Czarnecki. I think of the woman who was my great-grandma and who I took for granted all those times that we visited her at Apartment 214, 10 E South Street in Wilkes Barre. I think of the woman whose history I never knew or took time to knew-- so she's Pop-Pop's mom, Great-Granddad's widow, the one who's Lithuanian (I assumed from what I was told.). I think of the woman whose life came to a cold, callous end in a hospital with its possessor's leg amputated and with a murder-malice-intenting son who committed Social Security in it.

I think of the good Jewish Evagelical Catholic mother and wife, aunt and sister, and daughter who I've learned so much about since she's been gone-- the daughter of a gentile Trudniak and Jewish Catholic Monkaova of Kacwin and Lapsze Nizne, Poland (both then in Slovakian Austria Hungary), the mother (and grandmother and great-grandmother) of Jews herself ("And in you all the families of the earth shall be blessed.”"; "and in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed;"-- and if she didn't know, she'd at least be tickled to know that her seed and her mother's seed are also descendants of at least many of the nations of the earth); the wife, aunt, grandaunt, great-grandaunt, and otherwise a relative of a diverse Jewish family

(e.g., I don't think that she'd care anymore that her son Tony's wife is Irish-- she didn't like that Grandaunt Mary Ellen is Irish. Maybe she wanted, but just never said that she wanted, Granduncle Tony to marry a good Jewish girl-- particularly an Ashkenazic Jewish Catholic girl, Anusit or open about her Jewishness-- and not make the same mistake that she did and marry a meshugener, who would've been a meshugene in Granduncle Tony's case. V'chalilah when Pop-Pop married Grandma-- she did not like her. She even cut her out of a picture and replaced her with a Christmas tree.).

And looking back on all I've learned and all that I saw for myself, especially in a Jewish context; I see an elter-bubbie for whom I will pursue tzedek-- "Tzedek, tzedek, tirdof."-- and let her son learn that of all things that he's done, (so to speak) stepping all over his good Jewish Christian mama is one thing with which he will not get away.


I am a Monkaova Trudniak, no question.

Great-Grandma Czarnecki her grandson Gary on my dad's first wedding day, July 22, 1989. This is how I remember her-- except that she was much older when I met her.

At Dad's baptism. Great-Granddad is next to her.

She is holding Aunt Mary, Great-Granddad next to her and holding Dad. Granduncle Red is on the right, Granduncle Jim next to Great-Grandma.



Great-Grandma Czarnecki on her wedding day, May 10, 1934. I should've known-- she was too pretty to be just Slovakian.

With mama Anna Trudniak nee Monkaova