Getting Back In Touch

Irene's travel blog has been dusted off and resurrected!

I regret not keeping this blog up to date. Since last year's big trip, I have travelled very little, but my adventures were meaningful nonetheless.

Last June, my mother and I drove to Wildwood, Florida to visit my father's grave for the first time since his burial. The Greenwood Cemetery is a very old, peaceful resting place in rural Sumter County in central Florida.

My father's family settled in Wildwood when he was a child in the 1930s. They were the token immigrant family in this small town, but they were well-liked by their neighbors. The patriarch, Basil, ran a restaurant and rooming house. Basil's wife, Harritamany, who only spoke Greek, was a fastidious (likely OCD) housekeeper who ran a tight ship. She died an early death in 1939 at the age of 36. She had some kind of heart condition, but many in the family still joke that she worked herself to death, scrubbing the wooden floors of their tiny house until it had splinters. It was also said that she died of a broken heart......

Decades ago, Wildwood was a busy railroad hub, and the proximity of the family's house to the railroad tracks was a major influence in their lives. In fact, Uncle Mike became a railroad engineer in his adult life because of his love for trains. Tragically, their brother Nick, who sold sandwiches at the railroad as a mere child, was violently struck by a train and died at the age of six. As family members have told the story, my grandfather took a large straw basket and gathered up the pieces of his young son that were scattered around the tracks. What a strong man. This was only two months after the death from natural causes of their two-year-old child, Mary.

Eighty years later, my father was the final sibling of seven to pass. He was his father's "favored child." Yes, Basil was strong and wise.