Josh Renaud

Houston, we have a Jadzia

Well, we have been enjoying the Republic of Texas for the past 2 days.

On Sunday we flew into Houston to visit with Yoli's friend Sonja and her husband Jody and their two children. The flight itself went very well with no problems from Jadzia or Ludi. In fact, this may have been one of the best flights we've had in our post-childbirth era. :)

We enjoyed our day with the Zanders. Yoli was showing Sonja how to make many Bolivian foods that she remembered from her days living in Bolivia and attending Hebron Theological Seminary. Jadzia seemed to have fun playing with Xena, who was just a little bit younger than her. The two girls had a bath together Sunday night and really enjoyed that. Jody and I spent a couple hours racing each other on Gran Turismo for his playstation. It's been a while since I've played any video games, so it was a fun diversion for me.

Monday morning, Jonathan came over to pick us up. He had surprised his girlfriend Brittney this weekend by showing up to visit her earlier than she expected. Our drive from Houston to San Antonio went pretty well; we didn't have to stop for anything, and we were able to squeeze all our luggage and car seats into Jonny's Neon.

We spent Monday visiting with Nan and Jonny and my cousin Alan. In the evening we wanted to go bowling, but it didn't work out, so instead we drove over to my Aunt Karen's and surprised her. Jadzia played with dolls and stickers and got a kick out of seeing all their fish tanks. Jonny and Alan shot some pool, then Yoli and I took a turn. None of us was very good, I think.

Anyway, so far the trip has been very nice. We always love to be in San Antonio.

Beckers in North St. Louis

Just a little spinoff project from my family research. I'm making a map from all the addresses I can find on death certificates, censuses, etc. You can see that in the first part of the 20th century, the Beckers were pretty well clustered in North St. Louis, which was a predominantly German area at the time.

I try to imagine what it must have been like for them at the time. They were living in a dense urban setting, with most of their family and friends living very close by. Shops and businesses were on the corner, instead of a long drive away.

Click here to see the map on Google Maps.

You can zoom in and out, and get more information by clicking on the arrows.

Or, if you have Google Earth, try this version.

Jadzia-ese

Jadzia is speaking so much better these days than she was months ago. She uses far more intelligible words and sentences, though they are often mixtures of Spanish and English.

Here are a few interesting things she is saying (frequently) these days.

"Careful, careful"
We have always used "cuidate" (be careful) since she started crawling and walking... Now she says it all the time.

"I got it, I did it"
These two phrases are always uttered together. And usually when I hear her say it, I launch into my rendition of Mr. Rogers' song "You can do it."

"I fell my ded�"
She means "I dropped my blanket." Ded� (or "dayday") is her madeup word for mantita, or blanket.

"Nosy nose"
She has taken to adding the "y" sound to the ends of certain words, especially nose. When her nose is running, she will start repeating "nosy nose." Other examples: "Binky" (another word for blanket); "bookie" for book.

"We're sharing"
She often says this when she is really sharing toys or something. But sometimes she uses it when Ludi or Yoli or I have something and she wants to start playing with it, too.

"Nanny, Bock, Tio, Becca, Keaton, Hayden"
When we are playing pretend with toys, the toys will all become a long list of characters from the family. She recites every name from memory. Or, if we are praying, she likes to call out every name in the family.

"Mary, Joseph, Jesus"
Same as above. Ever since she started hearing the Christmas story, she likes to pretend she is Mary and that Ludi or her dolls are Jesus.

"Es abajo en la mesa"
"It's under the table." She now can give specific directions on where to find her books or toys.

Tragedies in the tree

I spent Christmas evening with my extended family on the Becker side. It's the first time in a number of years that I could make it to this celebration, since most years I have to work at the newspaper in the evening.

I told some of my aunts and uncles about my research into the Becker and Chorosevic branches of my family tree. More than one of them joked about digging up "dirty laundry" from years gone by.

Truth is, it's hard to really get close to these folks.

I find their names; oftentimes their dates of birth and death; maybe some physical description; maybe a home address; maybe a trade or profession. I can find this information from birth and death certificates, census entries, obituaries, and other sources.

These details give me a glimpse of the people, but it still feels like I'm far away from really knowing who they are or what they were like.

What I would love is to find newspaper articles that mention my family members. Stories with quotes, any sort of color that might give me more of a glimpse.

How do you find such stories? The Beckers were German immigrants. They were working-class people. They were not making regular appearances on the "society" pages of the Post-Dispatch. Without a searchable newspaper database or an index, you would have to have lots of free time to read through the paper, seeking your relatives.

But I've come to realize the primary stories I'm going to find in the paper are related to events I know the dates for -- usually deaths.

As it turns out, I have found several instances where the Beckers pop up in the papers because of tragedies -- and all within the same generation.

• William Becker, my great-great-grandfather, died suddenly on the street while walking to a neighborhood store in 1936. For this, he received a brief write-up (one paragraph) in the paper. My uncle Jack was apparently with him when this happened, but he was only about 3 or 4 and doesn't remember it.

This was the first story about the family I found in the paper. It came early on in my research because I already knew about the incident, and was looking for it in the papers. It took awhile before I found the next two incidents.

• William's brother, John, was murdered in Chicago in 1917.

• Another sibling, Viola, was killed in a car accident in 1925 along with her husband, John Meyer.

I did not know about these latter two incidents. I "discovered" them after reading obituaries. In John's case, he died young and in a city away from the rest of the family. This made me curious about the circumstances of his death. In the case of the Meyers, their obituaries were published one on top of the other and they were listed as having died at the same time; almost certainly some sort of accident.

I have found a lot of material related to John A. Becker's murder. I will write about what I found (and how I found it) in detail, hopefully later this week. I am trying to pin down a little bit more information before I write.

By the way, here's a quick diagram that traces my ancestry back to the William Becker who immigrated to the U.S. in 1852. It also shows all the siblings of the "tragedy" generation I am talking about above.