K is for Katherine (the greats!)

***I’m going to try to post something every day in the month of November. I definitely may not- it’s just a goal and I’m not going to be upset about missing it! Hopefully in my spare time, I can come up with a post per day. My prompts are going to be the letters of the alphabet. I will write about something that starts with the day’s letter- think Sesame Street meets the blogsphere. Of course there are more days in the month of November than there are letters in the alphabet. I’ll cross that bridge if I come to it!***

I love the legacy of names being passed down from generation to generation. Numerous events have to transpire before a desired name can be passed down. A baby has to be born, the baby has to be the correct gender for the name and both husband and wife need to agree on the name. Many things can *not* happen to make the passing down of a name not possible. 

My mom’s dad, my grandpa (he died before I was born so I obviously didn’t know him. Since I didn’t know him, I never addressed him. He was my grandpa but I tend to think of him as my mom’s dad more than my grandpa and since my mom spoke so lovingly of him, his association to me is based on his relationship to my mom, not me.) came over from Germany in 1924. My mom’s dad, Johannes, came over to America with his brother when he was 18 and his brother was 17 years old.

My uncle is on the left, don’t know who is in the middle and Johaness, my mom’s dad is on the right. They are on the boat that took from across the Atlantic to America.

Whoever wrote on the back of the photo was definitely a native German speaker even though it’s written in English. The S is capitalized- in German, nouns are always capitalized whether proper or not.

My grandpa’s German passport and passport picture

My mom’s four aunts on her dad’s side, her dad’s sisters, all remained in Germany. My mom lived in Germany for a short time after she finished college and stayed with her relatives, including her aunts. Only one of my grandpa’s sisters married and had a family. The children of that family were my mom’s cousins. My mom got to know her cousins when she lived in Germany. I ended up staying for six weeks with one of my mom’s cousin, Hansjoachim and his wife Ingrid when I spent six weeks in Germany after spending six weeks in Austria one summer in college. 

Anyway, one of my mom’s unmarried aunts was named Käthe and the story goes that my aunt Katy, my mom’s sister was named Katherine in honor of her Aunt Käthe. My mom was ten years older than her sister Katherine (called Katy). When Aunt Katy was eight years old, my mom finished high school and went away to college. Before my mom finished college, my aunt and my mom’s mom died from cancer. Apparently my mom left college to help raise Aunt Katy. I had no idea that she did this; my mom never spoke of it. My siblings and I didn’t find out about it until Aunt Katy told us at our mom’s funeral. My mom never told us that she left college to help care for her younger two sisters but she did.

(My parents didn’t get married until they were in their mid- 30’s. My mom was always vague with us kids about what her twenties were like. We knew that she lived in Germany after college for some length of time. We found out, like I said, at her funeral that she left college to take care of my aunts and stayed with them until their dad remarried. We knew she worked at a bakery which is where she learned to decorate cakes beautifully. Honestly, if I found out she spent some time in her twenties as a spy I would not be shocked- not because she gave any clues that she had been a spy, it’s just that nothing would surprise me about her!)

My parents named my sister Katherine after mom’s sister, my Aunt Katy. Like Aunt Katy, we called my sister Katy. So we had two Katy’s in the family! We didn’t see my Aunt Katy too often- maybe five times a year or so as she lived four hours away in Michigan. Despite the age difference between my mom and my Aunt Katy as well as them not living very close to each other, they were close as adults. Aunt Katy supported us as much as she could living as far away as she did. She would travel to see us to attend special events. She helped out my mom by paying for trips for the two of them to go on together when my siblings and I were older. They went traveling out West, to Israel and to Germany together with my aunt paying for most of my mom’s way. 

My own sister Katy and I grew up close. We were less than two years apart in age and shared a room. We were destined to either really like each other... or really not like each other. Fortunately, it was the former. We were also that cliched sister duo- my sister, the oldest, was way more outgoing than I was in. In school, she was very popular, very talented musically (she starred in the musicals and was often asked to sing solos in church), and a great student to boot. But I don’t remember being jealous of her- just proud of her. We were each other playmates when we we were kids and then shopping mates, confidantes and all that teenagery stuff when we were older. 

I knew I wanted to carry on the Katherine naming tradition but there were hoops that I had to go through: namely, getting married, having a girl to name and having my husband agree to name a daughter Katherine.  Those things all happened. But wait, aren’t the girls’ names Abby and Alyssa? Yes, I never pushed for Katherine for a first name, just a middle name. All of our kids’ first names are names that we personally liked and our kids’ middle names are the ones that we used family names for. Jacob’ s middle name is in honor of Donnie’s maternal grandpa. Abby’s middle name is in honor of my mom. So that left Alyssa to bear the Katherine moniker as her middle name. (But I don’t think, it’s too much to bear- it’s a classic, pretty name!!)

Speaking of the Jacob, Abby and Alyssa, Jacob and Abby favor my side of the family in looks. In particular, I think they favor my mom’s side. I see a little bit of Jacob in my grandpa, the one who came over from Germany and I see a little bit of my mom in Abby. At a minimum, they have “my” eyes which are the eyes from my mom’s side of the family. And how ironic that Alyssa Katherine, of Katherine from my side of the family, could not look less like anyone from my side and instead looks almost exactly like a Rineer, specifically, her father. 

I kind of like the irony of Alyssa’s looks not matching her namesake side of the family. (And not just because there are some great Rineer physical features like that cute, small nose that is now comingling with some good ol’ not small German noses on my side.) What really matters is not what nose, name or quality of singing voice gets passed down to the next generation. What I hope all of the kids have inherited, whether from nature or nurture, from both sides of the family is courage (from my grandpa leaving all that he knew in Germany to come to the US and Donnie’s grandpas for fighting overseas in WWII), the selflessness to sacrifice (time like my mom did when she left college to care for my aunts and money like my aunt did to generously pay for trips), fortitude for dealing with life’s unexpected sorrows (my mom dealing with her mom’s death at a young age, my parents having a chronically ill child (see yesterday’s post...) and making faith the foundation of the family. Yes, the cute noses and beautiful singing voices are wonderful to pass down but the greatest of these is love. And for that, I am so grateful for my Katherines (among others...) whom I have been fortunate to know and love. 

My sister Katy and me

Katy after one of her singing performances

My mom and sister and me- though mom was as sweet as those kittens on her sweatshirt, there is no telling what else she kept from us! 

Just pics of Katy and me from this year- in NYC

In Ohio

My Aunt Katy and me

In Indiana- Katy and me and our niece Mary (who is named after our mom!)

With Aunt Katy

In Canada

My own Kutie Katherine...

Her brief but intense love of lipstick wore off (no pun intended) by the time she was a teenage. Aw, but she sure does not need beauty enhancers!