FAMILY

Birren #2

May 22, 2006

I have two baby books.

That in itself is unusual. Mother filled in both of them; the facts are certainly the same. But there the similarity ends; for while one has all the happy platitudes one might expect, the other is written by a new mother whose husband has deserted her. Many years later I learned that my father had another child on the way by a woman who was then two months pregnant. I do not know if my mother was aware of this, but my parents were divorced when I was less than a year old. And so my father disappears from my family history for many years, and it is only his children who later appear in my story.

I was christened for my two grandfathers, Robert and William, and since my father's surname was Thomas, I began life as Bobby Thomas. At a very early age I was cared for by my maternal grandparents, or rather my grandfather and his second wife, Dora Frisch Feindt, who was the niece of his first wife, Minnie Frisch Feindt. Minnie had been very active in the church, and the pipe organ in St. Lucas

Lutheran Church is dedicated to her as first president of the Ladies Aid Society.

She died in the early 20's, and Will married Dora, who was of course my mother's first cousin (and my first cousin, once removed). Dora and Will built a

large duplex in a new subdivision, Harvard Terrace, and it was there that I was

reared on Princeton Drive (streets were named Yale, Amhurst, Vassar, Kenyon, Dartmouth, etc.)

Mother was working and had her own apartment with her dog, a German Shepherd, "Speed", and I spent week-ends with her, as well as several early evenings during

the week. Now I called Dora and Will, "Mom" and "Dad", and my mother was always "Mother", and though I found nothing strange in this arrangement, others thought it rather bizarre.

Mother had started seeing Russell Fishack, and my very earliest memory is being held by "Fuzz" while sitting on his mother's upstairs porch during a thunderstorm and having him assure me that it couldn't hurt me. We later figured out that I was less than three years old at the time.

In 1930 Mother and Fuzz were married at St. Andrews Episcopal Church, and I attended the wedding (Mother wore blue). Fuzz, a graduate of Kenyon College, had grown up in Port Clinton on Lake Erie, and loved sailing, so when his old family house at Eagle Point on the Maumee River became available, he and Mother decided to move in there so we could have our own dock and eight acres of land. The house had been built around the turn of the century and was in total disrepair so that the first time I saw it, I lamented, "We're not going to move in here?" But the view down the river was magnificent, Mother's taste was impeccable, and I still go back there with joy. Dad, who was a brick mason, built a wonderful fireplace complete with a Dutch oven.

I stayed with Mom and Dad during the school time and with Mother and Fuzz on

week-ends and holidays. In winter the river would freeze solid and Dad would walk me on the ice to the middle of the river, where Fuzz would meet us to walk me back to Eagle Point.

The Great Depression was on, and Mother became a social worker. Dad had a heart attack, and the doctor advised him to get away from the severe winters, so beginning in the third grade, I went to Florida with Mom and Dad. We usually went in November (after the hurricane season) and stayed until April in a small town called Dania just south of Fort Lauderdale, and I went to South Broward School.

Mother became head of the PWA in Toledo, and met Eleanor Roosevelt at the time, but turned down the job of heading the WPA in Ohio, since it meant moving to Columbus. But Franklin Roosevelt called her, and "you just don't turn down the President of the United States". So a new chapter in my life began: Mom and

Dad would take me to the station in Toledo and put me on the train under care of

the conductor, and Mother would pick me up in Columbus (or send her secretary).

I was so proud to be traveling "on my own" at age 8. I doubt very much if this would be permitted today.

In early autumn of 1936, Mother took me away for a week-end on Catawba Island, and looking back, it was the last time we were to spend together. I went to Florida with Mom and Dad in November, this time taking along Mom's father, Grampa Henry Frisch, a police sergeant recently retired after 40 years in the mayor's office. Mother wrote to me that I was to have a new baby brother or sister in the Spring.

On April 2nd Dad received a wire from Fuzz saying Mother had delivered a baby girl, but passed away shortly after midnight. I was in school when they came to

get me and we started driving back to Toledo that afternoon. We made it in

three days (almost a thousand miles), and it was only at the funeral when I was sitting next to Fuzz that I realized the import of what had happened.

Fuzz's mother, Lillian, moved in at Eagle Point to take care of my new half-sister,

Judith, and I remained with Mom and Dad. It was decided that they would adopt me legally, and it was at that time I saw my father for the one and only time - or

so I am told - because I have no recollection of it whatsoever. My father had to give his consent, and he had little choice. Years later I found out that his second wife died the same month as my mother.

A strange year. According to the adoption papers my name was to be Robert William Feindt; at the age of 10 I absolutely refused to drop the name Thomas.

I was willing to add the Feindt, but I was Robert William Thomas Feindt, and have been such ever since. During that year nine members of my family died: my mother was the first, and Grampa Frisch the last. Since the custom was for children to wear white as mourning, I was in white for almost the entire year.

My sister Judy and I saw each other only a few times a year. Since I was 10 years older than she, we had very little in common other than knowing we were related.

When Judy was 6 years old, Fuzz married again (Jean), and a year or so later they

had a daughter, Mary. So now my half-sister had a half-sister who was not related to me. Over the years Mary and I have become close, and we have decided to call each other step-brother and step-sister (her father was my step-father).

No, my friends, we are not through yet.

Dad died my last year in high school, and I went to college, and grad school. Mom died several years later, and I was married. Moved to Paris, and divorced.

I was back in Toledo for a visit when an old friend who was the Society Editor for the Toledo Blade, sent a photographer to snap a picture of me by the fireplace at Eagle Point for the paper.

I returned to New York where I received a letter that began, "Dear Mr. Feindt, I hope that next time I write I can say "Dear Bob". I think I am your sister." Of course, she was. Her name was Lois, and her aunt had seen my picture and told

Lois, "That's your brother." We began to correspond, and I learned that she was the second of three children by my father's second wife, and that he had married for a third time and had a daughter by that marriage. So suddenly at age 30 I had four more siblings.

When birthdays were sorted out we discovered that Katie, my father's eldest child by his second wife, was just seven months younger than I. Even more remarkable was that Katie and I had actually attended Libbey High School at the same time, with no idea that each other existed. Of course, Libbey had 3,000 students, and

I was a Junior when she was a Freshman, so our paths never crossed. I met Lois,

and she made an attempt to get our father and me together, but it never happened.

I moved to Los Angeles and several years later was visited by my ex-wife's Aunt Helen who said that she was sorry to hear about my father. When I inquired "What about my father?" Helen informed me that he had died the previous year. No one

had told me.

Finally, last year I met the youngest of my siblings who now lives in South Carolina; she was 57, and I was 78.

A friend has described my family as "something out of Faulkner". Accurate, I'm afraid, though a thousand miles further north.

rwtf