Fran's Photos in Argentina, 2008 - Art and Architecture

 

To continue with my story of the trip my sister Fran and I made to Buenos Aires, Argentina in November of 2008, these photographs were taken by Fran. I have chosen the ones I think represent art and architecture. This display of art for sale attracted us on the streets of San Telmo.

 

 

 

One of the beautiful old homes in San Telmo neighborhood with a gorgeous balcony with ornate iron railing. The plants add such beauty.
 

 

 

 

 

 

La Bombonera, home of Boca Juniors football (soccer) club in Buenos Aires
 

 

 

 

 

 

A delicate gate into a private courtyard.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can see why this old Ford Falcon caught Fran's attention. It wasn't until I used Google Lens to see what I could learn about it that I found Ford Falcons were produced by Ford Argentina from 1962 to 1991. And see that green paint? I read that dark green painted Falcons were associated with the secret police of the military junta in the 1970s, and for many Argentinians, the car remains a symbol of state-operated terrorism. Good eye, Fran.
 

 

A mausoleum in the Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires. The cemetery is 200 years old and there are about 4800 mausoleums including that of Eva Perόn. We walked through this amazing historical treasure in the heart of the city, a beautiful place.
 

 

 

 

 

An outdoor scene on the estancia (ranch) we visited in Argentina.

This small building with its colorful glass panes criss-crossed with electrical wires and framed by leafy greenery is so pretty and unique.

I love this photo for its colors, doorways, and where my imagination goes when I view it.

And this photo makes me want to open that gate and explore beyond.

Another open doorway. Fran always loved mysteries. That was one thing she had in common with our Aunt Petrona Tucker, a love of reading mystery books and magazines.

Fran's Photos in Argentina 2008...the People

 In November of 2008 my sister Fran and I traveled to Buenos Aires where we met up with my daughter-in-law, Alejandra, and my grandkids, Lu and Bella. Today, seventeen years later, and two years after Fran's death, I came across a CD she mailed me with the photos she took on that visit. I haven't viewed her collection in a long time and now I appreciate her photographs so much more. I am reminded that Fran had her own perspective on life, always did. I sorted her photos and chose this group of to illustrate what she saw in the people there. What caught her eye.

This is Fran's self portrait, the very first of her photos. It was taken in our hotel room after a very long day of travel from Oregon, USA, to Buenos Aires, Argentina.

On the streets of San Telmo, a lively district in the heart of the city with art, music, dancing, and excitement.

This photo speaks for itself...a vendor making and selling cotton candy. Granddaughter, Bella is enjoying it.

This photo and the next show two men moving their display through town.

A woman above the street, on her balcony.

 

A seated crowd gathered on a sloping hill, no stands or chairs.

I don't remember if we knew what this ceremony was about.

The man is sharpening knives while sitting on the seat of his portable rig.

A meat vendor roasting fresh beef in view of the street and his prospective customers. The roasting beef smell was wonderful.

A policeman, perhaps?

A young couple with a motorcycle.

In another neighborhood, this little boy and Fran made a connection.

This is the first of several blogs I will post featuring Fran's photos taken in Argentina. This photo was taken of Fran and me by Alejandra.

Happy Birthday, Patrick

 The year was 1968. On the world scene, this was the year of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam, a surprise attack in January by the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong against military and civilian targets in South Vietnam, marking the beginning of anti-war protests in the States.

At home in the U.S. on April 4th, Civil Rights leader Rev. Martin Luther King was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee. He was only 39. The tragic death of this non-violent man set us all back on our heels and changed the course of the Civil Rights Movement of the 60s.

On June 6th, Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated in Los Angeles. The world was going crazy.

I was twenty-one years old, living on the economy in Hallstadt, Germany, with my husband of 2-1/2 years, Mike Hogan, receiving this news of frightening world events from the Army's Stars and Stripes Newspaper days after the fact, no TV, no radio. And while our friends back home were listening to new music hits like "Hey Jude" by the Beatles, "Sitting on the Dock of the Bay" by Otis Redding and "Mrs. Robinson" by Simon and Garfunkel" we had a small record player and only two records, "Ode to Billie Joe" by Bobbie Gentry and "Ike and Tina's Greatest Hits" which we played over and over and over.

About to give birth to my first child, I visited the obstetrician at the Army post in Bamberg on June 8 and was immediately sent, by way of ambulance, to the Army hospital in Nuremberg. Approximately 36 hours later Patrick John was born, healthy and handsome, a loved and wanted baby, and to be my one and only.

Army babies flying back to the States were supposed to be six weeks old but an exception was made for Patrick and he flew with me from Frankfort to New York when he was just a month old. His passport photo is a favorite of mine. Mike flew home on a military plane ten days later.

 

 

 

 

 

We lived in Illinois for two years before moving out west to Colorado in June of 1970. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And by spring of 1971 Patrick had a new Dad, Bob Russell, a 29-yr-old Navy Vietnam Veteran and native Coloradoan. Mike Hogan moved back to Illinois where he remarried and had four more children.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For fifty-five years Patrick has been a Coloradoan with a desire to see the world. I am so proud of the man he is today, overcoming hurdles and challenges, one decision at a time.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Happy Birthday, Patrick. Thank you for making me a mother in 1968...and a grandmother...and a mother-in-law...and a very happy old lady!

 

Baseball and My Family

 Genealogy is my favorite hobby these days. I spend a lot of time online at several websites where I have uploaded my DNA sample, mostly at Ancestry.com. Every day I check for new DNA matches and how these people who share DNA with me fit into my family tree. A few days back I received a message from a kind person unknown to me, and I will let it speak for itself.

“Hi Pamela, I am somewhat of the Westville, Illinois historian. I wrote the Sesquicentennial book on the Village and run the Facebook page related to the history of the town. I recently was searching for Pro Baseball players from Westville and came across many articles of one of your relatives - William Ukanavage, born 1892. He was quite the pitcher in 1912 for the Westville Amateur baseball team and after going undefeated in 1912 and striking out almost every opponent he faced, he was called up to Chicago for a tryout with the Chicago White Sox in the American League. I unfortunately cannot find anything after that. Have you found anything in your research of him. I am curious if he made a roster that year. Back then marketing was everything to the ball clubs, so a lot of names were changed and he might have been on the roster under a different name.

03:14 PM

He also invented the Bask-O-Lite. Not sure if you knew that. It was revolutionary at the time and installed in Basketball Arenas throughout the country.”

What a pleasant surprise! I know some basic information about my gr-uncle William Joseph Ukanavage (he spelled his name with an extra “a” after the “k”, unlike the rest of the family who spelled it Uknavage). He was born October 5, 1892, in Pittston, Pennsylvania, to my great-grandparents Joseph Uknavage and his wife Petronella Jasaitis Uknavage. William was their youngest child. His sister Frances was also born in Pittston but the older three children, Frank, Petrona, and my grandfather Joseph, we all born in Lithuania. The family moved from Pennsylvania to Westville, Illinois, sometime between 1896 and 1900 for they appear in the 1900 national census in Westville.

Seventeen-year-old William appears in the 1910 census in Georgetown, Vermilion County, Illinois living with his widowed mother and all four of his siblings. Georgetown was adjacent to Westville and the home of many of the immigrant coal miners’ families. On May 31, 1917 he married Freda D. Pritchard, a young divorced woman with three young children. The 1920 census shows his occupation as driver in the coal mine. I am assuming Uncle Willie did not make it into the American League with the White Sox. I am happy to know that when he was twenty he played baseball and was quite the pitcher in his hometown league.(Note: photo on left is a much older William Ukanavage, not 17.)

There was a relative of Uncle Willie right there in the same town, a cousin on his mother’s side, a young woman named Frances Yasaitis who married William Pinkney Delancey about 1934 in Westville, Il. 

 

 

 

 When I mentioned this to my ancestry source he knew all about Bill Delancey and wrote this: “Well aware of Bill and Frances. I posted an article a few years ago that ancestry will not let me share for nothing, but the gist is "Bill was playing for the Danville (North of Westville) Veterans, a Three I Team of the Cardinals until 1932, when he met Frances. They married and Bill was called up to the Cardinals in time for the 1934 World Series. 

 

 

He started at catcher for the "Gashouse Gang" as the Cardinals were known. Baseball executive Branch Rickey called DeLancey one of the best catchers of all time. His career was cut short due to tuberculosis and he was even treated in Danville by nurse Genevieve Schultz in 1935 while visiting Frances's family in Westville. The picture of Schultz and Delancey was shared by the AP across the country as "Star Cardinals Catcher Fighting For His Life." They diagnosed him with pneumonia at first, but he gradually got worse and retired in 1936. Doctors recommended that he move to the west for better air and he managed multiple teams before dying in Arizona in 1946."

My father played baseball when I was a small child, so probably about 1950, in Harco or Harrisburg, Illinois. He would have been 30 years old, in good physical shape after six years in the Navy during WWII. He worked full time so baseball would have been an evening and weekend pastime. My memories are vague and I don’t recall talking to Dad about this time in his life, nor do I have a photo. His sister Petrona was married to Reuben Tucker, a mine foreman and I believe Reuben played baseball too, or managed a team. 

Reuben and Petrona’s son Billy probably played too for he named one of his boys Stanley after the great “Stan the Man” Musial of the St. Louis Cardinals. Dad’s favorite baseball team was always the Cardinals, even after he moved north where he could have favored the Chicago White Sox or the Cubs.

Baseball has been America’s sport for centuries now! There are lots of quotes from famous people about the sport, how accessible it was to men of all ages, ethnicities, and social status. The year of my birth, 1947, is when Jackie Robinson broke the color barrier in professional baseball by signing with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. That ended fifty years of segregation in Major League Baseball.

I’d like to know more about relatives and friends who love the game.

 

 

 

 

Karen Seckler

I just found out that our friend Karen Seckler died in June of 2022 and I didn't even know.

Learning that sad news has brought back memories of our time with her and how she touched our lives.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bob met Karen through his association with Fort Collins home builder Carl Nelson. Together the three of them designed and built Karen and husband David a new home in Terry Shores in the early 1970s. 

 

 

 

I first met Karen and David at the open house when the home was finished. It was a beautiful two-story with an impressive fireplace that dominated one wall rising the full height of the house, a detached and matching building for Karen's art studio, and a view of Terry Lake through pines. 

 

The guests at the open house included all the tradesmen who worked on the house and their spouses. Someone tripped and we heard glass shattering on tile floor, then David's lighthearted comment that put everyone at ease, "Now that's what makes a home a house!" I knew then I liked that man.

Bob was in touch with Karen occasionally over the next fifteen years as she and her family of four moved where David's work would take them, even living in India for a few years. I learned from her obituary that Karen was born in India where her parents were Lutheran missionaries. David was an economics professor, very much involved in water resource management in foreign countries. 

I don't remember how it came to be that Karen and their daughters, Adrienne and Veronica, with their young cousin Courtney, spent a weekend with us in 1988. Our niece Rachel was visiting from Illinois and it may be Karen was in Greeley visiting family, talked with Bob on the phone, and a plan came together for the girls to meet one another and hang out. 

What I do remember is that we had a fun time together and packed a lot of activities into that weekend.

 

Karen's family had a cabin in the Rockies which the whole family shared at times and constructed together. Rachel and I were invited to join in and add our piece of the wall to the cabin!

 

 

 

 

 

We visited an amusement park with its rides, snacks, face painting, and people-watching.

 

 

 

 

 

At our home we sat around and read books, did some knitting and other crafts, and talked.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Out in the yard Bob brought Sid the horse close to the house where everyone could brush, feed, water, and lead him. 

He was a young stallion, not ready to ride, but gentle enough for handling.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After that visit Adrienne and Rachel were penpals for awhile.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And then in 2000 I got a phone call from Karen with terrible news. Their lovely young daughter, Adrienne, had died of brain cancer at the age of 26. That was so unbelievable. She was so vibrant, so healthy, with high hopes for her future. I wish that I had been the good listener Karen needed, put my own grief aside and let her lean on me. Instead I told her of how Rachel had lost her mother, my sister Kathy, to suicide just a few years before Karen lost Adrienne. And how Bob's dad had just died after surviving a serious farm accident, a tractor fire.

Karen Seckler was kind and easy going all the while being smart, independent and artistic. She designed several complex and beautiful homes down to the small details like the placement of each electrical outlet, then worked with the builders from start to completion. 

Her presence in my life was as if an exquisite butterfly lit nearby, stayed long enough for me to appreciate her strength and beauty, then flew up, away and out of sight without disturbing the air around us. I am a better person for having known Karen Seckler. She left David, Veronica, grandchildren and siblings to carry on her legacy, and I know she left many friends and admirers like me and Bob to mourn her passing.