52 Ancestors: Who would I invite for dinner

I’m a little late to the party but I’m joining in Amy Johnson Crow’s challenge – 52 Ancestors in 52 weeks.  I won’t necessarily get 52 but this challenge will be helpful in prompting me.  This week's prompt:  Who would I invite to dinner.

I know it seems strange but not only would I invite this person to dinner but I did invite this person to dinner.  My dinner guest would be my paternal grandmother, Mildred Loraine Gunzendorfer Levy.  I’ve written a lot about Grandma Loraine (she never used the name Mildred) and I probably know more about her than any other ancestor, other than my parents.  She has left me so much information about her life as a child; unfortunately, I didn’t learn any of this until long after she was gone.

One of the greatest discoveries was finding my grandmother’s scrapbook HERE.  Yes, my grandmother (and grandfather and father and uncle and mother and, and, and….) was a packrat and here I am over 100 years later actually THANKING her for it.  How many people are able to see into the daily life of their ancestor all these years later?

If only I’d known about these treasures when she was still alive.  Every time I find something else of hers I come up with tons of questions I’d like to ask.  And the hardest part is knowing that I actually knew her, spent a lot of time with her, and had her to my house for dinner on more than one occasion.

I vividly remember our first Christmas after we’d moved from California to Washington.  My parents made the trek the day after Christmas and brought Grandma along with them.  I can see it vividly in my mind but back in those days, we didn’t always have a camera handy (and film was expensive to develop) so I, apparently, don’t have any photos.  But they were here and I will hold that memory forever. 

I do have a photo of a Christmas before that – maybe 1977 or so?  As usual, we gathered at our childhood home and for the last several years of her life, Grandma was there.

Geraldine Martin, Gordon Levy, Loraine Gunzendorfer

Grandma never seemed to smile much but I know she loved being with us!

If had just one evening to sit and talk to her.  I’d ask her questions, take photos, and even record her voice.  I can hear her like it was yesterday – hard to believe she’s been gone almost 36 years! 
I’d go through every letter she wrote to my grandfather, Sig Levy, from 1916-1919 and stop to ask her questions as I read the letters aloud.  Think of the memories she’d have.  And then I’d read the letters that Grandpa wrote to her and ask her more questions.

Oh wait, I’d go through the scrapbook with her and ask her why she kept certain things.  I’d ask her about her collection of cigarettes.  And, who was Earle?  Was he a beau?  And then I’d ask her if this was Earle – I’d like to move at least one photo from the unidentified folder to an identified folder.



My grandmother was a beautiful little girl.  I had this photo of Loraine and her mother, Birdie Schwartz, framed years ago and have had it sitting in my living room for probably 25 years.  I’m so honored to have been told my entire life that I look like both of them.



I even found her diary!  It haunts me to this day – what did she mean when she said “Ernest broke me in”?  On second thought, maybe I wouldn’t ask her about that!

Growing up, I always thought of my grandmother as annoying – she always expected us to behave, she ‘clicked’ her teeth (dentures?  I should have asked about that), and she consistently wanted to be early to wherever we were going.  Who knew I’d inherit that gene from her?  And until I found all of her things stashed in a storage garage, I wouldn’t have known her as anything other than an old woman.  Weren’t grandparents always old?

I have some not-very-good photos of her at the end stages of life, as well as lots of snapshots etched in my brain.  But I enjoy seeing the ones of her taken by a photographer and wonder what was going on in her life that prompted a professional photo.  This photo from my wedding 8 years before she died might be the latest one I’ve found of her – but you never know, something else might turn up.

Yikes, we were YOUNG!

So that’s who’d be sitting at my table.  There are so many I’d like to invite to round out the evening but my grandmother, Loraine, would be the first invitation I’d extend.