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Info on Edwin Bardach, with references

From a technology perspective, geneology is fascinating. So many indices and records are getting linked in and uploaded; data I couldn’t find a few years ago is now available! I’m going to make a note about the data I have from Mom. Lots of what she told me happened before she was born and was family lore, which was aged for years before she told me. And my memory is not perfect either. From   familysearch.org   (LDS), I find a scan of a record of Edwin’s first marriage in June 1899 to Regine Wasserberger in VIenna.  https://www.familysearch.org/ ark:/61903/1:1:QGJT-W8VW From that doc, I see Edwin’s birthdate is 4/24/1874; his parents are Jakob Bardach and Rosa Hoenigsman. Looks like he was born in Lemberg. Mom had said he was Polish (I assume Galicia) but a Google search of Lemberg shows it’s the German name for Lviv (Ukraine). There was a lot of interchange between Ukrainian and Polish Jewish populations so Polish could have been his language. He certainly spoke German as well, and I
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Famfule (Famfoolie?) Family

Mom's family name is Famfule (Famfoolie?). The family came to the Vienna area and settled near Mödling (I think); they had a brick making business. Mom thought the family was originally from near Pisek, Czech Republic. At the time, this was all the Austro Hungarian Empire, so they considered themselves Austrian. I don't know how many brothers and sisters Sofia had. I think Aunt Annie was one of her sisters, and I believe she had a brother that visited periodically; there are photos of him in the garden in the house in Mödling. Mom said the brother was a nice "hobo" and implied he did not have a permanent residence. I asked her if the family was afraid of having him near the children, if maybe he was schizophrenic or something; she said he was nice and he was safe, and that all she knew.  Age-wise,  he probably would have fought in WWI; I wonder if he suffered from PTSD? The older girls, Liesel and Trude, would take cookie sheets from the kitchen and ride them down the
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Food Insecurity

 I'm making bean soup from a mix today and as I drop in the packet of spices,  I remember all the half used packet of seasonings that Mom saved... She never used the full amount and could not bear to throw anything food or food related away; wasting food was just not done in our family. I remember we'd have ham for New Years... then ham sandwiches, leftover ham dinners, etc... then she'd shave any bits of ham off the bone and mix them with buttered noodles (Schinkenfleckerln), then the ham bone would go in a soup pot. One year I watched her eyeing the ham bone after it's soup duty, assessing whether there was anything else that could be done with it... I asked her about the food supply during the war. Apparently while Hitler was in power, some food stuffs were rationed but they were not hungry. But there were definitely shortages.  But during the first few years after the war, when markets and food supply chains were broken, food was scarce. Ever have those tiny bugs in
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Birthdays

As I grew up, all of our birthdays fell between August 8 (Dad) and October 5 (JR), so the roughly two month span felt very much like a pre-Christmas season as I got a little older. I can only remember 1 or 2 birthday parties but they were always shared with David and always closer to his birthday. As we got older, we got to pick a spot for dinner (from a limited selection of restaurants) and a cake flavor.  There was this awful Chinese restaurant in Bakersfield we'd go to and order something sweet and sour, then a local bakery made a light fluffy cake they called a champagne cake... The next few additions to the family fell in the family birthday window as well. It wasn't until Rebecca was born in March that the trend was broken. We were all together for Dad's birthday one year; I think Anna, who was born in the Birthday Season as well, was 2? or 3? at the time? I think Rebecca was there so that would mean she was 3... Anyways, we were getting ready for cake and presents an
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Stories from Dad's family

I was reminded today that I should continue with stories... I have a few short anecdotes about Dad's family. Grandma Hampton (Dad's grandma) had all sons; I'm not sure of the geneology and can't tell you how many, but they all had nicknames; Dad's dad was Slim, and one of his brothers was Slick. I don't know where the names came from. When the family all got together, inevitably the boys would be in the kitchen with their mother, telling her dirty jokes which delighted her. Grandma Hampton had a house on Ann Street in Ventura; the house is no longer there. When Dad would visit with his family as a child, she would kill a chicken and cook it for them all. Apparently she made great chicken and dumplings. The grandkids could play in the yard as long as they left the rain barrel alone! Ventura water was awful (very minerally) and she used the purer rain water to wash her hair. Dad mentioned a tragedy in the family, apparently a bunch of kids were in the back of a pi
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The Moon Landing

Seems like this is a good time to briefly write what I remember about the moon landing. It felt like we always followed the Apollo missions as a family; we'd watch the blast offs, we'd watch the splashdowns and recovery when they were televised. Both Mom and Dad seemed really interested in it all, and we were as interested as kids can be. I remember all of us sitting down to watch the moon landing. If I recall correctly, it was on a Saturday morning; I remember this because it was in the middle of the Saturday morning cartoons David and I always watched. I just assumed that they would land on the moon, hop out, look around, Bugs Bunny style. I was not quite 8 years old at the time. The landing seemed to take forever. I recall there was some fear that the moon lander would sink in dust and disappear. Once it was safely on the ground, the astronauts ran through a series of checklists before their moon walk. It took forever. I whined about missing my cartoons. Dad told me to
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Die Tante

Edwin Bardach's first wife was a Jewish woman; they had two girls. I'm going to guess that the girls were born in the 1890's but I do not know for sure; I have tried but have been unable to find information on whether the survived the Nazi occupation. His second wife was die Tante (the Aunt); I don't know her name but that's how mom and cousin Peter referred to her. She was moms moms sisters illegitimate daughter who was raised as a sister of Aunt Annie's (moms moms other sisters daughter). I think I have this right. She and Edwin divorced with no children and no animosity; she met the love of her life and went to live with him in Saalbach, near Zell am See. His wife would not grant him a divorce so they lived together until their 80's when his wife passed away and they were able to marry. His third wife was Sofia Famfoolie, mom's mom. There's a book on the Mischlinge (Jewish/Catholic mixed kids under Hitler's regime) that tells their story a
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