Stories about Mom and Dad

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 ...

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...

 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...

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...

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...

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...

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...

This story is from Anna:  The last time I saw Oma was the summer of 2011, and the last thing she did for me was to give my husband and I a memory to last. Her home butted against a property with a massive, gorgeous, flourishing lemon tree. My husband, Tyler, loves fresh squeezed lemonade had been thinking about this lemon tree during our entire trip. Finally, on the last evening we were there, he inquired about what happened to the lemons. Oma, in a most clear and direct manner, explained that the neighbor had no interest in sharing the lemons and at the end of the season most would fall off the tree and rot. It was obvious that this royally pist her off - I assume because she never wasted food.  We, however, were welcome to take as many lemons as we wanted, she said. I have rarely seen Oma with this emotion, but there was venom in her words and revenge on her mind. I politely declined, not wanting to stir up any trouble, but my husband jumped at the opportunity. I th...

After the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, I remember telling Dad that I'd donated to the Red Cross. Dad got furious and told me NEVER to donate to the Red Cross; they were horrible people and the organization shouldn't exist.  Here's that story, and the story of what happened to Uncle David. Let's see if I can get all the facts in here... Slim Hampton (Edwin Earl Hampton Sr) separated from Ange Atkinson Isham Hampton (Atkinson was a middle name, not a previous married name) when Dad was still a teenager...  He was living with another woman in Coalinga working for Keck (yep, that Keck). I know nothing about the other woman. Ange at that time was running a boarding house, and both boys were living with her; I don't know if Slim paid her any child support, or if they had a boarding house before Slim moved out. Dad had interesting ideas about food. You ate what was put in front of you; you didn't talk much while you were eating; and you didn't change the food...

You never think much about what happens to servicemen who are deployed at the end of a war, especially not as large of a war as WWII was... Dad was in or near Manilla when WWII ended and the task of bringing everyone home started. He was told that he might be there for months before there was room on a transport to get him home. He ended up spending a few days before he was able to secure a spot on a very very crowded ship on its way back to California. I don't know if Dad had much to come home to; I know he married Marilyn shortly after the war, and was with her for close to 10 years, but I don't know if he knew her before he left. His father, Edwin Earl Hampton Sr (Slim), had died of a heart attack in 1940. Slim and Ange (nee Ange Atkinson Isham) had separated a couple years before his death. Ange ran their house in Wasco as a boarding house, and had the two boys with her, while Slim had moved to Coalinga or near there, and had taken up with another woman, who I know nothin...

Mom always made Christmas cookies, and we kids always helped. Mom would make Chocolate Chip and Oatmeal Nut cookies mostly for us kids, then make some special cookies that only happened at Christmas; Vanilla Kipfel, cinnamon stars, some anise type cookies, sugar cookies cut into shapes with colored sugar on them, and some twisted cookies with yeast in them. We kids hated the anise cookies, but Mom made them for herself. The cookies would go into tins and cannisters, and come out for special occasions during the Christmas season; for visitors, for game nights, as a second dessert. One year, the wife of one of Dad's colleagues had emergency surgery right before Christmas; they had 5 children, if I recall correctly, and the thought of those poor kids not having Christmas cookies did not sit well with Mom. She and I started baking, and making mostly traditional American cookies, we filled up a HUGE platter of cookies and delivered it to the family a few days before Christmas. I'l...

Dad was surprisingly handy with some tasks, and not with others. For example, he and Mom built the forms and poured a concrete edging strip around the lawn in the backyard; he put up a tether ball pole for us in the backyard (that doubled as a pole for the clothesline). I think they put the sprinkler system in front and back, and Dad planted a wonderful hybrid bermuda lawn, like the kind used for golf greens; the lawn was like a carpet, and wonderful to play on... This beautiful hybrid bermuda grass required a special lawnmower that would mow extra low. Dad would periodically bring home things from the oilfield; in this case a particularly clear and lovely crude oil that was such high grade that it would need little refining... I remember it looked like dark honey and smelled lovely. So Dad ran out of oil for the lawn mower and used that instead. It worked fo a couple of months before the engine gummed up sufficiently to require a full rebuild. I believe he added a hose bib in the ...

Mom had a problem with wasting food; I think it's because she knew hunger. Her mother, in fact, died of liver issues that were related to malnutrition during WWII. So when Halloween came around, she could not waste the pumpkin. So before we carved the pumpkin, she'd scoop out the seeds, then, using her biggest metal cooking spoon, she'd carefully shave out as much of the pumpkin meat as she could. This is hard work! I've tried it. The upside to this was that the pumpkin was ludicrously easy to carve, as it was only 1/4 to 1/2 inch thick... She'd then take the pumpkin, boil it, and make pumpkin pies. Dad would put them carefully on a board in the backseat of his car and deliver them to friends. Of course everyone would insist he come in for a drink, Dad, despite promising he wouldn't, would come home throughly polluted...

I just returned from Pasadena, we were there overnight for a little R&R and to look at some art.  Travelling through, I was reminded of a story Mom had told me. She was going to take Jacqueline to Disneyland, but was afraid to drive on LA freeways; LA freeways had to have been a lot easier back then... I think it was Grover Collins that told gave her this strategy: immediately pull all the way to the left into the fast lane, then stay there until you're close to your destination. That was there's only cars passing you on one side. I think this behavior is a felony on the Autobahns of Germany, but it's legal in LA, and that's the way Mom navigated LA freeways for many years. I'm imagining how exasperating that must have been for the other drivers... This fear of LA Freeways might account for the reason she and Jacqueline never went to visit Clark Gable. They were on the same plane to LA when Mom emigrated; Mr. Gable was apparently quite taken with the baby Ja...

Dad wasn't really a kid person, you know the type of father that plays with and interacts comfortably with kids of all ages... I know he loved us very very much but it wasn't until I was an adult that I had a real relationship with him. He had a couple of ways of spending time with us; one, I think was also designed to give Mom a little break. Sometimes on the weekends, he'd ask if we wanted to go to the office with him; David and I generally did, although there really wasn't anything for us to do there. I'd play with the desk supplies, spin around on the chairs, look in all the offices... These were the days when office smelled of wood and old leather. There was also a stack of soft-core magazines in the men's room, that David found and showed to me... We'd also go, as a family, to check out some of his drilling sites if they were within easy drive of Ventura. We had an Ant Farm, a horrible contraption where you held captive wild ants, seperated from th...

I scanned this photo last week, but it didn't have a date on it...  I'm going to guess it was 1942-1945. Dad would have been between 20 and 23 years old. He was enlisted in the Navy during WWII and assigned to work as a gunner's mate (part of the Armed Guard ) on a Liberty Ship , one of the merchant marine ships that sailed in convoys guarded by navy ships, and delivered supplies for the armed forced world wide. One year I was passing through Ventura and dropped by to see Dad while Mom was visiting Aunt Trude. We sat down in the den with some of his photo albums, and he started telling me stories of being at sea. I'll tell some of the stories here, and some of them later. I asked him what the most bizarre thing was that they'd transported...  He replied "Missouri Mules". There was a definite pause in the conversation, then I asked "You mean mules like donkeys? Or is that a name for something else?" Apparently they had transported a load o...

I promised my family when Mom passed that I'd try to write down some of the family stories... Lacking a vehicle for this, I've failed in every way but thinking about it. Lately, I've been scanned old photos, and updating my projects blog, which got me to thinking... What about putting the stories, in no particular order, into a blog? So I'll start writing out the stories I remember, hoping that my siblings will comment according to their memories. I'm hoping the family will enjoy reading these. I'll include stories Mom and Dad told me about their lives, stories of the families, and stories I remember from when we were growing up. Hoping you all enjoy!