Immigrants: A Linden Tree/stump/hole for Hope

Like many Americans, our family is made up of immigrants.

I’m a first generation American on my mother’s side of the family. My father’s? Oh, twelfth?

My husband is a second generation American on his father’s side. His mother’s? Oh, thirteenth?

But like many immigrant families, our families have remained in touch with folks in the old world and have visited on several occasions.

My husband has now been to Slovenia three times–once as a teenager when his father made his first visit, and twice as an adult long after his security clearance lapsed and he was able to travel to a former Communist country.

We were there last week.

It’s been a poignant pilgrimage for many in the family. The day R’s grandfather Anton Ule left the Austro-Hungarian Empire then ruled by Emperor Franz Joseph, he planted a linden tree on the family farm.

An only child without a father, Anton had been raised by a maternal uncle. We conjecture a family member had been to America and done well, thus encouraging the strapping young man to head to the new world.

As far as we know, he never looked back.

Anton traveled to Ohio where he met another Slovenian immigrant, married her, fathered three children and one night chose not to join his working comrades at a bar and walked

home in frigid weather.

He died of pneumonia shortly thereafter.

Anton’s death left a giant hole in the lives of his family.

The story persisted over the years about the tree and when my husband and his father traveled to meet the family in the mid-1970s, they visited that tree.

As did my sister-in-law and her husband several years later.

My niece and nephew followed suit.

And another niece–who arrived in the village speaking no Slovenian, not sure of the family name and carrying a photograph of herself with her grandfather, Anton’s son. Folks in Rakek directed her to the appropriate house.

She was totally confused a few weeks later when she called to report on her trip. “I didn’t know what they were saying, but they drove me into the countryside to a farm. They made me stand beside a tree and took my picture.”

My husband explained.

Five years ago, my husband and I returned to the family farm with our daughter. She was the envy of her brothers who had grown up hearing that same story of the linden tree.

It was like a pilgrimage to see it and think of the immigrant who made such a courage choice–for his own sake and that of his family.

Unfortunately in 2010, the linden tree no longer stood. After 100 years, it had become diseased and was cut down.

That year, the family pilgrimage was to visit the stump.

My daughter stood on it for her obligatory photo.

This year, our son wanted to visit the homeland and to pay his respects to the stump.

The stump, alas, is a mere rotted hole in the ground.

We took his photo anyway, not sure, exactly how to describe what he had visited.

The same non-English speaking relative who had escorted every family member to the farm was with us.

As was his 16 year-old grandson who speaks English. He served as the interpreter.

I took a photo of the four men standing in front of the family farmhouse (along with two wives from the family)–four different generations, four very different men.

Yet, each has been successful in his own right (including that interpreter!), and I thought about the decisions made on that plot of land more than 100 years ago.

Of a young man looking to get ahead in the world, who took a chance. He planted a linden tree to mark the occasion with a hope he’d return to see it.

Anton never returned.

But his son, his grandson and his great-grandson (and granddaughter and great-granddaughters) have taken the opportunities given to them and done well.

And remembered Anton, his hopes for his future family and his linden tree.

Tweetables

A linden tree planted in hope–and generations that benefited. Click to Tweet

Making a pilgrimage to a tree stump. Click to Tweet

A tree planted in hope and a family succeeds. Click to Tweet