Pilgrimage and Honoring Ancestors II

This summer afforded an opportunity to continue in honor and  remembrance of my father by visiting the remaining Great Lakes.  Shortly after his death in 2009, I was able to stop at Lake Superior, the Mackinaw Straits between Lakes Michigan and Huron, and the southern beaches of Lake Michigan at Indiana Dunes.

This summer, I talked my wife into visiting three Great Lakes, two countries, significant stops in four states and several large cities in a circumnavigation of Lake Erie.  Preparing for this journey, I had the good fortune of making internet connections to some cousins and second cousins which led to some genealogical information.   There is no question that my great-grandparents (on both sides of my father's family) were immigrants from Poland.  Back then it was divided up - most of Poland came under Prussian dominance. Among the first waves of Polish immigrants were my ancestors, coming to America at the end of the 19th Century. 

One of them settled in Poletown, a very large Polish neighborhood in Detroit.  My grandfather was born there at the edge of the 20th Century.  My father was born there in 1938 and all of his pre-college education was in the Detroit area. 

Another of them came through Buffalo, NY - where my eldest uncle was born in 1920.  But that Polish family eventually settled in Dunkirk, NY - where four of the six children of my father's family were born.

I found this out from a photograph of my father when he was a boy, smiling and genuinely happy.  The single word on the back was "Dunkirk."  My father rarely spoke of his childhood and then with disdain.  Throughout my childhood, we never made an effort to see any of the places of his youth.  As far I can tell, he never visited those places intentionally as an adult.

When I was a child, his parents and siblings all lived in southern California (or moved there).  My grandparents are buried in San Diego's military cemetery.

Nevertheless, we made the pilgrimage to the few addresses I could find from internet research.  Some of my siblings and cousins were excited and ask for "lots of pictures."

But, the trip had to have some adventure for my wife and son, being towed along on this pilgrimage.  So, we added visits to Motown and downtown Detroit, Belle Island, Port Huron, across the Ontario peninsula, Niagara, Buffalo, Erie (PA), Cleveland, and Toledo.  Although the last four ended up receiving only passing nods on the return to Wisconsin.

In the midst of everything, I became aware of a strange connectedness to a history my father barely mentioned and I rarely considered beyond a random Pollock joke.  My father did not pass along any tribal or ethnic pride. I am still uncertain about what my ancestry has to do with who and what I am today. 

It seems so distant.  Lake Erie could be on the other side of the world.  If it was, perhaps the pilgrimage would have had some greater exotica, some greater panache.  It was still an adventure.  And my family, my son, knows.  And we have touched the water of all the Great Lakes in honor of my paternal ancestry.