"Lukeys"

Not everyone gets to know their grandparents, but lucky me, I got to spend lots of time with all of mine!  In fact, I lived in my maternal grandparents' home the first year of my life. My Mom's folks were an interesting pair to me. Wilson and Agnes Lucas. Bill & Aggie. Even though they often seemed to be at odds with each other, they had raised two daughters and ran a business together by the time we were introduced. What I really loved about them was their story. It smacked a bit of the wild side.

A bit.  Bill was ten years older than Aggie, and they eloped on Halloween, 1911--- 100 years ago this year--- much to the consternation of their families. Oh, the scandal!

That's about as wild as it got though. They didn't have children for 10 years, but when they did, they doted on them, Dorothy and Marjorie. The adorables.

Mudgie & Big Sis, Dort      1923

Back then things were different. Men were men, and women, well women probably ran rings around them, just like now. At least they had their hands full with women's work. So I found it amazing when Grandma told me Grandpa would stay home anytime one of their little girls was sick to take care of her, because Grandma would be too upset to do it herself. She was high strung and easily fell apart, quite dramatically at that. Maybe he felt he could do a better job.

The Original Mr. Mom?

Wait a minute,  maybe she was just one smart cookie who seemed helpless enough to get him to pitch in....  The plot thickens. Either way, it worked out well.

But back to the beginnings. Little Aggie grew up in a big family with four brothers (Tommy, Alan, Roy, and Elmer) to tease her and one sister (Beatrice-"Poody") as a playmate. They weren't poor, but even so she had only one dress to wear to school every day (females didn't wear pants or jeans back then), so she would wear an apron over it to keep her dress clean. 

Little Miss Agnes Stanek

Aggie's family came over from Bohemia. Appropriately enough, she had a definite Bohemian flair.  Always a glint of mischief in the eye. Just a glint. Likely she was born with it.

JESSIE & JOHN J. STANEK

Not sure you can tell which one has the glint in their eye, as they're both squinting, but that's definitely a cigar in his mouth, and the way he holds that hat--- a little bravado, yes? Hmmm, now I'm suspicious.

I'm going out on a limb right now, but think the next photo may be John's mother, referred to as just "Grandma Siebert." She doesn't look like any Bohemian gypsy to me, but give a girl a tambourine and who knows what might happen? So maybe she has to remain a mystery for now, because that's more than I know.

GRANDMA SIEBERT

AGGIE STANEK

According to the story, given only a first and last name, Agnes Stanek, she wasn't content to leave it at that, and so came up with her own middle name, Thressia, or Teresa, and just went through life claiming it under her own authority. It seems to have worked, it shows up on genealogical records.

Aggie loved to play cards, go to the horse races (wearing spike heels in her 70's and 80's), and watch wrestling matches. Spunky. She played the piano by ear.  And it was all Honky Tonk. The woman had rhythm, did she ever have rhythm! We nicknamed her "Bingo" somewhere along the line. She loved to laugh and have a good time. Boy, did she love a good time!

She was an entertainer through and through. The most appealing of her charms being her ability to wrinkle her nose like a bunny while the rest of her face stayed completely still. Fascinating!

Grandma was not of an imposing stature, maybe just a bit over 5 feet, but she towered over her sister Poody, who probably couldn't get on some of the rides at Disneyland even as an adult, had she ever gone.  I'm assuming that means the whole family may have been vertically challenged, but this picture of Grandma's mother, Jessie, looks like she would look you in the eye and stand her ground, never mind if she had to gaze at your belly button first and move on from there.

 

JESSIE HOYT STANEK

John Stanek, her Dad, had a Packard automobile that was his pride and joy, and he would take granddaughter, Mudgie, and assorted family members in it up to the top of a hill and coast down pell mell like he was never going to stop. Of the teasing persuasion, he convinced the kids that he lived on merely air and water.

1914 - Auburn car (pre Packard days) John Stanek on front fender, Poody standing to the side 

Had that truly been the case all his life, then perhaps his parents, Theresa & Thomas Stanek, instead of feeding him could have saved their pennies and, who knows, they may have been able to afford a twin rocking chair for the Mrs. So there you go... here's the evidence- no chair for her. So John must have eaten, probably his fair share of bologna.     

THERESA CLAP & THOMAS STANEK

Could be maybe some of the wink, wink proclivities may have been DNA that Aggie inherited, but she may have come by some significant compassion strands along the way as well. In Mudgie's kindergarten class there was a little girl with a brain tumor, who eventually succumbed to the disease. But Aggie, who at the time was very active in the classroom and PTA, became aware of the situation early on and was relentless in being a support to the girl's family. So much so that they came to Aggie's funeral fifty years later, still immersed in gratitude for all the kindnesses she had extended them. Maybe she was living out this poem written and sent to her by her Aunt Emma for Christmas, 1904:

                                "A kindly act is a kernel sown

                                             That will grow to a goodly tree                                         

                           Shedding its fruit when time has flown

                                              Down the gulf of eternity."

So she may have been in sync with The Golden Rule on the only relevant scale. However.  When I was 16, Bingo ended up shocking me when I sent over the Mormon missionaries I was meeting with to see if she'd be interested. As soon as they were out the door, she called up my Mom and said, "Do you know how crazy these people are? They actually believe Jesus was born of a virgin! As if that could happen."  (Yeah, Grandma, that was a secret hoarded by billions of Christians over the last 2000 years.) So religion wasn't her strong suit, I guess. And yet this was a woman who, whenever she was in certain situations would joke with a twinkle in her eye, ''Well, this is certainly no place for a minister's daughter!"  (Which she certainly was NOT!)

After the War, my grandparents had a little grocery store on Villa St. in Elgin, Il. They would bring over groceries to us from time to time. Along the way, they retired and downsized moving into a tiny house on Kramer St. Still somehow about 15 of us fit in every Christmas Day. Where we would happily feast because Grandma Lukey was one terrific cook. Her homemade chicken noodle soup with homemade noodles must have been the world's best. Baking was in her repertoire as well and she got sufficient practice by baking an angel food cake for each one of her 10 grandkids' birthdays every year. 

But one year she really went above and beyond and nailed it for my birthday, and it wasn't the cake.  Because my birthday was close to Halloween, I had a costume party. Mom made the guests enter by climbing through a basement window and we partied down there. The highlight of the whole shebang was a flamboyant gypsy who materialized and read fortunes for us 8 year olds. Guess who? Now that's what I call one authentic fortune teller!!

I think of Grandma as more hmmm, creative and resourceful than demented... or demure. A problem solver. One time she was pulled over for speeding and when the cop approached the car, she swooned, "Oh Officer, I have terrible diarrhea and I must get home right away!"  She not only got out of the ticket, she had a police escort to her house! Maybe that's what she meant one day when she looked at me and confessed, "Oh yes, I'm crazy." Then winked, "crazy like a fox!" 

I think my favorite thing about Grandma, other than her sense of humor and fabulous homemade noodles, was her storytelling. She had a way of going on and on and on about this person and then that person, jumping from one tangent to the next, and then a half hour later or more, bringing it all back to the original thread. No idea how she could remember so much and skillfully tie it all together. Mesmerizing! I loved to listen to her. ( I can't remember the beginning of a sentence by the time I'm halfway to the end of it.)

WILSON E. LUCAS

 
Grandpa, on the other hand, seemed to me like the stern no nonsense type. His family was English, perhaps more reserved. At least they look semi serious. Or maybe they just didn't have teeth... just kidding. Actually this was taken back when you weren't supposed to smile when having your picture taken. They look pretty good, right? Alonzo's line has been traced back to the early Welsh Kings (go back 50 generations from me to Cunedda, King of Wales around 400 A.D.)  By the time some of the descendants hit America in the early 1600's, the kingdom diminished, although Alonzo and Mary did alright, ending up with a large farm and the biggest house in Crystal Lake, IL in the late 1800's. Besides farming, Alonzo found time to dabble in poetry and do a little songwriting in his spare moments and authored several hymns.

MARY MIRANDA DAVIS & ALONZO BERNARD LUCAS

With that farming background, Bill (Will to his parents and 2 sisters) was known to be really good with horses. And maybe that carried over because Grandpa Lukey was really good with his girls, even when they were grown with families of their own. He used to come over and wash mom's hair in the sink and massage her scalp. Tender heart. So guess he was a marshmallow with a little graham cracker crust exterior by the time I knew him.

Once a good dad, always a good Dad

Though I don't think he ever really spoke to me, and I maybe was a little intimidated by that distance. I have no memory of ever seeing him smile, so it was fun to find this shot of him feeling a little exuberant.

Oh Happy Day!

As a foreman and a lineman, he worked for the electric company and fell from the pole one day when he was up working on the wires, but lived to tell about it.

It may have cut into his dancing, which he loved, but life goes on. He walked with a limp after that for quite awhile, but was one of the few who was able to hang on to his job throughout the Great Depression.  Even so, my grandparents couldn't buy their first home until my Grandma inherited a small amount from her folks. That was when their daughters were in High School.

707 S. Liberty St.

I remember how Grandpa Lukey's hair was never out of place and how well he took care of his blue and white 1953 Chevy. I only wish they had taken such good care of him in the miserable old nursing home where he spent his last few months. He got sick after they had been married for 50 years, and it was not an easy way to go. Grandma was beside herself at the funeral.

BILL & AGGIE LUCAS

I moved in with Grandma for a week or two following his death so she wouldn't be alone. She couldn't stand being alone. I was 14 or so, and there was little I could do as she spent every waking moment hysterically sobbing to friends on the phone.

So how does one in their 70's, so undone by death and so fearful of being alone, end up taking a job as a cleaning lady at a casket factory... on the graveyard shift? All by her lonesome there, one single, solitary soul. Unless you count the coffins as company. This one managed to pull it off. And liked it. Spunky.  Funky. 

But life goes on, and grief subsides. Eventually Grandma lived with a man younger than her daughters.  Raised eyebrows! But it ended up that Charlie was a good companion and friend to her until the very end.

On Saturday nights I sometimes would spend the night with my Grandparents at their house and they would watch The Lawrence Welk Show and then wrestling, interesting combination. They liked the Lennon Sisters, but they were really into Gorgeous George!

My favorite memory with my Grandparents though was a date they had arranged to take me on one early June evening. We drove out to Camp Big Timber, and Grandpa was miserable with a bout of neuralgia or lumbago or something I had no idea what, but he was obviously suffering. As we took our seats in front of the small lake surrounded by huge boulders and tree laden bluffs, I was so afraid we'd have to turn around and go home. But on with the show, Grandpa was a trooper! As the Indians were silhouetted against the sunset while they slowly rode their horses across the far ridge, my heart leaped with excitement as the extraordinary Hiawatha Pageant unfolded. Then the drama escalated with the colorful costumes, incredible Indian dancing, haunting drums, birchbark canoes across the water--- Longfellow's epic poem come to life outlined against the darkness of the night. Another world. Old Nokomis, Minnehaha, Gitche Manito and all the wigwams. I wanted never to leave. Unforgettable! I became a life long lover of all things Native American. Thanks Grandma and Grandpa, for the best night ever! 

I have my Grandma's old hope chest now. But the real legacy is the priceless memories. I'm so glad I had the chance to know my grandparents. And I look forward to that grand reunion someday.... But how fantastic would it be if we could find a way to actually go back in time for a moment and meet some of these "old people" when they were young? Time travel, if you will, might hold some amazing surprises!