RLindaPetersonNote

From FamilyWiki

1988 Excerpts from a Note from Linda Peterson written after Flora Kamp’s Funeral

Bill,

Sorry this is took so long and maybe its no more than you all ready have in your Mom’s records. It is all I have.

The half brothers of Grandmas, Eddie, Aunt Alma said was put in an institution because of something like brain damage or retardation.

Years ago someone told me the story that Uncle Herman Walescheck was only 2 or less when they emigrated from Germany. He became ill and his parents took him to the ship’s doctor. The doctor supposedly a bit of a lush advised them to throw him overboard because he couldn’t do anything for himself and it was anything serious and contagious they would all put the whole ship in jeopardy. The did not, and he recovered and lived to be 84 years old, give or take a couple of days.

Of course Uncle Bill Walescheck – the family black sheep, was a crook. He spent time in Stillwater prison. Then he married Aunt Ruth and she kept him out of jail. Curt and I knew them well. They were more like Grandparents to us than any of our real grandparents. Uncle Bill would sit in his lawn chair under a big tree in the front yard of their asbestos shingled, 3 room house that had an old wood cook stove in the kitchen and an old oil burner in the living room for heat, no running water, and an outhouse 200 feet behind the house. He would sip on one of his favorite white or red wines feeling no pain. He would say a prayer of sorts, “God I know I’ve done a lot of wrong, but I never killed anyone.”

I am only now gaining some respect for Grandma Brommerich. Even though Curt and I were over there a lot, we never got to know her. To us, she was a grouchy old lady who sat in her living room easy chair or kitchen chair and issued orders to everyone. Listening to Aunt Alma about her and being a parent and dealing with this crisis or that crisis in life, I’m softening my fallings towards her. It could not have been an easy job giving birth to and raising 8 children in an un-liberated depression era.

Linda Peterson