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JWE -> RE: THE THREAD!! (8/5/2010 8:46:55 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: Apollo11
My grandfather was captured by Russians in 1915 on Eastern front. He was wounded in arm (bullets passed through just above his right hand wrist) and he got another bullet in his groin - luckily for him, instead of carrying his dog-tag around neck he had it in his pocket (in his pants) and bullet stopped when it hit it (I still have his dog tags!)...
Please note that we were then (for centuries BTW) part of Austrian-Hungarian empire.
He was transferred deep into Russia (almost close to Siberia) and come home in 1921/1922 (with WWI and after Russian civil war he was unable to travel).
Luckily for him he was forest engineer and he almost immediately found himself great post as a foreman on one big estate there (all Russian men, of course, were fighting in war and thus there was no one to take care of huge estate).
In the meantime my grandmother never lost faith that he would return (she waited as his fiancée for 8 years) and they got married in 1923.
Strangely enough when he and my grandmother got children (4 in all) he insisted that their first daughter would called Olga and second one Myra (my mother was their third daughter and my uncle their only son)... God knows why... [;)]
BTW, I still remember sitting in his lap as a child (he died in 1977 as almost 100 years old) listening to him talking about his military and post WWI adventures!
P.S.
I will never forget what he said: "Communism is nice thing in theory but in practice it would require people to be angles - which they are not and thus this whole thing is one grand illusion and utopia!" [8D]
P.P.S.
When he returned the only big thing he carried with him (apart from clothes on his back) was aluminum pot he used to cook all his meals - I still have that pot at home! [:D]
Leo "Apollo11"
Astonishing what some people know and remember from their ancestors talking about it. And equally astonishing is what their ancestors chose to remember and talk about.
Gosh, I love this thread, and the people in it!
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