While there has been some debate, current research suggests that intelligence comes to us through the x chromosome, meaning that the smarts one possesses most likely come from Mom:

https://www.techexplorist.com/scientists-confirm-intelligence-comes-mother/3785/

With this in mind, I thought I might start my Family Tales with a look at the women in my family line, but of course, typically, these tend to be be a bit tricker to research. (May it be said that I am never one to pass up a Lost Cause.)

Writing about my own mother is perhaps still a bit too raw. So I thought I’d start with her mother, a somewhat shadowy figure in my life named Violet Chrudimsky.

I believe Violet is the reflective figure in the middle, standing between her younger sister Myrtle and her twin Lilian. This picture was taken circa 1902 and shows off the extraordinary tailoring skills of her parents.

Violet and her twin were born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin 1891 to her Bohemian immigrant father Emanuel Herman Chrudimsky, a tailor, and her Bohemian-Wisconsin-settled mother Barbara Kolman. While there are obviously three children pictured above, my research suggests there were three other children born to the couple, a boy and another set of twin girls, who did not make it out of infancy. Barbara’s face reflects, perhaps, a certain dissatisfaction with her life:

…while her husband displays to me what appears to be a rather Buddhist acceptance of the whims of fate:

The family was extremely close, according to my mother. While Myrtle made significant waves by attending medical school – the only women in her class – and becoming a doctor, the twins stayed a bit more conventional, becoming “stenos” in the words of the 1910 census.

Here’s a shot of the twins and their social set. One twin has lace; the other does not. I believe the lacy one was my grandmother.

Violet initially worked for an auto company, where perhaps she caught the eye of my grandfather Julius Carl Sellmer, an early car aficionado, seen below behind the wheel of a prize acquisition:

The pair married in 1912, she at 21, he at 29, and they honeymooned by driving from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to Yellowstone National Park (in a car with no windows) and back. There was only one tire flat a day, I’m told. Seriously, can you imagine this? That takes some serious chops.

The Sellmer’s first child, Robert, was born in 1913. He was followed by Jane in 1917 and my mother Dorothy, apparently the “oops” baby, in 1924.

During the 1920s, my grandfather’s company, the Crystal Soap Company, was purchased by the Palmolive Peet Company, and they in turn were purchased by Colgate. These were heady days, and I’m guessing my grandparents were thrust into a social sphere for which neither was socially prepared. It appears, in other words, that they roared in the 1920s. The main piece of evidence I have for this is an immigration manifest for an arrival for the pair in 1928 from Havana to Key West on the SS Governor Cobb:

And Havana, ladies and gentlemen, was quite the place in 1928. The Dfford’s Guide tells us:

So Carl and Violet clearly tripped the light fantastic, at least for a short while. My mother told another tale about a trip to Canada where her doll case was “repurposed” and used for transporting as many adult beverages as possible.

But sadly the good times did not roll for long. Shortly after relocating to Montclair, New Jersey and buying a huge home with a large staff, my grandfather died at his desk in 1931 at the age of 48. Violet, only 39 at the time packed up the family – Robert, graduating high school, Jane at 14 and my mother at 7 – and went home to Milwaukee to be closer to her family.

Back in Milwaukee, my mother was enrolled in the best schools and her social progress was closely monitored in the local press. Violet embraced the sedate but socially acceptable life of a respectable widow and refused any efforts at match-making, telling my mother “No one could ever replace your father.”

The World War II years were tough on Violet. Her son Robert was abroad from 1937-1944 and saw action under three flags. I can only imagine the strain this must have had on her. My mother’s sole remark from this time was a poignant story that when she, Dorothy, ran home from school one day to announce a success in some venture, Violet’s only remark was “Please don’t interrupt me until I finish the crossword puzzle.” Ouch.

Violet’s parents both died in 1951 and she followed in 1953 at only 62. If my math is correct, I was the consolation encounter my parents apparent had following her funeral. I never met her, obviously, but her staunch Victorian values and gritty determination have followed her down the generations.