Tag Archives: Babushka Vera

Christmas Caroling Hodgepodge

The first Wednesday Hodgepodge in December thanks to Joyce From This Side of the Pond.

1. What does it mean to have the ‘holiday spirit’?

I would say to be engaged, aware and a participant in what the holiday offers in small or large ways!

On a scale of 1-10 how is yours this year? (10=off the charts, 1=still looking for it)

I land at about an 8 most years.

2. What’s your favorite character from a (December) holiday-themed movie, book, or TV special? Tell us why. 

One of the favorites is  ‘A Christmas Carol’. I’ll  choose Bob Cratchit as my favorite character. Why? He is a noble character who is loyal to his family and a trustworthy human.

3. Do you like gingerbread? Are gingerbread houses part of your holiday tradition? 

I do enjoy gingerbread but it is not part of our holiday tradition and neither are gingerbread houses. Our church is having a gingerbread house making contest for families this year. It will be fun to see what the family units come up with.

4. Much of our vocabulary is determined by where we live or where we grew up. What say you-

sprinkles or jimmies? lightning bugs or fireflies? soda or pop? sneakers, trainers, or tennis shoes? sub, hoagie, grinder, or hero? freeway, highway, or motorway? frosting or icing? sauce or gravy?

Sprinkles, fireflies, soda, tennis shoes, sub, freeway, frosting, gravy

5. Share a favorite holiday memory from your childhood. 

Christmas caroling with our youth group is a favorite memory.  Our caroling started at an apartment building just a couple doors down from our church in Los Angeles. Our Babushka and several other widows lived in this apartment building so it was a good place to start. We’d all stand on the grass below their upper floor apartments and sing the carols. We left from there with tangerines and other treats from the Babushkas. Loading up in a few cars, we’d head to nursing homes where some of our Russian church members resided. From there we traveled to a few select homes.  At all of our stops we sang in Russian and English. Our last stop of the night turned into the party house for the rest of the evening. When we’d make it home late on Christmas Eve, we’d see our mom at her sewing machine finishing our Christmas dresses for church on Christmas morning. We always had a new outfit for Christmas and for Easter, too. We were in church on Christmas whether it landed on a Sunday or not. Tradition was that we’d have a regular joyful Christmas service in the morning and our Christmas Evening service was when our choir would perform a Cantata.

6.  Insert your own random thought here.  

Speaking of our Babushka’s apartment at 3000 East 8th avenue in Los Angeles, California….

On Christmas morning our family and our cousins and others would make a stop at our Babushka’s apartment for Christmas baked treats before our church service. This would be our Christmas breakfast. Apartment #10 has many cherished memories.

Me and my ‘Little Babushka’ on Greg and my wedding day, December 6th, 1974. We are currently in Coeur d’Alene Idaho enjoying an overnight stay to celebrate our 51st Anniversary. I’ll be slow in getting around to visit.

Happy Birthday, dear Laura, on your actual day! We love you, we love you, we love you!

Old and New History Hodgepodge

This photo was taken in Persia in the late 1940’s, after our mom and pop immigrated to the USA. My maternal grandparents are seated on the right lower side of the photo. Our cousin Alex is standing between them.

The photo above is of the paternal side of our family from the 1950’s. In the middle is our Babushka and Dzedushka. Our cousin Johnny is on our Babushka’s lap. I’m seated below our Dzedushka , just to the right.

Our Paternal and Maternal sides of the family are Russian.

It’s Wednesday and time for Hodgepodge. Thank you, Joyce!

1. Next Sunday is Grandparent’s Day. Share a favorite memory, photo, recipe, or something you learned from a grandparent. 

Our maternal grandmother was widowed young while she and our grandfather were living in Persia so our maternal grandfather never made it to the USA. He died shortly after our mom and pop immigrated and that was very hard for our mom being so far away and getting the news that her father was killed. Our little Babushka lost her left hand and arm up to her elbow when she was a child. She only had one hand but her embroidering skills were amazing. She was very patient in trying to teach me that skill but it wasn’t something I could excel at. She was a praying grandmother and she prayed for all her grandchildren. One thing she would tell us young people, “Don’t got out when it’s dark, nothing good happens in the dark.”

The collage shows one of her wedding gifts to Greg and me. It is an embroidered table cloth and 8 napkins. I cherish this gift from her hand.

I had a closer relationship with my maternal grandmother.

2. What’s a quote from a book (besides The Bible) that has stayed with you? 

‘It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door. You step into the road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there’s no knowing where you might be swept off to’ – Bilbo

by J.R.R. Tolkien. It is spoken by Bilbo Baggins in The Fellowship of the Ring. 

Truth be told, the quote I use more often is, “It comes in Pints?” (from the film)

3. What’s your number one food pet peeve? 

I’m not a fan of someone chewing with their mouth open.

4. What’s one thing about you that is still the same as it was when you were young? 

I’m still in the habit of smiling not to mention my hairdo!

5. September is National Preparedness Month…does your family have an emergency plan? Do you have some sort of preparedness kit you keep on hand? If so, tell us one thing that’s kept there. 

Our sons are prepared but we aren’t. My emergency plan is to get to one of our son’s homes in case of a major emergency. We do have our important papers, etc. in a quick grab container.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

On Sunday our own Seattle Sounders made history by winning the Leagues Cup Final against Inter-Miami. Josh and Laura were there to be part of the history.

We live too far from Lumen Field to participate in these games anymore so I love to live vicariously through Josh and Laura and their love of the game of soccer!

The Seattle Sounders’ quest to their first-ever Leagues Cup trophy is complete.

With Sunday night’s 3-0 win over Inter Miami, the Sounders were crowned champions of the tournament, becoming the only team in MLS to capture every major North American soccer trophy to date.

The game was not televised on any English speaking channel that we get on Dish so I had to watch it on a Mexican station. I was happy to be able to see it in real time and thankful for the Mexican station! I just set the volume low. 🙂

Lumen Field delivered an electric atmosphere, with a record crowd of 69,314  – surpassing the old mark of 69,274. And, in a rare sight, most of that support was for the home side rather than the eight-time Ballon d’Or winner. Seattle fed off it from the start.

The Ballon d’Or is an annual football award presented by French magazine France Football since 1956 to honour the player deemed to have performed the best over the previous season.

Lionel Messi has won the Ballon d’Or a record eight times and he was playing on the Miami team.

Sweet ‘Little’ Memories Hodgepodge

Our first Wednesday Hodgepodge in February is bringing back special memories of our dear Babushka Vera. We also called her our ‘little babushka’. The photo above was taken at Greg and my wedding in December of 1974.

Thank you to Jo From This Side of the Pond for her questions this week.

1. Something you’ve waited for recently? 

Dependable hot water.

2. What’s something you loved to do as a child? 

So many things: Hide n Seek, Jacks, Tetherball

One of the best family memories is stopping at 31 Flavors (Ice Cream shop) on Beverly Blvd. after a church event for our two or three scoops! I chose orange sherbet and chocolate chip. One of my brothers always chose vanilla.

3. Something you learned from a grandparent? 

From our little babushka Vera we learned you could still do amazing things with only one hand. Her left arm was amputated at the elbow when she was very young. With one arm and hand, she managed raising children, cooking blintzes, baking piroshky and creating beautiful embroidery just to name a few. The photo of her above was taken at Greg and my wedding shower at Bethany Baptist Church in Los Angeles.

She made all those goodies on her kitchen table for Christmas breakfast before we walked a few doors down for church. All her ‘people’ would stop into her apartment before church for a treat and the most Merry Christmas start to the day.

This embroidered tablecloth and napkins was my little babushka’s wedding gift to us.

4. The most visited cities in the world last year (according to this site) were-Bangkok, Paris, London, Dubai, and Singapore. Have you been to any of the cities mentioned? Which would you most like to see? How do you feel about international travel in general these days? 

Of these cities, I’ve only been to London and would choose London to see again from this list of cities. Still hopeful for travel to the United Kingdom. I’m a comfort traveler so I’d avoid any country where I wouldn’t feel comfortable about language barriers, etc. There are enough wonderful International adventures for me in the UK.

5. February is the perfect month to ______________________.

February is the perfect month to be loving and kind to one another.

6. Insert your own random thought here. 

Our Babushka Vera was promoted to heaven to be with her Savior in March of 1980. She was a Godly woman who prayed for all her grandchildren and for all her grandchildren’s future spouses. She prayed for our Pop’s salvation and for the salvation of her own husband. After they were married and he became a follower of Christ, our Dzedushka Fedot became a Baptist Minister. He was killed in Iran just after our parents immigrated to the USA after World War II. Our little Babushka immigrated to the USA with my Uncle and his family without her husband. I am so looking forward to seeing Babushka in heaven and seeing Dzedushka for the first time in heaven.

A long post about our Little Babushka is here.

I’m way behind this week after a busy full and wonderful weekend and then our Hot Water Tank repair job that took our son Dan and Greg all morning into the afternoon on Monday to fix. Hey…but we have some hot reliable water now and it will hopefully last a while.

My Little Babushka

I received a couple old photos new to me of our little Babushka Vera and I wanted to put all the photos I have of her in the archives of this computer together in one post. She’s sitting on the bottom row of this photo taken in Iran in the late forties. My grandfather that I never met and who was killed in Iran shortly after this photo was taken is on the right. The gal above my grandfather is our aunt Nina. She was married to our uncle Paul, our mom’s only brother. He’s next to Aunt Nina on the end of the top row. The rest of the people in this photo are Aunt Nina’s people and her mother and father are sitting next to our maternal grandparents. The little girls in this photo are the only ones still alive. They all live in Southern California. The two girls flanking the bottom row are both suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.  The little girl in her mother’s arms is alive and well in Southern California. My cousin Alex who is standing next to our Babushka died in an automobile accident in Wheaton, Illinois in 1979. The two grandmothers sitting next to each other, Manya and Vera were close friends and at the end of their lives they lived next door to each other in an apartment building a couple doors down from our Russian Baptist Church in Los Angeles. Several of our Russian widows lived in that apartment building. Our mom and pop had already immigrated to the USA when this photo was taken.

These are our little babushka’s three children. Our mom, her sister who died and her brother Paul.

This photo is from 1951 with friends and family after they all immigrated to the USA. Our little babushka is above our mom who is holding me. Our Pop next to our mom. Uncle Paul is holding our cousin Valia and next to him our aunt Nina is holding our cousin Walter. Next to our little babushka is our Aunt Nina’s sister in law Zena. Next to our mom is Mrs. Hamzieff from San Francisco and I’m not sure who the lady next to her is. The little boy, I believe belongs to Mrs. Hamzieff. Babushka immigrated from Iran as a widow to the USA with our Uncle Paul’s family.

These are our Babushka Vera’s 7 grandchildren as of 1956 ish. Cousin Alex, Babushka, sister Kathy, brother Fred, cousin Valia, Me, cousin Walter and my sister Vera. One more cousin and four more siblings were added to these two families. We had a sister that died in Iran so Babushka had 13 grandchildren in total.

This is a new to me photo of our babushka at a beach in California.

This is Babushka Vera and Babushka Manya in Arrowhead in California.

The two of them again in this photo. Our little Babushka lost her left hand and arm up to her elbow when she was young. Her arm was injured and got infected and had to be cut off at the elbow to save the rest of her arm and her life. She always positioned herself so that her missing hand was not in view in a photo.

Not a well preserved photo but this was our growing family with our Babushka at our Uncle Paul and Aunt Nina’s home in Huntington Park in California.

Me and Babushka at my 9th grade graduation and my high school graduation. I remember shopping with her for a dress at Sear’s once and she wore a size 16-1/2. She always searched for a dress with 3/4 length sleeves.

Our parents and Babushka at our home in La Mirada in the 70’s.

Cousin Walter, cousin Tanya, Babushka, our Pop and Uncle Paul.

Babushka, mom and me at Laguna Beach in California.

Kathy, Babushka and our mom.

Christmas at Babushka’s with our sister Lana in the late 60’s.

Our Babushka at Nick and Vera’s wedding in 1969.

Our little Babushka enjoyed embroidery and made a special gift for each of her grandchildren for their weddings. The tablecloth above was given to our sister Vera for her marriage to Nick.

Babushka at our sister Kathy’s wedding with our sister Vera in August of 1974.

Babushka, me and our mom at Dear and my wedding in December of 1974.

The center front row with our pop, mom, Babushka Vera, Babushka Martha and Dzeduska Timofei.

Dear’s family and my family at our wedding.

For our wedding Babushka Vera embroidered this tablecloth along with 8 napkins. A treasured gift. It’s amazing to us that her embroidery was so beautiful even with the handicap of having only one  hand.

Christmas morning at Babushka Vera’s. See all those baked goodies that our Babushka baked with one hand! Grandkids with their spouses and our cousin Alex’s in laws. This was mid-1970’s.

Babushka would tell us to not stay out after dark. She said nothing good happens in the dark!

I think Debbee was Babushka’s first great grandchild. This was in 1976.

This last one is at our second home in Huntington Beach in early 1977.

I hope to add more photos to this post as I find them.

Our Babushka Vera died in March of 1980. She was a Godly woman who prayed for all her grandchildren and for all her grandchildren’s future spouses. She prayed for our Pop’s salvation and for the salvation of her own husband. Our Dzedushka Fedot became a Baptist Minister before he was killed in Iran. I am so looking forward to seeing Babushka in heaven and seeing Dzedushka for the first time in heaven.

A Nostalgic Hodgepodge

It’s time for Wednesday Hodgepodge. Jo From This Side of the Pond publishes the questions on Tuesdays for us to answer and then we post our answers on Wednesdays to share with other Hodgepodgers.
1. When is the last time you experienced nostalgia?
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I was putting together all the photos of my little Babushka for a post and it got me thinking of her life and all she endured and her perseverance. She died in March of 1980. So many conversations that I couldn’t have with her because of our language barrier. When we were young and she would come over to stay with us I’d hope to be the one who would be able to sleep with her on the fold down couch in the living room. Her left arm was amputated at her elbow in her youth but she learned to do more than a lot of people with two hands can do. She taught me to embroider or I should say she persevered with me as I tried to embroider. One thing she told me as a teenager that I still quote from time to time is something like this, “Nothing good happens in the dark”. She was cautioning us as young adults not to be out at night. She prayed for the salvation of all her grandchildren and their spouses. It would have been fun for our children to know her…
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 2. September 29th is National Coffee Day.
Do we need this? Ha!
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Seems like everyday is a National day of something. Reminds me of handing out trophies to everyone regardless of their talent.
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So are you a coffee drinker?
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I am a coffee drinker. The mug on the left is my current every morning choice of coffee vessel. I bought that mug at TDMaxx (not TJ) in Windsor, England.
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If so how many cups per day, and tell us how you like it.
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One large cup in the morning, strong and black.
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Is there a recipe you enjoy that calls for coffee as one of the ingredients?
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I have had some things that have coffee as an ingredient but nothing that is in my recipe wheelhouse.
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 3. Do you find praise or criticism to be more motivating? Explain.
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My pride gets in the way of accepting criticism. I find it easier to accept when the Holy Spirit convicts me of something that needs correcting.  I’m definitely spurred on by genuine praise but not flattery.
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 4.  What’s a television series you keep coming back to and re-watching?
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Vera, Midsomer Murders, Detective Lewis, Endeavor…there’s a theme going here. British murder mysteries.
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 5. As the month of September draws to a close give us three words to describe your mood.
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Smiling With Anticipation…
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 6. Insert your own random thought here.
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The reason I’m smiling with anticipation is because the month of October will be family filled. We are meeting up with my youngest brother’s family this Thursday in Idaho and then they will be parking their 5th wheel at our place for a bit. My oldest sister’s family is traveling to Washington state next week and we will gather together on the west side of the Cascades for a few days together. Four of our eight siblings will be together along with their families and our “Coast” kids. Then more family time in Colville with all of our kids together for our annual hunting weekend. All the rooms will be full at all the Family Inns for many days in October.
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We are traveling for a few days and I will be late in visiting everyone this week. Cheers!

Pink Saturday ~ My Babushka Vera

This is my Maternal Grandmother at my sister Vera’s wedding in 1969. She looks so sweet in pink! I really loved my grandmother. She only had one hand. One of her arms was amputated from her elbow down when she was young. She immigrated to the U.S.A. alone without my grandfather who was murdered in Iran in the late 40’s. She did more with her one hand than a lot of people do with two. Her embroidery was amazing. My Babushka Vera died in March of 1980. She was a Godly woman who prayed for all her grandchildren and for all her grandchildren’s future spouses. I am so looking forward to seeing her in heaven.

The tablecloth above was the cloth she embroidered for our sister Vera as a wedding gift.

This is a tablecloth and napkins my babushka embroidered for us as a wedding gift. In keeping with the Pink Saturday theme here’s another tablecloth I have that she embroidered.

 

For more Pinkness visit Beverly at How Sweet the Sound.

Photobucket is holding all my photos from 2007-2015 hostage and demanding a ransom for me to access them. I’m slowly cleaning up many of my posts where PB have added ugly black and grey boxes where my photos used to be. So frustrating!