Tag Archives: Tuesdays With Moisi

Tuesdays With Moisi ~ Aunt Anna (Тетя Нура)

Our Pop’s sister Anna was called up to heaven last Wednesday May 20th at the age of 96. She was ready to go home. She was Moisi’s last surviving sibling. She outlived all her siblings and all her own children, too.

An earlier photo of Aunt Anna with her husband Pete. My Aunt Anna was always kind to me. I had my reservations even as a youngster with Uncle Pete. My reservations were substantiated through the years.

Uncle John, Aunt Anna, Our Pop, and Uncle Alex at our parents 60th wedding anniversary party.

Another photo from the 60th Anniversary party in Downey, California.

These photos aren’t in order. This Bogdanoff family photo is from the 1950’s. Aunt Anna has the white flower on her dress. I’m in the 2nd sitting row third from the right.

This is another photo from the 50’s. Aunt Anna is the right bookend of the upper row and our dear mom is the left bookend.

A great photo of Russian immigrants in the 50’s. Aunt Anna is at the top with a flower on her dress, again. She has glasses on. Our pop and mom are on the bottom row with Pop (Moisi) reclining and Nadia. I’m going to make the bold observation that Aunt Anna survived all the people in this photo.

Aunt Anna is sitting on the grass with all her brothers, sisters in law and mother in this photo. She survived all of them. I had my favorites of our Pop’s siblings. Aunt Anna and Uncle Alex earned my favor because of my experiences with them growing up.

Aunt Anna with her brothers.

Since today May 25th would have been our Pop’s 98th birthday I’m including this photo of him hitting the pinata at his great granddaughter’s birthday party a few years back.

Sister and brother. They were close friends.

Aunt Anna at Pop’s funeral.

She managed walking up the hill to sit for the graveside service. Her granddaughter and grandson in law cared for her in their home for several years before she died.

The last time I saw our Aunt Anna in person.

This will be the cemetery where she will be buried.

This is the plot where she should be buried. Her husbands information is on the headstone. He died February 2nd, 1978.

Looking forward to seeing you again in heaven.

Tuesdays With Moisi ~ 15

Our Pop’s Story continued…

This is our Pop’s story dictated verbally by him a few years ago. I’ll be sharing excerpts every Tuesday. When I add to his story or explain a photo I will Italicize my words. Our Pop’s words will not be italicized. Our mom does not come into Pop’s story until “Tuesdays With Moisi ~ 9” even though I’ve posted photos of her before #9. I have very few photos from our parents’ life in Russia and Persia. At the end of my Tuesday posts I’ll add links to all the other posts.

At the Billy Graham Crusade in August of 1963 my wife’s and mother-in-law’s prayers were answered as I went forward and accepted Jesus as my Savior.  Not long after this Nadia asked our Molokan pastor why Molokans did not allow for water baptism in their faith. His only answer was that Molokans are baptized with the Holy Spirit.  That was not an adequate answer for me. In studying Scripture, I came to understand that water baptism was a necessary step of obedience for a Christian. Before I was baptized in 1969 I informed my parents of my decision to get baptized and join Bethany Baptist Church.  They then disowned me. I was quite hurt by their reaction, but went ahead with my decision. ( The rift with my parents was real. However, when they were in their final days, Nadia and I were the ones who took care of them in our home until their respective deaths.) In the years following my conversion, we conducted evangelistic Bible studies with our Molokan friends.  The response was relatively small but significant, because those who did respond stayed true to the faith.

Our paternal grandparents, Timothy (Red Beard) and Martha Bogdanoff.

The following is from Pop’s/Dzeda’s eulogy read by his granddaugters at his funeral in July of 2018… (the babushka and Dzeda spoken of here is our mother, Nadia and our pop, Moisi. Hope these inserts aren’t confusing…

All the while Babushka persevered in praying for Dzeda’s salvation. Her prayer was answered in 1963 when Billy Graham came to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a crusade. Our Aunt Ellen recalls, “I was in the eighth grade and attended the crusade every night with my father. I’ll never forget the night my dad got out of his seat and made the long walk down to the field to acknowledge God’s call on his life. What a glorious day!” It was not only a day of celebration but also a time when lives were forever changed.

Becoming a believer came at a high cost for Dzeda. Family and friends would question his decision and many ostracized him calling him a traitor from the tradition he grew up in. Because of that we learned what true courage and sacrifice looked like to follow Christ. Dzeda never stopped honoring his Molokan Father and Mother. Dzeda loved his Molokan, brothers and sisters and prayed for them often and loved to share the Good News with them and what freedom in Christ looked like and could be.

More of my memories from this time in Moisi’s and our lives…

My love for singing started in church. In my father’s Molokan church growing up into my teens singing was acapella. There were no instruments in the church and the songs were mostly from the Psalms in the Old Testament portion of the Bible. My father was a “songleader” in this church. For Easter and Christmas we would visit my maternal grandmother’s Russian Baptist Church where we enjoyed singing with piano and organ. In junior high school, choir was one of my classes and I was introduced to notes and music. After my father attended the Billy Graham Crusade in Los Angles in 1963 he started a new life of following Christ as his Savior and we eventually left the Molokan Church. We started attending my maternal grandmother’s church. At the Baptist church my sisters and I were part of the youth choir which eventually worked on recording tapes of Russian hymns for Far East Broadcasting and Slavic Gospel Association to be broadcast into the Soviet Union over radio waves.

When Moisi finally decided to be baptized in 1969 his parents disowned him and would not speak to him. Some of his Molokan friends called him a frog. Pop didn’t share this in his story but I wanted to add to this part of his story. Our pop and mom visited our paternal grandparents once a week during this time and sat with them in silence. At the end of their silent visit our pop and mom would stand up to leave and always say to our dzedushka and babushka, We love you. Our parents never stopped honoring their parents even through this hard time. This love and honor wore our grandparents out and there came a day again when they spoke to each other again. As our pop shared in his story my parents were the ones who cared for his parents in their dying days. The photo below is from the Russian Molokan Cemetery in the City of Commerce in Southern California where our paternal grandparents and other relatives are buried.

Moisi with his daughter Kathy at the gravesite of our paternal grandparents taken in September 2014.

Tuesdays With Moisi

The Reception:

After the graveside ceremony we all got in our cars and headed to Fullerton for a luncheon reception at an extension of EVFree Fullerton. We are thankful for them allowing us to use their facilities.

Our brother Tim left the reception before we thought to take a sibling photo.  There are 8 siblings that have survived our parents. Seven of us were together for our Pop’s funeral gatherings. We have one brother who made the choice along with his family of 12 (wife, 4 children, their spouses, and 3 of our pop’s great grandchildren) not to attend and we don’t know why. Just keeping it truthful and real. I haven’t seen this brother who is a couple years older than me since 2009. They didn’t attend our mother’s funeral, either. I’m sure they have their story but it’s a bewilderment and causes sadness to the rest of us.

But…the rest of us gathered and were comforted with all our extended families and friends who did honor our dear old Pop and us by showing up and giving us hugs and encouraging words, grieving and rejoicing together.

Our parents’ grands and great grands minus about 17…

Dear’s side of our family. Bottom left is Dear with his only brother. One of his daughters, who was in Southern California, was able to attend the funeral with him.

A few more photos from my DIL’s phone. We had a good time of impromptu singing some of our favorite songs in Russian with a few of our former church buddies from the Russian Baptist Church in Los Angeles that we were part of for many years.

Josh with his cousins Hope and Andrew and his niece Addy.

Addy with her cousin once removed, our niece Debbee.

Starting next week Tuesdays with Moisi posts will begin to share the story of my Pop’s life that was given verbally by him and transcribed by a journalist from Russia.

This photo is of Pop barbecuing Shashlik (Marinated Lamb Kebobs) for his birthday party in the early 90’s.

Happy Tuesday y’all. The air is clearer in Northeastern Washington, woohoo! So thankful!

Tuesdays with Moisi

From our Hillside Chapel service we got in our cars and traveled the short distance to our pop’s graveside next to our mom’s in the Summer Terrace area of Rose Hills. Many of our relatives are buried in different sections of this Memorial Park.

Rose Hills Memorial Park was founded in 1914 by Augustus Gregg on part of the historic Rancho Paso de Bartolo land grant. Whittier Heights Memorial Park, as it was originally known, began as an 18-acre cemetery serving the burgeoning city of Whittier. … At its largest, the park once spanned nearly 2,500 acres. Today, Rose Hills Memorial Park covers more than 1,400 acres, making it the largest cemetery in North America.

Our 93 year old aunt, Pop’s sister was a real trooper hiking up this slope with help from her grandchildren.

Our two sons, Josh and Dan.

Our nephew Andrew giving his respects.

Hope recited the 23rd Psalm in English.

Our parents lie side by side. My mom’s headstone reads “The Lord is my shepherd;… and on my pop’s headstone to the right of my mom it reads, “I shall not want”.

Hope’s dad, my brother Leonard, read the 23rd Psalm in Russian.

My pop’s grandsons Caleb and Joseph gave the graveside messages.

Some of Moisi’s granddaughters.

Dear’s only brother with one of his three daughters, Annie, our DIL Jamie and Addy.

Jamie and Addy with Addy’s great great aunt Anna who is our pop’s sister and the last surviving sibling in our pop’s family.

We don’t shelter our children from death and funerals.

We always do our part in burying our loved ones.

From the graveside services we drove to Fullerton for a catered reception that our dear old Pop provided the money for. We are grateful to EV Free Fullerton for allowing us to use one of their large halls. Next Tuesday with Moisi I’ll have photos from the reception.

Tuesdays with Moisi

The Memorial Service.

Family and friends gathered to remember and comfort one another.

Our brother Tim welcomed everyone and started our time off well with scripture and a prayer.

Granddaughters Debbee and Katie read Pop’s eulogy and Melissa read a special tribute she wrote. Our sister Lana read Psalm 103 in English after we shared a recording of our Pop reciting the Psalm from memory in Russian. Interesting note: Psalm 103 in the English Bible is Psalm 102 in the Russian Bible. Here are the first couple verses in Russian and English.

Прославь, душа моя, Господа!

Господи, мой Боже, Ты очень велик,
    Ты облачен в славу и величие.

Bless the Lord, O my soul,
    and all that is within me,
    bless his holy name!

 

Our sister Kathy, her husband Len and their daughter Michelle sang a trio of the one song our pop requested be sung at his funeral, Shine on Us.

Our brothers, Steve and Leonard, gave the message from Lamentations and other scripture. We lamented and we rejoiced.

Some of Dzeda’s Grandsons were the Pall Bearers.

Andrew, who you see at the back of the casket is our youngest nephew and Pop’s youngest grandson. From here we would travel to the graveside.

I’m copying and pasting our pop’s eulogy here. Dzeda is what his grandchildren called him, short for Dzedushka, grandfather in Russian. The eulogy is written from the grandchildren’s perspective.

Moisey (Moses/Moisi/Morris) Timofeyovich Bagdanov was born May 25th, 1923 to Timofey Fedotovich and Martha Ivanovna (Susoeva) Bagdanov in the small village of Salim outside of Rostov on Don in Rostovski Oblast, Russia. He was one of the twelve children. In 1932, the political situation in the young communist regime worsened for farmers and believers. His father was one of the 9 leaders of villages who went to Turkey and Persia (now Iran) to ask if they would be willing to take Russian refugees. Turkey said no but Iran was willing to allow them into their country.   He could not return to Russia for fear of imprisonment so he stayed in Iran leaving our great grandmother to fend for herself and their10 children. They waited for couriers to escort them under cover of night for their escape. After 3 attempts the rest of the family would escape to Iran in 1933, reuniting with their father and other Russian refugees. Dzeda had so many harrowing stories of survival, tragedy and deliverance and we all grew up hearing about God’s faithfulness and provision. Persia is where he would grow up and at a young age begin to work, be it farming, delivery boy or even washing the Shah’s car.  This young boy became a young man of marrying age. It was at this time that a girl came to his village where her aunt and grandmother lived. He caught a glimpse of her and knew that she was the one who he was going to marry. This girl was Nadzheda Fyodorovna Shvetzova, a young Baptist girl. They were married September 13,1943 in Rahmanabad, Iran. Together they would defy all odds in their 70 year marriage.

In 1944, Kathy #1 was born and the first of many hardships and heartaches would occur when she died sometime after her second birthday in 1946 from dysentery. Dzeda not only gets to be reunited with Babushka but with his sweet daughter. Then came Kathy #2, the Kathy you all know today. In 1947 they moved again to a country they did not know, with very little money, few skills, a culture and language they would have to learn but with hope and promise of freedom. They stepped into the unknown to make their home and raise a family. America! They left Iran September 3, 1947 on a Red Cross plane from Tehran to Cairo to Rome, to London where they wouldn’t let them off the plane so they were diverted to Ireland. After spending the night they continued to Iceland then Greenland and landed in New York on September 6th and got to Los Angeles by train, September 12, 1947.

During all this travel babushka was pregnant. Vera was their first child born in the US in 1948. Fred was born in 1949 and then Ellen in 1951. After a 7 year break, Tim was born in 1958 followed by Steve in 1959 and then Lana and Leonard in 1963. Although life as immigrants was new and tough, his approach was always positive with a can do attitude which he put to full use working up to three jobs at a time to not only pay off the cost of immigrating but to provide for his family. Within 6 years he was able to buy his first house in Montebello Gardens.

Dzeda had an incredible work ethic. He was dependable, reliable, conscientious and relentless in getting the job done. These were the qualities he embodied and instilled in all of his kids  – to do your best. The other quality he had was integrity – we can all say integrity and doing the right thing was the guide and gauge he lived by even before he was a believer. All the while Babushka persevered in praying for Dzeda’s salvation. Her prayer was answered in 1963 when Billy Graham came to the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for a crusade. Our Aunt Ellen recalls, “I was in the eighth grade and attended the crusade every night with my father. I’ll never forget the night my dad got out of his seat and made the long walk down to the field to acknowledge God’s call on his life. What a glorious day!” It was not only a day of celebration but also a time when lives were forever changed.

Becoming a believer came at a high cost for Dzeda. Family and friends would question his decision and many ostracized him calling him a traitor from the tradition he grew up in. Because of that we learned what true courage and sacrifice looked like to follow Christ. Dzeda never stopped honoring his Molokan Father and Mother. Dzeda loved his Molokan, brothers and sisters and prayed for them often and loved to share the Good News with them and what freedom in Christ looked like and could be. He also loved fellow believers at Bethany Baptist Church and encouraged them often not only through bible studies and sharing what God was teaching him but even pastoring a small congregation of Russian believers in Santa Ana. He was always in God’s Word, talking with Babushka about what he was preparing and most of all  – praying. You could walk by their bedroom and see both Dzeda and Babushka on their knees praying and hearing your name.

In 1990, when they were in their seventies, our grandparents returned to Russia for the trip of a lifetime visiting the villages they were born in and reconnecting with family. Little did we know that this would be the start of a new chapter for both of them as missionaries going back and forth taking money to churches to build buildings to meet in. Dzeda calculated that they had taken almost $200,000 in the 11 trips they made in the 90’s. Then in 1998 they decided to sell their house and move there where they started a Bible study and then a church in the village where some of our relatives still live. Dzeda baptized many and God used him to bring hope and salvation to that little community.

 

Dzeda loved God and taught all of us the fear of the Lord. He loved God’s Word and up until the beginning of this year he read it daily. Consistently reading his Bible – daily! He probably read the Bible all the way through at least 20 times. And as you saw in the video earlier he had so much of it memorized. If you started a passage for him he would be able to finish it by memory. He would remind himself of God’s truth even in the long days that remained of his life after Babushka died in 2013. He encouraged all of us to do the same.  He missed our babushka terribly and tried to live alone but soon needed extra care and attention so Aunt Kathy and Uncle Len offered him a room and companionship in their home and it became his home where he lived out his days and died surrounded by Len, Kathy and Melissa, his angel as he called her. We are all so grateful to them for their devotion in honoring our Dzeda.

We could not be more excited for Dzeda – he is now in heaven! God heard his prayer and answered it  – He waited upon the Lord and the Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him. As it says in 2 Corinthians: “Therefore we are always confident and know that as long as we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord. For we live by faith, not by sight. We are confident, I say, and would prefer to be away from the body and at home with the Lord.” Dzeda is now living by sight at home with the Lord – His prayer was finally answered.

If you leave here remembering anything that is said today – remember this – He would want you to know the good news of the Gospel – that Jesus Christ came to this world to die on the cross for your sins and that if you believe in Him you will have eternal life – a life in heaven, whatever the cost  – it’s worth it!

Thank you for coming today to help us honor and celebrate the life of our Father, Grandfather, Great Grandfather, Uncle and friend, to support us – but most of all to thank the Lord for a life redeemed and well lived and to be reminded that eternal life means that there is more life to come after we die, a life characterized by the resurrection life and body of Jesus Christ, as James 1:12 says: “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him.”