Saturday, May 24, 2014

Man, Woman, Birth, Death, Infinity





Elmer E. Brague and Edith L. Brague were my father’s parents. Clifford Ray Brague was my father. Ruth Elizabeth Brague was my mother. I do not have photographs of the graves of my mother’s parents, Nathan Silberman (1875-1970) and Rosetta Aarons Silberman (1878-1937), but here is a photograph of the entrance to the cemetery where they are buried, Adath Jeshurun Cemetery in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania:


It’s the best I can do.

11 comments:

  1. Ah! Now I know the true meaning of 'Rhymes with plague', Mr Brague! Another mystery solved. I am also guessing that your maternal grandparents were Jewish?

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  2. Thanks for sharing. What kind of gravestone will you yourself require - many, many years from now? I am thinking little stone cherubs and a pair of doves with a suitable epitaph - "He was a nice man".

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  3. The best you can do is a LOT better than I can manage.
    No grave stones for any of the relatives that I knew - and if there are markers for the others they are half a world away.

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  4. T. Stephenson, yes, as a matter of fact, my maternal grandparents were Jewish. So was my mother. So, the rabbis would say, am I (the child of a Jewish mother) although Judaism is not my religion. In this respect, but not in others, my mother could be said to resemble the Virgin Mary and I Jesus Christ. I do hope your skin graft operation was successful and that you are recovering nicely.

    Y. Pudding, if "he was a nice man" why would he now be thinking of throwing stone cherubs in the direction of your head?

    E. Child, though some might disagree, I find the thought of being buried in a cemetery with a marker strangely comforting. It sends the message, "Long ago, I was here."

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  5. I suspect that more people agree with you than with me. I am happy to disappear and if there is to be a marker to my existence I would opt for an 'unmarked' tree.

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  6. Thanks very much for your best wishes about my skin graft, except that you have the wrong Tom. The one with the hole in his leg is called Hippo, but - although some may think I need plastic surgery, I haven't had any yet!

    My father's family were Jewish, so I don't count as far as Rabbis go...

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  7. Tom Stephenson, so sorry, my mistake. But it is a good thing that you don't have a hole in your leg.

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  8. Isn't it funny to remember so many people who themselves remembered the 1800s? It's a treat, really. I just wish I had made more of it at the time.

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  9. Snowbrush, time seems to compress as one ages, and 140 or 150 years doesn't seem so long ago to us older codgers. In my case, it's only two generations back (my paternal grandfather having been born in 1866, and my maternal grandfather in 1875). Not exactly yesterday, but not so long ago, either.

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  10. This is so interesting. I have been to the gravesites of many family members, but have never thought to take pictures. (The one exception being my great-grandfather's grave in Arlington National Cemetery.) I'll have to remedy that someday...

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  11. LightExpectation, it's good when the memory begins to fade to have physical evidence at hand, and to show one's children.

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<b>Always true to you, darlin’, in my fashion</b>

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