Is Your Culture Part of Your Everyday Life?

my St. Patrick's Day quilt

Another challenging writing prompt from BlogHer today came in the form of the question "How much does your culture come into play in your day-to-day life?" Since I am a fourth-generation American, I would have to truthfully answer that it does not play a large role in my life. I don't cook the recipes of my mom and dad, we never celebrated any holidays that were not also celebrated by most Americans, none of us spoke a different language, and we did not belong to any cultural institutions.

I guess I most strongly identified with the Irish in my family tree though. My great-grandfather Michael J. Crusham came over to the United States from Ireland by himself when he was in his early 20s. I understand that he was quite the dancer and won many trophies for his Irish Jig. How I would have loved to have met him! Sometimes I can still get my aunts to sing a few of the Irish songs they learned when they were little, and it is such a treat.

I like to think that the work ethic of my parents, grandparents and great-grandparents has been passed along to me and my children. My husband and I both studied hard and sacrificed to attend graduate school, and then worked for a long time for companies that allowed us to absorb the essence of what it takes to be successful in business. This enabled us to become entreprenuers and have some control over our own destinies.

I'll close with one of my favorite Irish blessings.

May the road rise to meet you,
May the wind be always at your back,
May the sun shine warm upon your face,
The rains fall soft upon your fields,
And until we meet again,
May God hold you
In the palm of his hand.

BlogHer and Family Roots

BlogHer is an online blogging community of women (and a few men). Each month they choose a topic with writing prompts to engage their community in writing a blog post each day. This month the theme is Roots. Since that is a topic near and dear to my heart, I decided to participate in my first ever NaBloPoMo, which stands for National Blog Posting Month. Thanks to my friend and fellow writer Linda Austin for making me aware of NaBloPoMo.

Yesterday's prompt was asking how far you can go back in your family tree. Since I am a day late and a dollar short on that one, I will simply state that I have been doing genealogical research since 1989. I can trace part of my dad's family back to the late 1700s in Germany and England and the 1770s in Virginia. My mom's family I have back to 1796 in Ireland and the early 1700s in Germany.

Cincinnati, Ohio

Today we have been asked to go back three generations and talk about where our family lived. This would mean discussing my grandparents. Both my maternal (Michael Crusham and Mary Metz Crusham) and fraternal (Joseph Kubler and Lillian Hungler Kubler) grandparents were born in Cincinnati, Ohio and lived in that city their entire lives. Cincinnati was founded in 1788 but was not incorporated as a city until 1819. Sitting on the banks of the Ohio River, some of the city's nicknames include Porkopolis (due to the herds of pigs in the streets when it was the country's chief hog packing center), Queen of the West (so-called by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) and the City of Seven Hills (because it is surrounded by seven hills).

My family tree consist mainly of folks from Germany and Ireland. German immigrants were drawn to Cincinnati in search of new opportunities, landing jobs as butchers, bakers, brewers or tailors. By the 1850s they had made themselves at home in their new country as evidenced by the appearance of German newspapers and the fact that German was now spoken at church services and in the church school classrooms. The Irish immigrants, on the other hand, came to Cincinnati because the city offered jobs working on the riverfront, digging the canals and constructing the railroads. Both sets of immigrants were heavily discriminated against by the citizens of Cincinnati. "No Irish need apply" signs were prominent in the city. My family survived, if not thrived, despite the discrimination, and except for our one branch of the tree nearly all the descendants still call the area home today.

Joe & Lillian Kubler

Michael & Mary Crusham