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Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Grandma Steblay and My Bojon Heritage

I told my cousin Mike who writes a fantastic blog called https://lifeinbojontown.wordpress.com/ that I would join him during the month of July and post about our wonderful childhood in what we all affectionately know as "BojonTown"! We both come from good stock. Our people came from Yugoslavia. Today it is known as Slovenia. There are many wonderful stories about these people probably because they are smart, funny and very becoming! As I write these posts I will share some beautiful scenery from this place where my ancestors including my sweet grandmother (above) traveled to start life anew in America. This tiny grandmother, pictured here with many of her great grandchildren and one of  her granddaughters (me) holding my nephew Tony and my cousin LuAnne. My grandmother arrived in this country at the age of 18 all alone with ten dollars to her name . I found her at Ellis Island on a ship's manifest. My spine tingled as I thought about what she must have been feeling, traveling all that distance and being alone  She came to America with her father's blessings. He also arrived in this country later and I will share a photo of his grave site when I can get a photo. I have been unable to find any information about my grandmothers mother although I know she had two sisters, Anna who never left Yugoslavia and passed away when I was five. Anna was her youngest sister. My Tata Rose (tata sLOVEnian for Aunt) was also younger than my grandmother Cecilia and I will share some stories about her on a different day.  My grandmother settled in an area called "the Grove" in the city of Pueblo, Colorado. She was married to my grandfather Joseph and they had two sons and eight daughters, three of whom died in infancy.  Uncle Louie was the eldest , Tony, Mary, Cecilia, Anna, Elsie and Josephine. The babies that passed away were Frances, Agnes and Rosie. I am uncertain of their dates of birth but I do know that Rosie is buried at the Roselawn Cemetery in Pueblo because my father paid for her headstone. She is buried near the family plot of her sister Anna and her husband's family. I often wonder what went through their minds to lose so many children and to keep living their lives. They were a rare breed that generation of people, strong willed, hard working, honest and giving up their former lives to start a journey on a new life in a new country.
This is the front of my grandmother's home. My sister Mary inherited the house from my Uncle Louie and his wife Auntie Ang after their passing. The house was built in 1908 and features three bedrooms and one bathroom. It is near the Ruyon Field, which is a baseball field. Today it is considered a Sports Complex .
This is sort of how I remember Ruyon Field. This is a google image. I am thinking Hobbs Field must be related to the Hobbs Linoleum Co. that faced Santa Fe Avenue and sits in front of the ball field. As kids when we visited my grandmother we would search the field outside the ballpark for all baseballs lost and it was always a wonderful time and brings back lots of good memories. When we were kids a family named Spelich, also sLOVEnians a/k/a Bojons, were caregivers at the ball field and they were very nice to all the kids. You could get a hotdog for a quarter and a soft drink as well. My father played semi pro baseball in our hometown of Pueblo and I have stories about him later as well.
When a gal asks her sister to send her a photo of her home the sister never lets her down! My sissy is a sweetheart! She took this photo of her backyard for me. At one time Uncle Louie and Auntie Ang had the most beautiful rose garden in this yard where the grass now grows. I wish I had photos of that garden. If I close my eyes I can smell all the sweet and delicate scents of the dozens of roses they had planted in their garden. The two of them were master gardeners. If you look closely at this phot you can see the clothesline near the tree. My goodness, that tree has grown so much from the days of my childhood. Thank you Mary for sharing photos with me for my blog.
Uncle Louie and Auntie's Ang's wedding day, November  27, 1946. The Catholic priest, Father Daniel Gnidica (a bojon of course) and my precious and beautiful grandmother Cecilia.
This is the certificate of marriage for my aunt and uncle. You can see the priest's handwriting along with Auntie's niece Anna, who was the mom of my good friend Rob. Bojons all over the place.
Remember Father Dan because I do not have other photos of him but I will share a little something about him. He cleaned up nice when he was doing his priestly duties but Father was a Saint to me simply because he was also a carpenter and I always thought he was a cool priest because when he was not offering Mass or officiating at a wedding, he was on the church/school grounds in his workshop wearing his overalls! I thought he was terrific because I loved Jesus and he was a carpenter and I figured Father Dan must have wanted to be like Jesus! This old school priest had a very kind heart. I will always remember him fondly.
This photo of my sister's bojon home shows the path to her shed on your left and the garage which was a one car garage and Uncle kept it neat as a pin! I shared my Grandmother;s home with you first because the government has something called eminent domain. I don;t want to get into the politics of it basically they have the right or their agent has the right to expropriate property for public use, with payment of compensation. What bothers me about this particular home, aside from it being in my bojon phamily since the early 1900's is the fact that in June, 1921 Pueblo had a devastating flood . Not only did this sturdy home survive the flood my grandmother chose to stay in her home. There is some conflicting information when you read the local news reports because when they started this campaign and put a you tube video  titled :

Potica, Pints, and Prayers in Old Bojon Town

 Now in this video they say that the bojons moved from the Grove Southward to higher ground (my neighborhood) but many sLOVEnian or Bojon families stayed put including my Grandmother, her sister My Tata Rose, the Trontel's, the Ahlin's and the Meglens to name the families I can remember. I think rather than run a highway through this historic area they should deem it historical and preserve it. I am sorry I can not attach the you tube video. Some of my relatives are featured in the video and their homes as well. You can go to you tube and pull up the video by the name.

Until tomorrow I bid you lahko noč

/Love is.../Blue Monday/Aw...Monday/Fearless

 I missed Blue Monday! Frustrating, because I love it a lot and I also missed Aw...Mondays! I am putting my post up here anyway. I am mixed up on my days. Busy trying to get the painting done and the heat is so uncomfortable. I know, I know, excuses!
I am sharing this google image. My nephew Joe and his pretty bride Jessica were married Sunday in Florida. They all wore touches of blue. I am waiting for them to come home from their family trip/honeymoon so I can ask Jessica if I may borrow some of her wedding photos to share here. In the meantime I like this blue rose trimmed wedding cake.
Keeping with the romance and wedding theme I love this Love is...so sweet and reminds me of the love I see in Jessica and Joe's eyes. They have eyes only for each other.
Laughing out loud! If I know only one thing about cats, they do not like to be held or bothered with! This was so sweet. I figured I would still share it for Sandee and all the shares with Aw...Monday!
Ninety five degrees is way too hot for me to go on a hike! I chose to stay home and work hard indoors with my a/c on! My tiny middle is getting ready to take on a new job at her office.  She starts it soon and she loves to go hiking and release her mind from all the cares of the world.
Nick looks like he is conducting an orchestra from a top the mountain at Chautauqua Park.  The city of Boulder is tiny in the background.
My handsome Nick and grandson Colton, two of the most handsome young fellows I know! Taking a break from the rocky climb.

Three of my loves, Nick, Colton and Rebekah.
Colton is fearless. He does par kour so this is a walk in the park for him! I love the view!
Colton is a climber. When he was very small I turned around and he was gone. I heard him giggle, "Hey Grandmother, up here". He had scaled our roof in a matter of moments. He still loves climbing.
This is a young man who loves living on the edge. I pray a lot as you can well imagine!
The view from up here is magnificent. I hope Sally will stop by to see my blues anyways.
Adding a few prayer requests here. Pray for Noelle, she has an interview for a different position at her workplace tomorrow. Please pray for Joan, her cancer has returned and she is going to see a new specialist to find out what options she has. This gal is a prayer warrior and a fighter. She is always grateful for pray. Bailey is 7 years old and she had such severely swollen lymph nodes her mom is fearing the worse. Please pray as she was released from the hospital and has an appointment today to see if they have any new information. I also appreciate the prayers for myself while I keep searching for work. Thank you and if it is hot where you are chill out and stay cool. Thank you.










Wednesday, June 24, 2015

DRIVING IN THE CEMETERY PICKING MULBERRIES AND EATING BONGO BANANA'S/TRIBUTE TO UNCLE SAM COSIMANO


Trying to resolve some technical issues that will not allow me to post this post. I am so sorry for the delay. I am going to try once more or just scrape it and rewrite it and post it again! Fingers crossed, prayers said!

This is a google image of the type of Chevy truck my dad drove and my mother taught me to drive. I had all my driving lessons in the Roselawn cemetery. I need to sort more photos and see if I have a picture of that truck. It had a camper shell on it and the grand kids loved to play in the back of it.

Good memories. Miss you dad.
Here is the entrance to the Roselawn cemetery. The roads are very narrow and it was a great place to learn how to drive. I can parallel park really well since I learned to drive on these narrow roadways.
Here is a google image of the roads. It is a very nice place and most of our relatives were laid to rest here. I have good memories of this place because my mother was a true saint and she had the patience of Job when she taught me how to drive. I do not have that kind of patience and I would be a nervous wreck if I had to teach anyone to drive.

 My dad was brave to lend us his truck to take those lessons. He loved that truck and there were many good memories in it. My dad took excellent care of his vehicles and I learned a few tips in caring for your vehicle from my dad. He checked all the car fluids on a daily basis and always changed the oil regularly. He never owned a car that did not run like a new car should! Thanks mom for the driving lessons and thanks for taking such excellent care of our poodles GiGi and Renee. Love my mom's apron!
This is from a Mulberry tree. That is also a great cemetery story. Uncle Louie use to take all of us kids for a ride. Those were the days where you piled into a car and no one had a seat belt and we all survived. Times were different then. When we got to the cemetery we always picked the mulberries. You had to be quick or the birds would eat them all. Just ask my niece Karla. She and Aaron and the kids lives in Grandma and Grandpa Kocman's house these days. There is a Mulberry tree out front and it hangs so close to the porch those birds make a purple mess on the front porch! But those berries are wonderful and eating them straight off the tree is a real treat even today.

Look at those juicy berries. Oh good memories.
As a kid those trees looked twice as big as they really are. They are so full and produced so many berries. Uncle carried a lot of change in his pocket and when got to the cemetery and were picking the berries he would drop change and we were so clueless we would find it and act so surprised every single time! He made sure all the kids got enough change. Then he would take us to the Dairy Deluxe in Bessemer and we all got the same thing, he would order Bongo Bananas for everyone!
This is how the Dairy Deluxe looked back then. Of course, it is no longer there. Replaced by these high end ice cream joints,so sad.
Gosh those Bongo Bananas were good.

Although this photo was taken, probably at the Perseren Home in Rye, Colorado this is Uncle Louie Steblay and his bride Auntie Ang Jacklovich-Steblay. They were such good folks. Lots of wonderful memories with these two Bojons!

Before I sign off tonight I want to thank my cousins Kay and Joanne and Juliane for sharing so many wonderful photos with me. I want to thank my sissy Mary for all her input with photos and stories. I have Kay's permission to share some of her stories and I will get through those and they will make you laugh and certainly smile. Thanks Karl in PA. for all the cool finds you send my way! God bless each and every one of you with many blessings.

Juliane shared so many wonderful photos today with me. It was a difficult day for her because today was the anniversary of the day she lost her dad. I borrowed two of her photos of Uncle Sam to share here. He was a wonderful man. A handsome Italian fellow from upstate New York who married my dad's baby sister Millie. I will share them together very soon. Loss is always tough, loss of a parent is unreal. It is so hard to explain if you have not been through it. so I wanted to say hi to my Uncle who is probably helping God out artistically or talking about cars or just being who he was, a really nice, honest, decent, hard working man who loved his phamily a lot. There are many more stories to share but I will close with this:
Lahko noč.

F A M I L Y


So Here we go with Ms. Jenny and our letter "F"! Please stop by later today and share your F posts and all your stories.
You know my P H A M I L Y - kids and cousins and all of immediate loved ones, the hubby, the kids, all together now!

Goodness, without these memories to see in front of me where would I be? Lost, alone, hopeless! You know I have whined and cried and felt sorry for me the past two days! The unemployment office drops the bomb on you, your unemployment runs out on July 14th! Still no job. Panic sets in, the tears fall, I ask God, do you dislike me so much you would rather I drop dead? Then I retract it! Certainly I am not the only person in the world that feels pressured and frightened! Why am I blaming God? He has stuck by me like glue! In it for the look haul. I think of my Sweets and how much I love him. How much he does to keep our heads above water. I tell him all the time, I tell anyone who listens as I babble and cry and wipe those tears away, "I would rather live in a cardboard box with my Sweets at the Platte River under an overpass, then have everything handed to me on a silver platter and be a terrible, miserable human being." I mean that from the depths of my soul, from the very bottom of my heart.  He keeps me encouraged! Makes me laugh, yesterday he said "Hey babe, cheer up, I could always do some nude modeling." We laughed until we cried!

My cousin Mike has been writing about our heritage, our neighborhood since June 1st! He promised to write everyday for 30 days! He says his brain needs a break, so as of July 1st he will take a break, than resume writing July 2nd! I told him I would write posts regarding our heritage during the month of July as well.  The pressure is on, oh oh, what did I get into? It will be a breeze! My cousin Juliane and her daughter Jessica in New York love hearing the stories so part of it is for them. They want to have the blanks filled in because Juliane's folks, are both gone as well. Mostly it is good therapy and definitely a journal of our lives. Our heritage. Something tangible that the kids can have after we are gone. Once I get a job I am going to tuck away money to have my blog put into book form. It will be a series of books that my kids can share down the road.
The wonder of children, the grand kids, the great grands! Gosh my life is good. It is really, really good.
The tiny new baby! Michael is a gift. A precious gift. There is no other gift like this anywhere. There are no material things this beautiful. A tiny new baby to tug at your heartstrings! Little smiles and dependence on someone  else to take care of it all.
Drazah with Michael on his birthday June 3, 2015. There is no love, other the love of God, that can compare to the love of a child.
Look what my girl Noelle got for me! An i pod! It is pretty in pink! You know I love my music. Now to download some. The little I have on my phone I will move here. I use so much of my phone's memory I need to rearrange things. I had to take  pinterest off my phone because I ran out of memory! My son just shakes his head.  As for this i pod, it is very cool and I am very grateful for my daughter. She is a precious soul. We were listening to her tape in the car earlier, that she recorded when she was a tiny child of three or four! She used her durable Fisher Price tape recorder and drove us all mad! For that I am extremely grateful. It has preserved the voices of my folks through all these years. My nephew Brian put that cassette tape on a CD for her. It is such a blessing. Noelle and I were chatting in the car. We had taken Nick to babysit at Crystal's house. That is Noelle's BFF! She treated me to a delicious breakfast and when we were coming home I said, "I would give anything to hear my mom and dad's voices again." Presto! She pulled out her i pod and I was smiling through all my tears. I miss my folks so much.

Dad and Mom and Noelle

I hope you visit Ms. Jenny and all those who participate in Alphabe Thursday. My F A M I L Y is number one in my book! What about you?


Sunday, June 21, 2015

Everyday Wishes/Father's Day Kisses/ "E" is for.../Spiritual Sunday/Blue Monday/Love is...

I was putting up some posts at Face Book! They just do not offer the mobility that I have here. I feel like I can reach out at my blog where Face Book limits you! So this is my shout out to all the dad's out there ! You know who you are and you do a fantastic job! There are not enough kudos for all the good dad's- the men who stick by their phamilies. The men who take care of their children, raise them, love them, discipline them!
My own dad, a kind, quiet, hard working steel worker who provided much more than an income for his kids and wife. He loved each one tenderly, had a humble heart, a strong mind, an incredible work ethic! He did more than I could list in my lifetime! A faithful servant. The man who taught me everything I know about baseball. The man who read his bible and practiced it daily in his life. I love the Book of James, a book in the new testament. Here are some examples of favorite Scripture shares:

James 1-2New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Testing Your Faith

[a]James, a bond-servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ,
To the twelve tribes who are [b]dispersed abroad: Greetings.
Consider it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various [c]trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces [d]endurance. And let [e]endurance have its perfect [f]result, so that you may be [g]perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.
But if any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all generously and [h]without reproach, and it will be given to him. But he must ask in faith without any doubting, for the one who doubts is like the surf of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind. For that man ought not to expect that he will receive anything from the Lord, being a [i]double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.
But the [j]brother of humble circumstances is to glory in his high position; 10 and the rich man is to glory in his humiliation, because like [k]flowering grass he will pass away. 11 For the sun rises with [l]a scorching wind and withers the grass; and its flower falls off and the beauty of its appearance is destroyed; so too the rich man in the midst of his pursuits will fade away.
12 Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial; for once he has [m]been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love Him. 13 Let no one say when he is tempted, “I am being tempted [n]by God”; for God cannot be tempted [o]by evil, and He Himself does not tempt anyone. 14 But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. 15 Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin [p]is accomplished, it brings forth death. 16 Do not be [q]deceived, my beloved brethren. 17 Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or [r]shifting shadow. 18 In the exercise of His will He brought us forth by the word of truth, so that we would be [s]a kind of first fruits [t]among His creatures.

Stop by Charlotte's and join the people at Spiritual Sunday.
A dad and his youngest daughter, Hannah! Good memories....long ago....Everyday Living. Join Ms. Jenny and the Alphabe Thursday crew. I chose "E" for Everyday Living.

Daddy and his two boys...Andrew, Jayden and Michael.

Dad and his gals!
2013 Graduation for Ryan our nephew so Avery and Nick took a picture together. Father and Son...
The boys all together now! Silly and smiling after a wonderful Father's Day lunch.
A happy girl with her daddy! He is blessed and loved so much!
Brittany and Jeremy smiling on this glorious Father's Day!
 A blue card for a Happy Father's Day from Jeremy. Stop by Sally's and the Blue Crew! I hope they see the blues in my post today.
 Happy Father's Day to all the Romeo's out there.


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