The poem this week is about the brother of a relative through marriage as told by their dead mother. They grew up in an abusive orphanage, but the subject of the poem did not keep quiet about it!
As I described the last two weeks, Broad Street Magazine is featuring six poems and flash prose pieces from my chapbook Kin Types, along with some of the research and research artifacts I used to create the pieces.
Today the third part of the series was published and can be found here: Family Laundry: “More Burials” by Luanne Castle
This poem was written about the Leeuwenhoek family, specifically a relative by marriage, and the perspective is that of his dead mother. Her children were orphaned and the four youngest went to live in an orphanage.
The photo below is of a boy in Nymegen or Nijmegen, which is the city near the Neerbosch orphanage where the Leeuwenhoek children lived. It is most likely that this is a photograph of Gerrit Leeuwenhoek, the subject of my poem.
The first feature article is “Family Laundry: “An Account of a Poor…
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Wonderful, Luanne–so fascinating to get the back story–and to get the back story on how you got the back story. 😉
LOL, I love that! The back story on the back story! By the way, have I told you that we’re at a complete brick wall for the other side of the gardener’s family? And it’s so annoying because I thought that one would be easy since it’s such a large family. When the Scheshkos turned out not to be too difficult I thought we were clear sailing. Apparently NOT.
Oh, that’s frustrating. Good luck. I haven’t done too much with genealogy lately. Older daughter has considered hiring someone to check out records in Belarus, but I don’t know if I want to spend all that money!
My person is much more reasonable than most if you want her contact info.
Thank you. Sure, if you want to e-mail it to me. I didn’t know you had done that. I’ll let my daughter know. 🙂
How lucky you are to have so much family history to access, Luanne. You’ve garnered endless interesting stories. Thanks for sharing 🙂
It seems as if it would be such a waste not to do anything at all with Grandpa’s stories and all the photographs, etc. I feel a responsibility, if that makes sense.
Wonderful work, Luanne
Thank you, Derrick! Have a wonderful weekend!
So interesting, Luanne! You have a gift with family history as well as writing. This series represents both. 🙂