Photography Thinks
So, Sharon’s genealogy research brought us a cousin we didn’t know, Liz Duckman (on the right). She lives nearby in West Palm. One month older than me. Her father is buried around the corner. It’s the only family I see.
Her friend of 40 something years, Sheryl, visited. We went to lunch at Morikami, but got rained out.
My cousin, Alan Ulick, the son of my Father’s sister Gert died in his home yesterday. His marital partner of 25 or so years, Harry Small, was at his bedside. I think he was 83. Very Sad.
On the wall in my gallery hangs a picture of his Mother and my Father when they were kids. I had a second image and decided to look him up and give it to him, along with a picture of our Grandmother, Hannah Duckman, after whom my Brother, Henry Hannah, and his Daughter, Hannah are named. This image was made in 1921.
Other than a brief meeting, a few minutes or less, in 1954, when he was a teenager and I was a kid, we had never seen or spoken to one another. This past winter, Google found him living nearby in Hollywood FL.
I called. We spoke. Alan and Harry came to our home for lunch. I learned about him. He learned about me from the internet (no time to explain), plus I told him the little family history there is of the remaining Duckman family.
I gave him the pictures, an outdated family genealogical history done by cousins Jerry Winter and Herb Sumliner (in which he is named) and shot this image, along with a few others. We hugged and they left.
We agreed we would get together again, but his illness and treatments prevented it. I would have liked knowing him better.
Always sad to celebrate a Yarzheit and Mother’s Day so close together. But she died not loving me or so my brother said. He is dead, too. No way to ever find out how or why or what happened.
I love smart women.
So, my Father, Lenny, died at 54. I am 70, almost 71. We both had tough lives. He died of leukemia and so will I. Had a nephew who died of it, also. No one knows if lymphoma is hereditary. It doesn’t go away and it cannot be cured. Sharon is never going to give up on me. I won’t die unloved or alone.
My Father died on Father’s day June 16, 1963. I was 7 when we learned he was sick and 15 when he died. Hard to celebrate and difficult to discuss.
He died before he was supposed to, only 54. He wouldn’t talk to me about it, except to say he was dying from Leukemia. That’s the way it was in 1963.
I lit a yahrzeit candle for him. I know no one else did. The family had long since stopped being a family. So it goes. So it goes.
So, Sharon Duckman does geneology. On line, another geneologist finds her. Usually Sharon searched for Natters or one of her other projects. This time, a Duckman found her. Susan Duckman. A Scotswoman.
The discussion continued. Who knew? Another Duckman. Elizabeth. She lives nearby in West Palm Beach. We met at the Norton yesterday.
More to say, but let me leave it at this: I love family and I wonder what happened? How did this family that struggled to come to America, to escape persecution and find opportunity to achieve, dissolve so quickly, leaving Judaism, dismissing cousins, and rejecting their genes?
Check out the Duckman eyes on Susan and the Duckman attitude on Elizabeth. I cannot tell you the warmth I got from these babes. Terrific.