The Legacy: Family Is Everything

By Cheryl J. Trago

Step back in time and read how parents faced and overcame trials and adversities in an effort to raise their children with love, integrity, and family values. How physical hard work was the mainstay for daily living. Travel through the growing years with Cheryl as she describes the highlights and lowlights of the antics of her brother, her sisters, and herself. How the love and support of family and friends comforted the family when faced with a tragic event. See how their parents left a loving legacy and a solid foundation that was carried down to the next generation. Family Is Everything.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Dec 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781450269742

Cheryl J. Trago

CHERYL TRAGO was born and raised in La Porte, Indiana, and now resides in Ocala, Florida, with her husband of thirty-eight years, Jim, and Katie, their West Highland White Terrier. Cheryl enjoys music, shopping, and being in the company family and good friends.

Book preview

The

LEGACY

Family is Everything

CHERYL J. TRAGO

iUniverse, Inc.

Bloomington

The Legacy

Family is Everything

Copyright © 2010 Cheryl J. Trago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

All names have been changed to protect individual privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-4502-6973-5 (pbk)

ISBN: 978-1-4502-6974-2 (ebk)

Printed in the United States of America

iUniverse rev. date: 12/10/2010

Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Epilogue

To …

My brother, Bob,

My sister-in-law, Carolyn,

My niece and nephew,

Robyn and Jason,

My sister, Stacey,

My brother-in-law, Art,

My two nephews,

Kris and Bryan

It is truly sad when families don’t know much about their parents’ and grandparents’ lives and values—about the adversities they encountered and overcame to make a better life for themselves and their children.

I didn’t know much about my family’s roots, but I hope I am able to shed some light on how my generation was raised—to believe that, through hard work and determination, we could overcome obstacles during hard times. Learn the values my parents taught my siblings and me. I think you’ll be surprised.

Travel with me down memory lane, where you may recall fond memories of your own. As I share the details of the life my folks had, their insights, and their way of coping with everyday problems, you will ultimately discover the strength of bonds that families forged. You will find this truth: family is everything.

Acknowledgments

To my friends and neighbors—Donis Lumpkin, Shirley Cason, Mary Jane Phillips, Jerry and Kathy Cotto, and Robbin Ash—thank you for believing in me.

To my mentors and great friends, Dora Lynn and Jerome Jordan, who were instrumental in keeping me on the crooked, narrow path and patient with me when I wanted to give up and quit. Without your encouragement and guidance I couldn’t have completed my tribute to my family. Thank you so much.

To my brother, Bob, and his family and my sister, Stacey, and her family, who helped me out when I had those senior moments, thank you for walking down memory lane with me. I love you guys.

To my husband, Jim, who was the first to believe in me and nudged me along to keep striving to cross the finish line, you, too, wouldn’t let me give up. Thank you, honey.

To my illustrator, Vanessa Fuller-Brown, whose beautiful sketches accurately depicted some of the highlights of my book, thank you.

Finally and most importantly, to our mom and dad, who taught my siblings and me to always give 150 percent of ourselves to all our endeavors and to love and take care of each other. You both were always there when we needed you. We can’t thank you enough.

Vanessa can be reached by e-mail at [e-mail].

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COLLECTING COAL

Chapter One

AS I WAS GROWING UP, I never realized how much family values played a part in developing character and teaching you that, when the chips are down, you can turn to the family unit for love and support.

I didn’t know much about my grandparents, let alone my great-grandparents. I know that my maternal grandmother, Anna Janus, was from Poland. She traveled here to the United States as a very young woman. So far from home and sorely uneducated, she took a job as a housemaid in the Engle home. That’s where she met the young and devilishly handsome Edward Engle, my grandfather, whom she eventually fell in love with and married a couple years later.

To my great-grandmother, marrying the hired help, a class beneath her social standing, was totally unacceptable. My great-grandmother taunted Grandma Anna every chance she could. My aunt said that my great-grandmother made Grandma Anna’s life a living hell. For instance, whenever she wanted to talk about Grandma behind her back and Grandma was in the same room, she spoke German to Grandpa. That’s all my aunt would say about her grandmother. She would never elaborate any further. This led me to strongly suspect that my great-grandmother had a hand in helping to undermine my grandmother’s mental stability.

It wasn’t until after her three children were born that Grandmother Anna started doing things that weren’t normal. She would hoard food and hide it under the mattress and bed and would sleep most of the time. I think it was a form of depression. Back then, I don’t believe doctors knew much about mental illnesses and how to correctly diagnose them. It really makes a person wonder what kind of life my grandmother would have led in her native country.

Eventually, due to Grandma’s bizarre behavior and for her own safety, Grandpa had to institutionalize her. She was only thirty years old. This tragedy left in its wake heartache and confusion for the whole family. What do you tell your children? How do you cope with everyday life when your own heart is breaking? That had to have been the most difficult decision Grandpa would ever have to make.

Since Grandpa didn’t own a vehicle, he had to persuade Grandma to go for a bus ride. Grandpa didn’t tell her he was going to place her in the state mental sanitarium, which was sixty miles away.

Grandpa would find that he would only be allowed to see his wife at Christmas. The doctors felt it would be best for Grandma not to have many visits from the family.

Grandma was never the same after that. She was lost in her own little world. Of all the grandchildren, I was the only one to ever visit her in the mental hospital. My brother worked out of state and my sister had to go to school, so neither was able to visit her. I found a job after graduation that allowed me to take time off from work to travel with Mom and Aunt Lil.

Every December, when Aunt Lil and Mom visited Grandma at the sanitarium, they always brought a box of Queen Anne chocolate-covered cherries (Grandma’s favorite candy) and a new nightgown that was wrapped in colorful Christmas wrapping. The first thing I noticed is that Grandma acted like a person who was starving after opening her box of candy, eating two or three pieces at a time. Mom and Aunt Lil figured that was all the candy she would get because, once we left to go back home, the other patients might take the candy away from her.

On one particular visit, I tried to gently question Grandma about her life and the life of my great-grandmother. A pained expression passed swiftly over her face, and she hid inside herself by refusing to speak anymore. To bring her out of her shell, Aunt Lil and Mom changed subjects and spoke about other things. I learned not to ask questions about my great-grandmother after that and