Nonel

By John A. Negulesco

In Nonel the author describes major events in the life of a young boy
who grew up in Romania from 1939 1954. That was a period when
the country switched from a monarchy (before 1947) to a communist
dominated republic. The issues that affected Nonel during that period
influenced his thought for the rest of his life. These experiences enabled
the boy realize that as long as we continue to function, we must challenge
lifes suffering and sorrows. Akin to our bodys attempts to heal, our
mind must seek harmony and contentment. Perhaps we can amend for
our trespasses not only by helping others, weaker than ourselves, but
also by mending the distress in our lives and anguish of our souls. In
essence, an evil person who attempts to accomplish good deeds all the
time can confuse even God!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Nov 30, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453592106

John A. Negulesco

John A. Negulesco was born in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. He attended famous “Liceul Gheorghe Lazar” in Sibiu, Romania before immigrating to US in 9th grade. He finished school at Northfield- Macedonia, OH. John received a BA from Western Reserve University, Cleveland, OH. Two years later Kent State University granted him a MA (Cell Biology). Next, John attended Emory’s College of Medicine (COM) in Atlanta, GA. Returning to Ohio, Negulesco studied and instructed in College of Biological Sciences of The Ohio State University (OSU). There he earned a PhD in Anatomy from the OSU-COM. During his 40 years tenure professor Negulesco taught anatomy to students in Allied Medical Sciences, College of Medicine as well as surgical interns and residents. The students awarded him over 20 Outstanding Teaching Awards including Professor of the Year (1990) and Distinguished Educator Award (2005). Dr. Negulesco published more than 50 peer reviewed research works and contributed to two medical texts.

Book preview

Copyright © 2010 by John A. Negulesco.

Library of Congress Control Number:   2010915670

ISBN: Hardcover    978-1-4535-9209-0

ISBN: Softcover      978-1-4535-9208-3

ISBN: Ebook            978-1-4535-9210-6

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This book was printed in the United States of America.

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CONTENTS

Preface

01  The Young Smoker

02  My Heritage

03  My Father’s Nest

04  My Mother’s Roots

05  Sibiu (G. Hermannstadt)

06  Neustift and Environs

07  Beyond Neustift: The Upper Town

08  The Lower Town

09  The Home of the Pacifier

10  Home Remedies and Other Procedures

11  The Minotaur that Almost Devoured Me and the Soldier

12  The Easter Lamb

13  Clang, Clang, Clang . . . Goes the Trolley . . .

14  The Christmas Gilt

15  The Street Playmates

16  (Almost) drowned with U-111

17  Small Bugs May Kill You or Change Your Life, Forever

18  Money Hidden in the Poop

19  The Inequity of Equality (or All for One and Many for Few)

20  The Demise of a Young Flower

21  Don’t Rain on My Parade

22  Bungard: My Maternal Grandmother’s Village

23  Prediction of My Transience

24  The Junkers 87 Stukas: Flying Toys of War

25  The Village Wedding

26  The Smelly Riding Boots

27  The Hanging in the Large Square of Sibiu

28  Easy to Take, Hard to Return

29  Burning of the Prepuce Skin

30    Lanu and Ţuşa

31    Heaving Stones on the Chastised

32    Distress of Undeserved Money

33    Death Defying Bird

34    Our Abode in Molotov St.

35    Knock, Knock . . . Who’s there?. . . . The police

36    Entertainment Chez Mary

37    The Liceul Gheorghe Lazăr in Sibiu

38    Unable to Say NO!

39    The Departure: Sibiu to Bucharest

40    The Odyssey: Bucharest to NY

41    The Final Lap: New York-Universal, PA-Northfield, Ohio

42    The Motorcycles

43    War and Subjugation

Abbreviations:

E English

G German

I Italian

L Latin

No. Number (nr.)

P Pronounced

R Romanian

Str.(R) Street (St.)(E)

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The writer wishes to thank all persons, living and/or departed, who had a positive influence upon his existence during the period described in this manuscript. Regardless how their guidance was applied, it had a long lasting effect and their lessons taught the youngster described in the book (Nonel) a plethora of remarkable things.

The contribution of Viorel Craja and Mircea Faur with photographs from Sibiu, Romania was most gratefully appreciated. Mrs. Faur of Cleveland, OH has been a helpful source of information regarding the physical structure of the medieval town of Sibiu.

With much gratitude the author remains deeply indebted to the physicians, nurses and therapists who have participated in restoring his health during the past seven years. These outstanding professionals practice their art and science in Columbus, OH and Portland, OR.

A special thank you is addressed to Ms. Lorie Adams of Xlibris Publishing Company. Due to her care and considerations the author experienced a non-traumatic period while his words were placed into print.

The writer’s best friend and spouse, Delia, has been a tremendous support throughout the writing of the manuscript. This composition was originally intended to acquaint my daughters, Christina and Nicole, along with their mates, Daniel and Tyler to some of the roots of their families. Finally, I dedicate this work to my lovely grandchildren: Lucy, Braden and Zeno. I hope their future is much brighter than my past.

Prof. Dr. John A. Negulesco

Portland, Oregon

December 2010

PREFACE

At the writing of this manuscript I lived for more than half a century as a partially free man in the USA. By partially free I indicate that I have never felt completely liberated or emancipated of my social, political and economic obligations. In addition, over four decades of married life, most likely, I talked either too long or too often about upsetting experiences during my early life. Finally, one day, my wife (probably) had enough of these disquieting reminiscences and urged me to write them down whenever my brain evoked new waves of recollection. She believed this effort will clear my mind of unpleasant childhood incidents. Time only will tell whether or not her idea worked out. Nonetheless, the writing kept me busy for a long period of time. As I transferred thoughts into symbols I realized that these early incidents have bestowed upon me some hard earned lessons that only life’s realities can impart.

As a result, I put together a collection of narratives describing true incidents that occurred during the first fifteen years of my life in Romania. These episodes have been distressing since I recalled them vividly in the post retirement age. I consider myself fortunate because trauma associated with these events, even at its highest point, did not result in visits to a head-shrinker nor long lasting sleeping problems, emotional numbness and/or exaggerated reactions to surprises typically seen in or associated with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). They may have left alterations along some of the sensory areas of my brain (hippocampus?) that may or may not be determined by an inquisitive neuro-pathologist at the time of my autopsy. Overall, the anguish of these early experiences has diminished to a significant degree as I grew older and as I acquired different functions, responsibilities, and interests. The reader must be made aware that a mellowing time period was involved between occurrence of these events and their translation in writing. Thus, the vivid paths although imprinted on the brain of the former child (Nonel) have been recalled, interpreted and expressed by the less flexible brain of a quasi sophisticated adult individual.

As custodian of the compilation of the ensuing recollections, I made every attempt to present the persons and the incidents associated with them in a logical and orderly manner. Throughout the manuscript I used the real names of the people introduced and/or involved in each particular chapter. I now regret that I did not communicate on a frequent basis with all of them: by the time I finished the manuscript most of these characters have been already recalled by the keeper(s) of their souls.

The entire narrative starts shortly after my birth (August 7, 1939), at the onset of World War II (WW II). Therefore, in the period between my naissance and Romania’s exit from WW II (August 23, 1945) I had very little input and/or participation into any decisions involving territorial disputes, mobilization of armies, invasion of lands, subjugation of nations and physical or mental torture of individuals. My family, however, experienced great personal losses, sacrifices and sufferings during that traumatic war period. Our lives endured another drastic change following the enforced abdication of King Michael I (December 31, 1947) when Romania was taken over by the communists. The first seven years under the new regime (1947-1954) proved to be a raucous period during which our minds were beleaguered, our bodies were deprived of necessary food and clothing and our spiritual believes were constantly challenged. As a young student during that transition period I was indoctrinated into the dogmas of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. The social theorists firmly believed that the proletarian ideology could not coexist with capitalistic principles. They were convinced that accumulation of wealth was the plague of capitalism. And capital was based on exploitation of the working class! The communist tenets taught us that workers could thrive only when free of capitalistic suppression.

Under a communistic regime our lives have been subjugated by a Godless horde that controlled all aspects of life in Romania. We were taught that church was the crutch of the weak and uninformed and we were discouraged to attend religious services. Therefore, I grew up in a country in which a callous system of people and ideas stifled God’s breathing in HIS own haven.

From birth to death, our brain is exposed to a myriad of trials which may involve or require change. Thus, the homeostasis and/or function(s) of the brain are influenced by numerous circumstances (health, disease, status of its vessels, oxygen availability as well as regional and/or overall chemical, electrical and physical balance). Depending on the degree of aberration of each of the above conditions, the brain could provide different responses: stimulation or inhibition, productivity or dysfunction, indulgency or intolerance, awareness or unconsciousness. Therefore, the ideology of the people who created the Socialist Republic of Romania had a severe effect upon the brains of the youth of that country. Supposedly the citizens of the new regime worked for the development of the nation and enrichment of the masses. As a youth I was told that I was a member of the sacrificed generation. In the fifty plus years since leaving that country I remain uninformed about the nature of the enrichment factor(s) and the nature of the fruit grown upon our sacrifices. I could not then nor can I find even today a logical explanation why my generation struggled for so long and sacrificed so much for such diminishing returns. One thing became clear to me was the way various leaders of the communist party were able to climb to power. They were strong willed persons who, at one time, claimed to search for equality and justice for all. Infatuated with unchallenged clout they rapidly became power hungry tyrants of unquestioned authority.

I want to clear an important point of view: the altruists do not berate communism as a philosophical dogma. Pure communism is (supposed to be) untainted utopia: it aspires toward establishment of an egalitarian society, without distinction between social classes and based on shared ownership of the means of production and property in general. It is a society in which everybody works according to his/her abilities and is rewarded according to his/her needs. I believe Jesus Christ was conceivably a promoter of communistic idealism: He was, perhaps, the first to preach equality, sharing of wealth and freedom for all people.

The application of communist theory, however, had an ill effect upon Romanians of my youth. The collision of the unobtrusive iceberg with the RMS Titanic may be compared to devastation of Romania (the ship) by the party of the left (iceberg):

1.    The accident happened on a completely calm ocean on a near freezing night (the communists took over the country in December 1947, a peaceful period after WW II).

2.    Only the sixth officer (James Moody) and the second officer (Charles Lightoller) were on the ship’s bridge at the time of the collision (Rumania had a wanting leadership since the inexperienced, 18 years old, King Michael was the head of the country).

3.    The iceberg produced a long fissure on the ship’s starboard (right) side below the waterline (communism created an immediate damage to the parties of the right).

4.    The initial, post collision, effects did not appear to produce an imminent danger to the ship (at first nobody took communism seriously or considered it to be a threatening party).

5.    The crew of the Titanic was poorly organized and was not prepared to effectively react to the disaster (the non-communist Romanian people were not organized and were not prepared to fight the takeover by the reds).

6.    The incident unnecessarily sacrificed a lot of people who plummeted into freezing waters from the unsinkable ship (communism destroyed the middle class and eliminated the existence of the upper class of an established monarchy).

7.    From the time of her sinking, during the early morning hours of April 15, 1912, the wreck of the Titanic remained on the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean until it was sited by Dr. Robert D. Ballard in 1985 (similarly, Rumania, for a 42 year period, between 1947 to 1989, was at the bottom of the Black Sea of communism until its people dared revolt against Ceausescu’s bureaucratic administration and sycophantic functionaries).

The Romanians of the 1950 were vassals of Russia on their own land. The subordination of the country to the soviet sphere of influence resulted in indoctrination of Romanian people according to pure soviet principles. Besides stooping their heads to everything Russian, even their language was taught in our schools. The intent of the entire course of action was to vanquish, absorb and indoctrinate the Romanian youth into the mold designed by the new socialist dictatorship. The word socialist is emphasized since, at that time, even the Russian people have not achieved the utopia of a pure communistic state. They were still called USSR or the Union of Soviet SOCIALISTIC Republics.

I am neither a politician nor a Machiavellian dissident. Thus, I would like to express my sincere desire to be left out of any political castigation, implications and detritus. I am using the past for purely historic purposes and recollections. I have no hidden agenda besides telling the truth.

Long before this narrative was conceived, I went through a cultural, educational and personal evolutionary period. From an unpolished youth transplanted in America (1954) I entered a period of enlightenment during which I was exposed to a superb education.

In 1954, when we arrived in the US of A, neither my brother nor I spoke the American-English language. I did have, however, 6 years of Russian, 4 years of French language and fifteen years of Romanian (if one also counts the two to three years it took me to learn that language as a child).

After a year and a half of high school, in September 1956, at the ripe age of seventeen, I entered the challenge of the American higher education. That was a fascinating learning period that extended from earning a Bachelor’s Degree (1960), a Masters in Cell Biology (1962), to attending Medical School (1962-1965), Graduate School in Zoology (1965-1967) and Basic Medical Sciences (1967-1971). In that span my thought went through several metamorphoses in which I absorbed as much as possible from the rich and diversified melting pot of American culture.

In the 15-year interval from 1956-1971 I was influenced and guided by the teachings of my professors who were true educators, dedicated individuals and unbiased masterminds. They worked for academic prestige and made a conscious effort to acquire the respect of their peers and students.

Their wisdom and dedication inspired me to follow their steps and commit my person to the challenging life of an educator. During forty years of academic life I made a sincere effort to inspire my students about scientific integrity, commitment and inexorable search for uncompromising truth.

I earnestly hope that the present description of my life’s early experiences will touch the sensitivity of most readers in a positive manner. A constrained number of recollections involve demise of an individual. I dwell as little as possible on these topics. This is in contrast to my professional life that was devoted to teaching the inquisitive minds of health professionals (medical and dental students, interns and resident physicians) and allied health students (nursing, physical and occupational therapy, pharmacy, medical dietetics and medical illustrators) through lectures and dissection of the human body.

Regrettably, life is short. Therefore, the particles involved in sustaining a person’s life have but a finite number of cellular divisions and/or ability to recover from injurious agents. In accordance to this rule of nature, even the most gifted individual has but a relatively short time period in which to learn, practice what he/she learned and hopefully impart the best of his/her hard earned discernments to the ensuing generations.

I dedicate this manuscript, with much love and appreciation, to the present and former members of my family.

John A. Negulesco BA., MA., PhD., FAACA

Professor Emeritus, College of Medicine

The Ohio State University

Retired in Portland, Oregon (2005)

Chapter 1

The Young Smoker

I was in my parents’ bedroom. Our house was located at number 3 on Str. (R. Strada) Felinarului in Sibiu (Romania). Translated from Romanian to English, the name of the street means the Lantern’s Street. I have not been able to ascertain why our street carried the name of a light source since at night our street was actually poorly lit. The myopic light was provided by a few bare light bulbs randomly distributed above the portals of several homes. The low voltage spheres projected like the small heads of Praying mantis insects. Their long and scrawny skeletons were made of corrugated metal frames projecting from the solid wall structure above the frames of the entrances.

The field inspectors from the electric company no longer bother to replace the glass protectors around the electric bulbs. On each previous attempt, the street children managed to bust them, almost at will. This act of defiance was performed with dead-aim accuracy by stones delivered from homemade slingshots.

At the time of my first recollection or awareness about my physical existence, I was sitting on my mother’s square yellow chair in front of her full body mirror. Reaching the chair was not a simple matter. I was too small to walk to it and sit on its top surface. The final act of reaching it required imagination and hard work. First, I had to get on my parents’ bed. Second, I had to position myself on the margin of the bed near the chair. Third, I had to jump a distance of about one foot (30 cm.) from my parents’ double bed to the chair’s handsome yellow cover.

The full body mirror was placed in front of the chair. It was attached to a left and right cabinet made of expensive cherry wood. As a matter of fact, mother’s entire bedroom and dining room furniture was made of cherry wood.

The surface of the two cabinets had a fine patina since I have not scratched it with my toys. Each polished cabinet had a shiny white key inserted into its lock. The furniture was part of the dowry mother received as a wedding gift from her father who lived in North America.

As long as I remember, I have thoroughly enjoyed investigating my surroundings. At first I was crawling, then walking on unsteady feet and, finally walking and running at will. During my exploratory period, leading to the present day inspection, I have never found the cabinets by the mirror locked.

Prior trials indicated that if I were careful, I could open the cabinets’ doors without too much noise and without attracting anybody’s attention. Behind the door, each cabinet had two spaces: a drawer in the upper part and a generous 60 by 60 cm. hiding space below it.

The drawers contained some of mother’s magic things: make-up boxes holding various powders, small bottles of different shapes that emitted exotic aromas, a multitude of brushes, combs and some mysterious contraptions that looked like weird scissors. Mother used the latter tools to shape the long hairs of her eyelids.

She also had some small pinchers which she used to remove the hair of the eyebrow and/or any caliginous whiskers daring to protrude past the aperture of her nostrils.

Dispersed among these items were at least 3 small boxes with colored play cards. They exhibited figures of funny dressed persons, Arabic numbers and impressive corners occupied by red or black hearts, fancy leaves, etc.

Mother utilized the cards to predict her friends’ most appropriate fate, destiny and/or fortune. Although all three words probably indicate the same thing, mother’s friends seemed to associate fate with things one was unable to change, destiny with spiritual things of life and/or death and fortune with the monetary windfalls, bequests and/or favors. In the Romanian culture of that time, fortune had more nuances that one cared to describe.

Chapter 1.jpg

Nonel on his horse (1941)

On rainy days, if she was home alone, she arranged the cards in multiple rows, each card either covered by another or left face up for some purpose unrevealed to me.

The lower part of the cabinets held a collection of elegant 1 liter bottles containing various kinds of sweet liqueurs. Most of them were gifts she received for her birthday and/or special holidays during the year. She kept these bottles for special company and festive occasions.

Mother and her friends were not heavy drinkers but seemed to enjoy an aliquot of liqueur served in narrow, finger-like, glasses. The sweet alcoholic drinks were usually served along with demitasses of Turkish coffee.

A few books were more or less piled on the sides of the cabinets. When I was able to read I found out they covered various topics about movies, actors, sizzling love stories, female fashion, needlepoint, crochet and interpretation of dreams.

There was at least one pack of scented cigarettes in one of the drawers. At that early age I believed her cigarettes were dried leaves pressed into a cylindrical shape and surrounded by white paper jackets. Sometimes mother hid the cigarettes with the bottles; other times she placed the pack in one of the drawers.

I found out that grandmother also liked to indulge in (concealed) smoking of cigarettes: I caught her on several occasions borrowing smokes from my mother’s drawer.

In the 1940s no decent Romanian woman ever smoked in public places and never in the street. Even the fish seller women hid behind the market cart to smoke. At that time smoking of cigarettes, cigars and pipe was not considered a health hazard. Chewing tobacco was even good for you: it supposedly aided in digestion. Mother and her friends enjoyed a cigarette with their coffee but considered the act an unladylike or unfeminine trait.

Smoking was tolerated and allowed in public as well as state owned places if you were a male. Romania at that time was strictly a male dominated society. I am sure in private life many (most?) women had the upper hand. The ladies in my mother’s entourage used wood matches or fancy lighters to ignite their smokes. The American paper matches appeared in Romania only after the WW II.

As a youngster I liked the wooden matches. These slender pieces of timber had little red or brown heads. The head portion if stricken on the side of the matchbox exploded into a miniature fire. I was strongly attracted by the phosphorous or sulfur smell of the burning sticks and their ability to produce the red glow of the cigarettes.

The ladies who visited my mother always seemed to blossom and become more vociferous as they puffed, with distinct pleasure, on their cigarettes. The movements with the hand that held the cigarette appeared to accentuate and place more emphasis on the words and sentences emitted from their throats. Whenever they exhaled smoke during the conversation it appeared to me they were spreading miniature clouds of wisdom.

The cigarettes seemed to exacerbate the pleasure cycle between sips of sweet liqueur augmented by quick slurps of strong Turkish coffee. Some of the women ignored the drinks and just puffed, in and out, until the small red amber of the cigarette began to burn the skin of their slender lady fingers.

The formation of the weightless white clouds of aromatic smoke exhaled by these ladies fascinated me. In those times I always questioned myself to no end: Why did mother’s cigarettes smell so much better than father’s smokes?

Watching mother and her friends smoke appeared to be fun. The youngster in me could not figure out where the cloud of cigarette smoke disappeared but I always wanted to duplicate it. I wanted to make it a personal duty to find out. With each visitation, the smoking sessions by the ladies increased my hope that one day, if left alone, I could try one of mother’s cigarettes.

That particular morning finally arrived when I was celebrating my fourth birthday. The cake and party were scheduled later on in the afternoon.

I clearly remember that I was sitting on mother’s square yellow chair by the mirror. I was secretly puffing on one of her cigarettes. The year was 1943. I remember the year clearly because the Russians had overwhelmed the Romanian army at Stalingrad that year. I remember because my father was a Romanian officer fighting in that war in that battle which changed the course of the war and our lives forever.

It was mid morning and mother was already gone to the market with the maid. Grandma was in the kitchen. My brother Lică (pronounced Lee-käh) and our dog were sleeping quietly on the room next door. I was supposed to be their guardian and supervisor.

My parents’ room was in semi-darkness since the wood shutters were closed to prevent the strong summer sun from a direct assault into our premises. Beams of light passed through small gaps between the wooden slits of the shutters focusing on the carpet. A myriad of marvelous fragile dust particles, gray-white in color, were dancing by Brownian motion within the weightless rays of light. Each particle was involved in an endless and soundless series of molecular twists.

Due to the stillness of the air within the bedroom, each cigarette puff I blew out accumulated into a growing weightless little white cloud. Denser around my head, the cloud dissipated into a blur of nothingness at the periphery.

Suddenly I had the feeling I was into a real cloud near God. I had that picture in my mind for a long time. During the war period we did not attend church on a regular basis for various reasons: nevertheless, my family maintained contact with God on a personal basis. Mother taught me that whenever we passed the church near our living quarters, we had to enter to say a quick prayer for father’s health. I crossed myself in the Orthodox style (forehead, pubic area, right then the left shoulder joint).

I only knew one short prayer that I recalled from my mother’s religious lessons at bedtime.

It loses quite a bit in translation to English but is goes something like this:

Angel, my little angel,

    Given to me by God,

Be with me at all times,

    and teach me to do well.

I am small, You make me bigger.

I am weak, You make me stronger,

(And) Accompany me in all places,

    and guard me everywhere.

Lord, make your little angels,

    my guardians.

Amen

Thus, I was certain that little angels always surrounded and protected me. In my mind’s eye as well as in the pictures adorning the altar of our churches there were paintings of infant as well as grown up angels walking on celestial cumulus clouds. These pictures were present in all Orthodox Churches. The small church in my grandma’s village (Bungard) was my primary source of reference.

Seeing my head surrounded by the white cloud in my mother’s large mirror, I asked the secret person hiding in the smoke: Who am I? Why am I in this house? Why is my brother Lică smaller than I? Why is mother younger looking than grandma? Why does it rain? Where do birds fly? Why are cats chasing birds but cannot fly to catch them? Is God present in the smoke cloud around my head? Why am I suddenly so dizzy?

Luckily, as I passed out, the cigarette fell on the flat wooden part of the right cabinet that supported the mirror. Upon mother’s return I am sure I concocted an interesting story explaining the discoloration spot on the top of that cabinet.

Needless to say, I had to wait until I was grown-up, partially civilized and slightly educated before I was able to answer a small number of these questions.

Interestingly, each answer led to more reading, more factual detail and even more challenging questions. I still do not have all the answers.

Chapter 2

My Heritage

I was born on August 7, 1939 in Cluj (Str. Andrei Mureşanu number 25). The city is located in the North-western part of Romania.

I was baptized in the Orthodox Church as Ioan Alexandru Dumitru Negulescu, the first son of Lt. Ioan Radu Negulescu and Maria Tolan Negulescu. My Godfather was Col. Alexandru Dumitru Negulescu who was my father’s oldest brother.

In Romanian language the name Ioan is a stylized form of the peasant’s name of Ion (pronounced in English as Yon not EYE-ON). It is common that friends and relatives call an Ion by the less harsher sounding name of Ioan or its diminutive forms of Ionel (P. pronounced yo-nael"), Ionică (P. yo-nee-kah), Ionicuţ (P. yo-knee-coo-tz), Ionişor (P. yo-nee-shor), Ioniţa (P. yo-nee-tzah), or Nelu (P. nae-lou), Nelucu (P.nae-lou-coo), Neluţu (P. Nae-loo-tzou), Neluşor (P. Nae-loo-shor) and, I am sure many other derivatives that I have either forgotten or do not know.

As a child I insisted in being called Nonel. This was a self-created first name derived by mispronunciation of the word Ionel (a diminutive of Ion) which had a more harmonic tone to my inner ears. I believe that by creating the phonetic name of Nonel I created a distinguishing identity, in name only, from my father. Everyone whom I knew called him Ionel.

My father’s surname, Negulescu, had its origin in the Southern part of Romania by the Danube River. During the process of filling out legal documents, a few months after our arrival into the USA (1954), the family sure name was changed from Negulescu (u at the end) to Negulesco (o at the end). This was done at my mother’s request. She wanted to make sure that my brother and I were properly registered as American citizens with the Department of Immigration and Naturalization Services.

Mother felt very strongly about the necessity of changing the last letter of our surname. She thought that the ending of our name in -escu a typical Romanian surname ending, when pronounced by a Frenchman (-cou), indicates a posterior aperture employed for removal of metabolic waste.

In the process of preparing this manuscript I decided to use our Romanian name, Negulescu, until our appointment with the people at Immigration and Naturalization in 1955. That office provided me with the legal papers on which John A. Negulesco was declared a US citizen born in a foreign country. Thereafter, I will use the new surname of Negulesco.

I was considered an American citized by birth because half of my chromosomes were donated by an American citizen, my mother. She had the forethought to register my birth with the American Embassy in Bucharest, Romania just before the onset of World War II in Europe (September 1939).

My brother Lică (Larry) was born in 1943 when USA no longer had an embassy in Romania. Thus, although he had the same genetic background, he was naturalized as American citizen. Incidentally, my brother was baptized Ilarie after his Godfather, Dr. Ilarie J. Tolan, who was my mother’s brother. From my earliest recollections onward my uncle, Dr. Tolan, became Doc to the family.

Somewhere during his early development, the family started calling my brother by the name of Ilărică (P. Ee-la-rick-ah), which to Romanians is the diminutive of the word Ilarie. This name eventually evolved to the phonetic aberration of Lică (P. lee-käh), a name he carried the rest of his life.

I also elected to maintain only the word Alexander (Romanian [R]. Alexandru) from my double middle name. Therefore, I completely bypassed the name of Dumitru (Latin [L]. Demetrius). The addition Dumitru would have made my middle name(s) a bit too long for the registrars in the American school system. Later on I found out that even persons of South American (Spanish or Portuguese) descent started to be selective about the number of surnames they elect to retain when deciding to establish domicile above the Rio Grande.

Chapter 2.jpg

Mary (Maria) Tolan Negulescu (Author’s mother, 1938)

Chapter 2-2nd Lt.Negulescu 1939-02.jpg

Lt. Ioan R. Negulescu (Author’s father, 1938)

Chapter 2-Wedding 1938.jpg

Wedding 1938

At the time of my entrance into the world, my father was a 29-year-old lieutenant in the Romanian army. My mother was a multitalented 22-year-old woman who married this handsome lieutenant in 1938. I say handsome because she must have married him for love and not the size of his salary. At lieutenant’s rank I am sure he generated a very small take home compensation. In addition, he came from a modest family whose fortune was based on half-dozen cows, two plow horses, a multitude of chickens, innumerable pigeons, and a fairly old house on about 12 hectares of semi-productive land.

At the time of their marriage, Romania was a monarchy. Under the King’s Rule, before the military high command allowed an officer to marry he had to provide proof of ability to maintain himself at the standard of living required by his rank. Since Lt. Negulescu did not have the means to support himself, his bride to be, Maria (Mary) Tolan, had to provide evidence of a dowry for the matrimony to go through.

Consequently, immediately after their wedding, my maternal grandparents made arrangements to transfer the title of their house in Sibiu and part of their land in the village of Bungard into my father’s name. In addition, mother’s North American father gave her for wedding present a concert piano and the furniture for her dining and bedroom.

Their first year of marriage was marked by considerable instability in their lives. My father’s regiment was under war alert. This fact alone necessitated the relocation of the regiment on several occasions. The last assignment involved mobilization of the regimental headquarters to Cluj to protect the Northwestern border of the country.

The city of Cluj was and to present day remains a proud cultural center that contains some of the finest Romanian universities. It is also an old municipality that was established as an important military-trade center by the Roman legions that crossed the Danube River to occupy Dacia (in AD 101), the land of our ancestors.

The Romans entered Dacia after the Battle of Tapae. Under the emperor Trajan, the Romans built (AD 103-105) the famous bridge (by Apollodorus of Damascus) to move the legions rapidly cross the Danube River. The Bridge of Trajan over Danube River was considered the most daring engineering undertaking of the Roman Empire. For more than a thousand years, it was the greatest arch bridge in Europe (total span of 1,135 m.)

The onset of WW II had a dramatic and immediate effect upon the lives of Romanians living near the borders. The rapidly changing political milieu induced the creation of new alliances between the European nations. My father’s regiment was moved accordingly for immediate participation in the defense or aggression plans established by the military high command in Romania.

It was during these turbulent times that various coalitions redrew the maps and took away the Western part of Romanian Transylvania. This drastic act put at risk the entire Romanian population living in that region and forced many of them to relocate to more secure regions.

Left in Cluj without the protection of her husband, my mother decided to move the two of us to the safety of her family situated in the city of Sibiu. This medieval city was about 7 kilometers from Bungard, the village where my maternal grandmother, Maria Bucurenciu Tolan, was born and raised.

Grandma Tolan, in addition to the house in Sibiu, owned a farmhouse and land in Bungard. In the summer she preferred to live in the village to supervise the running of her small farm.

She bought the city house on Str. Felinarului (No. 3) in 1920s in order to enable her two chidden to attend the city schools. She thought her daughter, Maria (aka R. Mary) and her brother, Ilarie, the elder of the two, needed to develop under the more superior educational conditions offered by the city schools. In the new urban environment Ilarie had to compete against the sophisticated city children attending the Lyceum Gheorghe Lazăr for boys. Mary, likewise, was assigned to a school for girls (R. Lyceum Commercial de Fete) in Sibiu.

In 1940 when I was a year old, the corrupt king Carol II of Romania was dethroned by the coalition formed by the armed forces led by General Antonescu.

At that time, Romania sided with the Germans after an expected and bold revolution organized by the legions of the pro Nazi sympathizers. Known as the green shirts, the Romanian pro Nazis adopted the name Legionnaires (R. Legionarii). They had a significant and powerful effect on brainwashing and incorporating a significant part of the youth of the country into their cause. Their idea was simple and effective . . .control the youth and you control the country". . . . This concept was earlier practiced by the Persians, Abyssinians, Greeks and Romans. The Nazis, and later the communists, have reintroduced that concept and firmly adhered to its model.

Some individuals still wonder why Romania was so easily taken by the Germans. The lack of resistance to this political alliance was predictable: Romania was surrounded by nations either subjugated by the Germans or sympathetic to the German cause. In addition, the army leadership (General Antonescu) and political heads of Romania (including King Michael I) identified more with the German cause than the Godless politic practiced by the communist pack from Russia.

Romania entered the war in 1941 on the side of Germany. Soon thereafter, my father’s regiment was sent to the Crimean front in Russia.

Sometime in June 1942 my father had a furlough from the Russian front because my brother, Ilarie Radu Negulescu, was born nine months later, on April 14, 1943. My father did not attend my brother’s entrance into this world: he and a handful of soldiers were walking home after the Axis’ defeat at Stalingrad.

I was honored to attend my brother’s arrival since my mother physician insisted she should deliver at home. During WW II the Romanian hospitals were in such state of disarray that a pregnant woman, in the absence of complications, was strongly advised to deliver in her home environment.

Unlike present day American homes, most Romanian dwellings of the WW II vintage did not have the luxury of separate bedrooms for the children. Hence, according to the custom, my small bed was located in my parents’ bedroom next to my mother’s side of the bed.

I do not know why but I still remember at least two parts about Lică’s formal arrival into this world. One was the fact that somebody put a yellow tablecloth by the side of my crib (bed) so I would not see the delivery. However, I lifted a corner and I still remember seeing the doctor with his rolled up shirt sleeves and bloody hands. Secondly, I recall grandma covering my face with one hand and lifting me from the crib with the other: she was taking me to her room. I believe I was asking too many questions. I was told that during delivery, hearing Lică’s loud cries, I inquired, Who is disturbing my sleep?

My brother carried the formal name of Ilarie but the family and friends used the vernacular of Lică his entire life

Less than two years after our arrival in the USA we heard other kids calling him Larry. We paid no attention because we thought the students could not pronounce Ilarie.

That academic year we found out that on school papers his first name also appeared as Larry. Upon inquiring in the principal’s office we found out that my brother was signing all his homework and exams by using the more American sounding name of Larry. He maintained the middle name Radu, from father, which he abbreviated to a simple R. In his citizenship papers he is listed as Ilarie R. Negulesco. To the family, even to the time of his departure (2007) he remained Lică.

Life in general is challenging and, for the most part, difficult, for most of us. I even heard huge people at Gold’s Gym use the expression: No pain, No gain. I wonder whether or not, inside their skulls, these mesomorphic giants did not mean to say No happiness, No harmony." Few individuals accomplish a lot when in pain. They achieve, perhaps, even less when unhappy and depressed.

Some may argue that history is full of chronicles of unhappy people, with bodies full of pain, who produced great and/or undying works of art, music, sciences and literature. Nonetheless, most of us lack that eternal gift and talent.

From my own experiences I realized that as long as we continue to function, we must challenge life’s hurts and sorrows. Akin to our body’s attempts to heal, our mind must seek harmony and contentment. Perhaps, the amends for our trespasses, in helping others weaker than ourselves, enable us to mend our hurting lives and souls. An evil person who does good endeavors all the time can confuse even God!

Chapter 3

My Father’s Nest

My father was born and raised in the southern part of Romania in a village called Băduleasa (P. B tnr.tif -dou-leah-saah), county of Teleorman, in the proud province of Muntenia. He entered this world in September of 1910 as the third child of Radu and Rada Negulescu. For those interested in syntax, in Romanian language, Radu (P. Raa-do) represents the name of a male offspring while Rada (P. Raa-dah) is the feminine counterpart. During their years of conjugal bliss, my paternal grandmother had 8 living children: six boys and two