The Fine Lines Between Family Myth & History
The legendary walk of my great-grandparents, David & Yetta
Most Americans have precious little knowledge of our ancestry. Family records were usually abandoned or lost when our forefathers emigrated, and with the pressure to assimilate to our adopted culture, traditions, mores, languages, customs, and knowledge of lineages generally failed to survive over generations. For many of us, all that presently remains is a few artifacts, some photographs, letters of correspondence, and perhaps a sheaf of court records. They are pieces of evidence, but nowhere near enough to tell a definitive story. So we compensate for this with family lore, which has some truth sprinkled with numerous fictions, or so one should assume. John Ford’s The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance has the classic line, “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.” When it comes to my own family history, I try not to ask too many questions. Indeed, I prefer the legend. The romance of my ancestor’s journey from Ukraine’s Odessa region to Chicago makes the quality of my Americanness feel both romantic and worthwhile.
Nearly a century ago, my great-grandfather, David, had to escape Russian atrocities against Jews during the violent transitional period between the fall of the Tzarist Empire and the rise of the Soviet State. David was from Berezivka, a small town on the Tylihul River about 90 kilometers north of the port city of Odessa. In the First World War, he was stabbed with a bayonet by Germans and left for dead on the battlefield. He managed to survive, returning home to his village. His father, Nathan (Big Zayda), had already emigrated to Chicago in 1905 (Zayda is Yiddish for grandfather, and so Big Zayda was what my father and his siblings called their great-grandfather— David, their grandfather, was thus known as Little Zayda). David decided he needed to leave Ukraine if he were to survive. We will never know what his breaking point was or how he came to the monumental decision to leave his homeland. But we know what came next, even though it’s incredible to consider. Today it's something like a family legend: David, his wife, Yetta, and his brother and sister-in-law walked west across Europe, taking passage on a ship from Marseilles to Ellis Island in 1923, not long before the US shut its border to most Eastern European immigrants (which it did by establishing an unfair quota system with passage of the 1924 Immigration Act). From New York City, they took the train to Chicago, reuniting with Big Zayda and working as tailors in the garment business, establishing new lives as Americans.
Their walk across Europe supposedly took three years. Doing so in the early 1920s meant walking through the aftermath of the Russian Revolution, the First World War, and the Spanish Influenza— it had to have been an extraordinarily difficult and surreal experience. I have so many questions: how much money did they have when they set out, how long did it last, and what did they do when it ran out? Surely, there were times when they were hungry or broke and had to stop to look for work. How did they communicate when they were in Italy or Bosnia? I do not know how conversant they were in European languages. I know they primarily spoke Yiddish. Did they thus depend on Jewish communities along the way? Early in their walk, Yetta gave birth to a baby girl, Sylvia, in Chisinau, Moldova. How did they manage such a long journey on foot with a baby to take care of?
Perhaps the amount of walking was misremembered or exaggerated, embellished to delight the wondrous imagination of grandchildren. Or to demonstrate to my father’s generation how lucky they were to be born in America in the mid-20th century. Maybe there was not nearly as much passage on foot as the legend is told. Maybe they worked as farmhands or took demeaning sanitation jobs in big cities until enough was saved to continue the journey. They knew there was money for passage on a ship from Marseilles that would be wired to them by Big Zayda when they reached Marseilles. When the sun set west on the horizon— another day that much closer to their destination— they must have daydreamed about the boat that would take them to their new lives. What were their thoughts on America along the way? Was it more one of refuge or opportunity?
During those three years, there must have been some trains or jalopy rides involved, but I like to think they walked most of the way because I'm a walker too and there is something so awe-inspiring about making this incredible journey on foot. There’s also something beautiful about such stamina in perseverance, and that this extraordinary effort made by my near-ancestors is in my DNA. It’s not just that I would not have existed without his “walk,” but the fact (legend?!) of it imbues my life with meaning, not just in my Americanness or in my enthusiasm as a walker, but as someone who might be capable of remarkable achievements in his lifetime. It means David and Yetta’s strength of character is in my bloodline. I love that.
For the longest time, I have wanted to follow in David’s footsteps. To walk from Odessa along the Tylihul River to the ancestral town of Berezivka and then turn west through Western Ukraine, Moldova, the Carpathian Mountains of Romania, continuing due west through the Slavic states of Serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia, Italy then, and finally southeastern France. David and Yetta died before I was born and I doubt there is any sketched rough map of their journey stored away in some uncle’s or second cousin’s closet. Whatever route I walked would be geographically unique from that of my ancestors. Even the spirit of the walk would be different, since mine would be elective, while theirs was more akin to escape and rebirth.
I have talked about this walk and my desire to pay homage to David and Yetta for a long time. I have thought that it would make a fascinating photography project. Before undertaking I would have made it a point to visit relatives in California and Illinois in order to interview aunts and uncles who might have more stories, facts, or physical evidence of the lives of David and Yetta. And then onwards to Ukraine, starting probably in Odessa, followed by the ancestral village of Berezivka, and then the long walk westwards.
It's pretty straightforward to postpone an undertaking like this. It would take enormous planning— not only figuring out the walking route, but also processing the paperwork for visas, choosing the clothing for various climates and seasons, concerns about safety and the detriment of not speaking any of the languages of the nations I would be traversing. And what sort of photography gear would I use? How many rolls of film to bring and what to do when I ran out? Would this be best shooting with an iPhone? Not my style but would make things considerably easier. It would best serve me to read as much as possible about the cultures, histories, and social fabrics of the various nations so I might better understand what I am experiencing. And how should I take my notes? But even if I were to limit note-taking and photography to a laptop and a phone, I would still have a heavy backpack. And how keen will I be shooting or even aware of my environment if I’m exhausted from the constant plodding? How much money would I need and where would I sleep? Carrying a tent and sleeping bag would be economical but would make the bag heavier… and how would I know where it’s safe to rest? All this and to say nothing of how much time the journey would take. Certainly, there would be false starts, wrong turns, plenty of meandering, some tourism stuff. It would not be fair to leave my partner to take care of our young son while I took off for an indefinite period of time to follow my ancestor’s footsteps. Such an endeavor was as unrealistic as it was romantic.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine two weeks ago put to rest the dream of that walk. At least I have abandoned any hope in making it for the time being. More than regret at not having made this journey is my despair in witnessing history repeat itself, of Russians going into Ukraine, killing civilians, and catalyzing a mass exodus, a tragic scenario not dissimilar to the one a century earlier that inspired Little Zayda to leave everything behind he had ever known. If I regret anything at all, it’s never having gone to Ukraine because I had been saving my travel there for when I was serious about the walk. But I could have easily flown into Odessa and taken a ride to Berezivka, got lost in Kiev. I would have made friends and memories. I would have walked a lot and it would have been romantic, not legendary romantic, but something beautiful.
It’s good to have ambitions, but it’s good to take the easy road too sometimes. Sometimes it’s even better. Because you’ve at least made the trip.
Take care of yourselves, everyone. And keep your hopes alive.
i feel you on this one Sean. It's crazy to think what has become and what was.