A salute to the Dalai Lama's mother and reflections on Grandmother Bogdanski

It's the Dalai Lama's birthday today--he turns 81--and through serendipity, I watched a film about his mother's life: Women of Tibet: The Great Mother. Known to Tibetans as Gyalum Chemo (or Great Mother), she gave birth to 16 children, three of whom were recognized as incarnate lamas. In this film, the Dalai Lama talks of his love and respect for her, as well as his belief that a mother's love is the basis of compassion, the wellspring of a person's health and well-being. He brings his characteristic humor to his reminiscences, laughing as he remembers going to her after difficult school lessons. It seems there she was there with her wisdom for all of her children--sewed their clothes, including shoes. She was not in an egalitarian marriage during all of that; apparently her husband was from a wealthy family and "spoiled", one descendant recalls.

A picture of Gyalum Chemo and her most venerated son:

On learning this, my first thought, before wandering into thoughts about my maternal grandmother, was the poetry of the late Pat Parker, who wrote a poem with a line like this: "Doin' like mama did will do ya" or something like that. Wish I had a copy. It was a tribute to all the work that mothers and grandmothers did, especially those who were African-American and lived in pre-Civil Rights America. It was work most of us today cannot even imagine getting done. Is each generation progressively softer than the one before? Or does it all balance out when you consider all the multitasking and networking we feel compelled to do these days? I wonder.

I think of my own grandmother that way. I never met her; she died 9 years before I was born.  Her name was Barbara Bogdanski, and she emigrated to the US from Poland in December, 1910, along with her husband and infant daughter, Marie. I heard a lot about her from my mother, who adored her, and was only 21 when she died. My mother's name was Angeline, and I wonder if she ever felt like Pat Parker, despite her own accomplishments as a mom. Like the Dalai Lama, she'd no doubt credit her mother for being a role model for the best in her.

Grandmother Barbara gave birth to 8 children, the oldest of which--a baby christened Casimir-- died on the ship crossing. After Marie, 6 others followed, and as if that weren't enough, she babysat for another child, Lily, whose mother worked all day. The family lived in an immigrant neighborhood in Chicago, and it was Barbara who kept things together. She learned English, cooked healthy and delicious food--including homemade Polish sausages, scrubbed floors part-time for a dentist, and coped with a husband who never quite adjusted to life in America. I have only two photos of her. The first, taken behind their apartment, circa 1935, shows Barbara in the top row, next to her daughter Stephanie. She's holding young Lily, I believe. On the bottom steps are Angeline (left) and her cousin, Evelyn.

At least once in her life, she went to a photo studio and this portrait was taken.

There are many things I don't know about Barbara, who died when she was only 53. Who was she apart from being a mother? Did she laugh often? Could she sing? How much education did she have? Was it her idea to come to America? Did she ever regret it? Did she ever have what we call "spare time" and how did she fill it? I wish I had asked more of Angeline and her siblings before they all passed away. As it is, I remember bits and pieces of my mom's memories, the ones she repeated to my sister and me. I know she had standards in speaking Polish, insisting on speaking something called High Polish. (Was she a bit elitist--or just proud of speaking well?). She had a few sayings which could be translated as: "The cow does not remember when it was a calf". Or "too soon old, too late smart."

The most chilling memory to come down to me was her reaction to a fortune teller's prediction that she would die "before the snows came".  She came home crying that day, Angeline told me. Soon afterwards, she was hit by a bus in a freak accident. She was not seriously injured. However, because the company's insurance covered the bill, the doctor suggested that he fix her hernia while she was in the hospital. She agreed. Soon after, she died of a post-surgical blood clot. That was in September, 1938, and that year it snowed that month, uncharacteristically early for Chicago.

My mother and her siblings all grew to be up to be fine people, or if they weren't, that was never apparent to me at family reunions. They were kind and indulgent to children, and for the most part with each other, despite boisterous behavior from time to time. Perhaps, like my mom, they would thank their own "great mother"for the nurture they received.
NOTE: Dates have been changed since this blog was written in 2016. New genealogical research suggests that Barbara was born in 1885, not 1889, as reported on her death certificate.