Happy Belated Birthday #3

Emma Marie Hartmann Ronca

18 Jan 1919 to 15 Jan 2004

This is my Aunt Em she was my favorite Aunt.  

When I was younger she took me to the Bronx Zoo and to Radio City Music Hall and we did all kinds of fun things.  I can remember waiting for her as she walled from the bus stop to our home in Whitestone, Queens, New York.  

She was single for a while and married when she was 36, so I lucked out on having some of her attention.  I didn't go to her wedding my parents thought I was too young, and I had to stay at a neighbors home, well I was only 7.  I wish she was still around to tell me more of the family stories my Dad would never tell me.  She always told me she loved both of my mothers without hesitation, she thought they were both wonderful women.  

So was my aunt, she was spunky, independent, kind and honest.  

When I was complaining to her about some of the sass and issues I was having with the big kids, she told me I was a sassy lass myself.  Which is true, but I sometimes forget that. 

Here is Aunt Em at her 80th birthday with 2 of her three sons. 

Happy Birthday Aunt Em, miss ya.

This is the birthday I really wanted to remember but forgot to add her to my to do list before her birthday, than I was too busy to write until now. 

Happy Birthday Aunt Em

Happy Birthday Aunt Em

Aunt Em

This is my Aunt Em, one of my favorite aunts.  She took me to plays, the zoo, and many other fun attactives when I was a kid.  We stayed closed all my life.  She would have been 93 today but she has gone Home.  She is missed and boy do I have questions to ask her now.  She did tell me a lot of family stories but I have more questions now.  Hey Aunt Em, give my Dad a hug for me. 

Here are two previous posts I wrote. Post

Aunt Em

While looking for some old photos the other day I found a couple of my Aunt Em and me.  These where taken in 1984 before I moved to Arizona.   I went to visit her in Cocoa Beach, Florida before my move, I lived in Miami.  This is the same Aunt Em I wrote the poem about last post. 

Aunt Em & Mary, she still have the smile!

People thought we could be mother and daughter when they saw us, not a bad thing.

Aunt Em, Uncle Gus & me

 Here we are with her husband "Gus" Ronca.  She was a lot more fun than my Dad, she must have gotten that from her mother Mary.  A letter I have from a great uncle said Grandma Mary was a lot a fun and all the cousins liked to go to her house.  I felt the same way about my Aunt Em. 

Poem Written for my Aunt Em

Yesterday was a busy day, the Family History Society of Arizona had an all day fall conference.  It was my first time to attend one of the conferences by this group.  I think it was very well done.  The two main speakers were excellent.  I enjoyed the round table that was done with a panel of six guest who had published genealogy books.  The two afternoon sessions were interesting and I picked up some tips from those classes. 
The one main speaker was a professor of English at ASU (Arizona State University).  He has also published a book about Persevering and Writing Family History.

He had us do a writing exercise, no surprise there.  I choice to do the poem.  It is a formula poem but it does work and it help to share the stories. 



Formula Poem and a Sample



Here is a sample of the poem formula and a poem sample.  I was drawn to this right away and wanted to try it even before he announce we would be doing a writing exercise.  He also had some us read  our stories.  They were really good and I enjoyed them all. 

I did read mine, but I am a bit of a ham. 

I will publish it here.  I might want to add it on another day but for today this is good. 

Eleanore & Emma 1949 My parent's wedding.

Emma

Who always had a smile for her favorite niece.

Who was married to an Italian name Gus and had three sons.

Who loved outings to the zoo, to the theater and to the beach.

Who felt happy at family events.

Who needed help for a son.

Who feared computers.

Who gave Birthday wishes every year, no matter the number of miles .

Who would have liked to have had grandchildren.

Who resided in Long Island City, New York and Cocoa Beach, Florida.

Hartmann-Ronca

One small step for me and my ancestors.  

Fearless Females Favorite Female

Today I'm posting about my favorite female in my family tree. I'm getting my ideas from Lisa's blog

This is my Aunt Em, my Dad's sister. This picture was taken at my Dad's & Mom's wedding day in 1949. I feel like I have known her forever, of course I have. She was one of the aunts I sent my time with in-between mothers, while Dad was at work. When I was older and before we moved to Florida she also took me to the Zoo, the movies, Radio City Music Hall in NYC to see the Rockettes and the Museum of Natural History. I'm sure we did lots of other fun things but I have forgotten them.

When I was 15 my parents sent me to New York to visit my aunts, I spent a week with each one. Aunt Em lived in Long Island City, Astoria, Queens and my Aunt Bea in Massapequa, Long Island, New York.

I flew to New York to see Aunt Em when I was 20. That was a great trip for me. We wrote to each many times a year. When she moved to Florida I went to visit her up in Cocoa Beach.



Here she is celebrating her 80th Birthday with two of her sons, Joseph & Thomas. She was working in a medical office still at this age. She finally quit when they went to a computer system to make appointments a year or so later.


This is the note she wrote on the back of her picture, her handwriting at 80 was the same as when she was younger. My husband gets a kick out of her, because shortly after we were married she sent me a letter and she was always very formal and addressed the envelope Mrs. Richard B. instead of Mary B. He still teases me about that. My husband is very traditional, me I'm a little more modern, after all I do have a hyphenated last name.