Archive for October, 2012

Bernard M Terway, Texas
I am proud of my
Lithuanian heritage

Lithuania, beer in a tube, me with a glass and a smile.
What more could you want?

Bernard M Terway (Tirva), Leander, Texas

Lithuanians left their home country starting in the 1800’s and, new waves keep coming to the United States all the time.  My grandparents were among the “first wave” immigrants, leaving Lithuania for a better life in America, getting away from being conscripted into the Russian army, living under Russian rule, and for economic reasons. 

It is still a mystery to me where they came from, where they entered the United States, but their life story begins in Pennsylvania.  That, is not, however, the reason for this story.

I was born in 1940, the last of seven children, six boys and one girl.  We all were baptized in the local Lithuanian church, where we attended mass on Sundays and Holy Days.  I, along with two of my older siblings, went to the Lithuanian elementary school where we were taught by the Sisters of St. Casimir. 

There was an attempt to teach us Lithuanian.  Most of us were born at the beginnings of the Second World War, and speaking a foreign language was probably not the best way to get by at that time.  I do remember the books we had to learn from, not very sophisticated, but then again, they were not meant to be.  What I do not remember is being taught about Lithuania.

As a young boy, I remember going to the attic in our house and finding Marian magazines that had a lot about Lithuanian history in them. They fascinated me. I went to the local library and found one book on Lithuanian history, which I read several times. I was proud of my heritage and showed it as much as I could.

Throughout my life, I always found a way to mention the fact that my heritage was Lithuanian. When I went to Penn State for graduate work, I found Dr. William Schmalstieg there. He was putting together a class on the Lithuanian language and I talked several of my classmates into taking it. It was a great class, and, because of it, I was given a scholarship to study Baltic linguistics at Fordham University for a summer. There I met Dr. Senn and Dr. Salys, two figures of importance to Lithuanian linguistics study. Unfortunately, it was only one summer and then I had to head on out into the world to make a living.

I did find another Lithuanian linguistics class at the Johann Wolfgang Goethe Institute in Frankfurt Germany, but, again, only a short introductory class.

After leaving Germany and coming back to the States in 1976, I got involved with a group of Lithuanians and with them we formed the Anthracite council of the Knights of Lithuania – Council 144, still in existence today. I became active with them until moving to Texas in 1979.

Texas is not known for its cultural diversity, unless it is Spanish or German. However, at the beginning of the end of the Soviet Union, letters to the editor in the Houston Chronicle started to appear about Lithuania. Lithuanians appeared on the local TV stations and from that, we got together to form a Lithuanian group in Houston – Lithuanian American Community of Houston. I was active with them for a number of years, until 2004, when I moved to Austin. So far I have not been able to connect with any Lithuanians here, but have not given up hope.

I am a retired teacher – I taught ESL, German, History, computer maintenance and networking. I all my classes, I made sure that the students knew something about the country of my ancestors.

No matter whether you were born there, never lived there, do not speak the language, you are still a Lithuanian and can be proud of it and teach others about it. I did, and I am proud of my heritage.

Making Lithuanian sausage - me and my mom.
Oh it was SO GOOD

Believe it or not, that is I

Lithuanians
in the World

VilNews will from time to time present Lithuanians who have left the home country and made some kind of career abroad. We are this time not so much looking for celebrity articles, more for some unusual life stories describing Lithuanians who have settled somewhere in the world. Send us your story!

I am one who left
Lithuania in 1996

Nellie Vin, New York

I am one who left Lithuania in 1996 after we got independence in 1990. In few years the country’s economists, with Landsbergis as the head on top, crushed all too fast (with privatization) without providing and helping with starting of small business and lowering taxes for new business people. Finally imported, cheap products from Poland killed local farmers’ business. It’s become not profitable to grow own organic healthy products and sell for Lithuanian people. Many people left to look for opportunities in other countries. Still young and older people are leaving. No one wants to wait. We need today! Not to wait on promises for a better tomorrow.

Once they were young
and fresh as paint

Nellie Vin (photography, Lithuania 2010)
Peter  Heydon (text)

          How the old eke out a living. Not for them the luxury of comfortable retirement with generous pensions and a sedate stroll to the cemetery. Instead they face the harsh prospect of toiling until their demise, foraging and fighting for survival. What recompense for a life lived, to face the ignominy of bent backs and faces engraved with hardship and still feel the whip of necessity cutting sharply across their backs? Tumbled down old barns and broken tools patched together suffice, while over in the West combine harvesters and farms like factories generate the riches of Croesus. Here the corrugated sheds and corrugated old women in their shawls no longer have the time or muscle to smile. They conserve their energy if they can and expend it if they must. Not exactly the American Gothic of Grant Wood but folklore of another kind, the desultory and haphazard artwork of pitchfork and firewood, the scratch and scrape of making ends meet while others pile their plates with fresh meat and fill their glasses with fine wine. Once they were young and fresh as paint. Now they are old and peeling like paint. Yet they have each other. They have their integrity. They have more than most.

Upon the wall there hangs the Madonna and child, mother of perpetual help, an eternal symbol of love and protection. It is a representation of the maternal instinct which threads like an umbilical cord through all species. It is the subatomic principle that links every particle of the universe to each other in fine balance so that everything coexists. It is the way nature and the cosmos cares for itself. The painting looks down upon the humble circumstances and can identify with it. Just as a simple manger once sufficed as a bed so too a modest couch serves as somewhere to sleep. A crumpled duvet and a fat pillow lie in unkempt testimony to a homecoming. The room will soon beat with human hearts again and though it might lack affluence and opulence and may be bereft of ornamentation it remains a home. The simplicity reflects the sanctity.  The clean white sheets are like a shroud, a resurrection of hope and a faith that goodness will win and will protect with its universal truth. The simple souls of this room have nothing to lose. They are victorious in their humility and so much richer for it. 

          The three dimensional world appears to be condensed into a particularly two dimensional image. Any impression of perspective is strangely lost and in its place the building seems to hang oppressively above the silhouetted figure. Like a victim awaiting sentence to be carried out she stands in quiet resignation. There is a conspicuous stillness in her pose that is evident even in a photograph. It is as though she has prepared her soul to fly from her body, unable to suffer the pain any longer, and all that is left is the dark shape of what was once a young girl with a heart full of fire and hope, a future. The vista before her is dishevelled and bedraggled. The bulldozers of politics and change are ploughing through her country and wreaking their devastation, but she stands in their path, adamant and defiant. Nothing can crush the human spirit. It can be beaten and starved and yet it has a tenacity and strength that can overcome any adversity. After the heaviest of rains the rose still breathes its perfume across the raindrops. 

          A cow is a cow in any corner of a field and any corner of the earth. But this is no fatted calf. This is a beast with little in its belly and less on its bones. The hide hangs across its frame like a careless rug across a chair. Its head is hung low, not only grazing but also in a symbolic reflection of the land it lives in. Perhaps the rest of the herd is just out of view but it matters little. This is a solitary animal foraging in some corner of a foreign field, udders half full. Where are all the breasts full of the milk of human kindness? They have dried up and can feed no-one now. Worst still they suckle nothing but poison and contempt. We drink the economic miracle of far-flung places that grow rich on our poverty and turn a blind eye to our plight – blind eyes in Gucci sunglasses with the sharp vision of laser surgery and the icy stare of apathy. One day this land will be lush again. The soil is rich and that is all that one needs to grow again when the time is right. 

          How small we all are, especially in the distance. The solitary path travels from here to there, regardless of whether dusty feet should choose to walk along it. With baggage in hand, a determination in her straight back, and a resolve in the step the broken road is her sole domain. No other vestige of life to spoil her view, no cars or carts or children kicking up the stones and playing games. No dogs or donkeys or dumped prams in ditches. The straight line to the horizon is uncluttered by any semblance of other life. Just one life parades in solitude, purpose unknown, frozen at a far point with a vast swathe of worn highway behind her and an uncertain future before her. Turbulent clouds threaten the skyline but possibly they are dispersing rather than gathering. Who knows? The landscape converges upon her, the singularity of her presence and every blade of grass and every leaf on every tree presses for her destination. She remains mute, head turned away, turned towards tomorrow. Their question remains unanswered. Only time will tell.