Another secret from the closet of Grandpa Joe

I just got off of the phone with my sister who just told me a very interesting story she heard from our second cousin, Rick Karash. Rick is one of those family members we bump into every so often. He's a kind of stiff Bostonian type, not much in common with us countrified Oregonians. But still he's a real nice guy who graces us with his presence once in a blue moon when he's in town on business.

Rick and my sister were having dinner about a week ago in D.C. at a very nice French place - one of my favorites, actually. Over a bottle of wine, Rick began to talk about the ol' Karash lineage. The Karash family originated in Utica, NY - apparently a very popular place for Russian immigrants to settle down after many long weeks on the boat over from the mother country. For those of you who don't know, I have a Russian background. And no, I don't eat or make borscht. Neither do I speak Russian, but my sister studied it in college and my brother studied it at the Naval Language Institute in Monterrey, CA. As for myself, sometimes I drink my tea with lemon, but that's about as "typically" Russian I get. I digress...

Ok, so the basis of this story is that my Grandpa Joe may be an illegitimate child. I will not use the "b" word - because I have some small measurable respect for the guy. As to Joe's origins, it is scientifically undetermined and will remain so, but it is known that his sister was a verified b-child. Thus the story of my grandpa's tenuous entry into this world:

My great grand mother, Teresa, worked in a candy factory as a single, young woman in Utica, NY. The operation was owned by who I will from now on refer to as "an evil Russian candy factory owner." This evil factory owner employed many young Russian immigrants, mainly women, to toil in his sweatshop. Not quite Willy Wonka, this man apparently made it an unspoken policy that he could have his way with those he employed. Simply put, there wasn't anyone to complain to back in the day. I guess people were just happy to have a paycheck, even if it required you to strip with the boss.

So long story short, Teresa gets pregnant and the town sort of goes haywire. The town elders or someone in charge demanded that a man step forward to accept responsibility. Now people knew about the factory owner and his "policies", so it was kind of a charade/song-and-dance at this point, but someone needed to help Teresa out and this may have been the only way to get business taken care of. Amidst all the chaos, a man named John Karash stepped forward and said he was responsible for the situation. (At this point, my sister said Rick Karash shed a poignant tear over his apple galette)

So John and Teresa get married and a daughter, Stacia, was born in, say, 1908 or something. Later a son, Walt, was born. Then another son was born in 1911, Joseph, my grandpa.

Rick then discussed the marriage of John and Teresa. Seeing that it was a very compromised union from the get-go, it is not hard to understand that the marriage was potentially abusive and disasterous. Rick mentioned that the children born after Stacia could have very well been offspring of the same wicked candy factory owner - because Teresa continued to work there after Utica found out her little secret. Apparently, Joe has verbalized his doubt about his father as well, although I don't know the details about that. Heresay at this point.

Perhaps a letter is in order to good ol' G'pa Joe soon?

As I told someone earlier, the moral of the story is to avoid working at Russian candy factories at the turn of the century if one can possibly manage it.