Johanna "Oma" Brownell

Johanna "Oma" Brownell died.
(Ann's mom)

4 Nov 1925 - 20 Dec 2007
Many years, many places, many people ... and many, many stories.

Johanna Catharina Baars was born to Johannes and Jasperina (Schrader) Baars in Arnhem, Holland (Netherlands). Johanna was known as Annie by her 11 brothers and sisters, Tante Annie by her nephews and nieces, Moeke and Mom by her 9 children, and Oma by her grandchildren and other loved ones - but never as she. Oma didn't like to be discussed in 3rd person. (I tried to avoid using "she" here - but sorry, Oma it just doesn't sound right.)

As a child, Oma loved to swim and dive. She swam the Rhine River and was a competitive diver. When Oma was a teenager, World War II began. Her childhood home was down the street from the bridge in The Bridge Too Far (1974, Cornelius Ryan). Oma saw death and destruction in her hometown. Her brothers were sent to prison camps. Her family was forced from their home and they had to walk miles for shelter, taking only what they could carry (including small children). Some of Oma's childhood friends disappeared and Oma never saw them again.

Oma also saw love and compassion. Her family shared their food rations with other families. They made friends. They took care of each other. Miraculously, Oma's entire family survived the war. Oma spoke very fondly of all her brothers and sisters - using their nicknames and rarely using their birth names. As an adult, I realized that I only knew them by their nicknames. I had to call my uncle Joop to find out what the birth names were (in parentheses): Jahn (Johannes Mattias), Jasper, Henk (Hendrikus), Janna, Cory (Cornelius), Joop (Johannes Jacobus), Rully (Roelof), Zusje (Jasperina), Meinje (Wilhelmina), and Seinje (Gasiena).

After the war, Oma studied bookkeeping, language, and gourmet cooking. Oma married John F. Heuvelmans - who Oma insisted had the most majestic opera voice she had ever heard. They lived in Tilburg and had 5 daughters: Marion McLaughlin, Franca Bukowsky, Miriam Mowery, Monique Whitcomb, and Margaret Cleveland. In 1958, they moved from Holland to the United States on the Marshall Plan. They moved to the "Land of Opportunity" to get jobs and to provide for their small children. They worked hard, mastered English, and struggled.

Simply having 5 small children would be too much for me. Oma and John Heuvelmans had five small children, moved away from their families to a different country, learned a different language, and they had to take whatever jobs they could get to earn money. I am sure there were many moments when they wanted to give up. Oma would never have considered giving up. But, they struggled and Oma and John Heuvelmans were divorced.

Oma loved the United States though she would forever love and cherish Holland - her mother country. When Oma learned that she would have to give up her Dutch citizenship in order to become an American, she would not in a "million years." In Oma's mind and in all of her stories, Holland was anything and everything that was good.

Oma was remarried to Eugene B. Brownell and they had 3 sons and 1 daughter: John, Ann, Eugene, and Robert. They lived in a "swamp" in Black Creek and then on a "cliff" in Appleton (Oma's words). Finally, they moved to Neenah and lived in the Gilbert Home on Forest Avenue for over 25 years. My dad, Eugene B. Brownell, died in 1998.

Oma moved to Evanston, Illinois - first with us and then into the house next door. Oma helped us with the kids, with our laundry, with our meals. Oma loved to cook. She fed us, our friends, our neighbors, and she fed strangers who knocked at her door. Oma became well-known for her story-telling, her carrot cakes, her salads with fresh garlic, her pea soup, her matching knitted hats and scarves, and her exuberance. Oma exaggerated everything ... her expressions, her demonstrations, and her stories. She exaggerated - she said - "So they remember." We do, Oma. We'll never forget.

Oma moved back to Neenah, Wisconsin shortly before we came to Spain. On Wednesday, 20 Dec 2007, Oma died peacefully in her sleep.

Please keep Oma alive in your hearts and in your lives …
- Give cookies and root beer to children right before dinner.
- "Hide" candy in plain view for children to "find."
- Shop at 4 different grocery stores to save 2 cents a pound on grapes and 12 cents on a 5 lb bag of coffee.
- Talk to everyone you see at the grocery store and make comments about their purchases.
- Look at your receipts very, very carefully when you get home. Then go back to the store the next day to return items for which the price on the receipt does not match the advertised sale price. Sheesh!
- Buy Easter candy in June at 75% off and then give it away for Halloween.

- Buy meat in bulk when it is on sale, break it down into smaller portions, and freeze it. In three months, throw it away.
- Listen to Heintje over and over and over. Sing with him. Tell everyone how Heintje professed his love to his mother in his songs.

- Never tell a joke the same way twice. (José, can you see?)
- Exaggerate your stories and expressions to "get the point across." Sheesh!
- Make carrot cake with carrots, flour, and anything else you can find in the refrigerator and cupboards.

- Always cook ten times more food than you need.
- Spend 2 hours cutting all the fat off a slab of meat that you are cooking for dinner one day. The next day, stop and pick up some original Kentucky Fried Chicken. Sheesh!
- Make liver pâté with bacon ... and make it so absolutely delectable that vegetarians come from miles away to eat it.
- Boil pork chops in 2 cups of butter for several hours. The pork chops will melt in your mouth.
- If your cupboards are so full that you cannot find what you are looking for, buy more.
- Wash the kitchen towel after using it once.
- Use 1/2 of a bottle of fabric softener when doing the wash. You will not be able to dry off with a towel after a shower and your clothes will repel rain. Sheesh, but everything smells good and feels so soft.

- Iron everything - even underwear.
- When you fold pants - line up the seams. (Apparently, pants that are not purchased at Target are made such that the seams line up.)
- Attribute the invention of everything to Holland or at least to a person of Dutch descent.
- Read the newspaper - every day, every word.

- When driving, do not lean back and relax. Lean forward. If you see another car, slam on the brakes, gasp loudly, and secure your front-seat passenger with your forearm.

- Tell your troubles to your dog. Dogs never betray your trust.
- Buy gourmet birdseed mix. Ask someone to help you fill the bird feeder every other day. Watch the birds and squirrels through the windows. They, like people, have unique personalities and mannerisms.
- Never ever say NO - not even to strangers who knock at your door at 11 pm asking for $ to fix their car or to buy diapers.
- Quickly and easily forget all of your children's and grandchildren's transgressions and exaggerate all of their minor successes. If there are no recent successes, recycle stories of past successes or near-successes.
- Give $100 to Salvation Army every Christmas and generous gifts to the people who deliver the mail and the newspaper.

More pictures of Oma (and more to come from my sibs):

http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrownell/sets/72157603521019409/

Castellón ... atypical tourists

In school, the kids are learning ...

• Spain has 17 autonomous regions (kind of like states in the US)
• Each region is made up of one or more provinces ... there are 50 provinces
• The Community of Valencia includes three provinces: Valencia, Alicante, and Castellón.

We live in the city of Valencia (which is the capital of the Comunidad de Valencia region). The kids had a 4 day weekend last weekend, so we thought we would take one of those days to travel to another province of Valencia. We went to Castellón ... about an hour north.

We had a whole list of places to see and things to do. Somehow, the day turned into one of our typical traveling days ... which is probably nothing like the typical tourist day.

The kids jumped rope and we watched bocce ball at Ribalta Park.

We prayed for victims of violence.

We "adopted" a Spanish grandfather ... Vicente Hernandez.

We went to Saint Nicholas to join in their Saint Nicholas Day festivities. (Either we got the information wrong or we were the only people who showed up.)

We oggled and smelled the fish at the central market and then ate strawberries.

We took a "shortcut" that got us to nowhere.

We watched construction.

We walked along the country road ... saw a herd of sheep, guard geese (that squawked loudly as we passed), and a poinsettia TREE!!

We watched the sunset.

They also have cool museums, art exhibits, theatre, festivals, etc. Maybe we'll see those someday.

More photos of Castellón ...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrownell/sets/72157603444285310/

One of my dad's favorite poems ...

Sound of Water

by Mary O'Neil

The sound of water is:

Rain,

Lap,

Fold,

Slap,

Gurgle,

Splash,

Churn,

Crash,

Murmur,

Pour,

Ripple,

Roar,

Plunge,

Drip,

Spout,

Skip,

Sprinkle,

Flow,

Ice,

Snow.

Our Friend, Sara

I met Sara online and corresponded by email.

When Amy and I came to Valencia to look for homes in March, I emailed Sara and suggested that we meet each other. Sara agreed and said she would walk over and meet me in front of the Purple Nest Youth Hostel (where Amy and I were staying).

Based on all the horror stories I've heard about "meeting" people online who pretend they are someone else, I was half-expecting to meet a dirty old man looking for entertainment. Before leaving, I asked the girl at the front desk to call the police if I was kidnapped. She was cool. She knew that I was from Chicago - so like most people, she probably figured that I had experience with kidnapping, gangs, guns, corruption, violence, etc. Word to yo motha.

No dirty old man. No guns. No drugs. Just sweaters. Sara brought a bag of sweaters for Amy and I because it was colder than normal that week. The girl at the front desk was probably a little disappointed. Amy and I were really touched.

Sara grew up in Valencia. She married a guy from Chicago, lived there for several years, and had two children. Last year, they moved back to Valencia.

Given her own cross-cultural moves, Sara wasn't overwhelmed by our plans to move to Valencia. Sara isn't overwhelmed by much.

Sara reminds me of my sister, Margaret except Sara is much much younger (hee hee - that was for you, Margaret). Like Margaret, Sara tells you what she thinks ... even when you don't ask. I love that. Also like Margaret, Sara is a great host but makes it seem really easy.

Sara invited Amy and I over for dinner. While we were chatting with Sara and Beatrice (Sara's neice), they whipped up a multi-course meal with everything Spanish. No problem. That was the first of many.

Sara has had all of us over several times. Sara and her parents hosted all of us for a day at their summer home outside Valencia. They made paella for 20 people over a fire! Paella ("pie ay ya") is a Valencian rice dish. Just in case the kids didn't like the paella, they also made hamburgers. We all loved the paella.

A couple of weeks ago, Sara invited us for homemade hot chocolate (Spanish style which you can eat with a spoon). Then her parents had us over to their house to celebrate Sam's birthday (Sara's 16 y.o. nephew). We joined in their family tradition of giving everyone a turn to blow out the candles.

We were so cruel to Sam. He does not understand any English. While we were talking with Beatrice (his sister) about *whatever,* we (okay, I) would sprinkle in Sam's name ... so he would think that we were talking about him. Then Yana and Kerline would burst out laughing because saying Sam's name was so out of context and we could see that Sam was struggling to figure out what we were talking about.

Then, we (okay, I) told Sam that, in the United States, the birthday person must give everyone a kiss in order to have a year of good-luck ... and if he does not, he will have a year of bad luck. By the time Sam made it all the way around the room kissing everyone, I did not have the heart to tell him that I was joking.

We had such a great time. Sara and her little family (by comparison) opened their hearts and arms up wide and invited our big-huge family into their lives. Wow. Tears come to my eyes when I think about how lucky we are to have met Sara and her family.

Tears come to my eyes too because ... last week, Sara's father passed away.

I started writing this blog in July, continued in October, and I'm finishing it now (November). It started as a dedication to Sara. Now it is dedicated to Sara, her mother, Pilar, and her father, Vicente.

Thank you, God, for bringing all of us together. Thank you, God, for Sara and her mother, Pilar. Thank you, God, for Sara's father

Vicente Verdeguer Tamarit

- who now is with You.

Bye, Buddy!

Buddy
May 3, 1996 - Nov 12, 2007

Buddy died this morning - unexpected but peacefully in his sleep. He was staying with Matthew's parents in Wisconsin while his sheep (the kids) went to Spain.

We are so very sad. He has been our shepherd ever since the only sheep we had for him to watch over was Yana.

Buddy is the little b in our YAMMbfEB.

Slideshow of Buddy pictures ... http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrownell/sets/72157603148377813/show/

If the slideshow doesn't work for you, you can browse the pictures ...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrownell/sets/72157603148377813/

Bread ... Pan (pronounced 'pon') by Maria Engel

We have two bakeries downstairs from our apartment in Valencia, Spain. One bakery just sells bread and it is really small. The other bakery sells bread, sandwiches, drinks, and yummy pastries. I (Maria) like the one that sells pastries the best.

We buy bread every day. I usually offer to go (and look at the other daily goodies while I'm there). I get three or four bars of bread (occasionally more). Each bar costs 70 centimos (about 1 US dollar). A bar of bread looks like french bread.

I ask "Tres barras de pan, por favor?" (That means "Three bars of bread, please.") They keep the bars of bread on shelves and in baskets - not in individual bags. The person at the bakery just grabs the bread with her hands and sticks it into a big bag. This is a picture of me with one of my favorite workers at the bakery.

We use the bread for comida (our big lunch in the afternoon), for snacks, and sometimes for bacadillos (like sub sandwiches). Sometimes we buy regular bread at the grocery story - but that's boring.

Happy Halloween ... NOT

When in Spain ... do as the Spaniards do (or don't). We try, in our own imperfect way, to follow that adage.

In Spain, they don't really "do" Halloween. A few people try. Our kids wanted to support the effort and push the tradition (especially the part of stuffing their face with candy).

We had one group of trick-or-treaters. Thanks to Amy's parents and our upstairs American neighbor, we had a few treats for them. It is probably all they received.

Yana, known as the American Girl at her school, was asked to help a few classrooms carve pumpkins. She brought about 50 knives to school. I guess there are no restrictions about bringing knives to school. At the end of the day, she brought home 50 lbs of pumpkin seeds (and guts). On Monday, she'll bring back the roasted pumpkin seeds.

All Saint's Day (November 1) is a national holiday in Spain. This year, All Saint's Day was on a Thursday so there was a "puente" (poo en tay) - a bridge holiday from Thursday to Monday. Schools, businesses, and grocery stores were closed on Thursday and Friday. We typically have to go shopping every day (for eleven). So, by Friday night, all we had left was candy. The kids were very happy.

Tomatina in Buñol

The Tomatina in Buñol is a tomato fight with about 40,000 people in a teeny tiny town with teeny tiny streets. About 39,900 of the people are college age students.

Several large trucks drive through the streets that are packed full of people and dump tomatoes - thousands of people and millions of tomatoes. We were fortunate to find a plaza which was in the thick of the tomatina yet up a couple of steps and set back a bit. Just 20 feet from us ... there was a wall of people. If you managed to push your way into the crowd, you could lift your feet without falling because you were held up by the all people around you.

Most of the buildings had their doors and windows boarded up and had tarps draped from the ground to the roof. A few wimps watched the tomato fight from the roofs of their buildings ... though several people, including my brother Eugene, were determined to "include" them and threw tomatoes and t-shirts up 3 or 4 stories. This is Eugene and Jolie prepared for the tomatoes.

There were just a couple of rules (which were poorly translated into English). You are supposed to "press" the tomatoes before you throw them and you cannot "quit" your shirt. Most people didn't understand the rules or didn't follow them (or both). If someone did not take their own shirt off, others tried to rip it off. Many young women were wearing only remnants of their shirts by the end of the tomatina. Nobody tried to rip my shirt off ... because I was wearing overalls.
The tomato trucks came and tomatoes started flying. Actually, not just tomatoes flew. Shirts, shoes, other clothing articles, water, sangria, sandwiches, etc. also flew. If something wasn't secured, it was not safe. A few boys were hanging onto an electrical box on the side of a building. The electrical box was hanging by the end of the tomatina.

After they called the end of the fight, Matthew thought the coast was clear. It wasn't.

Photos from previous years showed the tomato "soup" in the street to be knee deep. They must have improved their sewer system. This year, the tomato soup only got about ankle deep. So, our dreams of swimming in tomatos went unrealized.

There were five portable toilets ... near the entrance of the city area. We later found another one tucked behind and between some buildings. At first I thought this was absolutely crazy. Later, I realized that there was no possible way to navigate through the crowd to get to a toilet anyway ... so why bother? It didn't smell like urine so either people held it or the tomatoes neutralized the smell.

There were very, very few touristy type booths selling junk at ridiculous prices. Near the train station, there were a few selling disposable underwater cameras at 12 euros each ($18) and t-shirts (which people needed to get back on the train at the end of the day). Otherwise, nothing. At first, I thought ... "This is cool! The Tomatina hasn't been overrun with cheap souvenirs!" Later, I realized that if there had been booths near the city area ... they would have been crushed by the throngs of people and their merchandise thrown into the tomato fight.

Our souvenirs are our stained clothing and tomato seeds and skins that we'll find in our hair and in orifices of our body for the next few weeks.

Yana, Kerline, and I stayed until the end of the day. By 6 pm, the town still smelled of tomatoes but it was dead. We went into a pub. There was one table of boys who were buying time until they could drive in a relatively straight line. Other than that, there were 20 elderly gentlemen (locals) playing or watching table games. The streets were empty and sort of clean. Even after they swept, fire hosed, and ran through with a street cleaner ... there were t-shirts hanging over the power lines and tomato skins and seeds stuck in the cobblestones of the street.

People were taking their tarps down and unboarding their windows and doors. We saw a crew with an aerial lift (cherry picking truck) driving through the streets taking clothing items off the power lines. One woman was spraying the little window of her front door with window cleaner and scrubbing it vigorously ... while her painted wooden door and stucco building were stained shades of red.

You might think the locals hate it. But, we met a woman on the train who grew up in Buñol and she still comes back to her parents to see the Tomatina every year. Her 11 y.o. son loves it. You gotta love it - it is the biggest tomato fight in the world!!

Barcelona

We ate tapas. We took leisurely walks in the "afternoon" (10 pm at night) and stopped to have a meal consisting of different appetizers. What a good idea! It is a great way of trying new things without getting stuck with a big plate of food you don't like but feel obligated to eat because you paid for it.

Years ago, Matthew and I had tapas for the first time. We stopped at what seemed to be a fancy restaurant and we were astonished at the low prices ... until our orders arrived on teeny tiny plates with two or three bites of food on them. We had our few bites and then left the restaurant confused and not very pleased. Years later, we learned what tapas meant and now we have sincerely gained an appreciation for tapas.

We strolled the Rambla. Think of a rambla as a place you can ramble (to move about aimlessly). Ramblas are super-duper wide boulevards that people walk on. They are usually between the two lanes of a street (like a boulevard) though sometimes there are no streets and it is just a walkway.

Ramblas are very common in Spain. In Barcelona, the main rambla is filled street performers, shops, and people. The kids loved all the street performers and could have spent a whole day on the Rambla. There was quite a variety of street performers ... statues, dancers, puppeteers, pranksters, etc. The last one we saw was a man painted green who sucked his stomach way way in and then moved his muscles. I wasn't very impressed so I didn't take a picture. A few blocks later, Elena stopped, lifted her shirt to show her stomach, and did the same thing as the stomach-sucking performer. Suddenly, I thought it was really cool. But, we could not convince Elena to do it on the Rambla.

We saw our friend Cristal. Cristal shares one of the greatest blessings in our life - our friend, Katiuska (Katty) Gonzalez. Last year, Cristal and her friend, Edgar, invited us to Spain (one of the requirements of the residential visa application). We may not be in Spain if it had not been for Cristal and Edgar.

We climbed up to Castillo de Montjuïc and walked down through Olympic Village. The castle was pretty cool and most of it was free. Olympic Village wasn't nearly as cool as we imagined. Sidewalks were not maintained and some almost completely washed away. Much of the area seemed deserted, overgrown, and not really being utilized. If Chicago hosts the 2016 Olympics, I sure hope they design it to be useful after the olympics are over.


We experienced the Magic Fountain. The Magic Fountain is water, lights, colors and music coordinated together. It is amazing to watch ... especially when you consider that it was built in 1929 before modern technology that could make it easier. [Some websites and tourist books say that the Magic Fountain runs every 30 minutes. After waiting almost an hour, we were told that it starts at 9 pm. The color, water, and light show started at 9 pm and the music chimed in at about 9:20 pm.]

Gaudí. We went to see Casa Batllo and Sagrada Familia ... both from the outside where it was free. We also walked up and down and in and out and through Parc Güell. That was really cül. I used to think that the word gaudy originated from the description of Antonio Gaudí's architecture. It didn't. Gaudí's architecture appears gaudy in pictures but it looks and feels really impressive when you're there.

Gaudí began building the Sagrada Familia church but died before he finished (construction continues today). One of his goals for the church architecture was to inspire people to look up toward heaven. It worked.

Finally, we went swimming and we had the beach to ourselves!

Pěčín Heaven

We drove to Romana's village, which is a little bit more than an intersection. Pěčín is so small that it isn't on some maps.

Romana met us in a village that was on our map and we followed her Pěčín ... turn left just before the small bridge that is after the curve by the barn, follow the road for 3-4 kilometers. If another car comes, squish way way over into the ditch so the other car can sqeeze by. Do not miss the intersection with the Urbanů pub ... that is Pěčín. (Needless to say, Romana had to lead us back onto the map at the end of our stay.)

We are so glad we didn't miss the intersection. Our week with Romana and her family in Pěčín was heaven. There is so much to say that we are having a difficult time deciding what to include here. Look at all our photographs from Pěčín and the Czech Republic countryside at http://www.flickr.com/photos/abrownell/sets/72157601660217235/

Imagine Thomas Kinkade paintings of unending countryside with rolling hills and flowers and cottages that are so overdone that they could not possibly be real. It is really real in Pěčín.

The cottage rental near Romana's house was not available until later in August (when Romana would be on vacation). So, Romana let us stay in her home ... next to her parent's pub, above her aunt's family, and next to her sister's home. They set up 6+ beds and found 6 pair of house slippers for us. (Their secret to clean floors >> only slippers in the house, no shoes.)

Romana introduced us to her family members ... and then she would turn around and call them something else. Matthew is usually really good at remembering names (and whispers them to me when I repeatedly forget). But, we were so confused that we had to write them down. In the process of writing them down, we learned that everyone has a given name, a calling name, one or two or three diminutive names, and sometimes nicknames.


The given name seems to be used only when talking in the 3rd person ... not in real life. The calling name is used when addressing someone directly and is vaguely similar to the given name (if you are familiar with Czech) but with an accented ó or á or with the ending vowel chopped off. The diminutive names (most people have more than one) are the first part of the given name with -ka or -cha or -ishka or -ushka added.




We're glad we wrote all the names down, loosened our tongue, and practiced them because they are our family now.