My mother’s parents were John and Clara Cernech. I know very little about John’s antecedents. I was told that his father was a Croat. His mother’s name was Rose Duffy. Clara’s maiden name was Keuchel (rhymes with “cycle”), which is pretty clearly German. Her mother’s maiden name was Bartolak, which is, I think, Polish. Somebody on her side was certainly Polish. She considered herself Polish. Of course, being German was not popular in the forties.

I am pretty sure that all four of my maternal great-grandparents were already dead when I was born. In any case, I never met any of them.

My mom was born on October 2, 1925. She died in March of 1998. My grandparents were born near the end of the nineteenth century, and they died in the eighties. I found their grave marker online. She died in 1980; he died in 1985.

My mom had only one sibling, an older brother whose name was Clarence. Everyone called him Dean. I don’t know the derivation of his nickname. I called him Uncle Dean. He became an Osteopath. Many of his friends called him “Doc”. He died in 1999.

Uncle Dean’s wife was named Dorothy. They had three sons, John¹ (who was sometimes called Johnny Carl to distinguish him from his grandfather), Terry², and Rick³. Terry was my age. In fact, although we lived twenty miles apart, we were in the same class of about thirty-five boys at Rockhurst High School. John, who also attended Rockhurst, was two or three years older than Terry and me; Rick, whom we called Ricky at the time, was two or three years younger.

We visited Uncle Dean’s family pretty often, but not when we were still living in KC KS. Since we did not have a car, and they lived in Sugar Creek, on the far eastern edge of the KC metropolitan area, it would have been difficult. It might have been possible to take a bus with several transfers, but I have no memory of doing so. Besides, I was often in the hospital or recovering from the last operation.

When we did visit them, I was very impressed. I really liked hanging out with Terry. He was only five months older than I was, but he was much more mature, and he had an older brother to show him the ropes. I remember that I always wore my toy pistols and holster when we went there in the mid-fifties. There was a play room downstairs. The cushions from the couch would go on the floor, and we had competitions over who could execute the most spectacular death by hostile gunfire. We also had extensive quick-draw practice. Terry had developed a move in which he rolled on the ground while drawing his pistol. In those days television was dominated by Westerns. Nearly all young boys had guns. I wore mine everywhere.

Also, the Cerneches always seemed to have those highly desirable toys that were on the back covers of catalogs. I remember that they had a fort with both soldiers and Indians—all plastic. I coveted it greatly.

They also had the first color television that I ever saw. I remember being awestruck while viewing “Walt Disney’s Wonderful World of Color.” And get this, they actually flew (flew!) out to California as a family and spent a day at Disneyland. They got to see the hippopotamus sneak up on their boat in person! I was so envious.

Once Uncle Dean took us rabbit hunting. Their dog Buster, a German Shepherd, ran around a field scaring up the bunnies. Uncle Dean (and maybe John, but certainly not the rest of us) shot at them with a pistol. At least one was killed. I remember that he showed us how to clean it.

I remember two other occasions rather vividly. In the first one Aunt Dorothy drove me, Terry, and Rick to a theater to see a Roy Rogers movie. Afterwards, while we were waiting for her to pick us up, a fight broke out among some older kids in the parking lot. I was excited, but more than a little scared. By then I was no longer the biggest kid; in fact, I was a string bean. Terry knew some of the people involved. Fortunately, nothing came of it.

The other incident must have occurred in 1961. Terry had a 45 of Roy Orbison singing “Running Scared”. I absolutely loved it. It got me interested in pop music. A few years later I became rather obsessive about rock and roll. I knew who recorded every song. This is barely an exaggeration.

I am not sure that my cousins ever came to our house in Prairie Village. We did not have a lot of room. It would have been cramped.

Even though they owned the house, I don’t think that my grandparents lived with us in KC KS. If they did, they moved before I knew what was going on. They lived in Grand Island, NE, and then in Leavenworth, KS. My granddad worked for the Boss Glove Company. I don’t know what his job was.

I have a vague memory that we visited them once in Grand Island, but I have no recollection of how we could have traveled there. Maybe we took the train. I remember that their next-door neighbors were Japanese, which seemed very exotic to me. My grandmother liked them, but I did not know what to think. Japanese people were NEVER on television except as the hated enemy in war movies.

We definitely visited my grandparents in Leavenworth. The big tourist attractions there were the high-security federal penitentiary and the high-security military prison. Residents of Leavenworth always kept their radios on listening for news of prison breaks from either federal prison or from the high-security state prison in nearby Lansing, the last town through which we passed en route to their house on Kickapoo St. The escapees from Lansing were considered more dangerous. Most violent criminals were locked up in state prisons.

The Wavadas drove up to Leavenworth on many Easters and Thanksgivings. Uncle Dean brought his brood, too. There were two specialties of the house, czarnina (duck’s blood soup) and povitica (rolled nut bread). Uncle Dean was crazy about the former, which I refused to sample after they told me what it was. Everyone loved the latter. No matter how much my grandmother made, we ate it up.

At least once I and a subset of the cousins (Terry and Ricky?) were allowed to stay overnight at my grandparents. This was the highlight of my youth. In the afternoon my grandmother took us bowling. After supper we had delicious root beer floats. There were no extra beds, and so my grandmother lay some cushions on the floor for us to sleep on. Best of all, we got to stay up and watch television as late as we wanted to. We watched an Abbott and Costello movie on the late show (10:30 central time). I assume that we fell asleep in the middle, and the test pattern was on all night.

On one of our last trips to Leavenworth I was exploring either the basement or the garage by myself. I came across a men’s magazine called Argosy. I read one or two scandalous stories. I still remember one line: “She wore a fishnet bra; but it did not contain fish.” I certainly never told anyone about this, which was probably the naughtiest thing that I ever did as a kid.

I have vague recollections of going to a lot of weddings and funerals involving my mother’s relatives. These were memorable occasions for me because my cousins were always there. I only remember two details: running around at full speed in dress clothes and occasionally being called on to translate for Terry and Ricky, who were less easy for grownups to understand. It’s possible that they just wanted to hear how well the young harelip could talk.

Most of the relatives at these gatherings were vague to me. Two were very clear: Uncle Joe and Aunt Josephine. Joe was a mild mannered and friendly guy. Josephine was, to be kind, portly. But then … a polka would be heard, and the two of them would fly around the room. Everyone always cleared the floor for them and loudly applauded when the song was over.

Everyone in my immediate family really liked my Aunt Dorothy, but she and Uncle Dean eventually got divorced. To my knowledge this was an unprecedented event for that side of the family, which was 100 percent Catholic. Uncle Dean married his medical technician, Mildred, shortly thereafter at Unity Village, a huge Unitarian complex in KC. I don’t remember if my grandparents attended or not. The four Wavadas did.

Dean and Mildred had a son Paul, whom everyone called Paul Stacy⁴. I don’t think that I ever met him. I might have said hello at my high school graduation or somewhere or Terry’s first wedding.

I remember that on at least one occasion we visited a Bartolak family. I think that her name was Joy, but I don’t remember her husband.

We also visited a relative who was in some way disabled. She spent most of her time doing jigsaw puzzles. I thought that she had a great life. I don’t remember the names of anyone in that household.

1. John worked as an educational administrator. He worked at Creighton University in Omaha for many years. He died in 2023. His obituary can be found here. John came to see me when I was coaching debate at U-M. I never understood what that was about.

2. Terry is living in the Springfield, MO, area. His LinkedIn page can be found here.

3. In 2022 Rick contacted me by email. He apparently arranged cruises for people. After my solo voyage from Budapest to Amsterdam, I wrote to him and sent a link to my journal. He never responded.

4. I found a LinkedIn page for Paul Cernech. It is probably the person who was always called “Paul Stacy”. It is not a common name, and the dates seem about right.