Ah!! The Life Electric!
"The Electric Life! The Life Electric! The Life Fantastic! Within the experience of everyone is the capacity for Truth, Beauty, and Goodness, no matter who they are, where they have come from, where they have been, or where they are going. This is the age of the Superhuman, the Soul Magnificent who realizes the Genius of Being, attracting all who seek such to themselves, for such is the nature of one who knows, who sees the very fabric of God amongst his fellows, within the laughter of children, and within the expansion of self to the infinite. Such is my music; such is the source of this mysterious "noise" which comes and goes, for I know the Genius of Being, I see the Fabric of God, and I understand the Soul Magnificent."
- Michelle Ende'
Some Family History:
IT TURNS OUT WE ARE BULGARIAN! WHO KNEW?
This is an upfront revision of the narrative below. The town of Yabuka is Yablanitsa and is about 100 miles East of Sofia, the capital of Bulgaria. Glogen is a little further East along the same line. A small map of the area is inserted here. This was updated after much research on November 6, 2005. The only town that answers, even remotely to Glogen in a google and Expedia search is in Bulgaria. The town of Yablanitsa is is probably the one which Leo, Walter and Peter originally travelled from on the way to Glogen. This would have been only 60 miles from the (current) Roumanian border and it is entirley possible that this is where the family is orginally from. A little further South than originally anticipated.
In the tiny town of Yabuka (Yablanitsa), which isn't even there anymore, my grandparents lived and worked in what was then Hungary (Actually, it is now in Bulgaria). Because of the frequent changes in the borders of the Austria-Hungarian Empire of the late 18th and 19th centuries, people would find themselves living in Bulgaria, or Hungary, but having been born in Roumania. Some of their relatives could be found working in Bulgaria, or one of the other numerous Slavic republics of the day. My great great grandfather Peter Jebelian was born in 1877 in Yabuka (Yablanitsa). At some point, when he was about 11 years old, he migrated to Glogen in Hungary (shown as Gloghene in Bulgaria) and went to work for a man named Bancz (I have linked this name to the town of Bansko in Bulgaria and this could be the origin of that family. Many families emigrating to the United States would have used the name of the regional magistrate or administrative center and Bansko could have been one of these). He met his future wife there. Her name was Catherine. Their marriage resulted in the birth of Walter and Leo. Walter would become my grandfather a little on down the road. Walter was born in November of 1896, and Leo was born in December of 1903.
So the Jebelian family of Peter and Catherine with sons Walter and Leo lived in the village of Glogen and worked the surrounding farms as sharecroppers. Catherine worked as a seamstress and also as a hired hand cleaning other people's houses. The Wagner, Gruber, Schoemmer, and Jebelian families lived and worked together in Glogen, eventually coming to the United States in 1911 on the passenger ship The Kronprinzessa Cecelie. The Jebelians arrived in Chicago on May25, 1911 and settled on the North Side around Division and Olivet Streets near the present day Carl Schurz High School.
As the Jebelians made their way in their new world, they would work in Chicago for the better part of the year, while Leo was in school. Walter was too old for school, so he worked with his father hauling scrap iron, or working the coal yards, or hauling ash from furnaces. While Leo went to St. Michael's school, his mother worked in Evanston and in the surrounding neighborhoods doing whatever jobs could be found. In the summers, the Jebelians would go up to Michigan and work the sugar beet farms as sharecroppers. Leo would be in charge of watching the pork and beans simmering in a kettle over an open fire. It was Leo's job to make sure the fire did not go out.
At night, after a long day's work, the families would return for food and drink, living modestly in lean-tos and other makeshift housing durng the picking season. Somewhere around 1922, Walter met another Catherine, she was to become my Grandmother. The got married and evetually sired two daughters, Katherine, my mom, and Mary, her sister and my Aunt.
This is Grandpa and Grandma taken in the 1970's.
This is how Mom met Dad, as told by Mom,
I was going to go to the show with a couple of my friends. I usually took the subway downtown, but something stopped me and I took the streetcar, instead. As I was waiting for the streetcar a young man asked me how come I wasn't out trick or treating. It was October 31; Halloween night. I told him I was too old for that. He asked me where I was going and I told him I was going to the show with my girlfriends. He asked me to have a cup of coffee with him. That the first time I ever did something like that. I said yes and we talked in the restaurant and he asked me for my telephone number. I gave it to him and afterward I was sorry and said to myself why did I give him my number? Well that was how I met your Dad. We went out for two more months and then got engaged. We got married May 15th, 1954 at St Theresa Catholic church. I had converted to Catholicism when I was 18 and your Dad took instruction in the Catholic religion and became a Catholic before we got married. Michelle, you were baptized at St Theresa's also. We moved out to West Chicago to the Pink House for about three years and then moved to Wheaton, then Glen Ellyn, and finally back to Chicago. We resettled in Chicago on Clybourn ave, across from the American Cannery Company that your grandfather worked at as a boy. You went to St. Bonaventure School up until the 8th grade, and then you went to Lane Tech. Debby was born in 57 and she baptized at St. Theresa's as well. In 1965, Diane was born. I went on to Lane Tech and then the University of Illinois. Debbie went on to get married.
And so.....
Today, Mom lives in Brooksville with a new husband as Dad has passed, along with Grandma and Grandpa. In 1990, Debbie passed as well. So it is Mom in Brooksville, Diana and her children in Spring Hill, and myself in Florida. My cousin Kenny lives in Arizona, and he is Leo's first son. That is all that is left of those Pioneers. But my sister Diana is pioneering in business. Her photographs are sensitive and exquisite. What I do with music, she does with pictures:
