My great-grandmother’s name was Elizabeta Catherine Katcha, but she was known as Nanny. She was born in a German colony of Romania in the middle of World War 1 (1914). Eleven years after her birth her family made the decision to move to America to get a better life, so it makes sense that one of her sayings was that she had “spent the first 10 years of her life in Europe and had no desire to go back”. Like other immigrant families coming from Europe in that decade, Nanny, her parents, older sister, and two younger brothers arrived at Ellis Island in the middle of the Roaring 20s. Upon arriving at the island, her older sister, Maria, had an ear infection which caused the whole family to have to wait on the island for a week. After her ear infection was healed any European names had to be changed to American ones, and then they were able to cross over into New York. After a few days spent in the busy city, their uncle, who right outside of Chicago in Bellwood at the time, sent them train tickets to come and live near them. Once they arrived Nanny’s father quickly got a job building houses, and as he wouldn’t let anyone in their family speak German, she and her siblings started attending school and learning to speak English which was the hardest thing about moving to America. This was a very good thing for her because she and her elder sister were the first in their family to graduate high school. The schools in Bellwood obviously made a big impact on her because another thing she always said was that when she moved here one of the best parts of America was the school system of how everyone could go to school and learn things other than just language. At the beginning of World War 2, she met her husband who didn’t have to go fight in the war because he was working at an iron and steel company, and in 1941 she had my grandmother. During the Great Depressions and World War 2, she had a job at a cigarette company. In the 30’s and early 40’s whenever someone was stressed or depressed (this was a lot) they would smoke a cigar or cigarette which brought lots of business to the company she worked for.
