Exploring Your Roots

Every May, I think about a remarkable experience that occurred seven years ago. A few weeks before our vacation in Croatia, I connected through Facebook with a second cousin in Montenegro, the tiny Balkan country which was also a part of former Yugoslavia. I thought it would  be fun to meet a few of my Croatian relatives. I really did not expect too much but was looking forward to understanding more about my paternal family’s history. DNA kits are everywhere now, but how often do we get to meet foreign relatives who we never even knew existed? In 1920, my grandparents, 32-year-old George Radovich and 22-year-old Anjulina Fazo, had an arranged marriage and then moved to Massachusetts to start a new life. Now, we were going to visit the family they left.

My cousin Jadra, a boisterous and colorful woman, said she would gather a few of my relatives for coffee. She also introduced me to Ana Fazo, a second cousin by marriage who taught English as a second language. Ana lived in a walk-up four-story apartment with her husband, three little boys and her mother.  From her apartment, you could see a view of the Vrmac mountains near Tivat where my family lived. She pointed up to the mountains and said, “the church where we will meet is halfway up those mountains, and it will be like a fairytale.”  Fairytale? I had no clue what she was talking about. My thought is we would meet a few relatives for coffee and sit there trying to communicate. How wrong I was…...

The next day at 4pm, we picked up Jadra and her son Tripo (most of my relatives do not own cars) and headed up the mountain to a tiny village where 300-year-old St. Anton de Padua Catholic Church sits. As we approached the village, the rain ended, the sun started to peek out above Kotor Bay and a horde of relatives approached our car. I was stunned. When we stepped out of the car, my relatives surrounded us and my uncles, my father’s first cousins, Toni and Zvonko, hugged me. Toni took my face in between his hands and said I look like a Fazo! They led me into the 300-year-old Fazo residence which was now a family museum with ancient family photos and maritime artifacts all over the the walls. Most of my male ancestors and relatives chose careers in the merchant marines because there is little industry in Montenegro. Afterwards, we visited the church and the parish center where they served a a buffet of Turkish coffee and pastries. Uncle Toni,  my father’s eldest cousin, gave a testimonial translated by Ana about Anjulina and George, and their journey to America. One thing that struck me was that he said they were glad she left; they were extremely poor and there was little opportunity.  I looked around at the gorgeous mountains, old world olive trees and ancient buildings overlooking the stunning Bay of Kotor. Money was scarce but wasn’t there a great life in moderate weather, fresh food, family, and simplicity?

We headed up the mountain to the tiny 700-year-old St. Vincent Chapel to see the Fazo family cemetery. It was a tranquil and sacred place with gravestones, lush trees, and flowering bushes. I saw my grandmother’s sister Lubjana’s gravestone; she lived to be 94. Ana explained that her two children died at 1 and 5 years old from influenza. Behind her were two gigantic yew trees.  Each tree represented a child that had died. At another gravestone, she solemnly told us of a relative who had committed suicide. I started to understand that life was not simple or easy for these people. Through the years, they struggled with civil war, territorial disputes, fascism, communism, poverty. I thought of my grandmother who emigrated to the US as a young woman. She and George bought a house and then lost it during the depression. They were poor, and yet they had housing and food. Anjulina died at the age of fifty-three from breast cancer, and yet she had five children who all lived to be elderly, three of them into their nineties. After the Air Force, my father went to college on the GI Bill and later, started his own successful packaging business. They had opportunities that were never offered to my Croatian relatives.

Having the gift of meeting my European family who I met for the first time, I reflect on how our understanding of people amplifies through meeting them in person, talking, sharing stories. I now have a more informed perspective of my personal history. And I realize that life is not so binary. Each choice comes with ramifications. I understand why my grandparents chose to come here one hundred years ago, and I see what they lost by coming. But through embracing our roots, we can learn an invaluable lesson in guiding our lens to the future.