Sepia Saturday - Frank and Rose Stremp

There are many different blog concepts that run around the "blogosphere". One of the blogs I routinely follow introduced me to "Sepia Saturday". The whole point of this blog effort is to use one day a week (Saturday) as a means to explore some aspect of your personal history. Given my own interests I thought this was a really interesting idea. Though it is only Friday evening, I am posting this entry as I have a few minutes while I sit here on a conference call for work. This is a picture of my grandparents Frank and Rose (nee Portler) Stremp. I had the privilege of knowing my grandparents for a good portion of my youth as Frank was alive until I was 14 and Rose until I was 23. I tend to relate to Frank quite a lot for several reasons. First - I was named after him. My full given name is Gerald Francis Kromer. I don't know where my parents got the Gerald other than the fact that they liked it. My middle name came from Frank. His first name was actually Franciszek, which is the polish equivalent of Francis. So that is how I ended up with Francis as a middle name.

Secondly Frank lost his mother at a very young age, he was 8 years old when she died. Though I didn't lose my mother at that age, I relate to him because of what Zack has gone through.

My grandparents were hard workers. They lived through some difficult times and did what they had to do to survive. Together they built their home from scratch. Like many houses in the Laurel Mountains of Western Pennsylvania they covered the outside of their house with the rocks that the scavenged from the farmer's fields around them.

There are many memorable stories that I heard over the years growing up about the things my grandparents had to do back "in the day" to get by and survive financial. I remember being a small kid sitting in my grandfather's filling station hearing him tell stories about his life. At the time I wish I had paid more attention as having details of those stories now would be fantastic!

Frank and Rose definitely had their own personalities - that is for sure! I remember my grandmother - Rose as somewhat stern and taciturn. Frank on the over hand seemed to be good natured and with a smile frequently on his face. Of course those could be memories that are guided by my own misconceptions of who they were.

Regardless of anything else, I appreciated and loved my grandparents. To me they were "good people".

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Hope you all have a great weekend!

Thanks and peace to all! ~J.