Dear relatives,
Some of you have seen this photo already, but I wanted to share it on the blog. This is a photo of Tran Van Huong's family with my father, Tran Van Due.
I love the way it shows connection between families, and I'm glad that we not only continue to maintain that connection, but hopefully we'll take it one step further by communicating with each other on this blog.
I believe you can click the picture for a larger view. I'd love to hear what you think of this photo, and even better, perhaps share a picture from your own collection.
In kinship,
Theresa
Thank you Theresa.
ReplyDeleteThis is a gem of a photo.
Your Dad looked cool (but w/t a Salem cigarette in his hand?).
Judging by the pots of flowers, the photo must have been taken near Tet?
This photo tells a lot more about our TRAN family, and especially my mother, than can be seen superficially.
ReplyDeleteTheresa correctly admires the inter-family connections. In fact, the picture shows the inter-generational connection which is prevalent in most Vietnamese traditional families.
It is very close and very deep in ours.
The first impression would be that it's just one family, with ChuDue as the oldest son. That impression would not have been too far off the mark.
1- Grandfather's family is large: his children's birthdays span from my father's 1913, thru ChuDue's 1933, Chu Lu's 1936, then ChuThanh's 1956;
2- My father got married and started his family early. His first son was born in 1935. His older children, including AnhNgo, AnhBich, and me :-) are just several years younger than our youngest uncles;
3- Grandmother died relatively early, right after the war. As the first daughter-in-law, my mother would be very involved in Grandfather's family. As the families moved to Hue in the late 1940's, my father's house and my grandfather's house were built on the same lot, in the same address. We saw the young uncles every day: ChuHanh, Chu Due, Chu Lu;
4- My mother was taking care of the young uncles as if they were her children. They, in turn, were just as close to her, and to all of us.
We all admired how smart ChuHanh was, bringing home loads and loads of school awards and prizes every year. When he was drafted, and until the day he died, he always asked my mother to keep all his savings ang belongings.
ChuDue did not study as hard. Buy I still remember vividly how he and his friend trained very hard, day in and day out, for the Military Academy exam.
5- As we moved to Saigon in 1957, we left behind many kinfolks in Hue, but we continued to be close to ChuDue and ChuLu in the new hometown.
In fact, all of us still remember the day we moved to Saigon in the summer of 1957. As we got off the plane, we were boarded onto a military convoy to our new home, with escorts and sirens clearing traffic, led by a young lieutenant in charge of road circulation control CCR: ChuDue, page 148.
After ChuLu moved back to Hue, ChuDue's was the only permanent family we had in Saigon.
Over the years, we remained very close, exchanging frequent visits. My mother remained the linchpin in these inter-generational ties.
We were often amazed at the variety of jobs/uniforms that ChuDue had each time we saw him: a Special Forces captain, an Army major, a Police colonel amid civilian assignments.
6- After moving to the US, ChuDue again made every effort to remain close to us: I was so happy he could attend our daughter's wedding in 1998. The resulting family picture was unique.
His nephews and nieces, in turn, came to see him in San Jose, as often as they could.
To others, ChuDue was known to be very loyal, to live with friends and for friends - he always extended helping hands.
To us, he was somewhere between a younger uncle and an older brother. We loved him for both.
That is what's in, behind, and about the picture.
TranVanKhoi.
Thank you very much, Anh Khoi, for this enlightening and moving contribution to the family lore. I am learning quite a bit about my father, uncles, aunt and cousins. I'm grateful for the priceless information!
ReplyDelete