Wednesday, September 6, 2017
From an email to Ann and Hank, dated 10 June 2012:
Cousins:
I was just prowling through the recently released 1940 Census for New York State, and I thought I 'd send you a snapshot summary of findings.
Five-month old Ann Victoria of 31 Garfield Street in Yonkers and her family were all "Jankofskys" to your census taker that year, but we can overlook that. The sweet young thing lives with her father, 29 year-old William, and mother, 27 year-old Anna, and an older brother, five-year old Joseph who just started school. They appear to be renting their flat with a family discount from the house's owners William's Father, 55 year-old Walter, and mother, 52 year-old Victoria, for $20 a month (the other renters at 31 Garfield pay $28 a month). Walter and Victoria are originally from Lithuania. The estimated value of the building itself is $1500. Both grown-up Jenkofsky males work a full 40-hour week at what looks like Habaskov Cable Company; the father making a couple of hundred dollars more than his son's $1000 a year salary. Blissfully, baby Ann Victoria knows none of this. She spends her days enjoying extensive quality time with her mother. Little does she realize what lurks across town.
Over at 128 Waverly Street, seven-year old Henry Trabucco is living with his mother Mary, age 45, and father Henry, aged 55, and sizable familia Italiano: two brothers, Saverio and William, and three sisters, Carmella, Jennie, and Louisa. Mom, Dad, and Saverio are all from Italy originally. All but Saverio and Carmella are still in school. Henry senior loads railcars for a living and makes $900 a year; his oldest son, Saverio, 25 years old, works at the sugar refinery. They appear to work to the job so that neither one actually works a set 40-hour week. The family is renting at 128 Waverly and pays $27 a month for those palatial digs. Henry junior is a troublemaker at school and his mother frequently punishes him by pinching his ears and washing his mouth out with lye soap; Henry is quietly waiting until Ann Victoria reaches puberty and he can afford a new chevy to impress her. Okay, I made that last part up, but it's partially true, and if I was the census taker, I would have hung around, eaten the streudel, and gotten a lot more of the specifics.
Love,
Cousin John
If you now read the obituary, you will find that a good and full life was lived between then and now.
