Fables and Rewrites and Truth

The more I learn about my grandmother's time at St. Kate's, the clearer it becomes that I know nothing at all.

Or perhaps I am just learning that all family stories should be appreciated for their colorfulness not necessarily their veracity.

In any case, the story becomes less sparkly in that controversial way but more truthful or at least more representative of factual accounting - however possible that is over a hundred years later.

It turns out that my grandmother was at St. Kate's with two sisters, her older brother, and two "cousins" from the family that inherited the Varela siblings.

It appears they went home every summer to Las Cruces and one year one of her sisters stayed home--perhaps she was sick. That year my grandma did not pass to the next academic level, making me think that she was worried.

Yes, like previous stories about her time there, this is a creation of the mind. All I know for sure is one was not on the rolls for a particular year and that same year the other did not pass.

The data for this story creation is sparse, incomplete and wrapped on its own fable about Indian education.

This story making is a new theme among many that are emerging from the archive research.

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Without any of the intervening updates, I find myself at Drexel's Shrine researching the congregation, the school and my grandmother's participation in it.

Already some of the puzzle pieces are recovered, though they do not necessarily fit together yet.

My grandmother's name appears haphazardly in the enrollment records, perhaps because it was the most complicated. Margarita became Maggie and Corina need not change though the spelling was sometimes altered to a more English sounding Corinne. Aureliano, not Pete, shows up at the beginning and then in subsequent years though not necessarily contiguously. Another person who may be a "cousin" also shows up. Grandma is not there contiguously either ...leading to more questions than answers.

Were they all sent in a difficult year and the older ones brought home occasionally to work? Were they always there and just not always accounted for?

I am doing academic research, with scant time to get through all the folders. So the time with the grandma stuff is limited.

I am seriously considering giving tomorrow's shorter day to family stuff. We'll see ...