Dorothy : God's Gift

I'm doing pretty good at this challenge and I'm only a bit behind. I've been putting off writing this one. Mostly, I have a lot to say - or I don't know what to say. How do you begin to write about a woman you greatly misunderstood in life but came to understand in death?

Dorothy is a Greek name and it means God's Gift. Click your heels? No, no - she was my grandmother.

Grandma was born in June 1917 and had an older brother, Bob. Her father was HJ and her mother Isabel. During the 1929 crash the family continued to do well due to HJ's business skills but do not mistake that she was very much a child of the depression.

They went to Europe often. Grandma had a run in with the Gestapo. My father says it didn't happen, my Aunt Linda says it did.

After she died I was able to read her diary. She received a diamond ring for her HS graduation. She graduated Ohio Wesleyan. Her mother died during her college years. She married my grandfather after college and they settled in her native Cleveland Heights. Grandma was a Librarian and kept the schools plants. She carted them home each school break to care for them.

As a child, I thought she was a hoarder. It was her depression upbringing coming into view. Bread bags were lunch bags, stocking held onions, etc.

Grandma loved arts : Ballet, Orchestra, Opera, Museums, etc. She adored the Nutcracker, something that makes me miss her more around Christmas.

She hated pictures, I'm assuming because she literally buried every member of her family (and in-laws) over her life. All she had left was the family she created - children and grandchildren.

We all miss her, I wish I would have known her better but she died a few days after my 14th birthday in 1999.

Dorothy, Isabel, and HJ.

Isabel

Isn't it funny how with some we recall the end of their lives but not the life - or how they lived for that matter.

Shortly after my Uncle Dave died, my Aunt Robin mentioned my father had a 5 year diary my late grandmother kept. I asked him to to read it and he sent it out.

She began authoring it around 1934, her junior year of high school. It was a line a day. The diary chronicled things like camping, dates, graduating high school, her mother's death, and graduating college. Her mother's death was quite interesting to me. Her mother, Isabel, wasn't a woman I knew much about except she had been ill.

Isabel, Dorothy, and Robert Leisenheimer. Passport photo, note her signature at the bottom.

In early January 1938 my grandmother writes that her mother is going to have an operation to remove a tumor from her brain.  A few days go by and she writes that "mother is now at DeVand's funeral home" and later she counted the exact amount of flowers at the funeral home. I'm not sure if she was really that detached, the diary was limited, or maybe it was a combination of things.

Isabel's Obituary.

But yes. Sadly Grandma Isabel died on the operating table at age 46 or 48 (depending on the source).

The Wheeler & Dealer

Tonight's blog may get a bit long and I apologize in advance for that! There is just a lot to say about Henry John Leisenheimer. Known in my family circles as Grandpa Henry or simply HJ.

HJ was my great-grandfather.

He was born on May 26, 1893 to George Leisenheimer & Katherina Bey in Cleveland, Ohio. Both of his parents were German immigrants from Spiesheim, Germany. As an only child, he was given much love and attention but his true talents were to be found in selling.

Unknown date, early photo of HJ

He began working for what is now known as CLE-TRAC or the Cleveland Tractor Company. He traveled with his brother-in-law Mr. George Mora to sell tractors abroad. And boy could he sell them. CLE-TRAC records list him as being a 20 year employee of the company. 

He managed to amass quite a fortune, although the extent of that is unknown to me, based on my grandmother's college diary. At the height of the depression his son Robert (Bob) & daughter Dorothy graduated. Dorothy was my grandmother and her diary revealed that when she graduated high school she was given a diamond ring and her brother Bob was given a brand new car. HJ paid for both my grandmother and Bob to attend 4 years of college which they both graduated from. They also made many family trips during this period of time.

According to one article he and George travelled to Russia to help sell tractors to promote the  collectivization. Although the article is much too long to post here, it's quite interesting. 

When I began researching my family I was very confused why I found so many entries of HJ entering the US. This is due to his selling abroad. My father has boxes of full passports from the Leisenheimer's and their travels. 

After his wife, Isabel, died he married Grandma Leota. Towards the end of his life he set up a profitable export business in his own name run out of Cleveland and New York. His remarks on selling to industry abroad are held by the library of congress. 

Curiously, his obituary omits the names of his children. This included my grandmother Dorothy and her brother Robert. 

Initially I asked my Aunt to write about HJ as she was about 6 when he passed away but she wasn't able to get me something.

What I can share is that he is a highly regarded man by my family - and many others!

Vroom Vroom!

I apologize for my absence. The past few weeks have been very crazy and you will learn more about all the going's on in May. As I prepare to enter my 29th year and head overseas, hectic is a nice way of putting things.

I'm going to try and put up a new blog each night to play catch up. I'm only 3 behind which is better than I thought!

Grandma Leota is the subject of this come back blog!

My Great-Grandmother Isabel died during brain surgery in January 1938. Isabel was Aunt Sarah's & Uncle Rar's daughter. She had a sister named Hannah who married George Mora. After Isabel died Grandpa Henry remarried Leota Mora. Yes, you read that correctly. The family was doubly related by marriage now; however, neither couple ever had children.

Grandma Leota outlived all of them into the 1980's. She was the grandmother my father and his siblings grew up with since Isabel passed before their time.

Although I don't want to give away too much about the Mora family, I'll wet your appetite with this teaser of more to come on them!