![]() I tried to imagine what it must have been like for her to grow there in the 1930s.Ī lot has changed: the family home has since been divided into apartments and a typical stand-alone Buenos Aires neighborhood has filled in around it. We took a trip there to see her old family home in Villa del Parque, a quiet, almost suburban, neighborhood in Buenos Aires. She responded instantly with an address, one apparently embedded in her permanent memory. When we visited Buenos Aires, I emailed Oma to ask about where she grew up. My grandma, the youngest of five, was born there. Years later, the family moved to Buenos Aires so as to provide more educational opportunities for the children. He worked for years as a landscaper and gardener and built a family home only a few blocks away from the hotel. My great-grandmother came over from Switzerland to get married and start a life together in Argentina. With that conversation, he secured himself a position. ![]() It was the sort of place where royalty vacationed for months on end and guests were allotted their own horse and stable. Why Argentina? Family lore says that he couldn’t afford a visa to the United States Argentina was the next best alternative within reach.Īboard the ship, he happened to meet the owner of the Eden Hotel, a luxury retreat for the European elite tucked into the hills outside Cordoba, Argentina in a small town called La Falda. In search of economic opportunity (Switzerland wasn’t always the land of abundance that it is today) for him and his fiancée, he boarded a boat from Europe to Argentina in the early 1900s. My great-grandfather was a gardener born and raised in Switzerland. Like many good stories of family history, this one begins with a man on a boat. Only when he was no longer able to edit did I begin to notice some grammar mistakes creeping into her letters.Īll of this is a long way of saying: Oma grew up in a different culture, somewhere far from the United States. I later found out this was thanks to my grandfather, a journalist and editor. But her letters to me – written in English – were always flawless. After all, this was just how my Oma spoke. I didn’t pay much attention to it when I was growing up. ![]() More than that, she actually knew something about the game. During my soccer games as a kid, she was usually the only grandma in attendance, cheering away on the sidelines. ![]() She was also an avid soccer (football) fan, seeking it out on television whenever she had the chance. This was mate: an Argentine beverage, an Argentine social institution. Whenever I tasted it, I’d wince, and she’d laugh, “ It’s just something you have to grow up with to like.” She really was a little different, in a good way.ĭuring my visits with her in the suburbs of Philadelphia, she would drink this bitter herbal tea out of a hollow gourd using a funny sieve-like metal straw. She wasn’t just the cutest grandma in the world, one that I called Oma. When I was growing up, there were a few things that made my grandma different from other grandmas. Isn't she cute (Oma, that is)?Īuthor’s note: Our visit to Argentina was months ago, so why am I writing about this now? With the holidays coming, I began to reflect on tradition, family and what it means to be “far away.” My Soccer-Loving, Mate-Drinking Grandma This may not sound noteworthy, but the fact that she wrote it in her mother tongue transformed it for me from a simple letter into a welcome to a part of my family I hadn’t known before: the Argentine side.Īudrey and Oma. Q: What’s the proper way to greet family you’ve never met before?Ī: In Argentina: with kisses, warmth - and a heck of a lot of steak.Įarlier this year, with a visit to relatives in Argentina only days away, I received my first email in Spanish from my grandmother.
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