A Childhood Shaped By Fire

Laura Tasse 0:00

Their house burnt down and they lived in tents on the common. So her older siblings were teenagers. Can you imagine living in a tent? All in one big tent, no possessions. I do have some old photos that somehow made it. Um I don't know if they grabbed them or what, but I do have some precious old photos, but yeah, they lived in tents. I've been there and walked around and thought, oh how.

Crista Cowan 0:31

Stories that live in us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. Coming down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America. Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us. So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea the stories that live in us.

Why Salem’s Other History Matters

Crista Cowan 1:10

There are some places that are so iconic that when you say the word, immediate images are conjured up. Places like Washington, DC, or California, or Salem, Massachusetts. I grew up in California, and of course that meant I had to study California state history. And it's interesting because California was a very different place before the gold rush. That was just this one moment in time that changed the entire face of that place. Well, Salem, Massachusetts is similar, and not probably for the reasons you are thinking. I think a lot of us associate Salem, of course, with the witch trials from the 1600s. But what you may not know about Salem is that it had an entire thriving industrial business sector of the town. And one moment changed that. My guest today is Laura Tasse, and her family lived in Salem. And not only did they live through that moment, but their family was a catalyst for that moment. And how it changed the face of that community is really fascinating. Enjoy my conversation with Laura Tasse.

Grandma Gertie Sparks A Lifelong Passion

Crista Cowan 2:33

Well, Laura, thank you so much for being here. I'm so excited to get to know you better. Tell me a little bit about your journey into family history.

Laura Tasse 2:41

It started with my beloved grandmother. Um, when I was a kid, she would drag out the family photos and talk family history incessantly. Um I ate it up. I loved every minute of it. But my father, when he took me there, would just roll his eyes and um, but it it was her true love, and it at a young age became my true love.

Crista Cowan 3:08

And how do you think she got involved in it, or do you know?

Laura Tasse 3:11

So her she was the first born American citizen. Her parents were immigrants, and they both left families behind. And my understanding is neither of them ever saw their parents again. Her mother maybe never saw siblings, her father had half siblings that made their way here. Um, so I think it was extra important to her as a first-generation American to recount the struggles of getting here.

Crista Cowan 3:50

Yeah, absolutely. And so, and it's so interesting to me because I think some immigrants just want to leave it behind and never talk about it. So the fact that she was so willing to talk about it, I love that, and that she shared those stories with you. Was there like some story from your childhood that you remember hearing that you remember realizing, oh, like her stories are really good? She's a good storyteller.

Laura Tasse 4:14

All of them. And I still chuckle. Um, her her mother was from Poland, but she ended up in England, her mom, and had her first three children there. And when she came to America, the story is that she had this English accent the rest of her life, um, which she obviously really didn't have since she was from Poland. But uh her stories were all interesting, and some were heartbreaking and some were so funny, like the English accent from the Polish lady. Um, so it just she was just such a joy, my my grandmother. And my my cousins, my first cousins that share that grandmother, feel the same way about her.

Crista Cowan 4:59

Oh, I love that. So tell me a little bit about first of all. Tell me what your grandmother's name is.

Laura Tasse 5:03

Her name was Gertrude Ruth Israel, and then she married Grunfault. Okay, and what did you call her? Grandma Gertie. Oh, cute. Yes, and she was so cute, all of five feet, and she dyed her hair well into her late 80s, early 90s. Um, and then said, I think I'm getting some wrinkles.

Crista Cowan 5:29

Oh, that's amazing. And so where do you fall? Like among her grandchildren, how many were there, and what number are you?

Laura Tasse 5:36

Um she had three from her daughter and one from her son. I'm from her son. She had her son much later in life. She was 40. So I'm the youngest of the grandkids. And then of of my cousins, there were only two. The uh one passed when we were young, she was 20. Um, so there were three of us. I just saw them this weekend. So we're still yeah. I love that.

Crista Cowan 6:07

Yes, me too. And do you think, do you think because you were the youngest and the daughter of her son, that maybe she shared more with you than the others, or was she an equal storyteller grandma?

Laura Tasse 6:20

Equal storyteller and her daughter, so my cousin's mother was the apple of her eye, um, the one that she adored. My father was, you know, she had him later in life. She was tired out by then, and so he was not as special as my auntie, who was my favorite auntie and her only but favorite daughter.

Crista Cowan 6:44

So and how far, how far away did you live from her? Did you get to see her often, or was it a special treat?

Laura Tasse 6:50

It was a special treat. She lived always more in the Boston area, and we were out in Springfield and then in the middle of uh Massachusetts. So uh, but my grandfather, my father, I mean, would always take me out to see her as often as he could.

Crista Cowan 7:07

Yeah. I love that. And you said he wasn't that interested, really.

Laura Tasse 7:12

He was. He I mean, he was, but he wasn't like he was just so busy with life, you know. And and aren't we all? Yeah. Um, but it's truly my my passion and my, you know, I just it's it calms me, it's interesting to me, and I just feel so honored and blessed with life after I remember what the ancestors went through.

Crista Cowan 7:38

Absolutely, yeah. So as you think about stories your grandma told, um, growing up hearing stories, like I think sometimes we we think at least I did, I just kind of thought as a kid that everybody's life experience was the same as the life experiences of me and my family and what the stories that my grandmas shared. Like, like was that kind of your experience too? Or was there ever a moment where you were like, oh, this is really unique or really special?

Laura Tasse 8:02

Yeah, I you're right. I agree. I really actually never gave it a lot of thought until, you know, I was kind of, I think in my teen years. And by then it was starting to sink in because almost every time, like I said, drag out the photo albums, start telling me the last names of her parents. And they were such different last names. Like you can hardly pronounce them last names. Um, that made me realize, oh, this is a little bit different of a story than a lot of my friends who might be Smiths or Johnson.

Crista Cowan 8:36

Yeah, living in Massachusetts, you've got you've probably a lot of, you know, associates and friends and schoolmates who have very deep colonial roots, and you're coming from a very different historical background.

Laura Tasse 8:49

Yeah, really Eastern European on my dad's side, and uh, you know, didn't end up here until the early 1900s

From Russia To England To Salem

Laura Tasse 8:58

for sure.

Crista Cowan 8:58

Yeah. So tell us that story. Like, what is the story of how your grandmother's family ended up in Massachusetts?

Laura Tasse 9:06

Um her her father was born in Berdeshev, Russia, and had to leave at the age of 13. Um, and my understanding of the story is that his parents packed him up with his family Bible um and sent him away with a group of other 13-year-old boys to keep them safe from the Russians. And he ended up in South Africa. Um, and he this poor guy. This is what I'm saying, like his struggles. I feel so blessed. He ended up in South Africa and ended up leaving South Africa when the Boer War broke out. And I don't know if I'm even saying that word right. Yeah. Um, okay, so then he ends up in England. By now, he's, you know, almost an adult, and he somehow meets my grandmother, my great-grandmother, um, who was from Poland. They get married in England, have three kids in England, uh, and then he decides that the rainy weather in England is really rough on his rheumatism. So that's what made him want to come to America. And what year was that? He started coming over, he left Jesse, his wife, and the three kids in England and kept coming back and forth in like 1899 through 1902, just establishing work, a place to live. And then he went over and brought Jesse and the three kids over here. Uh, and then he was naturalized in 1905.

Crista Cowan 10:49

Okay, and so your grandmother, was she born in England or was she born in Massachusetts?

Laura Tasse 10:54

She was born here. So her older siblings were born in England. Um, and then she was born here, and then there were a couple more that died. One, another one that was born here, and then two more after her, um, three of whom didn't survive. Uh one made it to 17, but the other two were before a year old, they were passed on.

Crista Cowan 11:21

Yeah. And what did your great-grandfather do for work?

Laura Tasse 11:24

So he was a leather, he was in the leather business. So he ended up in Salem because they had a shoe factory, a leather factory there. Uh, and he started from the very bottom working, you know, there. And uh uh my understanding from looking at it through Ancestry and through newspapers.com is that it changed names quite a few times, the factory, um, but he stayed working in the factory and just slowly, you know, built a name and and built to the point where he finally owned it, uh, owned shares in it. He owned it with a couple other guys, gentlemen, uh, which I didn't find out. I mean, my my grandmother always told me, oh, he owned the shoe set factory in Salem. That's how we ended up there. But I never had any proof until I found a couple of blurbs on newspaper.com that showed him as owner with a couple other gentlemen.

Crista Cowan 12:24

So all her stories were true, which sometimes turns out to be the case, right?

Laura Tasse 12:31

Yes, yes, not exaggerations, true.

Crista Cowan 12:35

Yeah. Now it's so interesting because I've been to Salem a few times, and of course, like they very much play up the, you know, the historic Salem and the, you know, the things that happened there in the 160 and 1700s, and and it's very much a historical town, but you've got this new immigrant family in the early 1900s settling there. Were there other immigrant families settling in Salem at the time, or were they kind of an anomaly?

Laura Tasse 13:00

No, and my understanding is that Isaac, um, my great-grandfather from Russia, when he came over, his wife's brother was still over um moving from Poland to England, and he helped him come to Salem. And um, he, the brother-in-law, lived uh and owned a dry goods store on the corner of Front Street and another street. Um, so there were a number of immigrants, not just them. There was a a group of them. Uh, and in fact, his brother-in-law ended up with 10 children. So that family alone populated sea along.

Crista Cowan 13:41

Sounds like it.

Laura Tasse 13:42

Yes, and I'm still friendly with some of their descendants, um, my cousins. So it's really been quite fun the journey.

Crista Cowan 13:51

Yeah, sounds like it. And and it sounds like your your grandmother grew up with a lot of family around, even though, right, this immigrant family, that's a kind of a rare thing to have that much family around, right?

Laura Tasse 14:02

Right, right. She had her uncle David and her older siblings, and her mother and father, and uh her own siblings, and and yeah, they had 10 children, so these would have been her cousins. So she didn't talk about them that much. Um, but I I knew of them, and they were all buried in the same cemetery. Um, so they must have been close because they're buried together.

Crista Cowan 14:26

You know, well, there is kind of a big thing that happens in Salem in those early years after your family immigrated. What year was your grandmother born?

Laura Tasse 14:38

1904. Okay.

Crista Cowan 14:41

Yes. So they come in 02, she's born in 04, he's working his way up in this business, eventually owning part of it. And then in the summer of 1914, there's some things that are happening in Salem. Tell us about that.

The 1914 Salem Fire And Tent City

Laura Tasse 14:55

Yes. So the leather factory, the shoe store or shoe factory, my understanding is lit on fire. And those were the days when everything was wooden. And my understanding, I don't know exactly where they lived, but they lived close enough for him to go to work every day. And their house burnt down. And my grandmother used to tell me about that. And that's my biggest regret is that when she told me all these things, she told me, I was too young to really think, oh, I should ask her this, that, and the other thing. And I didn't ask enough questions, but the whole town, uh you know, all a good portion of the town burnt to the ground.

Crista Cowan 15:40

But the fire started in the leather factory.

Laura Tasse 15:43

Yes, that's my understanding. Oh my goodness.

Crista Cowan 15:46

Yeah, and your grandma was 10 at the time, nine, 10 years old. So she remembers this.

Laura Tasse 15:52

Yes. And was this a story she told you? All the time. My my cousins, I was just asking them, do you remember in in my my female cousin vaguely remembers her talking about it? My male cousin he doesn't remember, but I vividly remember her telling me how the in during the Salem Fire, their house burnt down and they lived in tents on the common. So her older siblings were teenagers. Um, some of them girls. And can you imagine living in a tent, all in one big tent, no possessions? Uh I do have some old photos that somehow made it. Um, I don't know if they grabbed them or what, but or how they got them, but I do have some precious old photos. But yeah, they lived in tents on the Salem Common. And I've I've been there and walked around and thought, oh how?

Crista Cowan 16:51

How and you said like the like a large portion of the community was affected. And so was that just kind of a tent city that they set up? Like, was a lot of the community living there?

Laura Tasse 17:01

Yes, a big, uh, a whole lot of it. My and I was just checking with another cousin, the one of the descendants of the ones that had 10 children. Um, she doesn't really remember her father. He owned the dry goods store on the corner of Front Street. She doesn't remember him being affected or talking about the fire at all. But what it what made it really real for me, um, years later, again from newspapers.com, I had I found an article that a cousin of mine wrote to the local newspaper when her father died. Her father would have been my grandma's big brother, who definitely lived in this tent because the house burnt down. It was Grandma Gertie's big brother. Um, and uh in that letter to the editor, she he had just passed on and she was kind of writing the story of his life. And and she she talks about how he used to tell all the grandchildren about you know how difficult it was their house burnt down. They lived in a tent for a good long time, along with a good portion of the local community while everyone rebuilt.

Crista Cowan 18:17

It's interesting because I think when a lot of people think about Salem, of course, like the witch trials come to mind. That's kind of the famous thing. The times that I've been to Salem have both been during the Halloween season. Oh, and which is delightful and fun, and it's a really important part of history. But this seems like such a big deal. Like this fire, like Salem is not that big of a village. I I think at the time, like we've looked we've looked a little a few things up, right? So I think at the time there were only like less than 50,000 people in the community, and this fire was not small, like more than 20,000 people were displaced, more than 10,000 people lost their jobs. And so it's not like it affected your family, and it's so personal, but it's affecting the whole community. And like, how does a community like you think about how community rallies when so many of them are suffering? And you know, did help come from outside the community? Like, I'm so curious to know more about that.

Laura Tasse 19:17

And like you said, like sometimes we wish we had asked those questions, but if if I just had one more day, you know, I'd have this huge list, it would take all day to get through. But clearly it was a primary uh action that affected their lives because she and her older brother talked about it to us, their grandchildren, forever and ever. The only they just didn't tell us a lot about it. But yeah, they lived in a tent, a hot, sweaty tent, all together. I'm guessing just all of them in that little tent with nothing. And yeah, fine in the summer, but Sam gets really cold and snowy in the winter. So I'm guessing by then they had makeshift dwellings uh to live in, and and the whole communities around had to have helped, had to, because these people were homeless.

Crista Cowan 20:12

And you also wonder like how many of the families decided that they couldn't go on living there. And so your family chose to rebuild and to stay, right?

Laura Tasse 20:23

They did, and they can he continued, they rebuilt and worked at the factory and continued raising the kids there. Um they stayed until he died. He died in Salem, the my great-grandfather from Russia. So his dying day, he was there, and then they moved their mom with she lived with my grandmother for the rest of her days, and she went where my grandmother went, you know. As my grandmother got married and moved around Massachusetts, she came along.

Crista Cowan 20:55

Okay. So, so do you were there ever any repercussions or any like investigation into the fire? Like, it started in your great-grandfather's shop, and like, do we know what caused it?

Laura Tasse 21:08

Do we know, like I presume it was all those different chemicals that they used to make leathers, use to make shoes.

Crista Cowan 21:16

Well, and you think about the kinds of career, the kinds of jobs like that that people had to do that really were very dangerous because of the conditions, because of the chemicals they were working with, because of the you know, lack of safety precautions that we have now in our working shipments.

Laura Tasse 21:32

Yeah, right. No such thing as OSHA. And how they got out of the fire and survived it even. I've I've never heard that story. They never she never talked about that particular part of it, but yeah, in the middle of a work day, right?

Crista Cowan 21:46

Like it's not it wasn't the middle of the night when nobody was there.

Laura Tasse 21:50

Right. So they were all in there, all working.

Heirlooms That Carry A Journey

Laura Tasse 21:52

And uh, but no stories about the survival or anything.

Crista Cowan 21:56

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Um, well So your grandmother grew up like having lived through this traumatic event, and it sounds like it did not put her damper on, you know, sharing those family stories with you and passing along some of the things that she inherited, I suspect, not just the stories, but maybe some of the photos and the heirlooms as well. All of them. To you.

Laura Tasse 22:24

All to me. So she the uh photo albums that she would drag out year after year, day after day, uh came to me from her. And then one day after she was long passed on, and my my favorite aunt, her favorite daughter, my only aunt, but um, she came out to my house here in Sturbridge and just very unceremoniously plopped a box on the counter and didn't say much. Um and, you know, she gave me, she was really good to me, no doubt about it. And I really did, I had no idea what was in the box. The only thing that made me think there's something special in here was that there was a piece of tissue paper covering it all, and she started to kind of unveil it. And in there was my great-grandfather from Russia, his Bible that he carried from Russia to South America, back to England, over to America. And then my aunt, my favorite and only aunt, carried it on her wedding day down the aisle, and now it is my treasure. And then when she passed away, when Auntie passed away, um, my cousins, who I saw last weekend, this is probably a year, a couple years ago, um, my cousins gave me her very first wedding ring. Um, it's not, you know, super like expensive. It's it's really about I don't want to choke up. It's really about Auntie and how special she was. She really was a special lady.

Crista Cowan 24:02

Sorry. No, it's all good. I think those family connections are so important. It's important that we remember them. It's important that we talk about them and honor them. And so I love that you've had that relationship with her and that she recognized enough about the relationship that you had with your grandmother and with the past that she gifted you those treasures instead of, you know, maybe passing them on to one of her own children.

Laura Tasse 24:28

Yeah. And, you know, I I quizzed her on that, you know, Auntie, why aren't you giving them to the kids? And she just said, I know that you'll cherish them and hand them down. And and and she's right. I mean, I pull them out now, and and uh my grandkids all get to see the photos and and I give my daughter pop quizzes. I'll I'll just send her a random picture and say, Pop quiz, who is this?

Crista Cowan 24:56

Well, that's one way to pass on the stories.

Laura Tasse 24:58

Yeah, or my daughter, she's so good about it. She'll she'll you know quickly write back, oh, piece of cake, I know who just who that is, and she'll answer the question. And and uh so you know, and they know that these pictures will be the theirs. And if there were ever a fire, those are the first things you take. Although I'm I'm working on digitizing.

Crista Cowan 25:18

Good. So tell me a little bit about how many grandkids you have and how their ages.

Laura Tasse 25:25

So I have just one daughter. Um, I only had one child, and uh she has one stepdaughter who is just a peach, and then she has four biological. So altogether there are five of them. And what are the age ranges? Oh my goodness. The oldest um stepdaughter is 12, and then they're um eight, four, thirteen months, uh I'm sorry, 17 months and four months, and a couple of them were IVF, they they were having trouble getting pregnant, and um, all of them except one are girls.

Crista Cowan 26:08

So you've got us kind of like prime ages to be the storytelling grandma for them. And isn't that kind of the role you want to take on?

Laura Tasse 26:18

I love it, and I've already taken it on. Um, my my cousin likes to say I corrupt them with my ancestry, but you know, he loves it just as much as the kids do. You know, he no joke, all joking aside, he's as interested as they are. And and it's just so important. Like I tell them, you know, you have life so easy, so good. You get up and you you see your parents. Some people never saw their parents again and uh, you know, went to the graves not knowing. Those were the days it wasn't a telephone or a computer to call and check on them. Imagine

Passing Stories To The Next Generation

Laura Tasse 26:55

just leaving your parents behind in a foreign country. I can't.

Crista Cowan 26:58

Yeah. Well, or imagine being a parent having to send your child away at 13 years old to the other end of the earth.

Laura Tasse 27:06

Can't imagine.

Crista Cowan 27:07

Yeah. Well, it sounds like Isaac was a brave man, or at least had to be because of his circumstances and the fact that he was able to go from Russia to South Africa to England to Massachusetts and then to survive that fire and raise that family and continue to invest in that community even after that tragedy. He sounds like a remarkable, a remarkable man.

Laura Tasse 27:29

And he I believe he truly, truly was, and he's left such a mark because he survived, you know, Russia, which was not a friendly place, and all these different continents he tried out and tried living on. And his descendants range from doctors and lawyers and librarians. We even have a NASA scientist in the group. And I think that his struggles, he would be just so delighted to know that we've not only survived thanks to him, but thrived thanks to him. And thanks to Grandma Gertie for passing on the pictures and the stories and and the family Bible from, you know, she handed it down to Auntie and to me. Just is such a rich history, you know. I could go on and on.

Crista Cowan 28:20

Well, I love that you could. As you think about, right, like all the places he went and the fact that Massachusetts is the soil he finally was able to plant his life and his family in. Um, you've clearly stayed in Massachusetts, and it is part of you and your family story going forward. What does it mean to you to be from Massachusetts?

Laura Tasse 28:42

You know, it's it's the people from New England and Massachusetts are full of grit, um, full of them and vigor. And and I mean, I think that they've passed on that grit. We've all had our share of struggles, and yet we continue to survive, you know, lots of sadness and death, and you know, the things that everybody does go through, but some people it's crushing, and some people take that crushing and try to move on in a positive manner. And I think that's what we, my whole family gets from it. We're all pretty strong, hearty, um, and thankful and and more positive. Our our cup is half full rather than half empty, looking at the how thankful we are that he made that journey and that he survived everything, including a uh a fire and living in a tent with all his children and his wife, for us to have the somewhat easy life we have.

Crista Cowan 29:48

It makes you wonder what gratitude and joy they found, maybe in the middle of that tent city, right?

Laura Tasse 29:54

Yeah, just having each other, just having survived it, I'm I'm guessing, was really special. And certainly I know my grandmother and her big brother, who always talked about it well into old age. And they were two of the three kids that made it um to the age of 90 and beyond. A lot of them, like I said, died either at birth or or before um the age of 20. So they lived good long lives and had a lot of time to reflect on how blessed they were to have survived and and uh thrived.

Crista Cowan 30:29

Well, love that. And I love that Massachusetts is the place that you kind of connect to that story, absolutely.

Laura Tasse 30:37

It is truly home, and and I've only been to Salem once or twice, um, of course, to the cemeteries. I I dragged my daughter and the grandkids and my husband um to the cemeteries and and to a place where Isaac and his wife Jessie lived. Uh, and it's just so humbling to walk in their footsteps and think of what they suffered through and and how they made it. It's a miracle. It really is.

Grit, Gratitude, And Closing Thanks

Crista Cowan 31:09

Well, Laura, thank you so much for sharing Grandma Gertie and great grandpa Isaac with us. It's such a remarkable story of connection and the stories that you're passing on to the next generation and the lessons that you've learned from them. I so appreciate it.

Laura Tasse 31:24

Well, thank you. I'm honored to be part of one of the stories and to share their struggles and survivals and and their gratefulness to for all of us to be on this planet. Very blessed. So thank you. Studio sponsored by Ancestry.