A Vast and Panoramic Legacy
(Writer's note: fifth in a series)
"Nothing is hidden that won't be exposed. Nor is anything concealed that won't be made known and brought to the light."
Luke 8:17 (CEB)
Etna was a small turn of the century Steel Mill Town across the river from Pittsburgh. It contained a sizable and proud German population in which Grand Pa Martin Metzger was a town elder, an alderman type leader in the community. When he and his wife Catherine learned that unwed daughter Henrietta had become pregnant, the pressures of their standing in the community led them to conceal the fact. You see, they found themselves in a off-kilter culture that would despicably label a child of an unwed mother "illegitimate". So Martin and Catherine did what they had to and created a story line that it was Catherine who was in a bedridden pregnancy and Henrietta who would stay at home to attend to her. The child who would be born behind this veil of secrecy was our Mom Jeanne.
Small Street of Secrets
The first time I remember my mother breaking down in sobs was the day she told me of how she learned the truth. She had spent her first ten or so years viewing Martin and Catherine as her parents and her mom Henrietta, aunts Betty and Tirzah as her sisters. The one lesson my mother preached and taught to me was: "Tell the truth!" She first heard the truth from some mean spirited kids on the play ground.
Precious Jeanne
Here is the truth I have discerned as a result of this past week's travels with my brother. The cruel depression era vestiges of the small blue collar town that is Etna, Pa. remain today like in a time warp, The miracle is that Jeanne strove to escape the confines of that little town and put herself into position to meet a man: Harold B Bosworth. A man who would love her away from the past that society would shame her and the family for. Oh how far her odyssey took her away from her beginnings. The distance between that small town Pennsylvania playground and the places where her grand children and great grandchildren play is a vast an panoramic legacy!
The Metzger/Bosworth Clan
Post Script: My first introduction to the Broadway musical genre was as a pre-teen. West Side Story blew me away, still does. The following pictures: the first (album soundtrack autographed to me by Mr. Bernstein) of which hangs in my home and second (hangs in Hal's home) with Leonard Bernstein himself, show glimpses of the distance Mom put in her life from where it all began.
"Every Good Wish to Brad Bosworth"
Leonard Bernstein
Jeanne, Harold, Leonard Bernstein
Amen Mom and Dad
Bradford Bosworth
June, 2017
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