On the Loss of Institutional Knowledge

A few days ago I asked my brother if by any chance anyone had managed to save my late-grandmother's Dill Soup recipe despite the fact I hated that damn soup. The answer (other than bewilderment at me caring) was “not really, Grandma didn't have a standard recipe.“ It sounds like attempts were made but none succeeded.

A few years ago, early in the COVID Pandemic, my maternal grandmother died. She was the last remaining grandparent I had. I don't believe it was due to COVID or the flu, I think it was natural causes.

Around 2017, I started bullet journaling. While I currently don't BuJo; right now I'm a Hobonichi Cousin planner addict, I've come to see the value in charting things. You think this would have occurred to me as soon as I started having ECTs but no, unfortunately, it took a few years. I am not always good at adding in details (I usually refrain from mentioning books because I chart those on BookWyrm and Storygraph). I still like to think I'm helping future historians, whether they're human or alien. I do hope they don't write me down as straight though. That'd really piss me off. These three paragraphs are related, though not through direct causation.

I didn't care much for my maternal grandmother (I believe she is, in no small part, one of the reasons my mother is the way she is), but I still mourned her, despite the lack of positive memories. The closest I get is memories of making rosaries for the church (she always had me cover the knots in a layer of clear nail polish).

While I did grieve her loss, I more grieved the implications. The loss of information. The loss of Institutional Knowledge. It was something I had started caring about by the time I started Bullet Journaling, but unfortunately, by that point she had dementia, and I was told not to bother asking her questions about the past. Regardless, I wish I had asked.

What? What does that have to do with anything, you may ask.

My Paternal side is German, my Maternal side is Czech. I'm pretty sure my Dad's family didn't know German unless they learned it in school; they most definitely didn't celebrate German traditions and I suspect part of that was wanting to keep a low profile during World War II. There's another part I suspect, and I'll get to it in a bit.

On my Mother's side, my Grandmother and Grandfather knew Czech, but deliberately did not teach it to their children. Apparently this was because it made talking behind a child's back right in front of them quite easy. There are no dishes I remember (at least Wikipedia doesn't indicate anything about Dill Soup) from my time with my grandmother that I can find to be traditionally Czech: at least, as far as I know, serving Maruchan ramen noodle bricks doesn't seem to have originated in Europe. I don't believe I've ever had a koláč, let alone enough to turn into the plural kolache.

We have documents from her childhood that we cannot read, we think they're in Czech, we think they're religious, but that's about all we know. Admittedly, we could solve this by taking the time to learn Czech, and I've certainly toyed with the idea. But what about the broken chain of information? There seems to be no way to solve that. I suppose genealogical websites may help to some degree, but I don't want to give my DNA or other family members that haven't consented's information to third parties, just to be told “Hey you're Czech and German!!!” In short, to me, the chain of information is staying broken.

Why would both sides ignore their cultural traditions? To be honest, while I think this could be an essay in and of itself, I don't think I'm the person who can do it justice, regardless, I would feel dishonest if I did not donate at least a little space to it. But in short: I think it was the allure of Becoming White. Why do things that make you stand out as foreign, as an immigrant, when you can assimilate? Admittedly neither side became any flavor of Protestant, but I think both families successfully became white. I don't think I have to belabor the point anymore. I'm certain other, more qualified people have pointed this out more eloquently.

I personally don't think it was worth it, but I'm more an academic type, though perhaps a little lazy. The only reason I didn't minor in History in Undergraduate was that I didn't want to write a thesis. But to be honest: it's mostly my Anthropology degree that makes me feel links to the past.

I can't verify it, but aren't there political events we know even the slightest bit about because they were in Les Misérables? There are so many things we don't know about in particular time periods because society didn't want to talk about them.

Even a planner that lists you successfully did your laundry and went to the local election that day could be a boon (I voted by mail this is a fake example) to the future historians. This is why I keep all my planners and diaries. I will confess I did throw out some notebooks this month, but that's because I'm cleaning and I'm never looking at my Cultural Anthropology notes from ten years ago again. Sorry to future historians, I need the space for comics and manga.

Anyway, sometimes I get in a funk and don't keep up with my planner, but I always go back and fill it in to the best of my ability, because I remember both Future Alien Historians, and the sorrow I felt at my Maternal Grandmother's death.

Nota Bene: Future (Alien) Historians: I am not Straight I am not Cisgender please do not slander me even if our definitions of sexuality and gender change by the time you get this message.

PS From the Future: I happened to mention this topic to my dad a few months after I originally wrote this post (in May of 2023). He mentioned to me a relative (That I'm afraid I don't know) seemed to think we were in fact Irish not German possibly due to some research. Which to me makes it stranger to me because my understanding is that the majority of my Dad's side of the family believed we were German.