Historical documents from a user's grandfather

November 3, 2006 7:45 PM

Daniel Geduld's grandfather Sol's archives were the subject of a recent post on Boing Boing. Three-digit MeFite grumblebee is Daniel's brother, Sol's grandson, and a childhood acquaintance of yr. humble servant. I felt others might be interested to learn this, and Mr. G. Bee has assented to this post.
posted by mwhybark to MetaFilter-related at 7:45 PM (25 comments total)

Wow. Just...wow.
posted by ColdChef at 7:51 PM on November 3, 2006

son brother of best of the web
posted by scarabic at 8:02 PM on November 3, 2006

Wow.
posted by cortex at 8:09 PM on November 3, 2006

Yes, Wow.
posted by R. Mutt at 8:14 PM on November 3, 2006

That is amazing.
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:15 PM on November 3, 2006

These need to be republished, on paper.
posted by R. Mutt at 8:21 PM on November 3, 2006

Wow.Golly.
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:22 PM on November 3, 2006

My grandfather was an amazing man. When I was a small child, I casually mentioned that I loved popup books. From that day on, I received a popup book every week. He made them himself -- from scratch. He illustrated a fairy tale -- or a story from his own head -- on cardstock, carefully cut out sections with an exacto knife, and glued them back together so that they would stand up when I opened the book. He also drew me comic books and illustrated stories.

My dad told me that during WWII, he built a model airplane from scratch, using odd parts he found around the house. He used licorice for the wires.

His real name was Sally Geduld, but since this sounds like a woman's name in English, he changed it to Sol E. Geduld. As a kid, I was fascinated by the fact that his middle initial didn't stand for anything.
posted by grumblebee at 8:29 PM on November 3, 2006 [4 favorites]

Like Harry S Truman...
posted by growabrain at 8:49 PM on November 3, 2006

wowzers.
posted by mathowie at 8:53 PM on November 3, 2006

this makes the internet worth it. thanks to all involved.
posted by carsonb at 9:11 PM on November 3, 2006

Awesome.
posted by cholly at 9:14 PM on November 3, 2006

That's amazing stuff.
posted by SisterHavana at 10:36 PM on November 3, 2006

Crikey Moses.
posted by jack_mo at 1:02 AM on November 4, 2006

Very cool. The early drawings remind me a bit of the Flywheel periodical published by inmates at Stalag IVB Mühlberg.
posted by maxwelton at 3:41 AM on November 4, 2006

grumblebee, do you still have the pop-up books and the comics he made for you? I would love to see one or two.
posted by iconomy at 8:35 AM on November 4, 2006

They are at my parents' house in Indiana. I will try to get them sometime and scan them (though I'm not sure how I'll be able to scan the popups).
posted by grumblebee at 8:40 AM on November 4, 2006

I add my amazement. Your grandfather was obviously a hell of a guy.
posted by languagehat at 9:02 AM on November 4, 2006

jumping jiminy.
posted by sgt.serenity at 2:53 PM on November 4, 2006

Nifty times a bajillion!
posted by deborah at 4:21 PM on November 4, 2006

You know, reflecting on this, I think it's a concrete example of one of the many ways I personally have benefitted from the turmoil of the twentieth century, as an American from an academic family.

Grumblebee's family was not the only family I had contact with as a child whose parents and extended families had come to university life in the United States with distinctive and original approaches to life, teaching, learning, and parenting. I recall with savor my interactions with at least ten other families whose emigrant backgounds remained fresh but whose familial celebration of cerebration outweighed by far any other of the more usually adopted markers of tribal affiliation.

As a child, it never occurred to me that these distinctive and creative families might be the products of other cultures than that of the US. In hindsight, it's understandable I'd think so, but it equally seems to me that a great deal of the idiosyncratic approaches to life I observed and admired must be recognized as formed in response to and dialog with other cultures. The richness of these responses to life here, and there, has deeply colored my own view of the world and in particular of the importance of emigrants to this nation's life of the mind.
posted by mwhybark at 10:35 PM on November 4, 2006 [1 favorite]

That's a good point, mwhybark. There's something in the meticulousness of my grandfather's work that strikes me as very German. In fact (though he didn't even have a German accent -- he had a British accent), he was -- at heart -- a very German man. To me, he represented the best characteristics of the German national character.

It must have been a very odd and disturbing experience for him (and for many others like him), being a German Jew.

I regret that I never knew him all that well. (Perhaps my brother knew him better.) He was a very quiet man. I knew him best through his drawings and his quiet moments of kindness. His wife, my grandmother, was a very loud woman. She was the prototypical Jewish Mother (and the most amazing cook I've even known). If you've ever seen that Woody Allen movie ("New York Stories") in which his mother appears as a giant head in the sky and shows all of New York his baby pictures ... well, that way my grandmother. She had such a huge personality, that as a kid, she outshone in my mind the quiet man, drawing in the corner.
posted by grumblebee at 7:28 AM on November 5, 2006

There is more information and commentary on this at boing boing, including the WWI POW magazines.
posted by Rumple at 10:43 AM on November 5, 2006

Holy recursiveness. So I found things in the backassward order. Oh well.
posted by Rumple at 10:55 AM on November 5, 2006

Well thankfully younsters in the end, everyone agreed that the posted by person was correct.
posted by econous at 3:48 PM on December 3, 2006