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Madness and Marriage – Sneak Preview

My grandmother's madness seemed to come about suddenly, based on what I read in my mother's diaries. It was clear to me, however, that Grandma K (for Koroschetz) always displayed what today we'd call "anger management" issues. In Redlined, I write about my maternal grandmother's slide into serious mental illness, just a couple months before my parents were to marry. Was it a coincidence that Mom's mother started down the road to paranoia and psychosis just before she lost her only daughter to marriage?

Women’s History Month – Dressmaker Extraordinaire!

Celebrating Women's history month, I'd like to introduce you to an extraordinarily artistic and talented woman: my mother’s mother, Alöisia Koroschetz, née Woschkeruscha (VAUSH-ker-UZH-uh). (She was nicknamed Luisa in Austria, Louise, in America. My mom and I both share the same middle name, after my maternal grandmother).

Chicago’s 1967 snowstorm and 12 black men

My dad and my two brothers, ages nineteen and thirteen, started shoveling out our car that had been mired for two days in snow after the city's greatest twenty-four hour snowfall had brought Chicago to a standstill. They were down near thirty-third and Wentworth, close to IIT (Illinois Institute of Technology) where my older brother, Paul attended, but commuted from our home on Keeler near Montrose. As they dug in their shovels around each of the tires, tossing snow over their shoulders, a group of twelve African American men moved toward them with determined strides.

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