Kathy Abromeit

Partial Transcript: My name’s Kathy Abromeit and I live in Oberlin, Ohio.

Segment Synopsis: Ian MacMillen and student Jacquelynn Gaines and Kathy Abromeit introduce themselves and establish informed consent for the interview.

Subjects: Mysterious Deaths; Orphanages; Romanies--History; Slang

Partial Transcript: "So, growing up, my grandmother, uh, her first husband died, and I'm not really sure why"

Segment Synopsis: Kathy relays her earliest conceptions of her family's Abromeit surname, and how her grandmother had a complicated relationship to her absent grandfather, whom her grandmother referred to as a "goat." Kathy grew up understanding she was German, and this conception of her family history stayed with her through college and graduate school. Kathy, a first generation student, attended graduate school for musicology in Library science.

Keywords: first generation student, family lineage, family history,

Subjects: Ethnic identity; Genealogy & local history; Reference Librarians; Romani language; Romanies--History; Shamanism

Partial Transcript: He said, “ooh, Gypsy woman, Gypsy woman.” And I said, “What? What is that” and he said, “Oh, Abromeit, that’s a Gypsy name.”

Segment Synopsis: A German history professor at Oberlin College suggests to Kathy Abromeit that her surname has Roma ("Gypsy") origins. The professor referred Kathy to the novels of Siegfried Lenz in which Roma characters with the name Abromeit are featured. Kathy came to understand that Roma in Germany had adopted "Abromeit" as a clan name.

Subjects: Genealogy & local history; Librarians; Romani language; Romanies--History

Partial Transcript: “I had two choices. I was an unskilled woman with 5 children, and I could either become a prostitute or I could become a bootlegger."

Segment Synopsis: Kathy describes her grandmother's efforts to support her five children and make a living after the departure of her second husband, Friedrich Abromeit. As an unskilled woman in 1925 during Prohibition, her employment options were limited. She turned to bootlegging corn whiskey which she referred to as "distributing," and this served as her sole source of income. Kathy relates several humorous anecdotes about her grandmother's efforts to evade the police.

Keywords: bootlegging, alcohol, Prohibition

Subjects: Alcohol Trafficking; Bootlegging; Contraband Trade; Police; Prohibition

Partial Transcript: "She was a widow with three children; she was tainted goods. The Roma guy was the best she could do."

Segment Synopsis: Kathy's grandmother hid most of the details of her second marriage from her children and grandchildren and, in this segment, Kathy speculates as to why her grandmother carried so much shame about having married a Roma man. She believes that her grandmother feels she married beneath herself and was ashamed because her husband left her to father additional children elsewhere.

Keywords: Roma, Romani, stereotyping, shame, marriage, abandonment

Subjects: Child Rearing; Shame; Widows

Partial Transcript: "In the 1930 census, he's in southwest Oregon and it says in here that his parents are from Germany and that he's naturalized and that he's a miner..."

Segment Synopsis: Kathy describes documents she found using Ancestry.com which trace her Roma grandfather's path after leaving her grandmother until his death. Friedrich Abromeit travels around various areas of the northwest part of the United States including Oregon and Northern California. In each documented stop, the name indicated on his documents shifts slightly (Fred, Ferd, Freidrich, Fred "Rogue River," Frederick). Kathy presumes that these name changes were out of necessity, possibly to run from the law.

Keywords: family history, lineage, genealogy

Subjects: Oregon. State Mining Board; Tax Evasion; Taxation -- Evasion

Partial Transcript: "We have one daughter who studied with Ian in a Gypsy music class, Romani music class, and then our second daughter is a senior here this year at Oberlin and she's an Econ. major, and so she really wanted to study last spring at the Warsaw School of Economics."

Segment Synopsis: Kathy describes a family trip to Poland that she takes with her husband, John, who is Jewish, and her daughters to look for the history of their families in Europe. John's uncle Albert Sabin invented the polio vaccine and upon their visit, local Bialystok residents asked if they could interview their family due to their famous roots. The interview seems to go well until John mentions his wife's Romani background. The Polish interviewers got silent, not wanting to continue discussing the possible ties to that heritage.

Keywords: Roma, Romani, Judaism, Poland, medicine, polio, vaccine, stigmatism, stereotyping

Subjects: Economic Theory; Jews -- religion; Musicians, Romani; Oberlin College; Romanies--Hungary--Music

Partial Transcript: "You mentioned the food that was really similar, can you talk about that a little bit, what kinds of food you…?"

Segment Synopsis: Kathy describes food she remembers her grandmother making as she was growing up including "ruble soup," "nanny cake," and baked goods as well as vegetables in her garden and her skill at distilling and wine making.

Keywords: food, traditions, Russian food, eastern European

Subjects: Cooking, Hungarian; Family Vegetable Garden Series; Foods; Rectification of Spirits

Partial Transcript: "...she prayed the rosary multiple times a day..."

Segment Synopsis: Kathy describes her grandmother's frugal habits, including smoking her cigarettes down to the very end, freezing and canning food, and cutting coupons. She also discusses her grandmother's view of religion, which included both praying the rosary daily, but also praying for and to her ancestors.

Keywords: religion, Catholicism, ancestors, frugality, religious traditions, saving, poverty

Subjects: Catholic Church--Customs and Practices; Ethnic identity; Identification (Religion); Romanies--Social life and customs; family, religion, and culture

Partial Transcript: "How long had her family been in Idaho, that part of the country?"

Segment Synopsis: The Abromeit family traced their history back to Idaho, where the grandmother moved in 1935 and met a Roma man.

Keywords: Idaho; Minnesota; Roma

Subjects: Genealogy; Romanies -- United States -- Social life and customs; family, religion, and culture; migration, internal--United States

Partial Transcript: "So you said your grandmother was born in 1888 and then Fred or Friedrich or whatever his name was arrived in 1890, right?"

Segment Synopsis: Grandma Abromeit felt shame for marrying a Roma man. This affected her self care, which is documented in family photographs.

Keywords: Relationships; Roma; Self-care; Shame

Subjects: Ethnic groups; Romanies -- United States -- Social life and customs; family Origins; family, religion, and culture

Partial Transcript: "Do you have any desire to recreate any of that Romani custom in your life or, you know, try to, to get back to that at all? I mean, you say you feel it in your gut, and I want to know how that manifests in your life."

Segment Synopsis: Kathy states that she sees the Romani custom in her life within her spiritual practices.

Keywords: Customs; Romani; Shamanism; Spirituality

Subjects: Catholic Church--Customs and Practices; Family, religion, and culture; Identification (Religion); Romanies -- United States -- Social life and customs

Partial Transcript: "That tension between, you know, the possibility of DNA or genetic evidence, um, and one way of kind of thinking about identity as traced back to… through certain genetic lines and to certain parts of the world from which people had moved—so, Roma from northwest India, or what is today northwest India—versus on the other hand, you know, thinking about traveler and this kind of idea about lifestyle, um… I, I feel like in today’s society in America those, those terms are very confusing for a lot of people…"

Segment Synopsis: Kathy discusses the stigma surrounding the words "Gypsy" and "Roma." She states that she does not feel that she has enough knowledge to say what the politically correct term is, but does feel offended when some words are used in certain contexts (i.e. "I've been gypped).

Keywords: Genetic Testing; Gypsy; Identity; Roma

Subjects: Ethnic identity; Genealogy; Romanies -- United States -- Social life and customs; Romanies--History

Partial Transcript: "I’m, I do, I would like for my kids to have a better sense of this, um…. And I know when I was, my daughter Brooke called me after class today and I told her, “Oh, yeah, you’re not going to believe it, you know, your great-grandfather, Fred Rogue River Abromeit…” and she’s like, “Oh, please save all this,” um…. You know we really need, we need to put it  together."

Segment Synopsis: Kathy discusses how different generations approach their national identities. She says that her siblings are unwilling to discuss any other possible alternatives while her children are much more open to the idea.

Keywords: Identity; Roma; Travel

Subjects: Ethnic identity; Genealogy; Romanies -- United States -- Social life and customs; conflict of generations

Partial Transcript: "You know, it's funny, as they talk about, like, epigenetics and history, they’re like, “Man, this really suck, you know, a Jewish father and a Roma mom, you know, what—we are destined to have all kinds of issues,” you know, and... Like, well, a Gypsy and a Jew, right? Um… yeah. You know, so they’re, they’re much more willing to look at it."

Segment Synopsis: Jacquelynn and Kathy discuss how the possibility of not being what you had thought you were your entire life (i.e. German) might discourage people from getting the genetic testing done to determine ancestry.

Keywords: Genetics; Identity

Subjects: Cultural appropriation; Ethnic identity; Genealogy; Impostors and imposture -- United States; Romanies -- United States -- Social life and customs

Partial Transcript: "We really appreciate your sharing with us."

Segment Synopsis: Jacquelynn, Ian, and Kathy say goodbye and thank each other for their participation.