As you walk through the double-doors of my grandmother’s southern colonial house, the first thing that catches your eye is a framed canvas of a famous oil painting: John Constable’s The Hay Wain. Arriving with nothing and unable to practice his pre World War II European engineering degree in Canada, my Silesian great-grandfather reinvented his passions to fit his new life in North America. At the age of sixty, he taught himself how to paint, then he taught himself one of the harder mediums: oil painting. He began creating original still life paintings of flowers as well as replicas of famous landscapes. He completed exact copies of the Constable painting for each of his seven surviving children. Whenever his children gaze upon his work, it harkens back fond  memories of him and his success story: how he was able to reinvent himself after losing everything in midlife. One day, these paintings will be passed on to my brother and I. We will tell them the significance of these paintings and our strong ancestors who started over on this continent with nothing.

– Apollo Papp

Relationship:  Grandchild of im/migrant Grandchild of im/migrant