While searching through old photos to scan for family friends who recently lost their matriarch (more about her later), I came across a 1920 image of Eliette Adonicam, who was the cook in my grandparents' home in Puerto Rico. She and her son Pablo were listed in the 1930 census below my grandfather's name. (As head-of-household, all other residents including my mother, 18 at the time, as well as employees living in their home, were indexed under his name.) At that time she was noted to be 58 years years old, thus 48 at the time this photo was taken. Her country of origin was Guadeloupe, and her language was French. The census explicitly notes that she did not speak inglés. Given that my American grandmother, who would have been her boss, spoke neither Spanish nor French, communications must have been very creative. My mother shared many memories of Eliette, and took me to meet her in 1965. I would guess maybe my grandfather was the photographer in 1920; I was the portraitist in 1965. If the census is correct, Eliette would have been about 93 years old in the latter photograph. I'm unable to establish when she died (neither she nor her son show up in the Social Security death index; they probably never registered for cards), but I like to speculate on what her life was like in Guadaloupe and after she came to Puerto Rico. Because her son was with her - I met him at some point as well, but don't recall exactly when - and there were no stories of a husband, one theory is that she emigrated from Guadaloupe, a nearly completely Catholic country, when she found she was expecting a fatherless child. She could easily have found cover as a "widow" on an island geographically and culturally distant from her own. Or perhaps she was a widow, or a married woman otherwise unable to escape an oppressive husband through divorce, or married and in need of gainful employment that she couldn't find on her home island. She was, in any case, a strong personality, and an upright personage of considerable dignity, which shines through in the images of her.
I don't know if Pablo Adonicam, now himself deceased, had children, and so I wonder, who else on this living earth will remember Eliette?
Beautiful photos. Family history is so interesting - I often wish that I had asked more questions of the older members before they passed on!
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately those questions seem to come more readily when you are older and its too late.
You're not kidding! My mother died a little over two years ago, her memory intact. I wish I had thought to ask her to tell me everything she knew about Eliette. What I find most haunting about Eliette is that there may not be many - or any - people left who will remember her. She must have worked for other families after my grandparents left Puerto Rico in the late 1940's. Maybe when the 1940 US census is made public and on-line (in 2012) I will be able to find out more. Puerto Rico is a US protectorate, so people living there are in included in the US census.
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