by David Schrott

It burns in my soul like few other things. And it has for as long as I can remember. In kindergarten, while all the other boys were afraid of cooties, I was tackling girls on the playground so I could kiss them despite the fact that they did not, for one second, care for that sort of thing. And now, going on 23-years, I’ve been awkwardly and unsuccessfully (so far) chasing her down.

My Grandfather was the Grandson of an Austrian immigrant who came to Western Pennsylvania by himself at 19 years of age just before the turn of the 20th Century. Francis Karl Schrott was born December 1, 1928, fought in Korea and retired from the struggling U.S. Steel industry just before its out and out collapse in the mid-80s. He bought his first house in 1959 for $15,000 and lives there to this very day. His story is nothing out of the ordinary for middle-twentieth-century life in post-War America — substitute his name with any other and not much changes.

In ’52 and ’53, he came home from Korea, met Anna Ramach (a Czechoslovakian immigrant who emigrated through Ellis Island with her family as a child) and married her. The engagement ring (with all five diamonds still in tact) that he gave her nearly sixty years ago is pictured above and to the left; one of their few remaining wedding day photos to the right. My Father was born in February of ’55 and when my Grandmother became pregnant with her would-be second child (against doctor’s recommendations), she died in ’57.

Something was certainly started in those tumultuous fifties for our family — a legacy, undefined, was slowly emerging. My Grandfather eventually re-married and my Father’s relationship with his step-mother was less than warm. He was a trouble-maker and drug-dealer, engaging in the very activities that would lead him to meet my mom. In the fall of the bi-centennial, he gave my Mother the very same ring that Francis gave Anna twenty-some years earlier. Like the glass slipper, it fit perfectly and didn’t even need the standard re-sizing. They were married in September of ’77.

Dad was brought up Catholic and Mom out of Luther’s tradition, so every other week the church they attended changed traditions. Eventually they settled on a little Baptist church pastored by a man named Ray. The 70s ground to a close, the Steel Mills dried up and so did the desire to deal. Finding work was tough in this run-down-town. I came along in ’80 and Anna (named after our Grandmother) in ’82. Lyd was on her way in early ’84 and just like the Joads, if there was work to be found we would have to find it elsewhere. Dad found it, and new birth, somewhere between ’83 and ’85. In July of ’85 we headed east — to the land of promise — our California: a fertile farm-land with plenty of work. It was a land where there were no mountains; something I couldn’t fathom.

It was there that our seeds were sown. We learned Bible. We memorized Bible. We lived Bible. The twins came along in ’87 and things got tight. We found a three-bedroom on twenty-seven acres for $400 a month. We’ll take it. What a deal.

Somewhere in those formative years, the desire to be a Patriarch was given birth. To take this scattered mantle from my Grandparents and Parents and form it into something to live for and to be remembered by. When my parents’ relationship began to fracture sometime during my teens, beneath the murky sorrow and hot anger burned an intense desire to live for Christ and birth a generation of new Schrotts upon new Schrotts, transformed by His grace.

It’s nearly a decade and a half later and that vision is slowly coming to be. In under two weeks, two of the five of us will be married (Anna and Lyd — both to excellent men). I love seeing my siblings find these wonderful matches and it brings me great joy, but for as long as I can remember, I’ve so eagerly waited for her. To find her, adore her and work hard for her — to sacrifice myself in every way for her. We’d raise a new generation. Children that walk in faithfulness and their children beyond them, and theirs and theirs. And one day, with weakened eyes and wrinkled skin, with these multitudes around us, we could take great joy in the gift of Christ and the family he has blessed us with and used us to be a blessing for.

Someday, I’ll take that five-diamond-ring that Francis bought for Anna in ’52, I’ll place it in her hand, and what those two post-War youngsters started then will carry on.

And the name of Christ will be praised.

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