MYLIFE.com just tried to sell me a subscription to their premium service because they found a new link to Robert Caigan.I know what the link is -
It's this blog, Bob's Daughter! I expect better from my playmates.
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Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
Now and Then
I call my friend Jeff Serouya.
I ask him to look at my father's designs for the furniture I found at the patent office. He understands design and people. Should I make these pieces?
While preparing my flash drive to go to the "copy shop" (the one Jeff recommends)
I remember that my husband Khem has some of my father's architectural drawings in his office. I grab them and decided to make copies.
I unroll everything at the "copy shop" and my eyes well up.
In front of me I see drawings of the patented furniture.
They are hand drawn.
I have seen them before, but never knew what they were without a context.
I don't like to admit to prayer, but I thanked --- for that moment.
Pieces...
I am making sweaters for my twin daughters -
when I am not being mom or spending time with my husband/partner/loved one of the past 20 years, working, or with friends.
I don't knit.
I buy cashmere and wool sweaters from the Salvation Army and then wash them,
put them in the dryer and see what I have -after I have done what the label says not to do.
I turn the crew neck sweaters upside down
and the bottom waistband becomes a wide turtleneck.
I start cutting and stitching.
Arms of the sweater are opened to make dresses
or left closed and cut to fashion hats.
Ribbed turtlenecks cut from the original body
make wonderful skirts, hats or headbands.
It's the same process.
looking at the whole and wondering if the pieces could fit in another pattern.
It helps my mind work.
xoxo,
Bob's Daughter
I ask him to look at my father's designs for the furniture I found at the patent office. He understands design and people. Should I make these pieces?
While preparing my flash drive to go to the "copy shop" (the one Jeff recommends)
I remember that my husband Khem has some of my father's architectural drawings in his office. I grab them and decided to make copies.
I unroll everything at the "copy shop" and my eyes well up.
In front of me I see drawings of the patented furniture.
They are hand drawn.
I have seen them before, but never knew what they were without a context.
I don't like to admit to prayer, but I thanked --- for that moment.
Pieces...
I am making sweaters for my twin daughters -
when I am not being mom or spending time with my husband/partner/loved one of the past 20 years, working, or with friends.
I don't knit.
I buy cashmere and wool sweaters from the Salvation Army and then wash them,
put them in the dryer and see what I have -after I have done what the label says not to do.
I turn the crew neck sweaters upside down
and the bottom waistband becomes a wide turtleneck.
I start cutting and stitching.
Arms of the sweater are opened to make dresses
or left closed and cut to fashion hats.
Ribbed turtlenecks cut from the original body
make wonderful skirts, hats or headbands.
It's the same process.
looking at the whole and wondering if the pieces could fit in another pattern.
It helps my mind work.
xoxo,
Bob's Daughter
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Puzzles...past and present
I am thinking about what to email Mr. Loewenstein.
I will thank him for sharing stories with me.
Will I send him a link to this blog?
This would constitute a new step in the process - including the people who have become part of the story as readers and possible participants in the story since they may leave comments. As I write this I feel that I must include the link and tell him about the blog.
This is a puzzle...I like puzzles.
It is a moving puzzle and the pieces aren't set and predetermined to make a picture, which is really a story.
When I looked at the furniture designs today I thought "these look like puzzles that move from 2D to 3D".
I have a new understanding about why my father wouldn't let me keep the Barbie Townhouse he and my mother bought me for Hanuka when I was a child. I remember him trying to put it together for hours while I sat on the stairs - watching. He was frustrated and eventually yelled out, "This is going back! If a Harvard architect can't put it together then it's a piece of junk!" Oh, I cried and cried. I wanted that Barbie Townhouse.
I get it now - it offended him. It was poorly designed and if design is a learned thought process then it couldn't be good for me to play with a badly designed toy.
xoxo,
Bob's Daughter
I will thank him for sharing stories with me.
Will I send him a link to this blog?
This would constitute a new step in the process - including the people who have become part of the story as readers and possible participants in the story since they may leave comments. As I write this I feel that I must include the link and tell him about the blog.
This is a puzzle...I like puzzles.
It is a moving puzzle and the pieces aren't set and predetermined to make a picture, which is really a story.
When I looked at the furniture designs today I thought "these look like puzzles that move from 2D to 3D".
I have a new understanding about why my father wouldn't let me keep the Barbie Townhouse he and my mother bought me for Hanuka when I was a child. I remember him trying to put it together for hours while I sat on the stairs - watching. He was frustrated and eventually yelled out, "This is going back! If a Harvard architect can't put it together then it's a piece of junk!" Oh, I cried and cried. I wanted that Barbie Townhouse.
I get it now - it offended him. It was poorly designed and if design is a learned thought process then it couldn't be good for me to play with a badly designed toy.
xoxo,
Bob's Daughter
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
I AM SMILING
This adventure has taken a wonderful turn! I followed the patent search and registered at freepatentsonline.com and today I received a confirmation email to use the site. I searched my father right away and found 5 patents. I started to cry looking at the designs because I grew up with furniture that resembled these designs. The structure and shapes are part of my visual vocabulary. It is like hearing a language that has been silent for many years.
One of the patents lists a co-designer whose name I did not recognize, Gideon Loewenstein.
I googled him.
He was listed online in an article relating to the 2009 Norwich CT Historical Society Board of Directors.
I called 411 and asked for Norwich CT and his name.
I was given a phone number and with a moment of hesitation...
I called. Mr. Loewenstein picked up the phone and I introduced myself.
I can barely write this my mind is moving so fast. No, my father will not answer the email I was promised from Yourlife/mylife - but this is psychologically, emotionally and (I keep writing spiritually and then deleting it) - very meaningful for me.
Mr. Loewenstein was wonderful to speak with and remembered me and my father very well. He told me that he and my father used to speak about the name Caigan and that they did research and believe the name was Caganovich in what he called "the old country".
He remembers my mother and design work he did with my father from 40 years ago.We talked about my family, his family and our work. He said that he has friends in the area and that we could meet for a meal. Then he gave me his email address and asked me to email him.
I am incredibly touched and amazed.
xoxo,
Bob's Daughter
One of the patents lists a co-designer whose name I did not recognize, Gideon Loewenstein.
I googled him.
He was listed online in an article relating to the 2009 Norwich CT Historical Society Board of Directors.
I called 411 and asked for Norwich CT and his name.
I was given a phone number and with a moment of hesitation...
I called. Mr. Loewenstein picked up the phone and I introduced myself.
I can barely write this my mind is moving so fast. No, my father will not answer the email I was promised from Yourlife/mylife - but this is psychologically, emotionally and (I keep writing spiritually and then deleting it) - very meaningful for me.
Mr. Loewenstein was wonderful to speak with and remembered me and my father very well. He told me that he and my father used to speak about the name Caigan and that they did research and believe the name was Caganovich in what he called "the old country".
He remembers my mother and design work he did with my father from 40 years ago.We talked about my family, his family and our work. He said that he has friends in the area and that we could meet for a meal. Then he gave me his email address and asked me to email him.
I am incredibly touched and amazed.
xoxo,
Bob's Daughter
Monday, January 25, 2010
Still thinking about Grace and the internet...
I have been thinking about Grace Gabe on and off throughout the day.
My mind wanders back to the possibility of contacting her.
Why, and what might it be like?
Today, as I was walking from my car, in the rain, it occurred to me that Dr. Grace Gabe is in my thoughts because the search engines have linked her to my father - permanently by virtue of an engagement announcement. She is now a part of the story that is visible for any future ancestor. I may never have told my children the few funny stories I know about my father's relationship with this woman. The stories that my mother passed on and that my children may have quickly forgotten. But now there she is...on the web...and I am thinking, turning her around in my mind as if this new piece of information is solid - an object that may be scrutinized and understood.
The second reason I continue to think of Grace is that under her name (which of course I searched) is a Psychology Today article from 1993 about reuniting with one's past love. In the article she describes a former fiancee who she broke off with and then reunited with many years later - I half expected it to be about my father until I read about the reunion. Even then I had a pang...since he died when I was 11 years old I have not been able to fully shake the childhood fantasy that he is actually alive somewhere...
As I type the label Dr. Grace Gabe into the box provided at the end of this blog form I wonder what might happen. Will my post show up in a search about her?
Here is some information about Dr. Grace Gabe. She is a fascinating woman.
My mind wanders back to the possibility of contacting her.
Why, and what might it be like?
Today, as I was walking from my car, in the rain, it occurred to me that Dr. Grace Gabe is in my thoughts because the search engines have linked her to my father - permanently by virtue of an engagement announcement. She is now a part of the story that is visible for any future ancestor. I may never have told my children the few funny stories I know about my father's relationship with this woman. The stories that my mother passed on and that my children may have quickly forgotten. But now there she is...on the web...and I am thinking, turning her around in my mind as if this new piece of information is solid - an object that may be scrutinized and understood.
The second reason I continue to think of Grace is that under her name (which of course I searched) is a Psychology Today article from 1993 about reuniting with one's past love. In the article she describes a former fiancee who she broke off with and then reunited with many years later - I half expected it to be about my father until I read about the reunion. Even then I had a pang...since he died when I was 11 years old I have not been able to fully shake the childhood fantasy that he is actually alive somewhere...
As I type the label Dr. Grace Gabe into the box provided at the end of this blog form I wonder what might happen. Will my post show up in a search about her?
Here is some information about Dr. Grace Gabe. She is a fascinating woman.
Sunday, January 24, 2010
GRACE GABE
New York Times
Archives
GRACE GABE BETROTHED; Junior at Radcliffe Is Fiancee of Robert Allen Caigan
May 15, 1954, Saturday
Page 18, 93 words
I have often wondered about the woman my father almost married. The engagement was broken off and he married my mother in 1962, but the archive of the NYT has not caught up to that yet. Or else it was not announced?
This is all very odd. I think of Isis and Osiris and the word to RE-MEMBER - literally Isis put him back together again from pieces and he "lived". If that were the way life worked perhaps my father would be a shadow by now, but only a slight mark in the passage of the day.
xoxo,
Bob' Daughter
Archives
GRACE GABE BETROTHED; Junior at Radcliffe Is Fiancee of Robert Allen Caigan
May 15, 1954, Saturday
Page 18, 93 words
I have often wondered about the woman my father almost married. The engagement was broken off and he married my mother in 1962, but the archive of the NYT has not caught up to that yet. Or else it was not announced?
This is all very odd. I think of Isis and Osiris and the word to RE-MEMBER - literally Isis put him back together again from pieces and he "lived". If that were the way life worked perhaps my father would be a shadow by now, but only a slight mark in the passage of the day.
xoxo,
Bob' Daughter
Thursday, January 21, 2010
More information , but still no email!
A new article has appeared when I search my father's name.
Apparently he owned a patent for a furniture making process or a chair design.
I will look into it. Even stranger -- the newspaper is in Florida! I wonder if patents are passed to heirs as property? Maybe we still own it?
Apparently he owned a patent for a furniture making process or a chair design.
I will look into it. Even stranger -- the newspaper is in Florida! I wonder if patents are passed to heirs as property? Maybe we still own it?
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