Monday, 4/25

That was a ripple I didn't see coming.

I've spoken in here about the concept of “ripples”, especially pertaining to the work Loraine does with her World War II research. You put something out there and, like tossing a pebble into a pond, the ”ripples” extend outward.

Sometimes they even come back to you.

Here's the one I didn't see coming, and let's start with a little context. My great-grandmother on my dad's side was a young woman from Sweden named Beda Levine. She came to the US with her family around the turn of the 20^th century. She ended up marrying the guy after whom I'm named, James Hogan, while four of her brothers became the ubiquitous Levine Brothers, opening a plumbing & heating company that's still around.

There's your context. Now, you may recall last week when I wrote about about the concept of “dying twice”, and included a video I had made about a Marquette resident named Charlie Pong. That same day I posted the video, as I usually do, on Facebook, and a couple of days later I received this note from a guy named Gordon Levine--

“JIM KOSKI, thanks for the piece on Charlie Pong. You have a connection to Charlie. Links can run very deep in Marquette. Your great, great Uncles (Oscar, Hilmer, Eric, Gus) (on your Dad's side) all knew Charlie very well having downtown business connections on the 200 block of West Washington as Levine Bros. Plumbing & Heating. Several times and years Charlie and his workers roomed above the plumbing shop at 219 W Washington.

A couple of times in the late 1910s my dad, Gus Levine, bought some items for Charlie while on work trips to Duluth-Superior. Things that Charlie could not purchase in Marquette.”

That's right. My great-great uncles were friends with Charlie Pong. It's almost like I was destined to help keep his name alive.

My mind was blown when I received the note, and it's still pretty much that way. I first learned of Charlie Pong two decades ago when Loraine came across his obituary in a newspaper, and it was a story I thought should be told. I had no idea—none whatsoever—that there was a link long ago between Charlie and the family of my great-grandmother. I would never have thought that a guy from China and a family from Sweden would ever have come together like this, but you know what?

They did.

Like Gordon said in his note, links can run deep in Marquette; I just had no idea that they ran this deep. But as this ripple shows, there seems to be connections that I never would have imagined existing between my family and a long-time Marquette resident whose memory I've tried to keep alive, a resident named Charlie Pong. So, in a way, by telling his story I guess I'm just carrying on an old family tradition.

Who knew?

(jim@wmqt.com)