Happy Christmas & Merry New Year 2021

Captain "Hell Roaring Mike" Healy

Interesting story in today's (October 20, 2021) Seattle Times about the Seattle-based Coast Guard ice breaker Healy, named after the legendary former slave, Captain "Hell Roaring Mike" Healy, the first Black American to command a U.S. government ship, the wooden-hulled U.S. Revenue Cutter Bear, from 1886 to 1895.

Turns out Hell Roaring Mike had what looks to be an Amazon parrot that accompanied him on his voyages:

May You Live In Interesting Times: A New World

 

May You Live In Interesting Times: A New World: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1949 to 1960. Coming Labor Day from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books. The fourth and last volume of the Ostrogorsky - Ivanauskas family history and archive distilled from nine hundred family photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, World War II Allied bombing, and train and transport ship journeys to the New World. Available for pre-order from your favorite bookseller.

The first three volumes have been published by Blue Parrot Books. Volume One, May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Family Memoir and Archive Circa 1885 to 1960, traces the arc of family history from the depths of Tsarist Russia to a new world of 1950s America. War and revolution chase the family out of their ancestral home in old Russian to refuge in central Europe to post-World War II transport ships bound for a new home in a new world. Volume Two, May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945, focuses on the volatile period from the end of World War I to the end of World War II, 1918 to 1945. Volume Three, May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1945 to 1950, covers the immediate post-World War II period 1945 to 1950, when the Ostrogorsky - Ivanauskas family resided in displaced persons camps in Kempten, Germany while searching for a new home in a new world, and where most importantly to me, my mother and father happened to walk into the same café and ended up dancing with each other.

Volume Four covers the period 1949 to 1960 when the family relocated to Canada and the United States, when my parents married to start a new life in a new world. 8.5 x 11 hardcover. 164 pages. ISBN 978-0-578-91983-6.

May You Live In Interesting Times -- Purported Chinese Curse

 

May You Live In Interesting Times -- purported Chinese curse. In the process of wrapping up my Covid winter project, a four volume family history and archive distilled from nine hundred family photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing.

This collection includes hundreds of family photographs and letters, as well as documents from Russia's post-Tsarist Bolshevik government, the Russian White Army, assorted military officials during the Russian Civil War, the French Consul of Constantinople, the British and French Red Cross Missions in Constantinople, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the German occupation government of Yugoslavia, the Nazi Third Reich, the U.S. Military Government of Germany, the U.S. Army and U.S. Air Force, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the International Refugee Organization, the U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile, and any number of private refugee relief organizations.

First two volumes covering the years 1918 to 1945 have been published by Seattle's Blue Parrot Books. Blue Parrot Books will publish the third volume, 1945 to 1950, July 4th. The final volume, covering the 1950s, to be published this fall by Blue Parrot Books.

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1945 to 1950

Coming July 4th from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books. May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1945 to 1950. By Michael Ostrogorsky, Ph.D.

This is the third of a four volume family history and archive distilled from a collection of 900 photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing.

This third volume presents the collection covering the immediate post-World War II years, 1945 to 1950, when my family lived in refugee camps in Kempten, Germany, in the American zone of occupied Germany. Having lost their homes to revolution and war, the family busied themselves searching for a new home, from America to Tanzania. Most importantly for me, this was also the time my mother and my father happened to walk into the same café in Kempten and ended up dancing with each other.

This volume includes photographs, letters, and documents issued by the U.S. Military Government of Germany, the U.S. Army, the U.S. Air Force, the International Refugee Organization, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, assorted consulates, the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile, and any number of private refugee relief organizations, as well as scores of letters to friends around the world seeking help to secure a new home.

ISBN 9780578896793 8.5 x 11.0 hardcover. 476 pages.

Available for pre-order now from your favorite bookseller or the Blue Parrot Books webstore.

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale: Archive of Family Photographs and Documents Circa 1918 to 1945.

Coming from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books April 15th, second of a four volume family history and archive distilled from a collection of 900 photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing. Available for pre-order now from your favorite bookseller.

This second volume presents the collection covering the volatile period from the end of World War I to the end of World War II, 1918 to 1945, and includes documents issued by Russia's post-Tsarist Bolshevik government, the Russian White Army, assorted military officials during the Russian Civil War, the French Consul of Constantinople, the British and French Red Cross Missions in Constantinople, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the German occupation government of Yugoslavia, the Nazi Third Reich, and the U.S. Military Government of Germany.

ISBN 9780578867533 8.5 x 11.0 hardcover. 184 pages.

May You Live In Interesting Times

I've been busy this Covid winter. While I'm ready to release May You Live In Interesting Times (ISBN 9780578844787) on Monday March 1st from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books, the first volume of a multi-volume family history and archive distilled from nearly 1,000 family photos, letters, and documents that survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, military coups, an invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and World War II Allied bombing, I'm also working on the first of a three-volume archive of the complete collection of family photos, letters, and documents.

This collection includes documents issued by Russia's post-Tsarist Bolshevik government, the Russian White Army, assorted military officials during the Russian Civil War, the French Consul of Constantinople, the British and French Red Cross Missions in Constantinople, the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, the German occupation government of Yugoslavia, the Nazi Third Reich, the U.S. Military Government of Germany, the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration, the International Refugee Organization, the U.S. Displaced Persons Commission, the Russian Orthodox Church in Exile, and any number of private refugee relief organizations.

The first volume of this archive, covering the period 1918 to 1945, will be published by Seattle's Blue Parrot Books this spring. Two additional volumes coming later this year will cover the periods 1945 to 1950, when my family resided in displaced persons camps in Kempten, Germany while searching for a new home in a new world, and finally 1950 to 1960 following relocation to Canada and the United States.

I thank my grandfather, Russian Cavalry Captain Vassilij Yakovyevitch Ostrogorsky, for so assiduously, against all odds, collecting and preserving this incredible collection!

Cavalry Captain Vassilij Yakovyevitch Ostrogorsky, right. Crimea, circa 1920.

May You Live In Interesting Times: A Cautionary Tale

 

Coming soon from Seattle's Blue Parrot Books:

Years ago I inherited several boxes of family documents and photographs that my grandfather Vassilij (William) Yakovyevich Ostrogorsky collected during the last century. These documents passed down through the hands of my aunt Vera Vassilyevna and father Vassilij Vassilyevich, my mother Jadvyga Ivanuaskas, and my sister Helen Vassilyenva. Once the boxes fell into my hands they sat mostly forgotten gathering dust in a store room.

Over the years I always intended to pull the boxes out of storage to compile a family history. Or at the least investigate the contents. In the words of the great eighteenth century English writer Dr. Samuel Johnson, “Hell is paved with good intentions.”

The realization of one’s own mortality has a way of focusing the mind. I am now in the last year of my sixth decade riding this blue ball called Earth sailing through the outer reaches of the Milky Way. My grandfather died in the second year of his seventh.

I pulled out the boxes. The contents astonished me. Photographs dating to 1920. Letters. Orders. Official certificates. Nazi work permits. Reports. Post-World War II pleas for shelter and assistance to the International Refugee Organization and the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration. Military passes. Job applications. Applications to countries around the world in search of a new home. Red Cross medical reports, and even x-rays of all things!

But what astonished me even more than the contents of the boxes, was the realization my grandfather carried these documents with him halfway around the world by train, foot, and steamship to a new life in America in the 1950s. By my count, these documents survived two revolutions, a civil war, two world wars, the Great Depression, a couple of military coups, a military invasion or two, Nazi conscription, and the Allied aerial bombing campaigns of World War II.

I am pleased to present to you the Ostrogorsky-Ivanuaskas family history as best I can distilled from the documents my grandfather saved from oblivion, as well as notes my mother compiled in her last years, and family lore. Surviving photos are presented with this history. I am photographing the documents to be published in their entirety in a subsequent volume. I am pleased to report the entire archive will be curated with the Pacific Northwest Collection of the Special Collections Department of the University of Washington’s Suzzallo Library.