HOME SWEET HOME

Or was it?

This photo was taken in front of the first (and last) home my grandfather Busch bought.

Photo by William (or Wilheim) Busch, a creepy and arrogant man who who left Germany shortly after WW1 (he was a topographer with Baron Von Richthofen), came to the States and landed in Springfield, IL where he met my grandmother, Ruth Steelman.

He seduced her on the floor of her parents living room and she became pregnant. Reluctant to marry he literally ran off with a visiting circus, was located, and my 80 year old aunt divulged a shotgun may have been involved during the wedding.

My mother had a photo of Wilheim with his flying squad. He had written the names of his cronies in white ink over their chest. Rudolf Hess was on one side, Hermann Goering on the other (I was never been able to locate that photo after my mother's death.) Because of the photo and the way he treated all three of his children, his children and grandchildren have always referred to him as the Nazi.

The Nazi molested all three of his children (one boy, two girls) and my two sisters (gratefully, I was spared and not left alone with him). His son did the same to some (unrelated) younger girls when he was an adult.

The small elderly women in this photo is his mother, Emma Kilter. She gave birth to Wilheim when she was 16 in Bonn Germany. No one knew who his father was or the circumstances of his conception. Emma Kilter owned an antique store in Great Neck Long Island.

The two babes in the photo are my aunt and mother (their mother is peeking out between them). Since they had been raised during the Depression the coral color dress my Mom is wearing (along with that box purse) remained in our home for decades.

Next to my mother is my father sporting a massive pompadour and holding me. We are the only two people in this group who are not smiling. This may have been due to our close proximity to each other.

This house was on Solar Lane.
From what I understand it was really the dark side of the sun.
`
I miss my Mother.
Her most important lesson: Do what you want to do and not what you think you should do.

She's a brick house
The lady's stacked and that's a fact,
ain't holding nothing back. - Lionel Richie