Being Interviewed By 6-Year-Old Ikaika

Last night on Thanksgiving, Anne's and my 6-year-old grandson Ikaika interviewed me for his 1st grade class project about the Kazan family history.

Ikaika was joined by his mom Diane, who took notes and also helped put my answers in context and by his big brother Keoni who also explained the answers to him.

Ikaika asked why our family came to America and from where, who came and when, and did war play a role.

I told him we came from Ukraine/Russia, the family members who came and when, and yes war, World War 1, played a major role, as did later the Communists seizing the family business.

He wanted to know how our family got here.

I didn't know how they came across the land, or cleared customs in other nations but only that they reached seaports and may have taken ships from London.

Those ships landed I think in New York and Boston, and the family went to Akron, Ohio where the Noble family lived and with great kindness sponsored our family.

Ikaika seemed happy after the interview, but later he started to cry. When asked why, he said the war scared him and made him sad.

This was understandable for a 6-year-old, but it was necessary to discuss war to answer his questions.

It was very impressive how this cute little guy absorbed so much of the discussion, his sincere interest and his follow-up questions. It was a joy telling him these stories.

But unless carefully researched, family histories are just stories passed down thru the generations and I shared with Ikaika those stories, including stories from our cousin, 100-year-old Irv Kazan.

But life is a series of stories always open to interpretation, always evolving and whose accuracy must always be in question.

With Love To All - Dick