Invisible Ink

I think there may still be some typos and such in here, forgive me if so? :) All my gratitude to Lera Privolneva and Valentina De Vecchi whose help was so wonderful!

Short Family History for Hans and Uli von Blau

At the age of 18, Hilda Heimbach married the promising young physician, Wilhelm von Blau, then aged 22. Both came from upper middle class families and were ready to start their own. The very year of their marriage, 1872, the couple welcomed their first son to the world, Lars von Blau, named for his mother’s father. Lars was followed by another son, Wilhlem, named for his father. Lars and Wilhelm II were like night and day and rarely got along. Just one year apart, they were rivals for everything.

In 1885, at the age of 45, when his sons were 13 and 12, Dr. von Blau, after work, had gone for drinks with friends. An impulsive, though brilliant man, he had had a few too many and found himself on the losing end of a dual.

It was only after Wilhelm the senior’s death, that the amount of debts he had incurred came to light. Once all was settled, Hilda and her sons had only a modest savings and their spacious home. A proud woman, Hilda began working as a seamstress out of her home and renting rooms to keep her family nearly at the level to which they had become accustomed.

Lars and Wilhelm II never saw eye to eye, and as soon as they could chose, went in different directions in life. Wilhelm II thought his mother favored Lars, and gradually drifted from the family.

Neither of the extended families kept in much touch after the elder Wilhelm’s death, and Hilda grew bitter at both her own family and her in laws. Content to keep to herself, she continued seamtress work and room-letting as Lars continued university.

Determined to be a good son, and to make up for his errant brother, Lars von Blau studied hard, graduating from the University of Stuttgart with a degree in Mathematics. He then received a professorship there, fell in love, and married Ilse Schake, a beautiful waitress at the café he frequented. The two were married in 1893, when Lars was 21 and Ilse was 19.

Ilse had no family, having been raised in an orphanage until 16, when she began to rely on herself. Lars made enough money as a professor to support them both in modest comfort. They rented a nice, but small home near the university and within the year had their first son, Uli von Blau.

Life was good for the von Blau’s. A happy home life and frequent trips to Berlin, where Hilda loved to shower her grandson in attention and sweets.

Five years later, Uli was joined by his baby brother, Hans. Life continued much the same as it had, with the addition of a second son. Hans was always a more serious child than Uli, but followed his adventurous older brother all over.

Tragedy struck in 1909, when on a train returning from the university of Hannover, where Lars had been guest lecturing; the train derailed and many were killed, including both Lars and Ilse von Blau.

The then 16 year old Uli had been left at home to watch over his 11 year old brother. When news arrived of their parents death, the older brother tried his best to remain collected. The boys sat in the living room in silence as they were told they would be going to live in Berlin with their grandmother who would be there soon.

Once in Berlin, Uli took his role as older brother and ‘man of the house’ seriously. Against his grandmother’s wishes, he forewent university and started work immediately at a local beer hall. Hans was accepted to the Berlinisches Gymnasium zum Grauen Kloster in Berlin. There he learned English, French, and Latin, and learned to play the violin, as well as the usual academic subjects. Hans taught his brother the English he learned, as Uli’s schooling had been cut short, and in turn Uli taught Hans how to fight.

Though he learned archery among other physical activities in school, it was his brother’s instruction at brawling which helped Hans the most. A quiet, studious boy, he had ignored the bullying of an older student, Heinrich Dietrich, who teased all indiscriminately, but one morning near Christmas, decided to poke fun at the fact that Hans had no parents. Heinrich ended up with a broken nose and Hans suddenly had made a name for himself. Confidence followed and the shy boy became more extroverted. Joining and later leading the debate team.

A university education was surely in Hans’ future, but with the start of the Great War, out of the question. In 1914, Uli, at age 21, would have been immediately drafted, but due to a heart arrhythmia and atrial septal defect (a hole in his heart), discovered during his physical, he was deemed unfit for service. Hans, at age 16, was too young.

However, in 1916 Hans was drafted into the army immediately after graduating highschool, though he was 17 at the time, he would turn 18 by the autumn.

The autumn of 1917 was a bad one for the von Blaus. Hans was taken prisoner after the 11^th battle of the Isonzo, and Hilda died suddenly of a stroke while carrying fresh linens to an upstairs room. Uli kept this information from his brother, whose letters kept the older von Blau brother from complete despair. While his bar kept the troop morale up, Uli in turn, is determined to keeps his brother’s up as best he can.

In 1918 Uli gets a letter, not from the prison at Padua where Hans was kept, but an address in Verona. (Where they are staying with Vincenzo’s northern Italian cousins) Surprised to hear about a new friend of his brothers, a civilian Italian whose life Hans had aparently saved, Uli is relieved, regardless of his brother’s new friend’s profession.

Once the war is over, Uli joins Hans and Vincenzo in Madrid and together, along with a few new friends, the brothers go to America, to see what new lives they can make in Chicago where Vincenzo has a job awaiting him.

Short Family History for Vincenzo and Maria Veronesi

It all starts in 1874, when Gabriella Calderone met Romero Veronesi. Romero, a twenty year old journalist from Verona has traveled throughout newly unified Italy writing down his impressions and interviewing people he meets, which he then sends back to the newspaper he works for in Northern Italy.

There was an instant attraction between the two and the then 17 year old Gabriella decided not to tell Romero about her father and brothers and how they make a living, instead for five months while he’s in Palermo she continued to see him by sneaking out at night and slipping away from her protective older brothers when they’re out.

Deeply in love, young and sentimental, they gave into their passion and made love before Romero had to return to Verona. He promised to give up his job there and come back to find one in Palermo – he planned to return in two months.

However, while he was gone, it became apparent that Gabriella was pregnant. When finally she confessed everything to her parents, swearing he’ll return and marry her, her father sent her two older brothers Luciano and Giancarlo to make sure he comes back and marries her.

Surprise for Romero.

They found him easily and threatened him, but luckily for all concerned he really did want to marry Gabriella, even considering the family he’d marry into. He’s a romantic, and after convincing Giancarlo and Luciano that he never intended to dishonor their sister, he talks of how he loves her and will give up everything to be with her, and take care of her, they settle down and the three men began to get along.

A big surprise for Romero’s family however, his summer romance turned more, and subsequent move to Sicily with his new criminal in-laws, is somewhat scandalous.

Once back in Palermo and married, Romero devoted himself to his wife’s family and now on good terms with his brothers in law, he does all he can to impress his father in law and fit his new situation. He does visit home occasionally and manages to stay on pretty good terms with his siblings – particularly when they have children, and their kids enjoy playing together.

The first child for Romero and Gabriella is a daughter, Isabella, followed by a son, Carmine in 1876, then another son the following year in 1877, Emilio, followed by another daughter, Maria in 1879, and lastly, a third son in 1881, Alfonso. Sadly, Maria dies from an illness at age 5. Her loss is felt deeply by her siblings.

In 1900, both of Gabriella’s brothers were in a fatal car accident, after this tragedy Gabriella’s father puts more responsibility on Romero. Giancarlo and Luciano leave behind their wives and four children.

As they age and make life decisions, and even marry and have kids of their own, Romero and Gabriella’s kids stay close and the sons follow in the footsteps of their father and grandfather.

To make a long story short, Romero’s oldest son Carmine dies in a fight at the age of 18, in 1894. It is never discovered exactly what happened and the family is devastated, no one more than his younger brother Emilio who was almost always in his brother’s company, and who blames himself for not going out with Carmine that night.

Emilio marries his girlfriend of a year, Ariana Sansoni in 1895 and they have Maria, their oldest child that year. 4 years later in 1899 Vincenzo is born, but tragedy seems to plague Emilio and Ariana dies in childbirth.

Emilio raises his children with the constant help and presence of his mother and mother in law, sister Isabella, and sister in law Valeria – wife of his little brother Alfonso, and Ariana’s older sister Benicia. The children certainly do not lack a wealth of female role models. Maria is a little handful, but she is devoted to her little brother when she isn’t teasing him. Vincenzo is a cheerful, easy child who enjoys the company of women and makes friends easily.

Unfortunately, in 1907, a friend finds out information about Carmine’s death and tells Emilio the name of the man responsible. After many sleepless nights it becomes too much and he sets out for revenge.

While he does succeed in avenging his brother’s death, he is mortally wounded as well, and within a week is dead.

Maria, now 12, and Vincenzo, 8, live with their grandparents. Their childhood is made as best as it can be, and though their home is in Sicily, they are lucky to be able to travel a few times a year. Either to Verona with their grandfather to visit their great uncle and 2^nd and 3^rd cousins there, some of whom they don’t get along with, and some of whom they do – these cousins stand up to other kids when they make fun of Maria and Vincenzo being from the south. Naturally they feel a bit torn as their last name gives them away as partly from the north as well. They are symbolically truly children of their time – a supposedly unified Italy. They also go to Spain once every few years with their aunt Benicia who goes to visit her cousin who lives in Madrid.

Vincenzo and Maria have many cousins, the closest is Nicola who is between the siblings in age.

Maria gets along very well with her mother’s sister Benecia and enjoys her trips to Spain. When she turns 18 in 1913, she goes to university there to study at her aunt’s urging. There she makes friends immediately with Soledad Delarosa, a headstrong woman who throws knives, hunts, and wins every fight she gets into, and her brother Guillermo, a somewhat absent minded assistant professor of Horticulture at the university who is instantly attracted to Maria. The two begin to date. When Vincenzo visits Maria at school that year, aged 14 at the time, he is taken fully under-wing by the older Soledad who seems to instinctually know he’s going though something with his sexuality. He hasn’t told anyone about the crushes he's had on boys, and the brief homosexual romances he had since hitting puberty, but she somehow seems to understand him. She practically adopts him as a younger brother and the two keep up correspondence after he goes back home.

When war breaks out, Vincenzo and Maria’s older male cousins go to war and some don’t make it through the end. Nicola loses an arm, but luckily lives, Maria is safer staying in Spain for the time. After one of his cousins from Verona is killed by his superior in a wave of 'killing 10% of the returning troops' after a losing battle, Romero allows Vincenzo to deliver a “message” to the General responsible. It is after he’s done this but before he has time to leave that battle breaks out again and Vincenzo and Hans meet. Unwilling to shoot a civilian, Hans lets Vincenzo go, and while he thinks little of it, Vincenzo takes seriously the vow to repay the debt if ever the opportunity arises. Shortly after, during the fall of 1917, Romero in an effort to protect his ‘favorite’ grandson and secure the survival of his family line, contacts the family members who immigrated to America in the 1880s – they’re doing well there in Chicago and have a place for Vincenzo.

The rest unfolds ~ through a network of spies working for the family, Vincenzo is able to find out when Hans is one of many enemy soldiers taken to a POW camp. Due to his life debt, Vincenzo bribes his way out, and offers him a job. They go to Spain where they meet up with Maria who hates Hans right away but tries to be nice for her brother’s sake.

When it’s safe to travel, Vencenzo, Maria, Hans and Uli who has joined them, as well as Soladad who is up for an adventure with her best friends, move to Chicago. One of the first people to meet them is consigliere Leonardo Cavellieri.

Short Family History for Rose and Josephine Scott

John Francis Scott, born 1870 to a moderatly wealthy family, he was raised on his family estate in the spacious rural borderlands of northern England before he went to Cambridge University to study Physics in in 1889. It was just after graduation when he visited the World's fair in Chicago in 1893 with a few friends. While there he went to an art gallery which had just opened to take advantage of the increased tourism - and there he met Emily Jane Kilpatrick (b.1872). A young, talented, and spirited artist. She had never finished school, but devoted herself fully to her art - making enough money from selling her works to pay rent on the small storefront which she also called home. She works primarily on decorative arts, and sells these in her shop, though her income comes mostly from creating posters for local plays and exhibits. John originally planned to stay 3 weeks in the states, but instead stayed two months. At the end of the two month period, he returned to England, but with Emily as his fiance. They were married there and then returned to Chicago - it was a happening place at the time, the 1890s were a boomtime for the city - a new shining jewel of the northern midwest, known equally for it's glitz and gamour as for it's corruption and seedy underground. However, it was the promise of an excellent teaching career for John, and the return home for Emily that brought them back to Chicago.
John Scott had one brother and two sisters who stayed in England. An older brother, Russel (b. 1868), and two younger sisters, Eveline (b. 1874) and Sarah (b. 1878).
Emily had 4 sisters, one who died as an infant, and the three remaining are, a younger one, Elizabeth (b.1875), and two older sisters, Mary (b. 1869) and Kate (b. 1866). Emily's family is irish in heritage and experience prejudice against them as irish (at that time Irish Americans were treated similarly to the way Mexican Americans now, only I suppose a bit worse, because it was legal to discriminate against them even though they were legal citizens.)

Tensions between the familys (Scott and Kilpatrick) arise from the beginning as Emily's parents are less than fond of her marrying an Englishman, let alone getting married in his family's home. They refuse to go, and though they refuse to give their blessing, Emily goes anyway, and her oldest sister Kate supports her, going as her maid of honor.

After returning to Chicago, the couple live for two years in the city before John takes a job as a professor of physics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. There they have their first child, a son, John Scott jr. born Jan 12th, 1895. Three years later, they have twin daughters,
Rose and Josephine Scott, born February 17th, 1898.

The family lives just outside Evanston on 10 acres. The children grow up visiting their family in England every summer. They
learn to ride horseback, practice marksmanship, archery, and other sports. Josephine is not as interested in this but enjoys her time outside by hiking, studying the natural flora and fauna and reading. She does however enjoy playing hockey on the frozen pond with her siblings and cousins.
Rose is like her older brother's shadow, she's determined to prove herself as good as him at everything he does, and he enjoys her company, often jokingly referring to her as his "little brother"; when he does this she elbows him in the side and scowls, though when he laughs, she laughs too and all is forgotten.
As Rose and Jospehine age their personalities are very defined, and though they share the same appearances, anyone who knows them can instantly tell them apart.
Rose, like her brother John, is exceptionally physical. She excells at marksmanship, archery, fencing, and every sport to which she applies herself. Her family supports her all along the way, being very progressive toward women's rights. (Though both sets of grandparents are more conservative) When at the age of 17 in 1912, John learns to fly, he takes along his "little brother" Rose and after she begs him to teach her, he relents a year later. She's a natural and completly unafraid. At 15, she decides flying is to be her passion and her parents hesitantly induge her. She and John perform daring aerobatics at a few state fairs that year and she gains acclaim as the 'Wild Rose' Her parents agree to pay for lessons even after her brother leaves the States to follow in his father's footsteps and attend Cambridge with his two close cousins, Ben (3 years older than him) and James (1 year older).
Sadly, John hasn't been at university more than a year before the outbreak of the Great War. He's an impulsive and family oriented young man, and so even though the US hasn't gotten into the war, he simply can't see his cousins go to battle and sit on the sidelines, so he signs up to the Royal Air Force as a volunteer.
Rose is distraught and both she and Josphine are overcome with worry for their brother.
Rose, never accustomed to not being able to do whatever her brother is doing, focuses on her flying lessons with intensity. Never telling her parents that she intends to join him. At the age of 18, in 1916 she is awarded a pilot's license. The second to be awarded to a woman in the United States. That year Josephine and Rose both graduate highschool. Josephine enrolls in Northwestern University where her father is a professor; she studies linguistics and history. All the Scott children went to the best school in the area and were taught to be fluent in French from an early age at the request of their paternal grandmother who considered it paramount to a young lady's education, and said it wouldn't hurt a young man's education either. By the time she graduates from highschool, Josephine is fluent in French and proficient at German. While attending univeristy she extends her knowledge of German as a minor while majoring in world history.
Though she took strides to be a model student and daughter, Josephine was of course taught to think for herself and she's been a very busy girl - joining the National Women's Party and campaigning for the right for women to vote.
Causing somewhat of a scandal, Rose does not go to college as has been expected in 1916 but buys a ticket to England and leaving only a note on her dressor, takes off to try to volunteer just as her brother did.
At first laughed off and told there are other ways she can help in the war effort, Rose will not take no for an answer and sneaks into a plane determined to show what she can do. Her daring and nearly death-defying aerobatics impress the RAF who finally agree that she can volunteer - but only as a reconnaissance flyer, keeping her out of direct combat, though combat finds her regardless.
It isn't long before the United States joins the war a year later, by which time Josephine takes time out of campaigning for the vote to volunteer to translate intercepted transmissions and work as counter intelligence. She takes a break from university (at this time in her second year) And is sent to France where she can translate easily any German transmissions into French as well as English.
The sisters are reunited once during the war near the end of 1917 when Rose comes across a German codebook and gets it to her sister. At this time, Rose first tells Josephine about the tall, handsome Russian who saved her life when she went down during the Persian campaign in December of 1916 as well as the British doctor who cared for her injuries and plays a mean game of poker.

Tragedy strikes the family when both John and Ben are killed in action in 1917. With both girls overseas involved in the war effort and the loss of thier son, the strain proved too much on Emily and John Sr.'s marriage. Constant argueing, grief, and blame poisoned them against eachother, and Emily went to stay with her sister Kate, now living in Toronto with her husband.

John Sr. stayed in Chicago until his daughters came home, but already had plans to leave, heartbroken, back to the UK.

After the war ends in 1918, Josephine and Rose see eachother again when they return to Chicago and the home that now seems empty.

The home is sold, and the adult daughters and their father go in seperate directions. So much has changed since Rose left that note on her dresser in 1916.

Josephine decides to continue her schooling, but transfers to a university in Toronto in order to be close to her mother.

Rose on the otherhand was always kind of a daddy's girl, and blames her mom for the split up of the family. She stayed in Chicago and took a job working for the police department as a detective. Her ingenuity, stubbornness, and military history help her secure the job and an assignment to gather intelligence against the growing mafia problem.

From 1918 to 1920 the sisters maintain a relationship through the shared loyalty to women's suffrage. Rose keeps Josephine up to date on events in the US and Josephine comes down to the US every time she's able to help or to march in parades in Chicago.

December of 1920 finds Rose as a detective and prohibition agent working in anti-corruption investigations in Chicago and Josephine about to end her first year as an assistant professor at the University of Toronto.

Short Family History for Aleksandr (Sasha) Sokolovski, Tatiana (Tatya) Sokolovskaya, and Natasha (Tasha) Sokolovskaya

Evgeny Petrovitch Sokolovski (Sasha’s grandfather) was born February 12^th, 1851 into a wealthy family of landowning mid-level nobility in Smolensk, Russian Empire. His early childhood was plagued with tragedy – at the time of his birth, two of his four older siblings had died in the previous two years from Asiatic cholera that is sweeping the empire. By the time he is four years old, he has miraculously survived, but cholera has taken all of his siblings and his mother, leaving him his family’s sole heir and hope.

The losses are especially tragic for his father, who as an officer in the Imperial Army is away fighting in the Crimean at the time of his wife’s death. Young Evgeny is taken care of by his aunt and grandmother in Moscow until his father returns in 1856.

One of Evgeny’s most striking early memories was the 1861 Emancipation Reform which gave rights to serfs, and everywhere, including the dozen or so of the Sokolovski estate, became free citizens and paid servants. At 10 years old, it was the first time Evgeny learned of and began to understand social inequalities, something he would later teach to his children.

His father both dotes on and demands much from Evgeny, grooming him to carry the hopes and ambitions of the family. Though his is a life of duty and loneliness, with only he and his father in a large estate full of the memories of those who are no longer there, the two are very close and Evgeny grows into the very image of a strong, self-possessed, man of his times. Carrying out the aim of rebuilding the family he lost, he marries Ruslana Orlov in 1869, a woman with a substantial dowry, effectively raising his family in the ranks of aristocracy.

His father is very proud and takes an active hand in the raising of his grandchildren until his death.

Evgeny and Ruslana have three children. Two boys, a year apart, Ivan and Nikolai, (b. 1870 and 71), and a girl 3 years later, Krsenia.

The Sokolvski family does seem to be besieged by bad luck, as in 1878 Evgeny dies while fighing in the Russo-Turkish war, and in 1880, Krsenia drowns at the age of 6 when she goes out during a flood to rescue a pet cat. The cat survived, and was the absolute focus of affection by her two brothers who were inconsolable at her death.

The family moves on however, and the two boys have as happy of a life as possible. At the ages of 16 and 17, Ivan and Nikolai already have prospective wives, due to their mother’s diligent planning.

The brothers who are so close, are in turn married a few years later, 1888, at the ages of 18 and 19 to two sisters – Ekaterina and Lyusya Ransohov, beautiful daughters of an affluent family.

Ivan and Ekaterina welcome their first child, a daughter, Tatiana into the world, May 7^th, 1890, followed soon after, by their second and last child, Aleksandr on December 31^stof 1892.

Nikolai and Lyusya, still without a child, had moved into the spacious Sokolovski estate which the older Ivan had inherited, when they ran into a deep debt and were forced to sell their land and home in 1891 during the economic crash which effected the entirety of Europe and Russia.

Ekaterina died of influenza in 1900, the same year that Aleksandr and Tatiana gain a cousin, Natasha, born on the first Christmas of the new century. The long awaited first (and only) child of Nikolai and Lyusya, Natasha was also stricken by the flu when only a few months old. She had a fever for weeks; everyone expected her to die, but she pulled through with a tenacity which would later be her strongest trait, one she would rely on in trying times.

Her cousins, both still in mourning for their mother, were barred from her side for fear they would contract the illness themselves, none-the-less often came as close to her nursery door as they could and prayed for her health.

Perhaps it is as a result of this, that Natasha follows her older cousins everywhere – particularly Aleksandr, who she adores and clings to constantly.

Aleksandr and Tatiana’s father Ivan, who took after his father and grandfather in both Military career and personal disposition, was never the same after losing his wife. He became markedly melancholy but devoted to his children for the rest of his life, which was however, cut short. He died in 1905 during the end of the Russo-Japanese war – believed to be the result of mutiny- cause of death is ultimately unknown; it was eclipsed in the eyes of his superiors by the myriad of unrest throughout the Empire.

In continuance of the way tragedy seems to strike the Family in not one bolt, but two, Nikolai, sympathizes with the aims of the strikers across the land that year, and before word can reach them of Ivan’s death, goes out to stand in support, idealistic as he is. The last any of his family see him alive is when he leaves that day. He is never seen again and presumed dead.

At 13, Aleksandr has now grown up tremendously by necessity. As the man of the estate, he fills the absence of his father and uncle in the running of the Sokolovski home. His aunt, driven to a constant state of despair, confines herself to her room, becomes increasingly superstitious and anxious until she eventually believes her only relief will come from the church and goes to a convent.

It is a very difficult situation for the children who rise to the occasion as best as they can. By 1906, Tatiana at age 16 takes control of the daily workings of the home, becoming both an older sister and mothery figure for young Natasha. while Aleksandr at 14, joins a youth military training camp – following in the footsteps of his forefathers. In only a few years, due in part to his nobility, but also his sincere effort, Aleksandr rises to the rank of Lieutenant, and by the time of the Great War, he is a Kapitan at age 22. He’s devoted his life fully to the military, suppressing all fear and sorrow connected to his shortened childhood.

Of course before the war, and during it, each time he comes home, his sister Tatya makes sure the house is resplendent and they have the best food and drink available. She can see through the façade to her brother’s pain regardless of how he hides it. Natasha, on the other hand can’t see past his smile and just looks up to her older cousin with nothing short of worshipful admiration – she credits him with holding the family together, the family, of course, is now only them, and their grandmother Ruslana, who does pass away from a respiratory ailment in 1913 at the age of 60.

During the war Aleksandr meets a most unexpected pilot when she crashes to the ground in front of him, and Rose never forgets Sasha who rushed her to the nearest medical tent, though her memories are blurred like a dream. For him, there is no happy homecoming from the war as he enters into first the revolution and then civil war, and his home is empty, his family gone – he holds the memories of her as three years pass. When he sees her in 1920, he simply can’t let her disappear from his life again.

And the rest is the rest~