Dave Wood

“Gypsy (N.)—A member of a traditionally itinerant people, now residing mostly in permanent communities in many countries of the world.” ~Webster’s College Dictionary

I’ve been interested in Gypsies since I was a wee lad, a probably uncommon passion for someone who grew up in a community far removed from Northern India from which the Gypsies apparently emerged.   Whitehall’s population consisted of Norwegians, Poles and occasional Yankees, like my family. But that had changed a bit in the 20^th Century. According to “Memories of 125 Years Ago” published in my hometown paper: “A large contingent of roaming Gypsies passed through the village of Whitehall last Friday. They were a greasy looking lot. The women went around looking for anyone who wished their fortunes told, while the men put in their talking of horse trading. But as they found their line of ‘business’ a trifle dull, the pack of travelling arguments for stricter immigration laws soon resumed their journey, much to the satisfaction of the villagers.”                                                    

In my boyhood, it was known that when the city siren blew and it wasn’t noon, and there wasn’t a chimney or barn fire somewhere, it meant that the Gypsies were parking their Cadillacs and Airstream trailers on the edge of town and were headed for Main Street. 

No, they hadn’t come to town to sell us rubes siding or roofing. They were there, so thought the merchants, to merely shoplift. Thus when the city siren sounded, the store-owners raced to the hardware store, the general store, the clothing store to lock their doors. Often the merchants were not quick enough, for the Gypsies hadn’t parked their trailers on the edge of town, but far out so they could enter our metropolis incognito. Nervous parents, who’d heard that Gypsies were known to capture and kidnap youngsters, told us to keep our distance. Having that fear in our souls, none of us gave the visitors an opportunity to do such mischief.

Soon after World War II, we learned that Gypsies were treated with the same malevolence visited upon Jews by the Fascists, and some of us thought that was too bad. Nevertheless in keeping our distance we didn’t learn much about the mores and folkways of this forsaken tribe. I also learned on a trip to Europe that the Mafioso regularly kidnapped Gypsy children and forced them to descend on tourists. “Hogwash,” we exclaimed until Ruth and I and our friends were assaulted by packs of wee ones in Florence, Italy. We also learned that when a Communist regime took over Romania, they herded the Gypsies into a school and taught them to be even better on their violins than previously, then exported them to exotic night clubs all over the world.

A few years back, I was surfing the tube and  saw notice of a movie written and directed by the  great actor Robert Duvall called  “Angelo, My Love,” a charming and informative movie about two pre-teen  Gypsies who got married and lived it up afterwards at a Romany night club in New York City before taking a Cadillac pilgrimage to a Gypsy Catholic church in Canada, thriving on chickens caught along  the way to roast in their campfires. 

Imagine my surprise later to hear Duvall later telling an interviewer that the film was almost scrapped when the Gypsy clan’s leader told him that no one in the cast could read English. “Don’t worry,” said the leader, “just give us the general idea and we’ll wing it on the dialogue.” And they winged it well: the dialogue was wonderful!

Another surprise was revealed to me from cousin Alverda Johnson Seeley, who always figured she was 100% Swedish.

“When I arrived in Grandpa’s little hometown outside of Lund,” she related to me, “I went straight to Grandpa’s church and asked to see its parish records. There was Grandpa’s name, and his two younger brothers he sent for when he arrived in Wisconsin. But where was his mother? On a blank space next to Grandpa, the pastor had simply written “GYPSY.”

“Wow, Alverda, What a story!”  “Yes,” she replied. And that also explains why your Grandma, my Aunt, was such a clothes horse and wore so many earrings that her descendants had huge arguments about divvying them  up!”

I’m happy Grandma Wood didn’t know about all of her heritage. although knowing her roguish side she’d have gotten a bang out of it.

P.S. UW-Eau Claire prof Jane Pederson published a wonderful study of sexual and cultural politics in Lincoln Township based on research in Whitehall’s county courthouse, in which she discovered that my Grandpa Wood “was the first native-born American to marry a Scandinavian”—and then some!