Balto Girl
by
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There was something about the cleanliness of the vestibule, a small entrance hall, actually the entire house. It was their pride in ownership, maybe old fashion thinking, being in the environment, their home was the end of their rainbow. The house and the neighborhood was their entire world. The Immigrants worked hard for this and they identified with it. For most of these refugees and their children, a home was the first objective of ownership in their new homeland, and this took years of sacrifice to accomplish. The realism of their thoughts is why the older generation fought any changes affecting them. They grew up in a different mindset than us, most started with just a suitcase or a cloth sack. They were amazing people. They made it possible for us to continue and created the neighborhood.
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About the Book
Janet Vanik Divel’s connection to Baltimore started when the Vanik and the Koerner families descended on America’s shores as immigrants migrating from Germany and Czechoslovakia in the late 1800s. They and many other families shaped America and the little city of Baltimore, Maryland.
In Balto Girl, Janet shares her and her family’s story beginning in the late 1880s and continuing to the early 1970s. She looks back at events, places, and people in Baltimore’s past, telling how the early ancestors faced many struggles, overcame some, and failed others.
With a host of photos included, Balto Girl journeys through time and the neighborhood, chronicling the history of clothing style, food, entertainment, hot rods, education, art, and much more.
About the Author
Janet Vanik Divel was born in the early 1940s and raised in Baltimore city. Growing up in the East Baltimore neighborhood was, at times, quite the adventure. From childhood, she had a never-ending curiosity for all that was happening around her. Her first foray into the book-writing arena included several personal, ancestral, family history books.