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Grandparents build memories and traditions with all kinds of trips
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By Ellen Schur Brown
Editor, Family Section
Clevelanders Gerda and Donald Freedheim have six grandchildren, ages 3-13. Five live in Washington, D.C., and one lives in Seattle, so the Freedheims organize annual vacations to keep the generations close.
Typically, the Freedheims rent a house on the Delaware coast for a week. Grandchildren come to stay, and their parents come and go as work permits. Two summers ago, however, the Freedheims wanted to have a special vacation in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary.
So they brought the whole famiglia to a farmhouse in the Tuscan town of Lucca, Italy.
Don Freedheim started planning a year in advance so that his daughters Amy, Julie and Sara and their spouses could clear their schedules for two weeks. Once they settled on a mutually agreeable date, Don made travel arrangements for everyone and presented each family with a folder of their itinerary, along with local background and events. He took care of all the costs of the trip. Paying the bills eliminates some debate and planning issues among his adult children, he has found.
Cooking their own meals in the rented house saved the Freedheims money, and the kitchen had a table large enough to seat all 13 for dinner.
“We’re blessed because everyone gets along,” Don says. “To be successful, you have to plan times together and have times apart” for each family.
With three rented cars, each of his adult daughters’ families could split up for side trips to Pisa, Siena, Florence or other little towns. Other times, the grandchildren separated from parents to bike around the ancient walled town with their grandparents, followed by gelato, of course!
Gerda insisted on setting house rules. For example, children needed an adult present to go to the pool or to turn on the TV.
Some nights, the grandkids organized a skit or a talent show. Don bought medals so each could each win an award.
“Spending time with all the families together is a tradition,” he says.
As a young father, Sandy Weinberg of Orange Village and his wife Bev took their children Allison, Ken and Michael on annual family vacations with his parents, Ida and Dr. Herman Weinberg.
The trips started because Sandy and his sister, Harriet Morris, live here, but two of his siblings moved out of state.
“It was just too busy when people would come to visit,” he explains. “So we started taking trips where it was just the family” without any distractions.
“The thing that meant the most to my mother was having all of us around the same table for dinner,” Sandy recalls. “She’d sit in the living room and watch everyone come and go, and she was thrilled.”
The Weinbergs would rent a cluster of condos in Hilton Head, S.C., California or Florida for these vacations. Ida and Herman’s condo would be the main headquarters and dining hall. “It would have cost a fortune to eat out three meals a day,” Sandy notes.
“It meant a lot to us for our children to spend time with their grandparents,” he adds, and for them to learn Yiddish words and customs, like saying “poopoopoo” to ward off the evil eye.
Eventually, the families graduated to cruises so that no one had to cook or clean. “Everyone ran around the ship during the day at their own pace,” he says. “The kids could sleep in, the teens would go to the teen lounge, the aunts and uncles would play hearts. Then we’d all have dinner together.”
The tradition continues now that Sandy is a grandfather himself. He and Bev recently planned a weekend at Seven Springs resort in Pennsylvania for their children and grandchildren.
Lenore Kahn and her husband Shelly planned a family vacation to North Carolina’s Outer Banks in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary.
Their children Debbie, Dale and Randy drove in with their families from Solon, Tampa and Syracuse, respectively.
Well in advance, Dale asked each family what they wanted from the vacation. Dale reviewed numerous houses online to find one that met all the requirements. The routine became beach in the morning, pool every afternoon, and hot tub at night. The Kahn clan reviewed numerous houses online. Some websites, like www.GlobalFreeloaders.com, allow travelers to trade homes or housesit for free.
“We didn’t do everything together every minute,” says Lenore. Every night a different family was in charge of dinner, and one night they all went to “a lovely restaurant” in honor of their anniversary.
Were the kids bored? “Not for one minute,” insists Lenore. “There was one rainy day, and that was probably the best day we had. We played card games and board games, and the girls put on a fashion show with beach towels as the runway.
“They talk about it to this day,” she says. The children of Debbie and Jim Tomko of Solon loved spending time with their grown-up cousins from Tampa. Carly, 13, never wanted to go to bed because she didn’t want to miss a minute of the action. Kaitlyn, 10, liked the pool, while Alexis, 5, just liked being with her aunts and uncles.
Even closer to home, some families have found adventures and forged memories right here in Ohio!
Dr. Michael Janning and his wife Barbara of South Euclid packed the family into a big Buick station wagon and drove the backroads visiting historic sites all around Ohio when their children were young in the 1970s and 1980s.
Michael took his son Dan to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to learn model rocketry. Now he’s Major Dan Janning of the U.S. Air Force. Trips for the girls, Debra Matovic and Susan Malone, included visiting COSI, the science museum in Columbus, or the historic Native American Mound Builder communities in the state.
“Sometimes we’d toss a coin, look at the map and say, ‘We haven’t gone in this direction yet.’ And we’d spend the weekend exploring.” Michael would tease the kids about getting lost; the girls would fret about being home by bedtime.
What do the children remember?
“They remember buying some old-fashioned candy sticks at a small store in Holmes County,” he chuckles.
The Janning kids kept themselves busy on car trips playing the License Plate Game. Today, they take their children on the same kinds of driving trips as the tradition lives on.
ebrown@cjn.org
Typically, the Freedheims rent a house on the Delaware coast for a week. Grandchildren come to stay, and their parents come and go as work permits. Two summers ago, however, the Freedheims wanted to have a special vacation in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary.
So they brought the whole famiglia to a farmhouse in the Tuscan town of Lucca, Italy.
Don Freedheim started planning a year in advance so that his daughters Amy, Julie and Sara and their spouses could clear their schedules for two weeks. Once they settled on a mutually agreeable date, Don made travel arrangements for everyone and presented each family with a folder of their itinerary, along with local background and events. He took care of all the costs of the trip. Paying the bills eliminates some debate and planning issues among his adult children, he has found.
Cooking their own meals in the rented house saved the Freedheims money, and the kitchen had a table large enough to seat all 13 for dinner.
“We’re blessed because everyone gets along,” Don says. “To be successful, you have to plan times together and have times apart” for each family.
With three rented cars, each of his adult daughters’ families could split up for side trips to Pisa, Siena, Florence or other little towns. Other times, the grandchildren separated from parents to bike around the ancient walled town with their grandparents, followed by gelato, of course!
Gerda insisted on setting house rules. For example, children needed an adult present to go to the pool or to turn on the TV.
Some nights, the grandkids organized a skit or a talent show. Don bought medals so each could each win an award.
“Spending time with all the families together is a tradition,” he says.
As a young father, Sandy Weinberg of Orange Village and his wife Bev took their children Allison, Ken and Michael on annual family vacations with his parents, Ida and Dr. Herman Weinberg.
The trips started because Sandy and his sister, Harriet Morris, live here, but two of his siblings moved out of state.
“It was just too busy when people would come to visit,” he explains. “So we started taking trips where it was just the family” without any distractions.
“The thing that meant the most to my mother was having all of us around the same table for dinner,” Sandy recalls. “She’d sit in the living room and watch everyone come and go, and she was thrilled.”
The Weinbergs would rent a cluster of condos in Hilton Head, S.C., California or Florida for these vacations. Ida and Herman’s condo would be the main headquarters and dining hall. “It would have cost a fortune to eat out three meals a day,” Sandy notes.
“It meant a lot to us for our children to spend time with their grandparents,” he adds, and for them to learn Yiddish words and customs, like saying “poopoopoo” to ward off the evil eye.
Eventually, the families graduated to cruises so that no one had to cook or clean. “Everyone ran around the ship during the day at their own pace,” he says. “The kids could sleep in, the teens would go to the teen lounge, the aunts and uncles would play hearts. Then we’d all have dinner together.”
The tradition continues now that Sandy is a grandfather himself. He and Bev recently planned a weekend at Seven Springs resort in Pennsylvania for their children and grandchildren.
Lenore Kahn and her husband Shelly planned a family vacation to North Carolina’s Outer Banks in celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary.
Their children Debbie, Dale and Randy drove in with their families from Solon, Tampa and Syracuse, respectively.
Well in advance, Dale asked each family what they wanted from the vacation. Dale reviewed numerous houses online to find one that met all the requirements. The routine became beach in the morning, pool every afternoon, and hot tub at night. The Kahn clan reviewed numerous houses online. Some websites, like www.GlobalFreeloaders.com, allow travelers to trade homes or housesit for free.
“We didn’t do everything together every minute,” says Lenore. Every night a different family was in charge of dinner, and one night they all went to “a lovely restaurant” in honor of their anniversary.
Were the kids bored? “Not for one minute,” insists Lenore. “There was one rainy day, and that was probably the best day we had. We played card games and board games, and the girls put on a fashion show with beach towels as the runway.
“They talk about it to this day,” she says. The children of Debbie and Jim Tomko of Solon loved spending time with their grown-up cousins from Tampa. Carly, 13, never wanted to go to bed because she didn’t want to miss a minute of the action. Kaitlyn, 10, liked the pool, while Alexis, 5, just liked being with her aunts and uncles.
Even closer to home, some families have found adventures and forged memories right here in Ohio!
Dr. Michael Janning and his wife Barbara of South Euclid packed the family into a big Buick station wagon and drove the backroads visiting historic sites all around Ohio when their children were young in the 1970s and 1980s.
Michael took his son Dan to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base to learn model rocketry. Now he’s Major Dan Janning of the U.S. Air Force. Trips for the girls, Debra Matovic and Susan Malone, included visiting COSI, the science museum in Columbus, or the historic Native American Mound Builder communities in the state.
“Sometimes we’d toss a coin, look at the map and say, ‘We haven’t gone in this direction yet.’ And we’d spend the weekend exploring.” Michael would tease the kids about getting lost; the girls would fret about being home by bedtime.
What do the children remember?
“They remember buying some old-fashioned candy sticks at a small store in Holmes County,” he chuckles.
The Janning kids kept themselves busy on car trips playing the License Plate Game. Today, they take their children on the same kinds of driving trips as the tradition lives on.
ebrown@cjn.org
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