# Can someone translate my grandparents' headstones for me? Hebrew speaker needed **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [January 5, 2013, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154 "2013-01-05T13:41:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 15\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 1:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/1 "2013-01-05T13:41:01Z")
Technically, I should be able to, but my Hebrew is rusty after years of disuse and my vocabulary is just about gone. It’s about fifteen words apiece for each one, probably fairly basic stuff, maybe with some geneological insights. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/2 "2013-01-05T14:02:42Z")
PM me. I’ll be glad to help. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/3 "2013-01-05T14:15:58Z")
Check your PMs, **Noone Special**. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/4 "2013-01-05T15:21:54Z")
Translation done. Check your mail. ---
**Author:** ![digs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/digs/32/14889_2.png) [@digs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/digs)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2013, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/5 "2013-01-05T18:48:53Z")
What, no humorous guesses as to what it might’ve said? This is PRR we’re dealing with; he’d crack up! ---
**Author:** ![Anchuldigs](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ed8c4c/32.png) [@Anchuldigs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anchuldigs)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/6 "2013-01-06T02:55:44Z")
On shabbos of course. ---
**Author:** ![Noone\_Special](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/noone_special/32/2863_2.png) [@Noone\_Special](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Noone_Special)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 6:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/7 "2013-01-06T06:39:14Z")
> [@Anchuldigs](#): > > On shabbos of course. Knowing **PRR** , that was probably on purpose 😛 Knowing myself, I liked that 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 9:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/8 "2013-01-06T09:22:49Z")
Okay, I want to know what was on the headstones! Was it just names and dates, or what? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 1:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/9 "2013-01-06T13:00:55Z")
Sorry to disappoint–I’d forgotten it was Shabbos (on vacation, you tend to lose track of the days), and I had a lively conversation with **Noone Special** , who actually turns out to be **Someone Special** , all about the names and dates, including followups about each of my dead grandparent’s names (my grand-dad’s father’s name was “Abraham Abba” and although “Abba” means “father” in Hebrew, one of the perhaps 200 or 300 Hebrew words I’ve retained, it also is a Hebrew proper name–\*\*Noone Special \*\*reminded me that it was Abba Eban’s name. And my grandmother’s first name was listed as “Sheine,” which I also remembered (digging into my Yiddish, where I retain maybe 500-1000 words) means “pretty” or “lovely” and **Noone Special** again reminded me that it was likelier to be a proper name than an adjective. Thanks to him, I’ve uncovered further information --they had both died in 1918-9, when my father was a young child, and I’d thought they had died of the Spanish Influenza, being of the correct ages and at the correct time, but no. I uncovered their death certificates last night, and found that they’d died of disparate and unconnected causes, making my father an orphan not as a result of the Flu epidemic but simply of rotten luck. ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 1:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/10 "2013-01-06T13:13:45Z")
Also let me give a shout-out to \*\*Chefguy \*\*here–he helped at an earlier stage of this geneological expedition, and all this stuff is starting to fit together. I’ve reconnected with my Canadian family, who were astonished to find out that my grandfather (the one with the headstone \*\*Noone Special \*\*just translated) ever existed, even though he was the older brother of the man whom my Canadian cousins acknowledge as the head of the whole family and is buried in the same cemetery. For years, apparently, the family had thought “Hmmmm, a couple of gravestones with the same name as our family” but no one ever mentioned my granddad, even the brother who had buried him. One scary thing I’ve learned is that my granddad died (of TB) when he was sixty years old. My dad died at age 61. I’m 59 now. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 2:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/11 "2013-01-06T14:02:03Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > One scary thing I’ve learned is that my granddad died (of TB) when he was sixty years old. My dad died at age 61. I’m 59 now. The good news is, you are unllikely to die of TB. What did your dad die of? ---
**Author:** ![pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/a9a28c/32.png) [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pseudotriton_ruber_ruber)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 3:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/12 "2013-01-06T15:00:07Z")
I guess it’s not that scary, in that both my father and his father died of causes that are either unlikely or curable. My dad died of the “good” Hodgkins, at a time when it was still a certain killer. It’s just the pattern of unluckiness that creeps me out (also that makes me enjoy every day I’ve got, and to try and pack as much pleasure into every day because you never know.) Both my dad and his dad died around age 60, and their spouses within a few months, leaving young kids without a family–I had my youngest kid a little earlier than either of them, so both my kids are adults now, leaving me relieved to have ended that particular string of unluckiness. ---
**Author:** ![Boyo\_Jim](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/87869e/32.png) [@Boyo\_Jim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boyo_Jim)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/13 "2013-01-06T15:53:27Z")
> [@pseudotriton\_ruber\_ruber](#): > > … > One scary thing I’ve learned is that my granddad died (of TB) when he was sixty years old. My dad died at age 61. I’m 59 now. I got one foot in that boat. The men on my dad’s side of the family seem to live to reasonable ages – he and his brothers died in their late 70s and 80s, and my grandfather lived until he was 95. But the men on my mom’s side die like bacteria or something. Some in their 40s, others in their 50s and 60s, and not from some common identified genetic disease. I’m 54, right in the heart of their Death Zone, and I’d be delighted if I just split the difference between the two sides of the family. ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/14 "2013-01-06T16:00:16Z")
**prr** , while we’re talking of unlucky orphans there’s my oldest cousin. He was born near the end of WWII. His mother had Hodgkin’s disease while she was carrying him, and died just a few months after his birth. His father was in the Army and got sent to Europe, and was killed in the Battle of the Bulge. So the cousin was an orphan by the time he was a year old. ---
**Author:** ![Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a88e4f/32.png) [@Digital\_is\_the\_new\_Analog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Digital_is_the_new_Analog)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2013, 5:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/can-someone-translate-my-grandparents-headstones-for-me-hebrew-speaker-needed/646154/15 "2013-01-06T17:45:58Z")
**prr** , you should see [Expiration Date](http://www.fandango.com/expirationdate_v351526/plotsummary). I caught it at a film festival, and thought it was great. > [@](#): > > Death lurks in the form of dairy delivery in this independent black comedy. Charlie Silvercloud III (Robert A. Guthrie) is a young man of Native American ancestry who has the sneaking suspicion a certain family tradition will soon catch up with him. It seems Charlie’s father and grandfather both died on their 25th birthdays, and both died from the same circumstances, after being struck by runaway milk trucks. Charlie’s 25th birthday is only a few weeks away, and he’s starting to feel his certain fate is lurking around the corner. Charlie’s mother, Lucille (Dee Wallace Stone), has been tracing the routes of the local milk delivery men and discover they all converge in their neighborhood, so Charlie starts putting his affairs in order – picking out a cemetery plot, planning his funeral, and ending his relationship with his girlfriend. However, with his birthday not long away, Charlie meets Bessie Anderson (Sascha Knopf), an eccentric but beautiful girl who isn’t about to let him die. Expiration Date also stars David Keith, Richard Sanders, and Ned Romero. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi -D/a