September 30, 2007

Nikki's Musical DNA - Grandpa Theo 1887-1918

Nikki's and her mother's musical DNA come from this tall handsome music professor, cut short by a newly mechanized war. Just think, in the single battle of Marne, a million men on both sides fell to machine gun fire and poison gas just to gain a half-mile in 3 days.
Theo rests in the French Dury Cemetery, and since the last word of this great 1900 French martial song is 'Immortalité', the least we could do is put him on this blog . Who knows, it might just outlive us. Theodore Ernest Sunbury (click here) died when Nikki was minus 31 and her mother was plus 2. Is it not fitting that the DNA carried through till today ? Nikki is highly musical and her mother was a star on the piano, the perfect daughter.
Incidently, 'Le Regiment de Meuse et Loire' was chosen as the theme song of the Ohio State University ; you can listen to their peppy rendition here. Let's wish that these college kids stick to their wonderful marching band and avoid marching to some useless combat. There's too much spilled blood already and certainly not enough gutsy music like this tune.
Through Nikki , professor Theo is still a little bit with us. Through this blog he will remain so a little bit longer. His war diaries will be published here soon.

3 comments:

Camille C. said...

Oh my God! Where did you get all this wonderful information. This is my grandfather you're talking about -- kept alive in our memories by my grandmother, Lulu. Jacques, I'm so grateful to you for this memorial.

Anonymous said...

WHAT A NICE TRIBUTE TO NIKKI'S GRANDFATHER..................

The13th said...

Only two years ago did I learn the actual pronunciation of my last name. I wrote a stranger in Czech. Prior to that my own family always believed the name was defected by Ellis Island's tendency to abbreviate or rename anything they couldn't spell.

Yesterday while searching for a lost half-brother on the net (no luck) - I did find many little tidbits of paternal history. My mom's side is where some of the French Canadian roots stem. Thus she's pleased to hear me roll my R's again with this meeting.

Heritage is indeed a treasure. You are quite lucky, Camille, to have some history intact.

I'll be looking forward to the full story!