{"id":128,"date":"2016-10-10T03:06:45","date_gmt":"2016-10-10T03:06:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=128"},"modified":"2016-10-10T03:06:45","modified_gmt":"2016-10-10T03:06:45","slug":"curse-of-the-dance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/?p=128","title":{"rendered":"Curse of the Dance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 5 Jul 2015.<\/p>\n

This month I’m fact checking my family legends in honor of my maternal grandmother, Mary Kos Koss’ 115th birthday on July 18th. \u00a0Non loved to tell stories but since she was somewhat dramatic, I wanted to discover the truths behind the legends. \u00a0Today’s family tale is rather ominous and as children, my cousins and I repeatedly were warned by older family members to guard against the curse that was placed on our family by a scorned woman.<\/p>\n

Long ago, one of our several times great grandmothers was young and beautiful.\u00a0 Being fair of face, with sparkling blue eyes and blonde hair, she was nicknamed Blondie.\u00a0 Her best feature, however, was her shapely legs that could dance the night away.\u00a0 It was then the custom to wear long dresses but that didn\u2019t stop Blondie from hiking up her dress as she danced the intricate steps of the kolo, a type of circle dance \u00a0\u00a0A young man who was promised to another woman became smitten by Blondie’s dancing and soon broke off the relationship with his then girlfriend.\u00a0 The relationship with Blondie intensified and the couple was married.\u00a0 The entire village was invited to the wedding feast. \u00a0\u00a0At the feast, the ex-girlfriend\u00a0 announced to the villagers that Blondie had stolen her man and because of it, the exgirlfriend was cursing Blondie and all of her descendants to unbearable suffering of their legs.\u00a0 Blondie did not believe in curses so she laughed at the woman and continued to celebrate her wedding.\u00a0 Not long after, however, Blondie did experience pain in her legs and eventually became crippled.\u00a0 The ex-girlfriend never married and lived to a ripe old age alone on the outskirts of the town.<\/p>\n

As a child, I assumed that this story was just used to keep us in line when all 11 of us cousins got together and went running at breakneck speed through grandma’s house. \u00a0I figured it was a version of don’t run with a stick in your hand that most parents tell their children. \u00a0But as one family member after another sustained leg injuries over the years, myself included, I decided to delve a little deeper.<\/p>\n

This is not a story that can be verified as certainly no records would exist that recorded these events.\u00a0 I can confirm that my family loves dancing and are quite musically inclined.\u00a0 The kolo is a Croatian folk dance.\u00a0 \u201cMany young men and women used this as an excuse for courting and teasing one another\u201d1\u00a0so there most likely is some basis to the tale of a long ago grandma hiking up her dress at a gathering and gaining the eye of a suitor.<\/p>\n

\"non\"
Grandma and Great Grandma Koss<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"mom\"
My Mom in a Blondie Pose<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Here’s some pics of my own children – I just assumed it was normal to be this agile and flexible.<\/p>\n

\"jon\"
Still LIkes Rock Climbing<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"h\"
Has Moved on to Yoga<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I can also give a long list of family members \u2013 actually everyone from my great grandparents on down to the present generation, that have been affected with serious issues with their legs and feet \u2013 including amputations, freak accidents while white water rafting,\u00a0motorcycling, snowboarding, bicycling and horseback riding, lots of broken ankles, legs and hips from falling down stairs, bunions, arthritis and ingrown toe nails. I suspect Blondie became crippled from arthritis as that seems to effect most of the female family members.<\/p>\n

I shared this story with my doctor daughter who laughed and said we should all just get tested for Ehlers-Dandlos Syndrome.\u00a0 I had never heard of it but after looking up the symptoms, I\u2019d say we all have a genetic predisposition to one of the many types of the syndrome \u2013 symptoms include overly flexible joints which do allow us to be good dancers and nimble athletes.\u00a0 Our skin is rather stretchy and fragile, too.\u00a0 Although we don\u2019t have all of the symptoms I suspect this is the basis for our leg mishaps, coupled with some recklessness because when we’re young we think we\u2019re invincible and when we’re older we forget our age.<\/p>\n

\"feet\"
6 Years Old<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Yes, my daughter’s feet are backwards – when she was young she could turn them around and stand and it freaked teacher’s out. \u00a0In the pic she’s pliaing with her feet backwards because she was into ballet at this time. Daughter thought it was comfortable.<\/p>\n

So now I know we aren’t a family of klutzes! \u00a0Next time I trip I’ll blame<\/p>\n

\n
    \n
  1. ““Croatian Dances” Wikipedia<\/em>.Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 05 July 2015.<\/li>\n
  2. \u00a0 \u00a0\u00a0“Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome.”\u00a0Symptoms<\/em>. N.p., n.d. Web. 05 July 2015.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Originally published on genealogyatheart.blogspot.com on 5 Jul 2015. This month I’m fact checking my family legends in honor of my maternal grandmother, Mary Kos Koss’ 115th birthday on July 18th. \u00a0Non loved to tell stories but since she was somewhat dramatic, I wanted to discover the truths behind the legends. \u00a0Today’s family tale is rather … Continue reading “Curse of the Dance”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[97,105,84],"class_list":["post-128","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-family-stories","tag-dna","tag-ehlers-dandlos-syndrome","tag-koss"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=128"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":134,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128\/revisions\/134"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=128"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=128"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.genealogyatheart.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=128"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}