Eisenberg Assisted Living Writers' Roundtable: Our Stories, Our Lives, Vol. Two by L Knoles

Our Stories, Our Lives

Our Stories, Our Lives Copyright @ 2012 by Lucia Knoles All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the editor except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Printed in the United States of America The Writers Roundtable Eisenberg Assisted Living 631 Salisbury St. Worcester, MA 01609

This book is dedicated to the memory of Mollie Galub, Pearl Triester, and Joseph Zaucha, three charter members of the Writers’ Roundtable. We will always admire them as writers and hold them in our hearts as friends.

Table of Contents THE EISENBERG WRITERS’ ROUNDTABLE: OUR STORY .......................................................... 7 A YEAR (MORE OR LESS) IN THE LIFE OF THE WRITERS’ ROUNDTABLE............................ 9 WE GIVE OUR FIRST PUBLIC READING AT EISENBERG .................................................................................. 10 WE PUBLISH OUR FIRST BOOK ........................................................................................................................... 11 WE GIVE A READING OF “THIS I BELIEVE” STORIES AT ASSUMPTION COLLEGE ....................................... 12 WE DO OUR SECOND EISENBERG READING ..................................................................................................... 20 WE CELEBRATE OUR SUCCESS ........................................................................................................................... 25 WE GET PRESS........................................................................................................................................................ 27 WE PRESENT “STORIES OF THE SHOAH” DURING HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE MONTH ....................... 29 THE MEMBERS OF THE EISENBERG WRITERS’ ROUNDTABLE ............................................31 ORAL HISTORY: THE CHORES WE DID, THE GAMES WE PLAYED ................................................................ 33 Mollie Galub..........................................................................................................................................................33 Joseph Zaucha......................................................................................................................................................35 ORAL HISTORY: MEMORIES OF THE DEPRESSION ........................................................................................... 39 Sid Short.................................................................................................................................................................39 Esther Wittner.....................................................................................................................................................40 Vita Hirsch ............................................................................................................................................................40 Gary Messenger...................................................................................................................................................40 Sylvia Klauber......................................................................................................................................................41 Harriet Willins.....................................................................................................................................................41 Florence Katz.......................................................................................................................................................41 ORAL HISTORY: DECEMBER 7, 1941................................................................................................................. 42 Florence Katz.......................................................................................................................................................42 Lilyan Bachrach..................................................................................................................................................42 Harriet Willins.....................................................................................................................................................43 Vita Hirsch ............................................................................................................................................................43 Birdie Chase..........................................................................................................................................................43 Helen Drellich ......................................................................................................................................................43 Sylvia Klauber......................................................................................................................................................44 Mollie Galub..........................................................................................................................................................44 ESTHER WITTNER ...............................................................................................................................45 I BELIEVE IN MARRIAGE ....................................................................................................................................... 46 SHOW ME YOUR WAY, PART ONE ...................................................................................................................... 48 SHOW ME YOUR WAY, PART TWO ..................................................................................................................... 49 COMFORTABLE WITH WHO SHE IS .................................................................................................................... 51 EXPERIENCES OF JOY ............................................................................................................................................. 52 WHAT THE WRITERS’ ROUNDTABLE MEANS TO ME...................................................................................... 53 TOOLS ....................................................................................................................................................................... 54 THE JOURNEY .......................................................................................................................................................... 57 LETTER TO A NEW RESIDENT: WHAT I LIKE ABOUT LIVING AT EISENBERG ............................................ 58

2 HELEN DRELLICH.................................................................................................................................61 I BELIEVE IN COMPASSION ................................................................................................................................... 63 MARVIN’S BRIDGE WAS FALLING DOWN .......................................................................................................... 65 AN EXPERIENCE OF JOY ......................................................................................................................................... 67 LOSING ZADA........................................................................................................................................................... 71 SID SHORT..............................................................................................................................................75 BORN AGAIN AT EISENBERG ................................................................................................................................ 77 FLORENCE KATZ ..................................................................................................................................83 A PORTRAIT OF A GOOD MATCH ......................................................................................................................... 85 ALL GOOD THINGS COME TO AN END................................................................................................................. 88 THE BIG DANCE ...................................................................................................................................................... 91 HOME ON THE HILL ............................................................................................................................................... 93 HAPPY DAYS ON THE HILL ................................................................................................................................... 97 JOINING THE WRITERS’ ROUNDTABLE ............................................................................................................... 98 MOLLIE GALUB .....................................................................................................................................99 REFLECTIONS ON BEING A MOTHER .................................................................................................................101 A MEMOIR OF MY FIRST HUNDRED YEARS.....................................................................................................105 HOW I LEARNED TO WRITE ...............................................................................................................................111 SYLVIA ROSENTHAL......................................................................................................................... 117 I BELIEVE IN BEING A BRIEN..............................................................................................................................119 MY MOTHER ..........................................................................................................................................................121 THE BELOVED PEST .............................................................................................................................................123 OZZIE ......................................................................................................................................................................127 RITA WAHLE ...................................................................................................................................... 131 MY DADDY, MY GRANDMOTHER, AND YOUR FATHER ..................................................................................133 HUNT’S POINT PUBLIC LIBRARY, THE BRONX................................................................................................134 GARY MESSENGER ............................................................................................................................ 137 MY FATHER WAS A GENTLE GIANT BUT GOD HELP THE MAN WHO TOUCHED HIS SONS ...................138 WHAT MY MOTHER TAUGHT ME .....................................................................................................................141 GOING HOME .........................................................................................................................................................145 THE FARM AND THE STRIP MINE ......................................................................................................................147 MY FATHER ...........................................................................................................................................................149 TO MY HERO, THE GENTLE GIANT ...................................................................................................................152 THE LUMBERJACKS ..............................................................................................................................................153 A LITTLE SCHOOL, A LOT OF JOBS ....................................................................................................................155 THAT WAS ALL RIGHT WITH ME .....................................................................................................................157 NAVY DAYS ............................................................................................................................................................163 A ONE OF A KIND STORY.....................................................................................................................................170 MY LIFE, FULL OF FUN ........................................................................................................................................173 THE WRITERS’ ROUNDTABLE AND ME ............................................................................................................175 LAURA SUSANIN ................................................................................................................................ 177 THE STRENGTH OF LOVE ....................................................................................................................................179

HARRIET WILLINS ............................................................................................................................ 183 TANTA MINNIE .....................................................................................................................................................184 EXPECTED TO BE LADIES ....................................................................................................................................186 ROSH HASHANAH AT DIVISION 28 ...................................................................................................................188 MY ZADIE, PART TWO .........................................................................................................................................197 ROSALYN BORSKY ............................................................................................................................ 201 PAUL NORMAN BORSKY ......................................................................................................................................204 SIXTY FIVE YEARS WITH MY BEST FRIEND .....................................................................................................207 MY LIFE AS A CAMPER .........................................................................................................................................212 MUSIC AND MY LIFE ............................................................................................................................................218 IN CONCLUSION ....................................................................................................................................................220 ALBERTA “BIRDIE” CHASE............................................................................................................. 223 IS IT OR ISN’T IT? .................................................................................................................................................225 HERE’S TO YOU.....................................................................................................................................................226 SAME OLD, SAME OLD .........................................................................................................................................227 NEW YORK, NEW YORK ......................................................................................................................................231 KVELLING ...............................................................................................................................................................233 THE JOKE WAS ON US .........................................................................................................................................235 MEMORIES OF MOLLIE ........................................................................................................................................236 JOSEPH GOFF...................................................................................................................................... 237 MY SISTER EVA .....................................................................................................................................................239 ENVY .......................................................................................................................................................................243 EXPERIENCES OF JOY ...........................................................................................................................................244 LILLIAN GOFF ..................................................................................................................................... 245 INVITATION TO THE DANCE ...............................................................................................................................247 GROWING INTO MATURITY ................................................................................................................................249 MY FIRST ATTEMPT AT ART ..............................................................................................................................253 FURTHERING MY ART .........................................................................................................................................255 A STEP STOOL .......................................................................................................................................................258 VITA HIRSCH ...................................................................................................................................... 261 A TRIBUTE TO MY PARENTS ..............................................................................................................................262 GROWING UP JEWISH ..........................................................................................................................................265 STARTING OUT ......................................................................................................................................................267 I NEVER KNEW .....................................................................................................................................................269 PARENTHOOD 101?.............................................................................................................................................270 TOOLS .....................................................................................................................................................................271 A GRATITUDE LETTER.........................................................................................................................................273 COURAGE ................................................................................................................................................................275 THE WRITERS’ ROUNDTABLE ............................................................................................................................278 FLORENCE BLATT............................................................................................................................. 279 MY MOTHER: IN THOSE DAYS YOU DIDN’T SAY IT, BUT IT WAS THERE ................................................281 MY DAUGHTERS: A SPECIAL BOND ..................................................................................................................284 MEMORIES OF A GOOD NEIGHBOR ....................................................................................................................291 DR. AUGUSTA KRESSLER................................................................................................................ 293 THIS I BELIEVE .....................................................................................................................................................294 MY GRANDMOTHER .............................................................................................................................................296

4 MY GRANDFATHER ..............................................................................................................................................297 HOW A POLLACK BECAME A WOMAN DOCTOR .............................................................................................298 THE HAIRCUT ........................................................................................................................................................299 MICHAEL KATZ .................................................................................................................................. 301 THE PRIZE POLLUTER .........................................................................................................................................303 TILLIE .....................................................................................................................................................................304 HOW ABOUT MOSES? ..........................................................................................................................................306 MY LIFE AS AN ENGINEER ..................................................................................................................................310 PEARL TRIESTER .............................................................................................................................. 317 THE SNOW DAY ....................................................................................................................................................318 THIS I BELIEVE .....................................................................................................................................................319 FINALLY A HOME ..................................................................................................................................................320 SYLVIA KLAUBER .............................................................................................................................. 323 THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF MY INDEPENDENT NATURE ...........................................................325 LETTER TO A FRIEND ...........................................................................................................................................331 MY FIRST TRIP TO CHICAGO—A BIG HIT .......................................................................................................336 NIGHT SCENES ......................................................................................................................................................337 A FISH STORY ........................................................................................................................................................338 GEORGE ENGELSON.......................................................................................................................... 339 MOTHER KEPT US ALIVE ....................................................................................................................................341 GROWING UP: SCHOOL YEAR AND “THE BRAVES” ........................................................................................345 THE HIGH SCHOOL TEACHER AND THE “FILTHY HABIT”.............................................................................348 COLLEGE, THE WAR, CABOT CORP....................................................................................................................349 ON AN ENDLESS OCEAN UNDER A DARKENING SKY .....................................................................................352 OUR SUMMERTIME ...............................................................................................................................................356 REVISITING BERLIN .............................................................................................................................................358 THE INEVITABILITY OF SPRING .........................................................................................................................361 A LIFE GONE..........................................................................................................................................................363 UNLOOKED FOR JOY .............................................................................................................................................365 JOSEPH E. ZAUCHA ........................................................................................................................... 367 LAURA: A WOMAN OF MANY HATS ..................................................................................................................369 Preface ................................................................................................................................................................. 369 Her Story............................................................................................................................................................. 369 STORIES OF THE SHOAH: A PROJECT OF THE EISENBERG WRITERS’ ROUNDTABLE 377 WELCOME BY DR. AUGUSTA KRESSLER ...........................................................................................................378 REMEMBERING THOSE WHO RESISTED BY BIRDIE CHASE ..........................................................................379 REMEMBERING THOSE WHO LEFT GERMANY BY GEORGE ENGELSON .....................................................381 REMEMBERING THOSE WHO LEFT GERMANY BY RITA WAHLE .................................................................384 REMEMBERING THOSE WHO FOUGHT: VICTOR PIGOGA INTERVIEWED BY JOSEPH ZAUCHA ...............387 REMEMBERING THOSE WHO RESCUED OTHERS BY MOLLIE GALUB .........................................................389 REMEMBERING THOSE IN THE CONCENTRATION CAMPS: IBOJA GOLDSPIEL INTERVIEWED BY JOSEPH ZAUCHA ..................................................................................................................................................................391 A PRESENTATION TO IBOJA GOLDSPIEL AND ELI SHAW ...............................................................................401 BY SYLVIA KLAUBER ............................................................................................................................................401 A PRAYER FOR THE FUTURE BY FLORENCE KATZ..........................................................................................402 A PRAYER FOR THE FUTURE BY JOSEPH ZAUCHA ..........................................................................................403

The members of the Eisenberg Writers’ Roundtable would like to express their deepest thanks to Lisa Brown, Director of Activities, and Laura Susanin, Social Worker. Our work is better—and our lives are richer—because of their support and encouragement. We are grateful for the difference Lisa and Laura make in our lives.

The Eisenberg Writers’ Roundtable: Our Story In April 2011, four people living at Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence in Worcester, MA came together with Professor Lucia Knoles of Assumption College to found the Writers’ Roundtable. In October 2011, we published Our Stories, Our Lives, our first anthology of memoirs written by eight Eisenberg residents. Since then our group has continued to grow. During our weekly sessions we’ve listened to autobiographical stories by the likes of Alfred Kazin, Amy Tan, and Russell Baker, essays by authors such as Elie Weisel and Scott Russell Sanders and others, and poems by Mary Oliver, W. H. Auden, William Carlos Williams, among others. We’re read aloud the stories we’ve written about the births, wars, weddings, and deaths that have shaped our lives. We’ve cried with Esther and laughed with Gary. We’ve mourned the loss of members of the group and welcomed new members. We’ve come to know one another very well. (Who would have guessed Mike Katz was a swimsuit model?) Everyone has shared; everyone has listened. A variety of groups have come to our readings or invited us to read, including students at Assumption College, long-‐term care Ombudsmen, and hospice workers. We have hosted a variety guests at our sessions interested in forming groups like our own. We have even made a presentation at Our Lady of the Sacred Heart church, talking to parishioners about how they might be able to establish an autobiographical writing club for their seniors. We do all of these things because we believe: • Everyone has a story. • Everyone deserves to have his story heard. • By writing our stories, we continue to grow. • By exchanging our stories, we become a community. • By passing on our stories, we give our families a gift only WE can give.

Age has not dampened our enthusiasm for learning. Indeed, it has freed us from the worries about grades or status that might once have held us back. Some of us are surprised to find ourselves good writers after lifetimes spent without writing. As one of our founding members, Mollie Galub, once said: “I thought I was an outcast. I found out I was a writer.” And age has given us another advantage: we all have large warehouses of memories from which to draw our stories. What better time than to explore and share the stories of our lives than now? This is our second book. We don’t expect it to be the last. So if you know an older person, give him or her a pen. If you are an older person, pick up a notebook. If you are a group of older people, start your own Writers’ Roundtable. (And get in touch—we’d love to hear from you.) Because everyone has a story. And everyone deserves to have his story heard.

A Year (More or Less) In the Life of the Writers’ Roundtable

We Give Our First Public Reading at Eisenberg

We Publish Our First Book

Joe and Mollie Celebrate at an Outdoor Cafe After Seeing the Book Printed at the Harvard Book Store

We Give a Reading of “This I Believe” Stories at Assumption College

Harriet Being Escorted to Class at Assumption

We Do Our Second Eisenberg Reading

We Celebrate Our Success

We Get Press

We Present “Stories of the Shoah” During Holocaust Remembrance Month

The Members of The Eisenberg Writers’ Roundtable

Oral History: The Chores We Did, the Games We Played

Mollie Galub Let’s say that I was born in 1911 in Chicago, and my first memory is that of a big store. And it was a shoe repair store. My father owned it, and I thought he was a genius to be able to know which wheel to turn to do which chore. And we lived in the back of the store, and there was a great big pot bellied stove. And that’s the way we lived. My mother had curtains drawn across the beds so there was some privacy; the curtains were the walls. And we had a little toilet—just a toilet. And we had a meter in the toilet, and if you put a penny or a dime or nickel—I can’t remember what it was—when the electric ran out, it came on. And I remember putting my hand in that meter and getting a shock. And I never did that again. Then, we had a washtub with two sections. And on ladies’ day, my mother filled it with water, and we took turns taking baths in the same water. And then we changed and went to bed. And all I remember in the way of artistry was that my mother loved angels, and I still have one. And my mother had these little angels over the bed, and I loved those angels. And there was one I was scared to death of. One of the posters was of a cat’s paw—it was of a big, black, menacing looking cat. And he was supposed to show that your heels would never wear out. And I was afraid to look at that cat he was so ferocious looking. We were very poor, but I didn’t know it. We had plenty to eat. And I was the eldest and the first. I had two sisters, and no brothers, unfortunately. Because I was the eldest and my other sister was born a year later, she could do nothing. And then my mother was pregnant again seven years later. By that time, you see, I was a big girl. And it was a wish on me. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. I can remember an eight-‐year-‐old hearing a voice of crying coming from the bedroom. You didn’t go to the hospital in those days. And when the doctor came out of the bedroom with his case, I asked, what’s all that crying in there? And he said, "That’s your baby sister. " And I said, “Where did she come from? And he said “I brought her in my suitcase.” And I figured that’s the way babies are born.

Well that is the beginning of my chore. My baby sister was my chore. I had to take care of her. My father was in business with my father. She had two kids to take care of and cooking and cleaning and all that. She had to wash the diapers—I remember long rows of diapers outside. And my mother had a wonderful habit. She never said to me: “Do it!” She’d say, “Would you like to do it?” And I never said no. I was the eldest and I always felt that sense of responsibility. They were very sweet. My mother was an exceptionally loving mother. She wanted nothing but the best for her children. My father didn’t care. But my mother was determined to make something out of all of us. My younger sister was a crybaby. And every time she didn’t’ want to do something she just screamed and cried. So she didn’t have to do anything. And my mother would say to me, “Would you like?” And I would. Because I was loved. Because I knew I was the favorite child. And how can you say no when you’re the favorite child. There was one horrible thing that happened. We were looking out of a window together, she and I, and we were watching the traffic go by. There was plenty of traffic to watch. And she fell out of the window. I didn’t push her. But my mother never forgave herself. (I was about 7 or 8 years old and I was the chief baby sitter.) Because my sister took a couple of years to really recover. Then, whenever I had to go somewhere, I had to take the baby with me. I didn’t like that, but I did it. I did it because I was always going to get a treat, and the treat was to go to a movie for five cents and then get an extra five cents for a soda with ice cream in it at an ice cream parlor—all for five cents. So I always dragged her along with me. My friends didn’t comment because they all had responsibilities too. It was that kind of neighborhood. They were all grown up when they were kids. One of the things we did was to gather stones, little tiny stones, and build boundaries. That was my house. I could barely stand in it but that was my house. And another little girl would put her stones around, and that was her house. And then we’d play the baby would get sick, and we’d have to call the doctor. It was a very real thing, because there was always a baby around. And there were boys around too, but these

boys never meant anything to me. But we played house, using these stones. We’d find a dead bird, and I remember we found this dead bird one time and the bird had to have a funeral of course. So the whole family gathers around, and I ran upstairs and got an empty matchbox, and we put the bird in the matchbox, and then we had this wonderful funeral with eulogies and everything else. That I remember. I don’t remember everything, but that I remember. And then we’d go off and play cowboys and Indians. We played hide and seek. We’d play house. We jumped rope—but I was never very athletic and that’s more than what I wanted to do. We just copied family ways. We knew we had this baby and she needed to be taken care of so that’s what we did. I was nine or ten years old. We played jacks, where you’d put the jacks down and bounce the ball. We never played cards. Never had cards in my house. I don’t know the first thing about cards even now. We played hide and seek, and you’d go behind the house and if someone came closer you hid back a little further. When we played cowboys and Indians my mother wouldn’t buy me a gun. But we had sticks, and we’d go bang bang bang. But we were a very poor neighborhood. And I knew I was loved. So anything I was asked to do, I’d do. Chicago was filled with allies, and there was a set of buildings here, and then there was a big alleyway that ran into the street, and then on the other side there was another house. So alleys were the big things. We played tag, and we jumped rope, and that was about all I remember. I played with the other kids who lived within three blocks, they’d all come and we’d play out in the street. Sometimes in the side yard. Anybody play hopscotch?

Joseph Zaucha I was the only child so we didn’t have any girl to help my mother, so I was the helper. I do remember this. My mother gave me my marching orders. My mother would get one thing done, and then she’d

say, “Let’s go wash the windows,” or dust this, or cut the grass. After a while, probably a year or two, and I said: Mom, I don’t mind doing things, but let’s sit down a make a list. I was never done. So I wanted to know that when I got done with the list I was done. One thing we did was varnish the floors, and you had a roller. It seems like I was always varnishing floors. The kitchen you had to paint. But in the other rooms of the house you varnished around the rugs. You rolled up the carpet a bit and would varnish around the rug. You put down the primer, but we had this one little tool that was like half of a roll and it had grooves in it. And if you rolled it you could make a grain, or you could make it look like there was a limb. It was a lot of fun trying to make the different kinds of designs you wanted to. You mowed the grass. You picked the bugs off the beans. And then did you ever see a tomato bug? They’re the ugliest things you’ve ever seen. They were green like you see in a dragon on a Chinese holiday—they were like little small dragon, and if you stepped on them they squished and oozed. You’d squeeze the leaf on the bug. If you caught lightning bugs you’d roll it in your tie so you had a light on it. They didn’t blink; they covered and opened as they flew. (Every house had a flyswatter, and then you’d go to the butcher and get those tubes of sticky paper and if you had a real problem you’d unroll it in your kitchen.) We played a game called Release the Peddler. We had teams. One team would go out and hide away and the other team would go catch them. We drew a circle and put the ones we caught in there. And they had to stay there until one member of their team ran into the circle and yelled, “Release the Peddler.” And it was a pretty tough game because if someone was running into the circle you’d tackle them. We had a little creek, and we’d go down to the creek and put boats into it. I was more out in the country and we had weeds down by the railroad tracks so we’d go down there and cut trails. And we were small enough that the weeds were bigger than we were—they were elderberry and other weeds—and we’d walk from one house to another

on our trail. I remember one day feeling so good and walking down the trail and a damn snake coming out and scaring me. I haven’t liked snakes since. We lived by coalmines. So when you have a coal mine you have a big pile of slate, and the coal they burned would make ash, and they would put it onto these big dumps. So we’d run up these dumps and jump to see who could jump the furthest and then land in the ashes when you came down. But boy that was a lot of fun. And usually there would be a creek down at the bottom of the dump, and if you jumped too far you’d end up in the creek. They were as big as these buildings, the dumps. Some of them were a little scary; they were still smoking and burning underneath. You could see them at night, the whole side of the dump would burn, you could see it. You had regular marbles, but you had coogies and coogies were made out of clay. So you could gamble with them, but you had to be careful of your marbles. One thing we did at school was we had sidewalks. And when we had snow, we would slide, I don’t know how we did it, and eventually we would make a slide, and everyone would line up and slide ten or twelve feet. You made your own fun. I was in trouble all my life. My first dog just turned up and my parents let me keep it. Her name was Peggy. I also had a crow. If you cut its wings just a little bit it couldn’t fly. But I would walk around with a crow on my shoulders. But one night I came home and it was gone—somebody took it I was a good kid but in school I was a nuisance to the teachers. In high school I was in permanent detention. My math teacher would get tired of me yakking in class, so she would give me poems to memorize. So “Milton on his blindness” is one I remember. I played the usual things like hide and seek and tag and hopscotch. I also played baseball. My buddy was the boy who lived next door. There weren’t many kids on the street so we did everything together. A lot of things I shouldn’t have done in retrospect. We chased the iceman. (He would give us ice.) We went in people’s back yards and picked

things. Sure we got in trouble. We went to the same school, and it was easy to go through somebody’s back yard, so we did that, even though the lady didn’t like it. Sometimes she would watch us and scold us, but we did it anyway because it was shorter. We went to the same elementary school and we used to steal dogs. We always wanted a dog and my friend always wanted a dog but wasn’t allowed to have it. So we’d steal dogs, and we’d take it home and tie it up. But by the time we got home from school in the afternoon, it would be gone.

Oral History: Memories of the Depression

Sid Short

During the depression my father was a wounded WWI veteran, and in order to stimulate his pay he was a runner for the number’s game. One day one of his clients made a big hit, and the guy that was in charge of it came to the house and gave my brother and sister and I the money as my parents were not at home. I was twelve or thirteen at the time. We had to hide the money, and in hiding it, we found a pistol my dad had. Needless to say, we didn’t sleep too well that night. We were so excited, a big wad of money, a gun, and we didn’t know what the world was going to come to. We didn’t know it was illegal, we found out alter. It was referred to as “the n _ _ _ _r pool” because what it was was the number of the U.S. treasury balance, and if you guessed it you won. We didn’t know we were poor because everyone else was too.

Esther Wittner

During the depression I was twelve, and I lived in New York, which was fortunate because we had transportation so we weren’t limited. And I took the train to where the bank was, because the bank owned all the properties because the people couldn’t pay the mortgages. And so I went to the bank, and it was amazing that I didn’t discuss it with my siblings. I was the youngest. I went to the bank, and I asked to speak to the manager, and they took me into the office, and I said, “Could you forgive our rent this month because we can’t pay it? My father was laid off.” And they said “absolutely.” And I felt like the little match girl. I knew we didn’t have the rent. It must have been discussed. I must have heard it. But we never went hungry. Soup was always the base of the meal.

Vita Hirsch

During that time my father was away most of the time; he would be out of town because his business had collapsed. So he was traveling throughout the area making a living doing different things. My mother would shop all over the area looking for day old things that would be on sale. We had chicken on a Friday night, my mother would eat the neck and that was it. I knew things were tough, but it didn’t affect us because we knew that was the way it was. Something that is strange is that even once I grew up I always looked for the day old food so I could do something with it.

Gary Messenger

My grandmother would always look for dandelions to cook with; she’d go to Salvation Army and get clothes. And my grandfather would

get mad and say, “Why are you doing that, I’m working now?” But she just couldn’t get it out of her system.

Sylvia Klauber

I never got hand me downs because nothing ever fit me. We lived in a suburb of Patterson in a non-‐Jewish community. We were one of three families. So my mother and father encouraged us to go to the Patterson YMHA and make that our social life. To do that we had to take the bus, and the bus went through three towns. And each time it passed through a town that was another nickel on the fare. And the place I got off I had to walk another quarter of a mile in a place with no sidewalks. One driver, named Charley, would never let me walk. I’d ring the bell and he said: “Stay there, I’ll drive you home.” Because it would have cost me another ten cents, and I couldn’t afford it.

Harriet Willins

I don’t have an exciting story. My father didn’t make much money. My mother was a very proud woman. She figured we didn’t have much money so she went to a factory and sewed blankets to supplement the income. Whatever we wanted she got, because she just worked longer and harder to get it.

Florence Katz

All I remember is my sister coming into the bedroom and saying, “We’re poor.” But we always had food on the table, plenty of potatoes, plenty of bread. But the main thing my parents got stressed about was getting food was education.

Oral History: December 7, 1941

Florence Katz As usual, a group of young girls sitting around on the floor and on the bed, chewing whatever we were chewing, having a ball when that came on the radio. We all held our breath. What are we going to do about it? Well, we’re not going to be kids. We’re going to join the service. That was the first thing that entered our minds.

Lilyan Bachrach I was at Fort Adams. My husband had gone into the service to do his one-‐year of duty before going into medical practice. And his one-‐ year became five years because war was declared. I was with him—we

had an apartment at Fort Adams and one of his colleagues came in and said, “We’re at war.” And I think we just sat there numbly looking at each other trying to figure out what that meant. So his one year became five years.

Harriet Willins I remember listening to Roosevelt, but I don’t remember what he said.

Vita Hirsch I was sitting in a dorm in the university of Minnesota campus with my very best friend we were in the same program in school. And it came over the radio, and I looked at her, and said, “Sarah Lee, I've got to go home.” And I went out and got the streetcar, and everyone was numb. And when I got home, we all gathered around the radio and listened to everything we could about this day.’

Birdie Chase I was thirteen and it was one of those Sundays where we always used to go for a Sunday ride, and my father heard it at home. And I remember my dad said that Christmas vacation we were going to take a road trip to Florida, and right away he knew that was out. This is war.

Helen Drellich I remember waking up on a pretty sunny morning and saying to myself, how nice, how nice for my cousin Ruth. It’s the first anniversary of her marriage. And then as the news came over the radio, I thought what a terrible way to remember. The wedding and bombing would be together in her memory forever.

Sylvia Klauber

I was in Brooklyn on avenue U in front of my aunt’s and uncle’s house. I’d been on a date with a young man from Brooklyn and he’d taken me back to my uncle’s house and we were just finishing the date. I remember saying when I heard the news, I kept saying, “Well, what does that mean? What does that mean?” And I went into my house and found out what it meant, my uncle and I listening to the radio.

Mollie Galub

I was vacuuming the rugs in the living room, and I turned the vacuum right off and listened to the radio. And my first thought was Oh my god how all these young people I knew—these people that I loved— were going to have to go to war. And then I thought, my children were too little and wouldn’t have to go. And I thought my husband, because he had children, wouldn’t have to go. But that’s what you think about, all these young people, the cream of our country, who would die. I can remember the Emerson radio in the room. I don’t remember a heck of a lot—I can see the radio. But what I was going to say was that the newspapers for the weeks and months before that were publishing how weak the Japanese were. They would say that Tokyo was a city made out of bamboo so that one incendiary bomb would take them all down. The newspaper made it sound like they were weak, which they weren’t. And all the newspapers came out with special editions. On a very personal level, I vowed then I would never have children because I didn’t want them to grow up in an atmosphere where bombing was so easy.

ESTHER WITTNER

I Believe in Marriage

People sometimes can’t believe that good marriages really exist. But as a person who lived with love for sixty-‐five years, I believe in marriage. This is not something I learned from my parents. When I write I find that I begin by only thinking of bad things— the men in my life failed me—my father was an old fashioned man. My mother died when I was twelve. I have no memories of being held, kissed or any form of affection. So my sister and I did the women’s work of cooking, cleaning, shopping, and all—not a young child’s duties. Walking home for lunch (in those days it was done) my friends who walked with e would say, “I hope my mother made _________.” I myself could not speak of a mother. I went into a home, no one there to greet me or serve me. At the time I didn’t realize how cheated I was. My sister (who I loved) and I cooked and prepared the dinner. We did a mother’s job. My brother, who was older (15), did not participate in any of the household activities. The three of us would eat together. My father came home at 10 p.m. (he had a tailor’s job requiring that he work late). Either my sister or I served him at that late hour. After he finished eating he went to bed not speaking to us, not a “goodnight,” or “thank you.” I learned to expect no warmth, till his dying day there was nothing. Looking back, I think my father resented us, not my brother. He was a boy. But the lack of love in my early life only made me more able to appreciate love when I found it. I was lucky in life to marry a wonderful man—at that time a boy. We were married for 65 wonderful years. He cared about me and for me. He was a man who didn’t send flowers on Valentines; he just did what he knew was what I’d wanted. I’d say something was nice, and I had it. My life for 65 years was peaceful and good.

We had two children: a boy and a girl. My son is much like my father—cold and distant. To this day he lives in another state, and I do not hear from him. He did not send me a mother’s day gift nor remember my birthday. No card, no calls. At my age, I have learned to ignore all that about him. I find peace and love between my daughter and myself. To know Wendy is to love her, and I do dearly. At my death, on advised by my attorney, I gave him a sum of money. Should he object to the amount he gets nothing. If I gave him nothing he could sue my daughter, which I want to avoid. I am living at an assisted living place that I truly love. The people food, and general conditions are to my liking. And the experience of love I enjoyed with my husband over sixty-‐five years and the experience of love I continue to enjoy with my daughter even today has made me even more able to appreciate how important it is to give and receive love in your life. Sometimes now I give and don’t receive—just as I gave and didn’t receive as a child. But now that I’m eighty-‐eight, I realized that part doesn’t matter. You have love in your life, even if you’re the one giving it. Now I am at peace and comfortable. I am able to afford living here due to my husband’s hard work and careful planning. I thank him every day. I just was lucky to have had a good, kind, loving husband. Anyone reading this can’t or would not believe this to be true. It’s hard for people to believe in good marriages sometimes. However, if you have respect for each other, then it can be true—this I believe.

Show Me Your Way, Part One

My husband and I weren’t married yet and he took the tine of a fork and bent it and made it into a ring in the shape of a buckle. He wanted to give me something and couldn’t afford it, so he made it for me. That’s the caring— not a valentine, not a card. Show me YOUR way that you care.

Show Me Your Way, Part Two

It was a pleasure raising my daughter. She was easy. She had juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and the doctor said, “ Doesn’t she cry?” And I said, “No, she goes like this” And I raised my hands to show how she asked to be held because it was hard for her to walk. So I cooked and I cleaned with her in my arms. My son was demanding— I would take him to the playground, he would resent the other kids. It was his playground. It was never enough, never enough. The empty glass. His father never went to college, and my son looked down on him. My husband was a mensch, and a brilliant man. He didn’t need college for what he did. This was a man, no anger in him, no hostility, nothing. And when my husband was dying, my son wasn’t there to see it or know it or comfort me. And then you insult me with a mother’s day card with a cat when I’m a dog person. Nothing else, not a call, nothing. If he never sent that card it would be better. Ayshefadeet: Is that all I deserve?

My question is why? I want the answer. Why did he behave like that? It’s got to be explained. What I want to say to my son is how did I fail you that you treat me this way? I have no middle. It’s either here or there. I never accept the middle because I never GAVE the middle. I either loved you or left you alone. My husband knew I liked my Revere pots polished. So he would do the dishes And polish the pots. Maybe that’s why I feel let down by my son. My husband knew what I want and gave it to me. We weren’t married yet, and my husband took a fork and bent the tines and made it into a ring in the shape of a buckle. He wanted to give me something and couldn’t afford it so he made it for me. That’s the caring: not a valentine, not a card. Show me YOUR way that you care.

Comfortable With Who She Is My daughter sent me a card that said, “I am because you are.” Inside she wrote, “Dear Mom, Thanks so much for being you. You are a great role model and I am so lucky to have had you and dad to help shape me into the person I am today! You are a very special person, and I am so grateful that you are my mom, love you tons, Wendy.” You know why she could send that? Because she is confident. She came from a loving family, but she also gave back. She was in a restaurant enjoying the food and she said to the waiter, pack it up. And she brought it on a plane for her father because he said, “That’s his kind of food.’ Yesterday we were playing bingo, and she came in carrying a bouquet of flowers. “Mom, would you believe it, I was just at Wegmans and this bouquet was only five dollars.” She’s comfortable with who she is.

Experiences of Joy

When I walked into the house in New York After being in California for a week My husband was working on something. That’s when I said: “What are you doing?” And he said “I’m making you the Noguchi table.” And I fell apart. I saw Gary this morning. He’s writing now. He’s living now. He said to me: “YOU did it.” I like to touch other people’s lives. “Get out of your room, Don’t stay in your room,” That’s what I say. Borscht. The beets, and if they have beets And sour cream in the liquid— Oh my God! It doesn’t have to be unusual. We had it the other day. It was a delight. And I had seconds. Turn around, do you see? The bush is in bloom. I’m also looking at the bush That hasn’t blossomed. When it opens up, It will be a different color than the other. It will be beautiful.

What The Writers’ Roundtable Means to Me

When I joined the Roundtable group we were four in total. Today I count near twenty-‐three. I myself encouraged my friends and people who I greeted and to whom I said hello to join what I considered a very interesting group. The professor asked that her name not be mentioned in this paper. It is impossible not to say her name. She is the cause of my new life. I now have a very open mind, interested in what other people have to say and sharing their ideas. There was an event here at Eisenberg where many people shared their thoughts and ideas to guests of the people who live here. Those I spoke to were surprised by the talent of those living here at Eisenberg. It was a joyous time for all. The guests did not know that the Eisenberg people are not without talent, and the people here enjoy moving on, growing, and sharing. Sorry, Prof., you did it.

Tools My husband worked with tools. He designed and built and worked with machines. And because of the tools, I’m able to afford to be at Eisenberg. You’d say to him, I need a machine to open up Christmas cards—oh yeah, he couldn’t count on the girls to stamp the people’s names, so he made a machine. We had a basement, and in the basement we had all the machines. And he didn’t mind working in the dark and on his own because he was creating, and that’s the word, he created. And that’s the tools, the tools of his trade. My daughter and I are driving, and I’ll mention something, and she’ll say, “Ma, nothing negative. “ And I love her for that. She doesn’t feed into that. I was a very proud Jewish girl. I had a neighbor when I was an adult, she lived opposite me. “Oh, Esther, I didn’t know you didn’t go to Temple, I would have gone for you.” What I should have said is, “I don’t pay attention to what you do, so why do you look at what I do?” But I didn’t, I was too polite. I felt very proud of being Jewish, I don’t know why. Very respectful. And you don’t have to be Orthodox, which my mother was. I felt it as a child. And we lived in a mixed neighborhood. But we were very respected, and other people respected us. The storekeepers were all respectful of each other, and I felt the pride, I felt liked. And it’s a funny thing; we had teachers, no Jewish teachers in that era. Isn’t that funny? But it didn’t bother me. We had one Irish teacher, very mean. But it didn’t affect us. I learned about being Jewish from the holidays. I remember one Saturday my brother was going out in Jeans, and my mother said, “Where are you going, it’s a shanda-‐-‐it’s a shame-‐-‐you don’t do that in public. This is a holiday.” And I remembered we had a priest’s mother living across the street, and my brother used to shovel until he went to college. And when she went to college and she said to my sister, “Please, would you shovel?” And I said, “Why don’t you ask the family next door?” They were Catholic. And she said, “No, because they eat in the basement.” And I said, “But they’re a big family there are four children and a mother and that’s why they have to eat in the basement.” And she

said, “I don’t care, they eat in the basement.” And she said that even though they were a god-‐fearing family and she was a priest’s mother. It was a conflict. How could she think like that? And it said to me something is wrong. But then I realized it’s how you conduct yourself that really matters to people—who you conduct yourself on the outside. I didn’t agree with that. Either you’re a mensch or you’re not a mensch, you’re a person or you’re not a person. But I had a very unusual experience I’ll tell you all about. I had a phone call a month or two ago from a neighbor’s daughter; she’s a grown woman now. And she said, “Esther, I have to talk to you.” And I said, “How’d you find my number?” She used to baby-‐sit for me and I liked her mother, and they were Catholic and we were Jewish. “ And I always remember, you coming into my mother’s house and saying ‘Carol, you have to read this.” And she used to baby sit. “And I remembered the books in your house. And the other things in your house. And I always admired it. Always. And I loved when you came into my mother’s house and said, “Carol, you’ve got to read this. “ And you talked about things rather than people.” And this neighbor had five kids and was limited in what she could accomplish. But she was a good person and it was a good family. It was interesting, and we would come from someplace and sit in the car and talk. And one of the neighbors would ask, “What are you girls talking about?” She couldn’t picture there could be a conversation other than the neighborhood gossip. It was amazing. But see, the Jewish people had education, education; they felt that was the only way to be recognized. That was their thing. Education. But not my father, you could read or write, but that was enough. We lived in New York, free, free college, unbelievable. My brother went to college on his own because it was free. My sister went to college, but she had kids and had to quit. And I went to college for fifteen years, graduated when I was fifty-‐five. And I had a picture wearing my cap and gown and being kissed by my husband. He never graduated college. And I was so proud because he was proud, not jealous. I remember going into the president of the college and asking her if she didn’t mind

telling me about her husband felt about her husband graduating college. And he said, “No, he didn’t mind.” And my husband didn’t mind. He had strength within himself. And I have the picture, as I say kissing me with my cap and gown on. I felt very proud that he was proud.

I know my father didn’t, so I can’t go by my father, but the Jewish people had a philosophy, education, education, and if you became a doctor, lawyer Indian chief you were respected for that, not because you were Jewish, and that word achieved is very important to me. And the achievement comes from education.

The Journey

I took a trip to my sister-‐in-‐law’s funeral, a very sad occasion. I was there out of respect for my brother who is 92 years old, and the loss is great for him. Death at any age is traumatic. I know my brother needed the family support at this time; my daughter was there with me. Although my sister-‐in-‐law had Alzheimer’s and had lived in a different building, her death was felt deeply by my brother. Shortly before her death he had their marriage vows repeated, she was confused, thinking my brother was her father. During my visit I recalled to my brother the happy times we had in the years we shared at our home. My daughter was told by one of the women who was his care giver said that she never saw him so happy. We did not discuss negative issues or anything to bring to mind sadness. I am very glad that I made the visit although it was very wearing. Again, I was there for my brother, I don’t think he would or will be there for me should I need him. I say this based on the past events. I fault myself for that. We took on—I say we—my sister and I— my mother’s role. Even the Shissel had to be emptied. We never expected him or asked him or wanted him to do it. We allowed that role. We took on my mother’s role. I thought that was right. And as I grew up, I thought back and thought that wasn’t right. And he never thought to ask for himself whether it was right or not. It was a journey—I had all these different feelings. I remembered the past. And I felt glad to be there for my brother—that’s who I am. No matter what, I’ll still be caring and kind. And I had a thought: he was never there when my sister died. But I blame myself—we never asked him for anything, and that gave him license for what he did. He amassed millions so he would always have someone to care for him, and I think he’s kind to them, he’s not demanding. And I think he was proud to show them that his family cared.

Letter to a New Resident: What I Like about Living at Eisenberg It’s consistent. I can count on it. It’s not confusing. Everything is in its place and a place for me. I don’t feel like I’m an also. When I would live in someone else’s house where my father put me at a cost, I was an also. I’m one here, one of many. I love it here. I know I’m made comfortable. I know when I go into the dining room I’m welcomed. One of the women, I have trouble with my legs, they’re drying up and I’m going to get an infection. So someone has to put cream on it. So the woman who puts cream on it says, “Can’t you do it yourself?” And I said, “I dress myself, I take care of myself, I need help with this.” But no matter what I say, I’m not threatened, I can handle it. That piece of paper gave me the confidence I needed. Because I respect education, I absolutely respect it. Just before my husband died, and he never got involved with education, he said, “I’m glad both my kids went to private schools.” And he was glad they had it. Maybe he felt glad that we could afford it and that we extended ourselves that they got supposedly the best My experience was that you’re always sent somewhere; you might as well make the best of it. Don’t complain about it, I felt, nobody wants to hear it. I didn’t have a mother to take care of me. I was on my own. This is the best place to be, it really is. When they come to me with a new resident, I tease them, “The food is good, the room is nice, watch out for the residents.” Just kidding. Vinnie’s doing a wonderful job; the help is wonderful. We had an event last week, a different kind of dinner, where they took around trays giving you food. And I wrote a note to the staff not only for having an event in a very comfortable way but also for doing it with a smile on their faces. That makes this a wonderful place. I have certain people, it’s interesting, I like Sylvia, and Doris, I have a few friends here, and we’re very comfortable. And we were having breakfast, Sylvia and I. And Sylvia’s sister came, and we had an

empty chair. And Sylvia said, sit down, we have room. And Sylvia’s sister went to a separate table. And I wondered, what’s wrong with her that she wants to be alone? And Sylvia is so warm, and her sister isn’t. Most people are welcoming. The people here are all wonderful, and they respect him. You can’t fill the need, and if you can’t do it nobody can. You have to know the atmosphere here. There are only three couples in the building. All the others have had a loss, each one adjusting to it differently. That’s the one thing we have in common when we come through that door. But you bring yourself to it. All I can say is, we don’t have the luxury of crying. Zelda lost a daughter, and somebody else lost somebody else. But our purpose here is to continue life and try to make the best of it by enjoying it, not just tolerating it. By just enjoying it. Share your sorrow, then go on, go on. It’s like when my daughter got a speeding ticket. I said, “Wendy, it’s not cancer.” Put it into perspective. My daughter and niece went to Florida and stayed there. While there, the water tank burst. My niece said, “Don’t tell your mother.” And Wendy said, “I’m going to tell her.” And I said, “What a wonderful thing that you were there to take care of it.” So the whole thing is to think positive. What was was. What is is. What will be will be. My niece is suffering. He was a poor boy, they lived in three rooms: one bedroom, which the mother and father shared, the living room where my nephew and this sister lived. He was a doctor. That was because he was in New York and education was free there. Now she’s left in a million dollar home with a wonderful daughter. She won’t leave the room. She won’t leave it. She hires people to come in in the morning and in the night. Her daughter wants her to come to a place like this—the house is overwhelming to care for it. The money is going fast, it’s costing so much just for her to live with. They are at odds about it. What I’d like to say to her is “Your husband would not want you to be this sad. If he knew that, maybe he wouldn’t have died. If he knew how sad you are, he left you with a security, and a wonderful daughter and grandchild. See the big picture. You gave him extra years because you

had a good life.” But my niece is suffering, and I don’t know how to make her comfortable. What she’d find here is people. You need people. Stay out of your room; stay out of your room. When people get together, be there. My friend Sylvia Rosenthal came to class and did some writing. That’s the point, helping other people come out of themselves. I say learn, learn. When you’re dead you don’t learn. When you’re alive, keep alive. I say get out of your room. And I see the difference. The people who stay in their rooms, they have nothing to contribute. How are you going to grow?

HELEN DRELLICH

I Believe in Compassion

I took a course in Freshman English in College, and it was led by a young assistant who had never taught before. And one of the first things we had to do was to make a list of all the topics in the essays of Francis Bacon. Well, I pondered and I pondered, and I was really getting desperate. And then I looked at the title of the book: Essays, Civic and Moral. So I closed the book up and handed in my slip of paper with the word: Essays, Civic and Moral. And when I started with this topic, This I Believe, I thought back to those days and thought of three words. One of them was compassion. Another was empathy. And the third is respect. By looking at others and watching how people behave towards each other you can learn something about why those words are important. I remember after school going with another girl on a trolley car and she seemed nervous. And when I said “Why are you nervous?” she said, “I have a blind date.” She was 16 years old and she was very scared. She didn’t know how she was going to behave, how she was going to look, where they were going to go. And I said, “You’re just thinking about yourself, aren’t you? This boy is going on his first blind date too. He’s going to be looking in the mirror tonight and straightening his tie and wondering whether he used the right deodorant.” The idea was to get her to think of someone other than herself. And I think that’s the first time I put into words the idea of empathy—to think I’m nervous, but you’re nervous, we’re all nervous. It’s the nature of the animal. Compassion: I think everything flows from that. I believe in everyone having work and everything like that, but I think the basic things we have to worry about are compassion and respect. They are guidelines for getting along with people. I had one little third grader when I was a teacher whose mother came in and said, "How do you handle this kid? He’s so devilish; he never sits still. And here he sits still sitting doing his work in the classroom.” He didn’t seem to be that way at home. And I just said, “I just find him a person lovely

to work with.” I think because I treated him with respect and compassion he could be calm in my classroom. On the other hand, sometimes having empathy for a person gives them the opportunity to relax and not worry about “proper” behavior. My son used to say, “Home is where you act out.” And I felt very proud of him for having a reason to behave that way. (My son was about seven at the time, and he would always come home and complain about having gotten into some sort of little difficulty with a friend. And I asked him why he behaves so well at other houses and acts out here. And he said because I know how I’m supposed to behave there but I feel free here at home.” He’s still that way, although he’s old enough not to act out. He knew he could let things loose a little bit. Home is the place where we should be accepted. I had a little boy in the fifth grade who came up to me and said, “I lost my pen.” Every other kid would have said, “Someone took my pen.” Try putting yourself in his shoes. Try to imagine yourself in that situation. It’s impressive that he had the grace to admit that it was his error. Somehow he must have imagined what it would feel like to be in their shoes and be accused, even though he was so young and in a new school to boot. Very often in my life I’ve come across situations and people who were difficult for me until I tried to understand what they were feeling. It made me like people more when I could understand we had problems in common. And that’s why I believe in compassion, empathy, and respect.

Marvin’s Bridge Was Falling Down We used to have our summer vacations in Maine on a vast, comfortable beach. And what we would do would be stay on the beach. The days were absolutely gorgeous—beautiful halcyon days, with three families and their children. Not many other people on Ogunquit beach, before it became a crowded day. We would come early in the day and pack a big lunch so we could stay all day. And when it came to be dinnertime we’d eat at the little shack on the corner or go home to eat. But mostly we’d do things on site. As I said, the day was a halcyon day, one glorious august afternoon it must have been around Labor Day, we all reluctantly packed up and started brushing off the sand. It’s time to g o home. There were six adults, and there were about a dozen kids ranging from little to early teenage, and we all got ready, the kids picked up the big objects, and the little kids packed up their pails and washed off their shovels and started our caravan back to the parking lot. So we trailed along in this little caravan of pilgrims leaving the ocean, and the children were tired but full of eating good things, three families in three cars, and at one point the middle car called for a halt. And so we all pulled over to the side of the road, and we all wanted to know what’s up, what’s up? What’s up? What’s up was that my husband, Marvin, couldn’t find his teeth. And he’s not a self-‐conscious person and wasn’t going to wait until we got home. And so he said, ”Hey, I’ve lost my teeth. Has anyone seen my teeth?” That sort of thing.

So we turned our cars around and went back to the beach, where by now there were no more parked cars. It was completely empty except for the beauty of the beech, the gulls against the gorgeous sky, and our little group. So we began poking around the wastebaskets, and you know what the beach is like at that hour. As I recall there were wire baskets for trash on the beach, and what then began to happen is that these beautiful gulls would be swooping down, competing with us for what was in the basket. And they swooped and they surfed. And finally, I think it was the littlest kid of all, dug and it was in the trash basket. If you know Charlotte’s Web you know they describe the pig and what the pig eats and they were all colorful leftovers, leftover things from the carnival. That’s what happened, everyone came then and checked out all the trash, and low and behold, there were Marvin’s bridges. At which point, dancing around the basket began, and the singing of Marvin’s bridge is falling down, and we sang it all the way home, and that’s the story.

An Experience of Joy I remember being in a small town in Italy, And I couldn’t sleep. It was the middle of the night, and I got up and walked out on the little balcony. Vaguely, I could hear somebody singing. He was walking up the mountain. And as I could tell, as he would walk the path would take him to the other side of the mountain and the sound would fade. And as he came around again, the sound would strengthen. And so as he went up the mountain, the sound would go up and down and up and down. I can’t describe it, how unusual it was. This gentleman, whoever he was, maybe a fisherman coming home from work at three in the morning, and he could sing. For me it was just a marvel.

Top row, left to right: Helen's Great-Grandmother; Helen’s Mother and Aunt Minnie; Aunt Rose; Middle row, left to right: Aunt Alice; Helen’s Mother and Oldest Child, Harold; Grand-daughters Emma and Rebecca; Bottom row, left to right: Son David with His Wife, Susan and Daughter Elizabeth; Elizabeth.

Top row, left to right: Son David, His Daughter Elizabeth, Wife Susan, and Mother-in-Law, Bernice; Grand- daughters Emma and Rebecca; Middle row: Daughter Sharon, Helen, and Daughter Annie; Susan and Elizabeth; Bottom row: Daughter Annie and her daughter Emma; Far right of picture is Grandson Evan.

Losing Zada

My grandfather, who we called Zada, was a very gentle man whose family didn’t seem to understand and appreciate him. But I may have it all wrong: it’s a mystery I try to unravel. He came to the United States on his own, like many men did, to save up money and bring the family over. It was not easy. Supposedly he was a tailor, a schneider, he cut the patterns out. I picture him walking around New York with his sewing machine on his back. In the meantime, my grandmother and the five children were back in the shtetl, maybe it was Minsk-‐Gubernia. Anyway, he was in New York, at least that my grandmother thought. And every day the post office would open up and the children of the neighborhood would dash to see what was there from their fathers, because their fathers were over here too. And they were getting mail, but my relatives were not. These little groups of children were coming out of the post office dancing around happily because they had acquired a post card or a package from the new world, but not my aunts and uncles because nothing had come for them. So my Zada’s family worked, they saved up their money, and eventually they came over. Whether he brought them over or they came on their own, I don’t know. There are lots of mysteries around this. When I was a child, I never saw Zada and Baba together. The rest of the family was in the kitchen, and he was in the other room. There was no feeling of affection or connection. And it didn’t strike me until later in life—what did it mean that there was no affection at all? The story that I heard about their marriage was that Zada stole Bubbi away from someone else to whom she was engaged. She was in love with someone else, but he stole her away. So there was some kind of intrigue there. But I could never find anything out, because no one

wanted to talk about it. So that’s really where I get stuck; I don’ t know what to do about him.

One of my cousins felt that there was something going on in America while Zada was away; that maybe he had another family over here. And what some of my relatives have said to me is that this is a typical story of a dirty old man. Some of them say, “When I was walking through the house when I was a child, he would grab me and give me a hug. “ Now to me this is not a dirty old man; it’s affection. But with that family, it wasn’t acceptable as simple affection. I found him to be a very pleasant and educated man. He showed me books, and he had hand-‐written books in the Siddur. One of the things I learned by the time I was eleven or twelve was that quietly on his own he was writing poetry. The rest of the family was illiterate. My grandmother was illiterate. Somehow I feel that the rest of the family misunderstood my Zada, a man who carried his sewing machine on his shoulder looking for business, doing little tasks making a living for them, but without letting them know what he’d been doing for seven years without them. And that’s a long time. At the tender age of eleven or twelve I found him interesting and mysterious, and I wanted to know more. But it wasn’t possible to know more because he didn’t communicate with us. We knew that on the top shelf of his closet there were things in boxes, candy for when the children visited, for instance, and books in Hebrew. When he died and his family was breaking up in the Bronx, I asked my aunts, “Where are his books, I would like to have his books.” “Well, we don’t know where they are.” “You don’t know where they are?” “Well, they got burned at the fire at the Shull.” My kids now have my books I saved for them. And that’s what I wanted from him, a piece of him. But I don’t have that. It’s very sad. Nobody talked about him. I miss him, even though I never had him.

SID SHORT

Born Again at Eisenberg

Where do I start? My wife and I were a good couple together. I often said we had a platonic relationship, play for me and tonic for her. We loved each other dearly. Anybody that knew my wife knew we had a very active life at the Jewish Community Center. She was a waterfront director at the daycare there. Very active. And she worked at the Health Care Center for more than twenty years. My wife was sick for two years, and then she decided that she needed to go into a nursing home. She had to be there, I couldn’t take care of her anymore. I was beginning to resent her. It would be time to get up in the morning and it was time to get out of bed. I don’t want to. Time to eat. I don’t want to. Time to shower, I don’t want to. And it was almost like we were going to come to fisticuffs. So she went into the Jewish Healthcare center voluntarily, and was there for one month shy of six years. I visited her every day for six years not missing a beat except once when I had pneumonia. And then she passed away on April 3rd, 17 days shy of our 64th wedding anniversary. Our anniversary was April 20th. The loss was almost a feeling of relief that she wasn’t suffering anymore and she wouldn’t have wanted people to see her in the condition that she was. But after she passed away, I was lost. I had no place to go. Being attentive for the six years, I had lost touch with a lot of my friends, and I was a lost soul. I didn’t want to do this, and I didn’t want to do that. And I just didn’t want to go out with other people and be the fifth wheel. Sid has carried these silver dollars in his pocket ever since he received them from his best friend on his wedding day.

Sid's Wedding Picture

I would go up to the cemetery almost every other day, looking at her grave saying, “You S.O.B., you were supposed to take care of me!” Then after I calmed down, I was still very depressed. I’d go to my daughters’ house every night for dinner. I didn’t want to get up in the morning. It reached the point where I said I’ve got to move. I’ve got to be with people. And I made the move to Eisenberg Assisted living. I was very familiar with this operation as well as the Jewish Healthcare Center. I knew the staff there and here, and I can’t praise them enough: they are excellent, well caring, and well meaning. It is so relaxing for me as well as for my children. I’ve taken it off their shoulders. My daughter goes for a week to visit her grandchildren and doesn’t worry about what’s happening with me. And I think none of us as parents want to be a burden to our children. I’m like a born-‐again Christian-‐-‐I was basically reborn when I moved here. I became active, socially involved with people, helping other people, and basically reborn. And I’m so grateful to Eisenberg for giving me this opportunity.

Sid's Great-grandchildren

Sid's Father

Sid's Mother

FLORENCE KATZ

A Portrait of a Good Match In the picture, the elegantly dressed woman rests her hand lightly on the shoulder of the handsome man with the mustache. I have no idea what the occasion was when the portrait was taken, and I have no one to ask. Notice how ornate the picture is and how the woman is wearing a gold watch and bracelet and the man has a watch fob. The people are my parents: Sarah and Isaac. Sarah Sperling and Isaac Lisabitsky were introduced by a matchmaker in Plotz, Warsaw Poland. My father, Isaac, came to the U.S. in 1904 settled in Worcester. And worked in a boiler factory for $8 a week. My mother, Sarah, came over a short time later with three-‐year old Harry and numerous household items including a feather bed, 3 brass candlesticks, a brass mortar and pestle, two copper pots, and a copper pitcher. (I still have the candlesticks, pestle, and copper pots today.) They had lost their first child, a girl. They were blessed with four more children, Sylvia, Maurice, Joseph and Florence. They lost two sons in America. Later on, my dad opened a family shoe store, Grandshoe, on one of the main streets of Worcester—Front Street. The “Family Theatre” was right next door. The salesmen used to call my father Mr. Lisbon, so my brothers changed their name to Lisbon when they came out of the army. Then my cousins changed their name too. My father was a good-‐ working man; sometimes they used to work until midnight. They used to have a machine to press the boxes in the back. I used to work there on Saturdays for sixty cents an hour. They used to have a bookkeeper there that would put the money in the curls in her hair. They got rid of her fast. There was another bookkeeper my dad was crazy about. Later, Harry ran the business. (I think my grandfather had been a cobbler—he had six fingers and six toes. He had a nickname, Shustok, whatever that means.)

My father was a gentleman and a good-‐looking man. In fact, an optical company used his head from some picture for an ad without asking his permission. Whether it was this picture or not I don’t know. My mother was a homebody so it must have been a very special occasion for her to be dressed in such finery. She usually dressed very plainly, wearing dresses with sleeves almost down to the wrist. My sister did the shopping because my mother never went out. I was told that the dress was made by a Mrs. Faffet, and I remember playing with one of the rosettes that was attached to the side. My parents were observant people and loving parents, and this picture brings back many happy memories.

All Good Things Come to an End

When I was about ten I was given a flexible flyer sled for my birthday. The area we lived in had lots of hills and steep roads—perfect for sliding. One late Friday afternoon after school I spent a little too long sliding. When I got home my dad, who was very much a gentleman, was waiting for me with his belt unbuckled. It was the one and only time I was ever spanked. I was late for Shabos supper. Incidentally, my children used that sled when they were growing up.

The Big Dance

In 1947 I met Lester at a party at a friend’s home—a few weeks later at a dance at a local synagogue, a cousin of Lester’s brought him over and introduced me to him again. Shortly afterwards, we started dating—we went out to dinner, theater, the movie, and concerts. This went on for two years and on August 14, 1949 we were married in the Beth Israel Synagogue—and honeymooned in Ogunquit, ME. Our best man was a boyhood friend of Lester’s and we are still friends with Max and his wife, Barbara. When checking my possessions before moving, I came across our Kituba, our marriage certificate, and the confirmation for or honeymoon stay at the Marginal Way House in Ogunquit, Maine. If all is well we will be married for 63 years this coming August

Home on the Hill Lester and I have only lived in two houses since we were married. After we were married, Lester and I moved in with his widowed mother, Ana, in the home where he was raised. It was on Gardner Street near Clark College. His mother was something else. A young widow who brought up three kids. The arrangement worked out well. Anna and I exchanged recipes, shared the cooking, and we ate well. I worked as a secretary and she worked in a fabric store downtown. One thing annoyed us—the occasional smell of sauerkraut and milk cooking on the range. When we expected our first child, we put up a wall in the dining room and made a nursery for Judith. When Judith was about to turn two, Lester and three of his friends, two of whom were his partners in the grocery business and one a boyhood friend, purchased enough land to build four homes on. The street was Rydal Street, a hill with three houses on it. Access to the street was from Brantwood Road on Chandler Street near Worcester State College, now Worcester State University. We hired a contractor and our husbands did a lot of the finishing themselves. They painted and landscaped. When I moved in I saw a woman pushing a baby carriage and said “Hi, Mae Jennette.” I’d gone to junior high school with her. Our home had three bedrooms, a combination living room and dining room, a kitchen, and a bathroom. We brought up Judith, Steven, and Nancy there. When Steven went off to college we broke through a wall from his room and made a larger master bedroom. We also added a family room

off of the kitchen and a porch off the family room and a bathroom off the master bedroom. Lester collected Asian art and at one auction bought a stupa which led to a lovely oriental garden in the backyard.

We had a table that closed up small but expanded to seat fifteen people. My daughter Nancy roomed with three guys when she went to Tufts, and she’d bring them home for us to feed. And Lester would bring Cornish hens and things home from the store to feed them. Now Nancy’s using that table. We’d have the family Seders there. My son had an Irish mother-‐ in-‐law and at her funeral he stood up in Christ the King Church and said, I’m going to miss seeing Sylvia and Sue at the family Seder. I’ll bet that’s the first time that was ever said in Christ the King church.

In the living room we’d sit and kibbutz. Every New Years we’d have two couples besides us and send out for Chinese food to eat in the kitchen. Really kosher, you know. I remember the parties in the house, and the two births there. Nancy and Steven were born there. All of us on the street used to get together and play canasta. We had a lot of land in the back of the house so we would have parties there. We would get a caterer and a tent. On Lester’s seventieth birthday we had a belly dancer. We lived in our home on the hill for over fifty years before moving to the Eisenberg over four years ago.

Happy Days on the Hill

This picture is one of many happy times we had in our Japanese garden in the back of our “Home on the Hill.” The picture shows the Katz clan (pre-‐Jordan) and includes Bubby Katz. I’m certain it was either a birthday or an anniversary celebration under a tarp on a very rainy day. We had many good times in that yard. I don’t remember what we had to eat—probably just pick up stuff. It was probably catered. But look at all those bottles! This picture was probably at the time Joey and Steve were newlyweds and the girls, Judith and Nancy were just starting their careers. We have many loving thoughts of Bubby Katz and her life. She was a feisty, hard working, caring young widow who was a great cook and seamstress, who loved to read, play bridge and drive and gave us many laughs. She was quite a lady to lose her husband at 42 and a son at 38. We enjoyed our yard. We even had a belly dancer on one occasion, and at one party Uncle Joe drove his Volkswagen over our front lawn onto our garden. We welcomed all types of creatures like turkeys, people, and vehicles. Those were the good old days.

Joining the Writers’ Roundtable

Joining the Writers’ Roundtables made a difference in my life. It has caused me to look back. I go back to think of my grandparents whom I never knew, and my relatives in Poland during the Holocaust, and how they managed to survive. I go back to my teenage years, my adulthood as a secretary, marriage, family, and remember the good and the trying years. It has helped me to understand what similar and different experiences I share with my classmates. All of us went through the same things, the hardships, the depression, and all of that. I think it helps to know that. Looking back, I think I led a happy life. I know I had a great family and still have, but I wish I had done more, although we traveled to many countries and met a lot of interesting people, some of whom we are still in contact with today.

Mollie Galub

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Reflections on Being a Mother He was 30 years old and I was 29. We were a couple deeply in love and totally committed to each other. Perhaps this would be the time to start a family, but there were many strings attached—we were in the greatest depression that our country had ever had. We felt insecure about having to live on one salary. But we took the plunge and nine months later, a precious bundle was put in my arms. He was pretty ugly with a kind of red face, a tin downy haired head, but I fell in love with him right away. He had that sweet baby smell. I peeked under his wrapping and all the parts were there. So, he passed the test, and we took him home. That night we were awakened by this crying baby. There he was, stealing my sleep, but he had already stolen my heart even though that crying lasted day in and day out night in and night out for four solid months. If I were less stable, I could have killed him. Even today when I hear of a young teenager missing the best years of her life, or a mother already burdened with a family she cannot support and finds herself pregnant again, there is a little empathy for this dastardly act perpetuated by constant tearing at a weakened nervous system. You are torn somewhere between hostility and love. Somehow, I managed to live that way for four months. Then there was a day when he had a nice dinner of fruit, vegetables, and cereals. He spit it out and I shoved it in. Miracle of miracles, I put him to sleep for three hours of sunshine in my life. This poor baby was hungry, and I didn’t know it—not even my doctor did. After that he was satisfied with his meals—he became the best little boy that any mother could have, and I was saved from committing a murder. From then on he was a joy, delighting me with some new gimmick every day and making progress in every way. Yet, is every moment a beautiful dream? I often felt annoyed and burdened by this awful responsibility. I often wished this baby would hurry and grow up so I could get on with a life of my own. There were times when I wished I could go back to work; there were times that I

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would have liked to go out for lunch with the ladies, or go out to dinner and a show with my husband, or just get away from everything and go on a vacation for a few days. We were a family and there was a depression and those tasks got dreary at times. I didn’t want to give him my entire life. But when I looked down on this baby whose entire existence depended upon me, whose eyes followed me wherever I went, who cuddled in my arms to listen to a song I sang to him or a story I read to him, he didn’t know about anything except that he loved me without any words. Then I would pick him up and stroke his little body and hug him and kiss him. I would sacrifice any part of me to enhance his welfare if he needed me. Nothing mattered except we were bonded together in such a way that our ties could never be broken. Whenever he rebelled and said “No,” we always had a discussion about the pros and cons of his behavior. He was spanked once in his life when I caught him running out in the street to catch a ball. He yowled but he never did it again. Dr. Benjamin Spock was my guru at his first temper tantrum. We were on our way home to have dinner, and he waned an ice cream cone. Though I promised to give him one later, he threw himself down on the sidewalk and began to kick and scream. I just waited away in sight of him. People stopped to ask him what the matter was, but he just went on and on. Finally, one lady who knew him asked him where I was and he pointed at me. She took his hand and brought him over to me. We went hoe and walked back to the store after we ate. He walked joyfully home eating his ice cream and did not lose his temper again. Dr. Spock was right. One night we went to parents’ night where there was a folder with each child’s work. There on top was a composition. I love my father I love my father because he always calls me when I am sick. He always punishes me when I am bad, because he loves me. He certainly would have said the same thing about me. He could have everything he needed, but not everything he wanted. A child who was never abused would grow up to be a stalwart man with a tender heart. That is our son.

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From the time he listened to his little brother growing in my stomach, he loved him. When the second one came, it was easier indeed. Every time he cried he got a bottle in his mouth. A little cereal in the milk and a larger hole in the nipple made him the best baby any one could have. Of course, there were little resentments and differences of will, but we followed the same rules and he grew up to be the same kind of man.

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When their father died, they showed their love for me and continued to be caring sons. I am proud of them, and they are proud of me. But don’t think for one minute that raising a child is easy. Patience, sacrifice, and loving . . . being firm yet giving . . . having everything they need, but not everything they want . . . and loving, loving, yet teaching respect for other people’s feelings at the same time. Is it easy? No—No—No—No, but the end is worth the means. We love and respect each other. And that is everything.

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A Memoir of My First Hundred Years

They say a cat has nine lives. Well I have had only three, but they have been fabulous. Every agony and every ecstasy that can be heaped upon a woman has been part of my fate. How can you have one without the other? So it has been with me as I look back on my first hundred years with the satisfaction of having lived a good life, even though I’m a very old crow. My first life began in Chicago on October 27, 1911. My father had a shoe repair shop. I will never forget the vision of a monumental piece of machinery with a variety of wheels. Some wheels cut leather, some rimmed it, some sewed it, some sanded it, some dyed it, some buffed it, and at the end there was a brand new shoe. On the other side was an assortment of new shoes, which had to fit. If they were too tight, you would break them in, never mind the corns and bunions. In my mind my father was a genius because he could run the machine. If they were too loose, you would grow into it. And in the rear of the shop there was a partition behind which we lived. In the center there was a great big potbelly stove on a tin tray with a long stove pipe with buckets of logs and coal on the side. What a thrill it was to see a pile of stuff burst into flame! Our beds were marked off with curtains, but mine was my favorite because there were two angels with wings above it. There was a sink with double tubs at its side. That served as a workspace, a place at which to scrub the clothes, and a bathtub for our Saturday night scrubbing. As I look back, the fondest memory was of books scattered everywhere. They were written in a language I could not read— Yiddish—but I knew that my mother loved them. It wasn’t long before I started to read. Then a whole new world opened up. My mother bought twenty volumes of the Book of Knowledge covered with leather and edged with gold. She must have paid one dollar a week forever, but burrowing into those pages became an unquenchable thirst. A junior card at the library was my other best friend. I could always escape in a new way of fantasy, which was important when there was a lot of contention flaring between the two people who loved me, but who

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should never have been married. My father leaped before he looked and my mother looked before she leaped. Never the twain could meet. And so it went on to my junior year in high school. I sat next to a tall, skinny guy who would walk me to classes, and after school he would walk me home. Seeing all that enticing food was an eye opener to this poor orphan who had only been tolerated in many homes. His name was Julius, and he became part of our family. It was an age of innocence. We had a beautiful platonic friendship, which lasted many years; it was like having a brother. He could not go to college, but I had a mother who stood up against all odds to see that her daughters had the education she had missed. My father felt that a girl should be a housekeeper, marry the boss, and have a lot of babies. My mother’s sacrifice was horrendous— it was based on borrowing, on handouts from richer relatives, even taking money surreptitiously from the cash register to give me an extension for a few more days. It was degrading. I hated it, but going to college with new challenges and new friendships was like heaven. My major was Food and Nutrition—a topic as near to being a doctor as I could get. I was nineteen when I had my first real date arranged by a mutual relative. We met under the Washington arch. I wore a red hat and he wore a red tie. He was there on a scholarship. Money was far away in the future but now there was none. So what do you do for a date? We took a ride on the Fifth Avenue bus to the end of the line for five cents. Then off to the Horn & Hardart Automat, where for another five cents the coffee would pour out. The rest was all talk. Wow! I never met such a smart man in all my life, and meeting between classes was our avenue to love. Time to graduate came. He graduated Summa Cum Laude, and I just graduated. In the depth of the Depression he was hired as an accountant at $19 per week, and I, being in an unusual field, got a job teaching Home Economics at $19 a week, which had no future if I married within three years. It was a long romance, but we did get married after the three years was up. Our love was unconditional-‐it was based on complete trust, peace and harmony.

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Our sons were born. We were ecstatic, but there was a shadow looming over our heads. When he was only in his mid 50’s his heart was beginning to fail. I retired early to take care of him. It was to no avail. One year later he was dead. What a wrench! It was devastating. Alone all day and night in a big house on a dark country road. I felt lost. My sister arranged for me to go on a thirty-‐day trip. I was packing when the telephone rang. Who was it? Julius, my old high school boy friend, who heard about my loss. Thirty days later he was at the door, still tall and skinny, but this time with white hair. He needed a home and I needed a companion, so we did not have to go through a courtship. He was a good husband. I was now teaching at the Dietetic Institute in New York and attending a professional group at the New School. He joined with me. My sons were happily settled and our only responsibilities were to each other. So began my second life. As our circle of friends increased there were mentors who taught me to do research and present talks to the 150 people in the program-‐-‐I, who had never taught more than fifty kids at a time. It was scary but sometimes you are just challenged to a new life and you have to let people lead you. Twenty years of going to classes and doing papers really got to be a way of enrichment. I have files of papers and still give papers that are well attended right up to my hundredth birthday. And there are many other memories that we happily shared. For one thing, we travelled the whole world together. We enjoyed having all kinds of odd adventures. We just pursued every new idea together. We had 13 years together. But a sudden aneurism in his aorta, due to years of heavy smoking, required surgery. Again another good companion was gone. It was agony again, but this time I was working and giving talks, and that requires a lot of time and effort, so it was easier to cope with. I was a very busy lady. One day, an invitation came to attend a special luncheon at the United Nations. I sat next to a man, and we hit it off. For the next 21 years I enjoyed his intelligent companionship but hated his

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uncontrollable temper and mean spirit. I kept things in my heart. Why didn’t I throw him out? It was just the fear of being alone again. It was an on and off rocky relationship. Two years ago, some bug got hold of me—it triggered my asthma, which triggered my heart. My children came to visit me and preserve me from death. When I learned that my friend had had a massive heart attack and died on the floor below me, I was ready for a change. After all, I was 98 years old and maybe it was time. The children took care of everything. At the time, I was in a daze, not able to think. I could not even make a decision. My God! Did I go crazy overnight? They put everything in place at Eisenberg Assisted Living, put me to bed—a good night’s sleep, and with it the beginning of recovery. And so I began my third life. Everything is done for me, the activities are great. A new way of writing, under the unusual guidance of Professor Knoles of Assumption College, has changed my life. Especially nice is the loving care of the entire staff. So here I am on my 100th birthday still kicking, still giving talks, still writing like mad. My cup runneth over! Hoping to enjoy a tiny chip of my second hundred years as long as my body and soul hang together. I am ready to meet my creator. Indeed it has been a wonderful life!

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Mollie with her mother, her second husband, Julius, and her brother-in-law.

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How I Learned to Write I was a born reader. No one ever read to me, but our house was full of books. Could I read them? Of course not, they were in Jewish. Yet by the tie I learned to read we had the Book of Knowledge in our home—twenty volumes of leather bound books, titled in gold. My mother must have given a dollar a week for the rest of her life to pay for them. That was a treasure to satisfy my unquenchable thirst for reading. My eyes were always tuned to books. In addition there was a library on a hill quite far away and every Saturday my mother would fill a box of sandwiches, which we would devour as soon as we reached the hill. Then we were free to browse and choose two books to take home. It was my escape from the contention, which always seemed part of my household. And that was the way to High School, straight to college, for my two degrees—all science. There was always a lot of work and stress. But there was always a bit of time in which I could escape into my world of dreams. Naturally, there was a marriage and babies. I was supremely happy. I trusted and loved my husband unconditionally, but there was a deep cloud to that silver lining. It ended in a massive heart attack and death. All of us were devastated. I couldn’t even read or control my tears. What I desperately needed was a job. It was easy with my training. As luck would have it, The New School for Social Research was just around the corner and had just opened up an Institute for Retired Professionals. That was my salvation—one hundred fifty people who welcomed me, but at the same time insisting that I prepare and deliver papers. Protesting didn’t help—they took me to the research room and shoed me how to go about reaching my goals. That meant a total new way of reading in order to write. “Remember,” they told me, “You must include the human touch. You must include vignettes, you must be ready to look your audience in the eye and hold their attention.” What an assignment—what a struggle. We were into a cycle of biography then, so I chose the Life of Joseph Goldberger who had struggled against great odds to become the first Jewish Surgeon General of the United States. How was I going to stand up before 150 people,

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read this speech, and hold their interest? There were mentors there who had undergone the same experience. They went over my paper, listened to my voice, and shoved me over to the podium. Was I scared? You bet I was. My voice trembled over the first paragraph. The mentors signaled to me—and then I felt the spirit of my audience and the struggle of this man to overcome his environment, and reached the heights of his career by reading and stepping right into the fray of diseases, which had to be cured. I looked up; they were listening. It was my first attempt, but I had made it. What a relief! After that I was one of the crowd, and the recipient of many warm and wonderful friendships. The next 20 years warmed my heart and my soul. But a bad day came. We had a new dean who wanted space for computers and athletics and it was over. But our camaraderie continued and so did my talks to different audiences, this time in New Jersey and Florida. Between the preparation, continued reading, keeping my household going, and my friends, it was a busy and happy life. In my last year in Florida some bug got me. It clashed with my asthma. I was sick, very sick! My companion of 21 years had just died of a heart attack at the hospital on the floor below me. Now my children took over and my future at Eisenberg was to be my new life. There was a new audience for my talks, but something new came into my life—a workshop in writing by an angel from Assumption College. Lucia was an inspiration. She led me into a new form of expression—to write freely from my heart—no research—just feelings, emotions, taste, smells, whatever you thought. And these words just poured out of me. At 99 years, I’ll never be a writer, but those words put down and lovingly guided, have been the beginning of a new life. As I have said before, thank you, Lucia. My cup runneth over!

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How He Survived the Liver Transplant It all began with a simple tonsillectomy followed by a hemorrhage and a blood transfusion. We thought it was over. So we took this little three-‐year-‐old home and nursed him back to health. We had a happy child. The incident was quite forgotten—but not quite. On a routine examination a few years later, a blood test showed a slightly higher Bilirabin. Well, what was that? “Don’t worry,” said the doctor. “You are both Ashkenazea, and it’s just a genetic trait to have liver disturbances.” So we just put it out of our minds and basked in the joy of raising our child. All seemed to be well. He got through college, got a job as a financial advisor for a company that is now Wells Fargo, married and prospered and had two lovely little girls. It was not until the age of 55, after a dinner party at his office, that he became very ill—vomiting all night and the next day. The prognosis was terrible. He was rushed to the hospital with liver failure. Mount Sinai was an outstanding liver center, but he lay there for two weeks before one that matched was available. Some kind lady aged 70 had died and donated her liver. A team of surgeons—2 men and a little woman, whom I saw later, wearing a sari, were ready and the transplant took place. He had been a healthy man. Four months later he was back at work and returned to his old task of home improvements and landscaping. Seven years of frequent exams went by. He showed a complete recovery. Meanwhile, many changes in the field of medicine had been made. There was the identification of Hepatitis C. Even though a new drug for AIDS had been tried out on monkeys and was successful, it was a total failure on human prisoners—but miracle of miracles, those prisoners who had Hepatitis C and AIDS were cured of hepatitis. It was some new derivative called peg interferon alfa-‐2a or Pegasys for short. It was purely experimental and rare, given only to those in greatest need, only those that had a record of a good life style, only the ones who were free of other complications, only those who had a good family back up, and only those who had good access to medical care. Why am I telling you all of this? Because again his liver failed. Again he vomited blood. Now they knew that the hepatitis B had

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infected his new liver. He needed this rare drug to treat the disease and get a new liver. My younger son, now a doctor, urged him to accept the offer. He had already passed the standards of eligibility. He was a dying man, there was no match, and he was sent home to die. We were devastated. It was hard to put on a happy face and hold back the tears. He was getting the care he needed from a loving wife and children, and frequent visits and calls from his brother, but his life looked hopeless. . . Until there was a call in the middle of the night to come right over. A young man had been killed in a motorcycle accident at the age of 27. What a waste of a life—and what a gift of life! ! Even now, as I see these agents of death speeding by, I think of their livers. Well, well—it was a 50-‐mile ride, not even enough time to get dressed, and there he was getting the new drug to cure the hepatitis and a new liver. There he was ready to be opened up again, removing the old and putting in the new one waiting on a block of ice for him. We waited many long hours until that marvelous team finished its job. This time it had to work. Five years before, it would never have been possible. It was touch and go for a longtime. His wife and family were always at his bedside. He would lie there, half dead, half alive, and tell us not to worry. He with that always-‐happy smile and sweet nature. But he made it. His family support, his brother’s advice on accepting new treatments, and his fervent desire to recover. It took 6 months of loving and constant cafe and a lifetime of good health habits to get back to work. How lucky he was to have lived a good life—he worked hard, ate well, and never drank. Today, Ira is 70 years old. His only signs are a torso full of scars. He does all of his old chores and babysits for 2 lively grandsons. All of his life signs are normal. We love having his happy self back and wish him many, many more years of good health—just being him. How happy we are to have him back.

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Thanks, Mr. Pegasys for busting those germs. Thanks, Mr. Liver, for giving him life. And thanks to the young man on the motorcycle who made Ira’s life possible.

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SYLVIA ROSENTHAL

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I Believe in Being a Brien My mother was a brien. She had her hands in everything from cooking to baking to making sure clothing was just right. Everything had to be just right; she almost overdid it. She strove for perfection: I wasn’t that kind of brien. She took care of my brothers—even after they went off to school they would send their laundry back home. And she sent it back just so. Everything had to be just perfect. She was very conscious of her hair, and I would set it all the time. She never went to a beauty parlor. She was conscious of her clothes too. Not that she had a lot of them, but everything had to be just so. Everyone in my family was a perfectionist when it came to clothes. My dad was a tailor; my aunt was a very good dressmaker. If you brought something home, they really looked it over. They had to put their approval on it: they would say it wasn’t made very well, or it was made well. Everyone in my family was conscious of fabrics. As soon as you bought something, they had to feel the fabric. And they also looked at the workmanship. Sometimes if they didn’t like it, they were able to rectify it themselves because they all sewed. My dad sewed, my mom sewed, my aunt sewed. I could sew but not like them. I didn’t have to because I had all these mavens around. So when I was growing up, I was very conscious of my clothes. By the time I was twelve or thirteen, I became interested in clothes before I became interested in boys. I was the first girl in the family and so you can imagine that my aunt the dressmaker made me clothes. I had a lot of beautiful things, but my mother was a saver. My father would go off on a buying trip for his store, and he’d always bring me back something special. And my mother would always put it away for a special occasion. And by the time she pulled it out for me to wear I had outgrown it. I can still remember one dress with a hand painted rose on it. I can see it now—navy blue, oh it was gorgeous—with a big bow on the side, and I had outgrown it.

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When I grew up, I tried to be like my mother. I tried to be a perfectionist, which is not a good thing. I was like that for a while but I was really pushing it too hard. I was getting cross, and it was like a change of personality. And I didn’t like that, and neither did the children. So I broke myself of that bad habit. However, even to this day I like to wear nice clothes. It’s just in me. And it cheers me up to look good. That’s why I believe in being a brien—but not too much.

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My Mother

It is said that opposites attract. That was true of my parents. Her family called her “the party girl.” My father didn’t dance—he just liked his business and his family. He had a brother who was in the lingerie and curtain business in Providence, R. I. My aunt’s name was Sophie. I haven’t seen or heard from them in years. One daughter married a man named Robinson. The other daughter was Elsie. My mother was not that friendly with them but she never objected to going to Providence with my father. My mother’s family was Aunt Lena who married and her oldster sister was married to D and Stenberg. (I think that was his name. My mother’s sister Rachel had no children. My mother married my father, Benjamin Zelman, he was born in Poland, educated in Switzerland and came to America and settled with his brother in Providence. My father settled in Lowell Mass. I forget where my mother worked when she was single. She loved to dance. My father did not. She went to work every day usually by 10am. She didn’t drive so she taxied. I remember that every Wednesday, I think it was Wednesday—it wouldn’t be Saturday for that was the most important selling day. People from surrounding towns came into Worcester to shop on Saturday and stores were all open until 9 pm. You were lucky if you could leave by closing time. You threw large pieces of cotton material over the showcases and over any merchandise on display. If something was on top of the counter on a display stand you first had to lay them down on the counters before pulling down the covers. I think it was Wednesdays when she took the train into Boston to the Turkish bath—from the train station she took a cab over to the Turkish bath. She was there was a scrub down and massage and then a dunking in their swimming pool. From there she went to the restaurant around the corner—had a Manhattan drink and dinner then a taxi to the railroad station back to our home. When her hair started to gray she faithfully had it dyed black so until she was well into her nineties you only saw a lady with black hair.

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The Dad Who Spoiled Sylvia

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The Beloved Pest

They spoiled me terribly, my dad especially. He had a lovely store with furs and dresses and things but he had to go to New York very often for the buying trip, and he’d come back with these beautiful little silk hand-‐painted dresses. But my mother always put them away for best, so I didn’t get to wear them too often. I was the first girl. I had two older brothers, very bright brothers. I used to love to hang around with my brothers. I was kind of a pest. But I wasn’t too obnoxious, I don’t think. Of course, they didn’t want their sister around all the time. I went to the beach with my brothers and mother and dad, and they I tried to follow them and my brothers were trying to get rid of me. And I got lost, really lost, and somebody saw me crying and walking up and down the beach, and they brought me to a police station. They had a police station right on the beach. And somehow they’d found my parents, and they came to get this little doll. I can tell you my brothers weren’t happy when my parents got to them. I had terrible sunburn from walking up and down the each. I was very fair, blonde hair and fair skin, very sunburned. And my brothers really heard about it from my parents. I was about four or five, and they would have been about eight and ten. So they should have known better anyway, but they got rid of their sister. They caught hell, I’ll tell you. I had a lot of good friends in my neighborhood; there were a lot of young people. And I was able to associate with them. And my brothers had a lot of good friends. We were like one great big group all the time. A lot of jump rope. And we played every kind of game you could imagine. I was a big hopscotch player in my day. And we had apple trees in our back yard so we had a lot of fun with the apple trees. We used to climb the tree a lot. And a lot of kids used to come around and try to steal the apples, so there was always a lot of noise in that back yard. And we lived near a piggery, and one day I came home and came around the back and walked through the door. And I screamed: there was a pig on the first floor. I was absolutely stupefied, but I think the

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pig was more scared than I was. We lived in a three family house with all our relatives and everybody came running down, but they weren’t quite as frightened as I was. I think they made a telephone call up to the school and the piggery people who owned the land, right up at the end of Granite Street, and they came down and got the pig. They’re really harmless. But I was really frightened. You hardly expect to see a pig in your house. And my parents weren’t exactly happy. The pig wasn’t kosher.

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Ozzie Oz, we called him Ozzie. Actually, it was Oscar but we called him Ozzie. He had come from a very small town. So when he came into Worcester he was thrilled to get in with a crowd of people he would be able to associate with, a crowd of his own religion. He came from a very small town with very few Jewish people, so he was excited to meet people of his own. He used to sell shoes in one of the stores on Main Street. And I remember going in to try to buy a pair of shoes, and he was very attentive—he actually fit me to a good pair of shoes. We got to talking, you know the way it is, and he had just moved in from Southbridge and so he didn’t know many people, especially Jewish people. And he said, “What synagogue do you belong to.” And I told him what synagogue. And he said, “If I called you at the holidays could I come to your synagogue?” because he didn’t belong to a synagogue or even have any background in Judaism. And then he got in with all these people I associated with, and before long he was part of the group. He loved to dance, and I did too. He was a very kind person. We went to a dance at Putnam and Thurston’s—a regular dance. And we won the prize waltz. A beautiful bouquet of flowers. Oh my god, that gorgeous bouquet of flowers, was I excited! I didn’t know what to do with the flowers, it was the first time having gone out with him it was kind of an awkward situation. But I was pretty excited too. That’s where the romance started. From then on, he started to call me for dates. And before long, we were smitten with each other, and I got to meet his family, and he got to meet my family. And we had a sewing supply store in Worcester with all kinds of sewing things. And unfortunately, my uncle had a stroke in the store, and there was nobody to take over other than myself and my brother. So I asked Ozzy if he might be interested since he was selling shoes, and he decided he would like to make that change. And he really did a great job. It was nice working with him too. This was before we were married. And And of course, we did get married. That was a very sad day because the uncle had passed away

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My wedding was sad—it wasn’t the happiest. It was a pretty wedding, but it wasn’t the happiest day of my life, I’ll tell you. There were more tears than joy, I’ll tell you, because of my uncle. But we went to New York on our honeymoon, I had some relatives who lived in New York who were very gracious and took us out to many places while we were in New York. And we were there for maybe ten days, maybe less, because we needed to get back to the business. I would go into Boston many times to do some of the buying, for brides and things—we sold things for girls who wanted to make their own bridal veils and things. I would go get the flowers, all kinds of veilings, and there were also tiaras that they wore in their hair, and these cute little hats for the flower girls. It was just so cute to watch them. It was very pleasant working with my husband, believe it or not. We never had any fights. I did the ladies part—the laces and the ribbons and things. And he did the heavy things, like the linings tailors would buy. And he was going on the buttons too, we had thousands of boxes of buttons. We really enjoyed going to work every morning together; it was great. It was very agreeable.

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RITA WAHLE

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Happy 50th Birthday Danny

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My Daddy, My Grandmother, and Your Father

You rarely spoke of your parents, only when I asked. You just shrugged. The past is the past and it didn’t matter. Why talk about it? When I asked about my grandmother, you were vague and changed the subject. You didn’t even remember what she had called me. I wish I had asked you more about her. Daddy spoke about his parents all the time. It was different when you spoke of your father. It was always with love and tears in your voice. He died the day before your fourteenth birthday. He went to the hospital and told you he would be back for your birthday party. He died on your birthday. After you died in 1999, I took Danielle and Mandy to Hamburg, to show them where I was born. We saw a beautiful, sophisticated city. Your granddaughters are now teenagers. You would have been so proud of them. I have to admit; I was not that comfortable being in Germany. I never let the girls out of my sight. You know I wouldn’t have gone while you were alive. Before we left, I took dirt from your grave and rubbed it onto his. I took dirt back from his grave, and rubbed it onto yours. You’re together now. Mommy, do you know all of this?

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Hunt’s Point Public Library, The Bronx

When I was growing up in the Bronx, you had to be in the second grade to get a library card. After we were dismissed, I started running to the library. I had long, curly hair, which my mother curled in what was then known as corkscrew curls. I can still feel the way they bounced all over the place as I ran. The library was a big scary place. I had to get up on my toes to reach the doorknob. The woman behind the desk filled out the form and told me to bring it back after my mother signed it. I did not know this and started to cry. I had to wait one more day before I could take books out.

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As I left the library a woman was passing by. I went over to her and asked her to sign my mother’s name. She did, and I ran back and took out my first six books. The next day I did the same. I loved going to the library. I sometimes wonder how this special woman felt about this little girl who knew not to talk to strangers.

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GARY MESSENGER

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My Father Was a Gentle Giant But God Help the Man Who Touched His Sons In World War II my father joined the Merchant Marines on the converted ocean liner named the Mariposa. Almost no way to protect them. They took supplies to the war and brought back German prisoners, a very dangerous trip to be on. My father was the head bread baker. My mom and two aunts worked as riveters on the Navy Blimp, the U.S. Akron I believe, the first blimp made for the Navy. Akron was a bad town because of blimps, tires, and lots of wartime items. And my father took Mom and me to Allentown, PA to stay with her aunt until the war was over. That was a safer place in wartime. I don’t know how old I was, but it was before I was 5 years old and got polio. It was a nice neighborhood. A man next door—I don’t think he liked kids—bought a car that was like new, hard to find in wartime. It was great: black with running boards on the sides and had a good bumper on the back. Kids were sitting on it, and I had my foot on the running board when the big man came running out yelling, “Get the hell off my car!” The two boys took off, but I stayed there because I did not think I did anything bad just putting my foot there. But he grabbed me by my shoulder and shook me real hard and slapped my face hard. My mother came out and saw him do that. She told him that he made a very bad mistake; that my dad was coming to bring us back to Akron because the war was over. And when he got there, and was told what he did to me, “God help you.” When dad got there and was told, he was so mad I was scared because I never saw him that mad before. When the man went to get in his car, my dad cut him off and told him that he was told what he did to me. Then he beat the man so bad that he crawled under his car to get away from my dad. It was a good thing; it saved him from a worse beating.

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So we moved back to Akron, Ohio, where my father had rented an old trailer in a trailer park near the center of the city, and they were all painted a dull black so they would not shine and make a great target. The ends were round and so ugly that I don’t remember the inside at all. We had to stay there until my grandmother got an apartment empty for us. That’s where I got the polio at 5 years old. My father had a punching bag set up so he could use it at night. Sometimes he put out a high chair, so I could stand on it and hit the bag. That was fun. One night when I was about four years old I was mad at three boys; I don’t know why now. But I was chasing them around a trailer and calling them bad names. And there sat my dad’s car with him standing there, and he called me over and asked why I was saying whatever I was yelling. I said, I did not know what. He told me that my punishment was I had to go find a switch that I wanted him to use on me. That was hell because I thought if I got a small one, he would get mad, and if I go a bigger switch it would hurt me. So I had a good idea. I went to a clothesline that had a big pole about five feet around and eight or nine feet long. I had to put one end on my shoulder and drag the rest behind me. I wasn’t dumb. I knew he could not hit me with it, or he would kill me. When I got back to the screen door I called dad, “I got a switch for you.” When he saw the pole, he cracked up and called my mother to see what I came home with. He told my mother how could he hit me with that, and that the little devil knew that. “ What can I do now? I’m not mad now.” So he made me take it back, and he forgave me. That was the first time in the nineteen years I lived at home. The second and last time was in Lisbon, Ohio, when I was about ten or eleven years old. I don’t know what I did but he took me out to a covered patio to the small woodshed. He took of his belt and started to raise it, and my collie Taffy grabbed him by his wrist but did not hurt him, just held him still. Dad was talking to her to let loose. But she would not let loose. And every time he tried to move her she would growl at him. So he called my mother to come get this damn dog off

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him; she loved mom the best. When mom saw him not moving she laughed at him, and told him he should not have tried that with Taffy around. My father and all of us loved her; she loved all of us and would watch out for all of us. Dad said, “I can’t move. Do something, please.” Mom laughed and said, “All you have to do is drop the belt so she knows that you’re not going to hit him. She won’t let you do that.” So Dad dropped the belt and Taffy let loose of his wrist. But she watched Dad to make sure he wasn’t going to start again. So in nineteen years he just tried two times on me. I don’t know if it tried to on the three boys, but I can’t believe it. He loved all four of us and was a great Dad and man.

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What My Mother Taught Me

My mother had a hard life. She was born in Allentown pa, and her mother passed away from food poisoning from baloney she bought at the A&P when my mom was just three. The family had a father who was absolutely no good at all. He drank constantly, gambled, never stayed home with the kids, never brought food home. If it wasn’t for the neighbors caring about the kids—they used to bring them food over and clothes—they wouldn’t have anything. Fortunately, my mother had two older sisters. One traveled with a lot of big bands like Tommy Dorsey and played the piano and wrote music and was on the radio a lot. But she quit that to come home and get a job and take care of my mother and her younger brother. The other sister got a part-‐time job bringing money in to help take care of the two younger kids. While the older two were out working, my mother helped take care of her younger brother—it was rough. The older girls were usually off at work and didn’t have any time to spend with her. Finally, she got to be the age to go to school and it made it a little better for her because she had other people to be around her. The funny thing is, when she started school, they found out she was really brilliant. They put her ahead a grade three times—and they wanted to change her ahead a fourth time but the superintendent wouldn’t let them. She won spelling bees too. That’s how smart she was. But my mother never got to advance or do anything better because she got pregnant at sixteen and got married to my father and quit school. In 1940 when I was born the doctors told my mother not to have any other kids because she had a hole in her heart, and they didn’t know what to do about it in those days. But she still had three more, and the doctor died, every other doctor that ever took care of her told her the same thing and they all died. But she was stubborn. She wasn’t going to

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go until she was ready to go, and then she went, which was age 88. She was too stubborn to give up. And that’s what I learned from my mother: not to give up. When anybody tells you you can’t do something, don’t give up. In first grade I was playing in the yard with some neighborhood kids and my cousins. All of a sudden I collapsed and fell on the ground and couldn’t do anything. One cousin was scared and didn’t know what to do. He ran into the house and got my grandmother, and two people came out and they got e into the house and called the ambulance. They took me to the children’s hospital and realized I had polio. I was paralyzed from the waist down on the whole right side down. I was in the hospital for about a year. The doctors and nurses treated me very well but they were very rushed, taking care of so many patients. There were a lot of kids that I remember at the time. And as far as I can remember, they wouldn’t allow parents to come see us for fear it would spread. So I don’t really remember seeing my parents the whole time I was there. But we were a whole room of four kids and we kept one another company. We told stories a little bit here and there. After you got a little better, they would you in the wheelchair to watch movies at night in the hospital. My bed was next to the window and it was wintertime, and there was a little windowsill and I could open the window up. They would give us jello, and I’d let it melt and pour it into a flat tray outside the window, and overnight it would turn almost into gummy bears. And the next day I would eat it like pieces of candy, because it was like gummy bears. And that was one of my occupations that kept my mind going. When I got where I could move my arms and legs I would race up and down the hallways with a boy who could use the wheelchair too. We about wiped out a few nurses coming out of rooms. They told us to keep the speed down, damnit. But it was good for my health getting the exercise.

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Gary's brother Greg, His Mother, and Gary at His Aunt's Farm around 1946 or '47.

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They let us go all over the floor of that hospital so I also got a chance to meet other boys and girls. I’d see poor boys and girls in iron lungs. I talked to them sometimes. But I felt bad that they were there and that I could move around. When they came up with the whirlpool bath, I was the first person they tried it on, and my picture was in the paper. It was a bit round metal tub with a thing in the middle that would make the whirlpool go. When they put you in the bath, they would exercise you in the water. It was very hard, nothing soft to sit on, but it was kind of warm and it felt kind of comfortable and you felt kind of relieved with the water and the two or three people working with you. And to this day they think that’s what saved me. I walked out a year after I went into the hospital without any crutches, just with my parents. And that’s why I believe my mother was right when she taught me never to give up.

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Going Home

It was a blessing to go home, because I missed all my family, my mother and father, my grandparents, my cousins. We lived three families in one house and a couple of family members who lived in the apartment house next door, so we were kind of like our own community. But I didn’t have that many cousins or anything, but one cousin and I ended up more like brothers because we were the first kids born into the family for six years. I couldn’t go back to school then because they were worried about me still getting better from the polio, so I couldn’t go to school for a few years. So the old doctor told my father before I left the hospital, he was a very smart old man, he told my father to try to get me all the ice cream, milk, milk shakes, anything with dairy products, to help build my bones up again. So we lived right down the street from a drug store, and he made agreements with the druggist, that each time I went there I could have milkshakes, sundaes, whatever. And then my father would always come in at the end of the month and pay the bill. I enjoyed it for a while but after a while I had so much of it that it was kind of like a chore to eat it. I wanted candy and stuff instead. But they kept trying to push me towards the milk products instead. I kind of learned to read on my own and really liked it. My father really liked Mickey Spillane books, which were for adults, but I would sneak them and take them under the blankets and read under the sheets at night. So I started out with Mickey Spillane books and then I got into comic books. From there the doctor recommended to try to get me in the country, to a farm or something. Not to baby me, and not to keep bringing up that I had polio, not to act lie there was anything wrong with me, but to treat me like anyone else in the family. So we moved from Akron to Canton Ohio, on a farm, and they allowed me to go back to school. They put me in a higher grade, 4th or 5th I think. Going back to school felt great because I had friends my own age and stuff. But I

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started to have nervous conditions, so my voice was off. I got nervous being around people from all the excitement. Basically I went from no one to talk to in the ward and suddenly having all these people running from class to class, running out into the playground, which I didn’t know anything about. I was getting along pretty good, and all of a sudden they thought the polio was coming back. Because being around a lot of people, I'd be real nervous to have trouble speaking and my voice. Even today when I get nervous I have trouble with my voice, I never quite got over that. So they took me to the hospital because they thought the polio was coming back, and they found out I had rheumatic fever. Once they found it wasn't polio, my parents never mentioned the polio to me again in my life. They tried to get it out of my head so I would never even think about it or worry about it. For about a week or so after they found out I had rheumatic fever they tried to make up their mind whether to keep me in school or not. Finally, they took me out of school again and sent me home to Kent, Ohio a small farm, where I could get some exercise, to help get my body stronger. The school sent a substitute teacher, to help me, but he did not work out. So my mother home schooled me.

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The Farm and the Strip Mine

When I was 8 or 9, my father’s family bought a big farm-‐-‐210 acres, with apple orchards and everything else you could think of. They rented the great farmhouse and large barn; we could have a garden too. And I can remember on the weekends my father would take me down to the farm with my other uncles and we used to go down to the farm and they used to help my grandfather and uncle help to get the farm going. I don’t now how they thought they were going to get the farm going, they were all from the city. But they had apples, cows, chickens, everything. And they gave us children jobs shucking corn and filling the silos for the winter. And they kept getting me doing things. When I was ten years old we moved to Lisbon Ohio because my father got hired by a large coal strip mine and that way my father could be closer to his dad. The farm was a wonderful place for me to live and ride my coal black horse, that my grandfather gave me, plus a milk cow, so I could have fresh milk for my bones. But I had to get up at 5:00 to milk her and again at night, and take care of my horse. His name was Old Tom and I loved him so. So I had to milk the cows, and feed the horses, and work on the garden. I used to have to help hoe it and pick the vegetables. And that was part of what we lived on. That was really important because as soon as we moved down there the coal companies went on strike for many months, thank god they let us live in the house. But we had no money for food so we'd go out and fish and hunt rabbits and other things for food. We used to shoot the pigeons in the big barn we had, especially because they used to eat grain and things out of the field, corn. So we'd make big trays of squab, with two a piece, and stuff them with bread stuffing and make it more filling. It was just before Christmas and I met a young boy at the next farm over, and he told his parents the trouble we were having and the parents called the salvation army and told them my brothers' ages and mine, and they didn't send me any toys but they sent me some

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dungarees and some soft flannel shirts which I hate to this day, and they gave my brothers two toys apiece. And they gave us food people had canned and also some store food, and enough we could make some meals with at Christmas time. Thank God, not too long after Christmas my dad went back to work.

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My Father

My father was a moose of a man; he was built like John Wayne and was an amateur boxer. In those days, they couldn’t pay you but they gave you nice watches and stuff, and you took that and hocked it so you could make your money that way since you couldn’t get paid for the fights. Strong as a bull, worked hard all his life. God bless my father. He taught me not to let any obstacles get me down but to overcome them. My mother met my father in Akron, Ohio, because her father had moved there and worked for Firestone Company. This other guy liked my mother too—he was my father’s best friend. So one day he was sitting there at the kitchen table and he knew my father was coming so he pretended he was hugging my mother. My father hit him so hard he knocked him under the table and broke his leg. And that was his best friend! When my father worked at the strip mine, he started as a helper on the bulldozer and front-‐end shovel, and the large dragline that dug the strip down to the coal, very wide and deep. God Bless my Dad, he was so smart, that they taught him to run the large dozers then start out as an oiler on the dragline, until he could learn to run it himself. I was so proud of him, he could do anything he wanted to do, and I guess that’s where I got it from, with no education, just the 7th grade and half of the 8th grade. And my dad showing me that I could do anything, if I just tried to do my best all you can do is fail, but I never let that happen to me, if my dad could do it, I was going to do it. I was so proud of him; he never had high school either. He got so good on the Drag Line, the bucket higher than my 1951 Ford, and it would fit inside it. The largest coal mine in Cincinnati paid him to come and try the largest dragline in the world, it was so high, it had an elevator to take you up to run it and had two oilers it was so big. After they taught him how it ran it was so hard compared to the one dad used, although I should say the two because dad sometimes worked 8 hours then went to another one and worked 8 hours more.

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After dad ran it and they saw how good he was just trying it out, they wanted to hire him and pay him to move about 10 miles and more pay. But he turned it down because my grandfather and grandmother and sister and husband and kids had the farm about 15 miles from us. That’s why we moved there—to be close to them. Plus he had two brothers and families in Akron. Even before I was 10 years old some weekends the brothers would take their wives and kids to their farm to help out with all the work they had to do on a farm they’d just bought about two years before. We moved down to the coalmine farm. It was the best thing that could have happened to me, to make met at 10 years old so my dad could make me into a man and make me work like a man and not let the polio ruin my life. My dad was my hero. I still could not g to school yet, so I was home. Thank God because my mother was pregnant with her last of four boys. Even though she was told not to have any more after they found a hold in her heart when she was 17. So she went into labor. I helped her with my two brothers to get ready for school, and cook, wash, and hang things out to dry, etc. Take lunch and the big jug of kool-‐aid to my dad and sell kool-‐aid to the other workers. They would take care of me for that. When he worked night shift, he took me to work on the bulldozers and on the dragline so the oiler could teach me the job until I could do it myself. Not bad for 10 and a half years old, and understand the bulldozer too. I’m not sure how long it was before she went into labor, but it was long enough time for me to take over for her when she went. I got up to make breakfast for dad and the boys and to help them get ready for school and meet them a long way to the bus stop, then make supper for the four of us. Then the boys helped me clean up. Mom had my youngest brother, now 6’ 4” tall. After she had him, she was in the hospital for 6 months. Thank God my aunt Mary took him home for about 7 months so my mother could get back in shape. We felt so bad for her because after 7 months of bonding with my aunt, my youngest brother did not know my mother and he did not want to go to Mom. She was so sad. She was the most

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softhearted person I ever met in my life. It took a long time to get him to love her.

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To My Hero, The Gentle Giant

This story will show you how good hearted he was. We lived on a farm road not too many houses along the road, and on the left side was a very small wooden church and a small cemetery, and it was raining real hard. And as we passed it we saw a lady with two young girls. She was by herself, and two girls, and a preacher, and the hearse that brought her husband, and two men with shovels waiting to cover him. We didn’t know how they moved his coffin to the grave. And my father said she and the kids should not be there all by themselves all alone, it was so sad. He said “Why don’t we go back and stand by them, so they won’t be alone?” We didn’t know why she was alone. So we turned around and we went back and stood beside them in the rain until it was over. She asked us if we knew him, and my father told her know, but we didn’t want her and his kids by themselves in the rain. She was so touched she thanked and hugged us. We were soaked and late getting to work and had to work all wet. We were like drowned rats all day. That was in 1959 and to this day I’m so proud of hi, and what kind of man he was. My three brothers never knew this about hi, but I will be so proud to tell the two brothers that are left so they can be proud too. Thanks, Gary I’m so sorry that I never got to tell my brother how I felt about dad, and this story I never told my dad how proud I was about him. But I know he knows that from all the time and things we did and all the times together. I spent more time with thin than my mother got to, God bless her.

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The Lumberjacks

When I was 12 years old, my father decided to become a lumberjack. He used to help my grandfather and Uncle Paul cut trees on their farm, and he loved it. He always loved to get good at everything he could try, so he got a job with a big sawmill. He was so good at it, the company loved him. But he was so good that each helper’s men with families could not keep up with him and was slowing him down so much that the boss laid them both off and asked my dad what to do. My dad told the boss that he had a helper that could keep up with him, then he told him that I was his son and 12 years old. The boss was shocked, so my dad said to give me a week to learn and keep up with him or he could lay me off. But he had to pay me more than the two men made an hour. The boss trusted my dad, so he told him to have me start Monday. In 1952-‐12 years old. When I started Monday my dad in front of my boss gave me the best gift a dad could give me. He went out and bought me a Roy Rogers wallet with a Roy and Trigger standing up and Tonto on the back, and braiding around the edges, and told our boss that he knew I would be around each week to put my check in it on pay day. That’s how good my father was. And I made him proud of me and so was my boss. Not bad for a small man, but with help from work I was strong as hell. I was just 5’9” and a 28” waist, until I went in the navy in October 5, 1959 at 19 years old. Working in the woods was hard but great for my body. My job was to wait until my dad cut a large tree down. He would cut off a few big bottom limbs. Then he would move over to the next tree to cut down, and I would start cutting off the limbs up to the point where it was small enough for logs. Then I’d pull lines out of the way so dad could walk to cut the logs to size. Then I would take a 2-‐foot square by 8 or 10-‐foot long rod called a story pole with different log sizes so I could make marks so dad could cut it into logs. I was using a double blade axe all day long. Then when dad was done with the next tree, I would start on the next tree. All day long. But I had my job in 1952 and 1953, and made my dad proud.

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Gary (left) and His Younger Brothers

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A Little School, A Lot of Jobs

In 1954 I worked for a small Sealtest Popsicle Factory. I was 14 years old, and it was all girls but me and the mixer. I thought he was old then, but he was probably about in his 40s. My next job was in Akron working for my 6’4” Uncle Herb’s carpet laying company as a helper. It was 1955 and I was 15 years old, after my summer in Vermont. In 1956 my father rented a 210-‐acre farm and house and barn in Elkton Ohio near Pennsylvania. So he became a farmer plus worked for Kaiser Refractory too. So I moved home, in 1956, when I was 16 years old, and got back to school. I loved it, except the mile and a half walk each way and then working half the night with our Ford tractor lights plowing, etc. It was my first full year of school; I missed it when summer came. We had a library truck which came, but all I could get was 7th and 8th grade books. But my teacher went to the principle and then I was allowed to take out all high school books like The Man in the Iron Mask, The Count of Monte Cristo, and Robin Hood I passed the 7th grade and was sent to a new school, an 8th grade and high school called Beaver Loco in Beaver, PA on the Pennsylvania line. I loved it. That is, until I went out to get my football uniform and place on the 9th grade team. They just had enough suits for the football team. So I worked hard, out-‐running everyone. The coach was happy, even though I was 148 lbs., 5’9” with a 28” waist. Our coach wanted me bad, but they called both of us to the superintendent’s office to talk. This was when I was about half way through the 8th grade in 1957. He told us that I would be too old I 1958 t play with the 9th graders at 18 years old. I said, “Why did they let me work so hard and build up my hopes?” The coach was so mad, and I told them where they could put my suit, and that I quit right then. And I walked out.

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Then my Dad got me a good job at Kaiser Co. My father was the job steward for the plant. The men wanted him to run for head of the union. The head engineer of the plant asked if they would let me work for him, working on new plans for improving the way they were relining steel furnaces and other plant furnaces. And I worked for him for about until October. I worked for him for about a half of the year of 1958 and then through 1959 until October 5, when I went in the Navy. When I eventually got out of the navy, they had to give me a job back with credit for the year and a half I’d put in plus the four years of Navy time, so I would have 5 ½ years seniority and be almost at the top of the list.

Another Picture of Gary and His Little Brothers

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That Was All Right With Me

After I left the 8th grade, my father took my other and three brothers to Vermont to visit his sister Agnes and Family. They left me home to watch the farm and they got back in about three or four weeks. When they got home they surprised me by bringing my cousin home to visit me for two weeks. He is like my brother, and dad told me that I was going back to Vermont for the rest of the summer and then would come home by bus. I was so happy to find out that Paul and I were going to White River Junction for the big fair, and Paul was bringing his calf that he raised for the 4F Club. The fair would be about five days long and we were going to sleep with his calf in the hay. We both felt like big guys, Paul at 15 and me at 16 years old. We felt like men thinking about meeting girls there. But my aunt played a trick on us and told us that we had to take Paul’s 13 year-‐old brother and watch him. What a dirty thing to do to us! How were we going to find girls with a small boy with us? She gave us money so we could eat but not enough to get into trouble. Boy was she wrong about that—ha ha! After my aunt went home at the fair we dragged Paul’s brother all over trying to think how we were going to ditch him for a while. He wanted to ride the whip, and the operator was a handsome, tanned well-‐built guy with girls going for rides. We watched him take the tickets and drop them all down a hole without tearing them up. Ha! We had it made! That night when Paul’s little brother fell asleep, we got a big food bag and flashlight and went to the whip, which had a canvas wrapped around it. Paul was always smaller than me, so he crawled into where all the tickets were dropped and he filled about half a bag. (We knew just where to go if we wanted more.) We went to sleep so happy

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because we knew that little brother was going to be out of our hair all the next day, if you get my drift. The next day after breakfast, we took Paul’s brother to the whip and asked the guy how many tickets for an hour. So Paul’s brother got on and we were free for an hour. That was great! We got him after the hour and he told us he wanted to try the Ferris wheel. So we paid for an hour and that went on until lunch; then back to the rides. By about 3 pm he started to walk funny and look funny. So he rode some more rides. At supper he could not hold down food or drinks. Breakfast came and he was sick and could not drink. So Paul called his mother. She took him home to the doctor, and he wasn’t sure what it was. So he gave Paul’s brother something to settle his belly and had him stay in bed for two days. We were feeling kind of guilty, until we were all alone and able to do what we wanted. About lunchtime on the far side of the fair we saw a large tent. On both sides of the big tent it said it was the star dancer, and there were two small tents that said they had three or four dancers. Men were all waiting for the next show to start, and then they paid to get in. So Paul and I went to the side of the tent and crawled under and worked out way to the box stage. It was about 8 x 10’ with cloth around it. At 15, Paul’s chin rested on the stage, and my arms rested on the stage. We couldn’t wait to find out what was going to happen next. This was new for 15 and 16 year old boys. The tent was full of men waiting like us, but they knew what was going to happen next. But this was going to show us that the girls our age weren’t as sexy as we thought. So I thought, “It won’t be as much fun in the barn anymore. Oh, well, things happen. Ha Ha.” Then sexy music started and this tall, long black haired, great-‐ looking lady with high heels and a lacy top danced all over the stage. And when she came to Paul and me she stopped and bent down and ran her fingers in our hair and said “Hi” to us, and asked our names and said to enjoy the show. We were in heaven then.

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Dancing Girls Tent at Same Fair 15 Years Earlier

She took off the top and was in tassels and a lacy g-‐string and dancing all over the stage. “I won’t enjoy the girls at home now,” I thought. Then she stopped dancing and told the men she was going to pass a basket around so be good and she would go all the way, whatever that was. She went in back and we were waiting to see what was next. And I looked to my left and saw a big cop with a gun and uniform. I looked to my right at Paul and there was another cop. So I nudged Paul’s arm so he looked over and saw my cop, and then I got him to look to his right and he saw his cop. I never knew he could move so fast, but he was around that cop and crawling under the tent. But the cop still got him by his legs and pulled him back up and stood him up and brushed him off to get off the dirt. Then he put him back next to me and told us that we aw this much, we might as well see the rest of the show. The cop rested his hand on Paul’s shoulder. They were good guys. After the dancer took off everything and the men left, she came over and asked Paul and me backstage. So we went. She set up two old

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coke boxes so we could sit down while she got ready for the next show. The tent was full of girls from the other two tents in all stages of undress for the next shows. Our dancer asked the girls to put some things in a paper bag for souvenirs: bras, tassels, etc. We had a big bag full, so we thanked them, and she hugged us and told us to be careful. In a few days we went home. Paul hid the bag under our mattress. Two days later my aunt called us down for breakfast. We sat down facing her and talking to each other and she asked how many pancakes she wanted. When she brought our plates, she was wearing the tassels and g-‐string over her sweater. We jus wanted to crawl under the table. She just laughed and shook her top. Then she said if we were man enough to get all this stuff, she would wash and dry the items. But we told her to toss them out; it wasn’t fun anymore. I thought my mom and dad didn’t know about it until about three months later when dad asked me at lunch what color the g-‐string was. When my aunt put me on the 1950s bus, it was old looking. She gave me $20 to buy food until I got to Akron Ohio where I was going to meet my uncle. But that’s not what happened. The bus was almost empty except for a cute blond in the back, so that’s where I went and started to sit in the row next to her seat. But she asked if I would sit with her so she would not be alone, and that was okay with me. We told each other our names, and I told her I was going home after summer vacation to Akron, Ohio. And she was going back to Texas to her college. I’m not sure what grade or age, so I never told her I was 16. I wanted her to think I was older. She was nice and cute. We had a great time talking from Vermont to New York on the old Route 20. We stopped for lunch and the bathroom. I forget what New York town we stopped out but we ate and took a walk because the driver told us how much time we had. But we were having fun and got back too late and missed the bus. They told us the next bus was the next morning. We did not know what to do. It was a long time until the next bus and the old seats were hard to sleep on. So we went to a movie to kill time. She told me she had money to rent a cheap room, and that was okay with me, she was cute. And I knew I was going to be a day late and my uncle was going to be worried and I cold not call my dad. We had no phone.

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We went to three old hotels to check on costs and found one cheap enough for us. Boy, it wasn’t real nice but softer than a wood bench. We asked the clerk to wake us in time to get to the bus station and eat and wait for the bus. When we stopped for lunch the next day, we did not leave the station. This time, I wasn’t too happy to call and meet my uncle at 6’4” and 250 pounds. So when we got to Akron and called my uncle he was worried and happy to know I was okay, and that he didn’t have to tell my dad that I was gone. So he met us at the bus station, and I introduced her to him and told him what happened and how she paid for the room. And he thanked her and let me stay until her bus left for Texas. We hugged and kissed goodbye. I always wondered how she made out in life. But my uncle told me no wonder I missed the bus. He did not believe my story. But that was okay with me.

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Navy Days I joined the Navy in 1959 after I quit school after the eighth grade when they wouldn’t let me play football in high school. I got disgusted and quit and went to work. So all this leads up to how I met my wife and had my kids. If you listen to the story line you’ll see that everything leads up to us meeting. Fifteen minutes different time and we wouldn’t have met and I wouldn’t have my sons. Not to mention, they sent me to Rhode Island instead of Quonset Point. I joined because I just wanted to travel and do things. I’d had a good job and was making good money, but I just wanted to travel. And my father got to drinking a little bit more, more, and getting hooked a little bit more, more. And I didn’t want to get mad at my father because he’d been good to me and was always good to my mother. But I knew if I stayed I would get mad at him because of how he was treating my mother. He was working his butt off, ten or twelve hours at a time, but then he’d stop at a bar and people would buy him drinks and he’d buy them drinks (because everybody liked him so he’d buy them drinks) and spend half his money and then he’d come home and work on the farm half the night using the headlights of the tractor working on corn and oats. But if he’d stopped drinking he could have given my mother a much better life, and that was kind of aggravating me once I realized it. And I just didn’t want to argue with him after all the things he’d done for me. My father had been in the merchant marines; they were like sitting ducks with just a tiny gun at the back. And sometimes they’d have an escort but most of the time they didn’t and they’d get stuck in prison camps. My dad learned to be a fabulous baker in the merchant marines, but he sort of forgot about that once he got home. But I remember all the fancy twisted breads he used to make, But I always admired the navy guys; they looked more casual and comfortable in their uniforms than the army guys. So I decided to go in when I was nineteen. What made me think I could get in since I had had polio and no education, so I couldn’t pass the test? But I went to East Liverpool, Ohio, which was right across the river from Pittsburgh, and

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passed the physical test and never told them about the polio ad then I took the written test and I didn’t come out good for office work but I was in the top ninety-‐five percent for anything mechanical. But all four tests kept saying that I wanted to be a writer. The social security gave me one test, the handicapped people gave me another test, and goodwill, and the navy all said I wanted to be a writer. That’s funny, different times from the age I was 19 until the age of 25, all those told me the same thing. Did you ever try to write? All your tests show you should be a writer. I wrote things when I was in the navy, and everybody went crazy for them, but I didn’t want to bring them home to show anybody. It was a men’s novel, so I didn’t want to bring it home for my family to see. It was about a sailor’s life.

I loved the navy. If I wasn’t married I would have stayed in and retired at 39. At that time it wasn’t at all like it is now. I went to Iraq

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and went all the way up the river in a small boat. Went into the Kasbahs and listened to music. They had belly dancers and Black Russian girls working there and they’d bring you drinks. It was fun. They were nice and the people were good to us there. You’d see bunches of banana and had bananas about the size of your finger sweet like candy. And dates too. We were on a river, I forget the name of it, the only map we could find of the river was a hundred years old, so the only way we could do it was the old way of continually taking soundings, a guy standing there seeing how deep it was at each point. We got there and the river was high as it goes, and it had a ladder you had to put down to climb down the pier. And then the tide would go out in the morning, we’d wake up, and we were sitting on the bottom on the bare ground. And so then we had to put the ladder UP to climb UP to the pier. When the tide came up, the ship came right up, could break the ropes. It went up about 28 feet in a few hours time; never saw anything like that. I met all kinds of people in the navy-‐some of them were real nice, some weren’t. One young kid worked in the boiler room thought he was the toughest thing on two feet. He found out he wasn’t. I started a fight coming back from liberty—three different guys started fights with him. Then he came over and tried to pick a fight with me. I went to get up and the shore patrol, with guns, they come over and asked me, don’t do it. They asked him to give no more trouble, and he sat back down. And we went back to the ship and put things away, this was about Christmas time, this was in the bunkroom. I decided to go up the back deck—the fantail, -‐-‐and there’s a bunch of people standing there and I went over there to speak to him. I told him, why did you start all this trouble? We didn’t even really know each other. I didn’t know his name even. And he kind of got smart, and said: “I don’t want to talk about it.” And he turned to walk away. And for some reason that made me really mad, if you’re going to talk to me, talk to me. So I kind of lost it—like my father—and I beat the heck out of him. I picked him up by the hair and he hit the deck with his head.

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Finally, three guys came up and got me off of him, and then they carried him down to sickbay because he was bad off. He’d gone unconscious like five times. In sick bay they only have a corpsman, basic stuff, so they called in a seaplane and flew a ship in and had doctors on the plane and took him somewhere where they had a hospital for a few weeks. Then he came back after a while and he had to be in sickbay for a few weeks. And I felt bad and went down and said I was glad he was starting to feel better. And I brought him some books and things. And he said, “When I get out of here, I’m going to get you,” and the corpsmen said, “Are you crazy? You want him to kill you?” And I said, “We’re going to end up having a captain’s mass abut this (a court-‐ martial), and you better admit that you started it.” And we went to the captain’s mess with the captain and the executive officer, a three star admiral, and all different kinds of petty officers all in a row. And they started out asking questions, whys and wherefores. They asked the shore patrol guys to come up and talk first, and they told him that this kid had already tried to start fights with three different people before Gary, and he’d tried to start a fight with Gary, but Gary sat down. And then they called the kid up and he admitted he started it. And a couple of other people mentioned that he tried to start fights with them on shore during liberty. It was funny because either the captain or the admiral talked to me and said, “We can’t have you keep beating up our guys like this, Gary. We’ve seen you boxing from our quarters.” (I used to spar with a golden gloves champion from Puerto Rico. He’d hit me five times and then I’d knock them down.) He said “Any time anyone wants to give you trouble, come up to our rooms and we’ll put you in the ring and give them helmets and gloves and a facemask and then you can straighten them out. But I can’t keep losing my guys like this.” (My father was the same way.)

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A One of a Kind Story In 1957 or 1958, I lived in Elkton, Ohio, a small town near Pennsylvania and West Virginia. I was going out a lot with a married woman about 27 years old and about 5’ 2’ tall. Her husband was stationed down south in the Marines; they were separated for about 3 years at that time. She took me to her church, where she was the Sunday school teacher. She asked me join and she could pick me up each Sunday and take me home later on, since I didn’t have a car yet. She was good for me, she worked at Karesky’s store in the next town and she got me a job as a stock boy so she could take me back and forth each day. After a full day of work, she would return to pick me up to go out. She introduced me to a hospital nurse who was about 24 years of age in that town. She was cute, a little heavy set, but was a really nice girl. Every Friday night in town there was a Friday night deal called “Dusk to Dawn” which was an evening of movies, plating one after the other for only &5.00 per car. The girls had asked me to go with them, so they picked me up before dusk, so we could get a good start on the evening. The 27-‐year-‐old girl had an old 1940-‐50’s car that was in good shape, 2 doors and the old slanted windows that opened only half way down. That was just enough to get some air into the car. We all sat in the front seat to watch the movies. As the evening progressed we agreed that we had enough of the movies, so I told them about a local farm where we could spend the rest of the night. We drove by my driveway to a road at the edge of our farm, then down a small dirt road with a barbed wire fence on the right side and a large beaver pond down the hill to the left side. We could hear the beavers slapping their tails on the water, we talked for a while then I asked the nurse to sleep with me in the back and the other older girl would sleep facing the passenger side door, for more room. It was about 3 am by then and we were becoming very tired, so we all fell asleep. It was so quiet, except for the frogs and the beavers. I don’t know how long we were sleeping, but all I heard was the nurse screaming bloody murder like someone was killing her. Then, all of a sudden the car started to rock back and forth and shake up and

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down. I pushed the girl onto the floor and I began swinging my arms into the air to hit something, whatever it was that was there. There was a small moon out so as I looked in the back and saw a large bull’s head and his horns stuck in the back window trying to get his head and horns back out of the window. I don’t know how he got it in there in the first place. The cow began to lick the nurse’s face with his rough, sandpaper-‐like tongue to get the salt from her and when she awoke she saw the big head and horns in the darkness. She began screaming and she tried to get out of the driver’s side. There was no way that she could get out. Still screaming, the poor bull finally was able to free himself and he took off like a bat out of hell. When we all calmed down, we all began to laugh together and talk about what had just happened. We finally fell back to sleep and made sure all the windows were closed. That was such a crazy night, one we wouldn’t soon forget.

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Gary's Wife

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My Life, Full of Fun

My wife and I were married on the 29th of January 1961. On the first day as a married couple, we headed to my mother and father’s farm in Lisbon, Ohio. We arrived at the farmhouse about 8 am that day. They were so happy to see us, so we began to talk and didn’t stop until lunchtime. My mother called us to the table. My father sat at the end of the table and I sat on the other end. My mother and my wife sat on the sides. We had a great meal since my mother was an incredible cook. As we ate we talked and talked and my father told us that we could use their master bedroom, above the spare room. They were going to use the spare room. We thanked them and thought how nice it was of them to allow us to use their room for the night. My father asked us to come watch TV with them. I told him that I would return shortly, I had to get something from my suitcase, which was in my parents’ bedroom. I had a feeling my father was up to something, because I knew him like the back of my hand. I decided to check under the mattress, old style with coil springs with no covers on them. When I lifted the mattress I saw about 10-‐15 feet of old sleigh bells, all brass about 2-‐3” across that were to be hung on the sleigh horses. They rang really loud, so I unwrapped them very slowly so my parents couldn’t hear them ringing. I rewrapped them in a large towel, remade the bed, snuck into the spare room, lifted the mattress, put the sleigh bells all over the box spring and remade their bed. I returned downstairs to watch TV with my father and then finally headed up to bed since we had to get up early to prepare for our ride to Akron My wife and I headed to our room and I told her what my father had placed under our mattress and what I did to get back at him. As we lay down we made sure we remained still and my parents stayed quiet as well. I don’t know how long this lasted, but they must have thought we had fallen asleep, because suddenly the bells started to ring loud, then they stopped as quickly as they began. We had a terrible time trying not to laugh out loud. They must have had a terrible evening trying not to move in bed. I hoped that no one had to use the bathroom.

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My father called us for breakfast and when we sat down he had a sheepish look on his face and my mom’s face was pink. Neither of them could look at us, no one said a word about the bells. I realized that I really got my dad good this time, but was really sorry for my mom. Now you see why I am the way I am. I had a great teacher. I loved that man so much and I miss him so.

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The Writers’ Roundtable and Me

Thanks for Joe and Lucia or there were not be a Writers’ Roundtable. And that would be a great loss to all of us who belong to the Roundtable. It gives us something we all look forward to. Lucia is such a loving and exciting teacher that you can’t take your eyes off her because she makes us so excited to try and please her with our stories. I want to give my thanks and love to Esther Wittner because she was the one to talk me into coming to see if I would like it. Thank God because after six years here, I was lonesome except for going on trips. She’s been a love to everyone. I went with Esther to the Writers’ Roundtable. After hearing my friends’ stories and Lucia’s excitement, why I was hooked and could not wait until the next Wednesday. If I had a teacher like her in school, I would be a lot smarter by now. If you can get a Writers’ Roundtable started, it will change your life forever. You won’t have a Lucia because she is one of a kind, but I bet you will get a good one too. I’ve wanted to write a book from my years in the Navy (1959-‐ 1963). So the last year on the USCVA 60 attack carrier, I started to write one, but it was hard for me because I was a bad speller. When I got about 15 pages done, one guy asked if he could read them. When he was done, someone else asked me if he could read them and pass them on. The guy took the next batch and passed them on all over the ship. I was so proud that everyone seemed to like the book. I was half way done, but for some reason I stopped writing the book and all the guys were mad at me. I was 23 years old then and now I’m 72. Now I can’t seem to stop writing. Sometimes I write for six or seven hours. So I wish you all good

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luck writing. It will give you a lot of good times and help you get to know your club better. And it will leave your family knowing about you and your family’s life. Thanks, and good luck.

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LAURA SUSANIN

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The Strength of Love I knew there was something was wrong with my son that morning in December. He was not exploring the world like he did every day as a 16 month old. He lay on the floor and did not move; he had a 105 fever. He was not eating or drinking. I brought him to his doctor who sent us right away to Metrowest Hospital. At Metrowest, Patrick had one test after another; however, the doctors were not able to pinpoint what was wrong. After two days, they decided we needed more specialists involved and sent us to Tufts Floating Hospital for Children in Boston. An ambulance packed with a team of medical experts, including a doctor and nurse, brought Patrick and I to the hospital; my husband Mike followed anxiously behind us. I will never forget that ambulance ride. I held my son’s hand as he lay strapped in a stretcher; he looked so weak, small, and vulnerable. During that ride, uncertainty began to overtake me. Not knowing what was happening to Patrick, I was more fearful than I had ever been. Dr Durgham, the head of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, ordered more tests as soon as we arrived. Swarms of nurses and doctors filled our small room. Patrick’s little body was hooked up to IVs and monitors. Not long after Patrick arrived at Tufts, he was given a spinal tap and diagnosed with H-‐flu meningitis. He was in critical condition. Teams of specialists now entered our lives in hopes of getting Patrick better. For over two weeks, my only focus was on my son. I no longer thought about the other things in my life – work, a new home, the holidays. The outside world did not exist to me anymore. The hospital was now our home. I could not believe how close I felt to the people that cared for my son. I was grateful beyond words. Although the hospital staff felt like family to us, no one ever called Mike or me by our first names – they referred to us as Patrick’s mom or Patrick’s dad. But I wouldn’t have wanted to be called anything else. Being Patrick’s mom was the most important thing in my life and I feared that that role would be taken away from me all too soon. During our stay, Patrick only woke for brief periods of time – when a nurse or doctor examined him or when his pain was too much for him to bear. He was being treated with IV antibiotics daily. Doctors gave us positive updates but you could see the worry on their faces that

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Patrick’s fever had not broke and that his pain was still severe. I tried to be hopeful, but seeing Patrick in pain each day took its toll on me. I only left Patrick’s side to shower in the morning. Each night I slept on a pullout chair next to his large, metal crib and Mike slept down the hall in a room donated for PICU families. We had our daily routine. Every morning, I would wake to hear the doctors and residents on their rounds. The group of them would stand outside Patrick’s door and review his case. I hung on every word -‐ words like fever, pain, antibiotics, hearing, and lethargy. After rounds and meetings with doctors, I would fold up the pullout chair so my husband and I could take turns holding Patrick, being careful not to disturb any of the wires and tubes hooked up to his ankle and wrist. Holding him was the only thing we could do and the only thing we wanted to do.

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Finally, after a week in the PICU, Patrick’s fever began to break and he started to come back to life slowly. He was awake more often and his pain had dissipated. Patrick had not spoken in weeks. We missed hearing all of the words that were becoming part of his ever-‐ growing vocabulary. But, finally, after we had been moved off the PICU to the inpatient children’s floor, Patrick spoke his first word since the illness. Mike and I were standing around his crib when Patrick looked up, smiled at Mike and said “daddy.” That one simple word brought us tears of happiness and we knew, deep down, that Patrick would be okay. Now I look at my son, who has no residual health issues from the meningitis, and I consider him a miracle. He is now three and has no idea what he went through. We will tell him one day when he is older. Someday he will hear his story and know that he can overcome anything because he is strong and he is a survivor.

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HARRIET WILLINS

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Tanta Minnie

I had a wonderful aunt, Minnie Block, my mother’s sister. She lived in Hartford, Conn; I lived in Worcester. She had two daughters who were older than I was and so they were at work when I wasn’t. So I used to go to Hartford every summer to help my aunt in her little variety and candy store. And I loved it. Every Sunday I used to go out in front of the churches with a little wagon to sell the papers from her store: I was a papergirl. I can just see the churches now in West Hartford. And all the boys would come out of the churches and flirt with me, and that’s how I got all my date. I didn’t mind. I must have been thirteen, fourteen. I was just a kid. And what I liked best about the candy store was that she had ices, and they sold for two cents a scoop. And I used to have to scoop them out of the barrel, and if I liked the guy and I’d give him a little more. And my aunt said, “You’re giving away all my profits!” My aunt sewed, and she made all my prom dresses and recital dresses and other special dresses. And when I was in training to be a nurse, she insisted that she didn’t want me to buy a uniform because she wanted to make my first uniform for me. She was my Tanta Minnie. She used to get migraines, so when I came she was delighted. She had a cot in the back room and would take codeine and go back there and sleep it off. And she used to have romance magazines in the store, and I used to think they were dirty so I’d hold them under the counter and read them. I don’t know if I read it but I looked at the pictures. The pictures showed naked women, and to me that was awful. I thought maybe my body would start looking like that. Her daughters went off to work. One was a bookkeeper and the other was a salesgirl. One was very bright and the other was less so. We grew up like sister but not until I had grown kids did they tell me “We hated you.” It’s because their mother used to say, “Leave that for Okie,” “Keep that for Okie.” The one who was bright did all right for

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herself, she married a millionaire. The other one got along and married a salesman. But I had fun out in Hartford because I had another cousin who was three months younger than I and we had a ball. She would give me money to go to Capital Park, an amusement park, and I would treat Mike and we would go off and have a ball. When he grew up he became a Broadway actor. And her daughters didn’t like that either. They were working and said, “How come we’re working and Harriet is out having a ball?” And she said “I gave each of them two dollars, and if you think you can have a ball for two dollars I’ll give it to you too.” My mother was a widow and had two girls to support, and she had to support her apartment and she had to support clothes for me. But we grew up very happy, and if my mother ever went to the beach she’d take Minnie’s daughters. My aunt Minnie never took no for an answer. And those summers taught me you could do anything you wanted. This I believe.

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Expected to Be Ladies

It was expected of me growing up that when we went to school we were expected to be ladies. All the girls wore long stockings, but my father made us wear knee socks. He thought that was really sharp AND more ladylike. Because he was the poor one of the family and he always had a little chip on his shoulder. Not a big chip just a little one. But we had everything, my sister and I, we had bicycles, and roller skates, and ice skates, and all that jazz. And we lived in a very modest neighborhood, and everybody was in the same situation. White-‐collar people. We didn’t starve but we weren’t rich either. When I became sixteen my father wrote me a darling letter. “I’m not going to sign this because you know who this is. This is your father. But I just want you to know that you are loved, and whatever you decide to do I’ll be there for you.” And he was much more talented—I have no talent, but he was a good singer, and a chorus director, and a good car guy. And he was well liked in the neighborhood because he worked and loved kids and had a boy’s choir, and he’d bring them all to the house. He had a little pitch pipe, and that was all his instrument. He had perfect pitch, and he’d do soft-‐shoe dancing. And he was very friendly with whoever, it didn’t make any difference. He was friends with anyone who had something to offer, not monetarily but scholastically. Good dancer, good fisherman. He wasn’t too tall; he was under six feet, like five ten, five eleven. But he was a handsome son-‐of-‐a-‐gun. He had an excellent sense of humor, and couldn’t care less if he didn’t have a dime in his pocket. He had it all. I had a good relationship with my father. He got sick and died of cancer when I was all through school. I came home to take care of him for a little while. That was hell. But we got along. I couldn’t be myself: I had to be cheerful and everything had to be fine. But I wasn’t cheerful because everything wasn’t fine. I could see him going downhill. I was out in Connecticut working in the tobacco fields outside Hartford and they brought immigrants in to work the crops. I was a nurse and hated working with the diseases they had—they were filthy and dirty and they all had venereal disease, which I didn’t know when I

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worked the job. The employers didn’t treat them right, which bothered me, they treated them like dirt. And I couldn’t understand the language they spoke. There was a dance, and I was told what was expected of me—that I was to take part in the dance with everyone else. They said, “Just dance with them, that’s part of the entertainment.” And I said, “I don’t think I would enjoy waltzing. I don’t think I’m the right person for the job.” I was afraid of catching the venereal disease. I wasn’t grown up enough to realize that you couldn’t get it from dancing. And so I donated the money I made back and left. When I’d read the ad in the newspaper, it sounded interesting. But I hadn’t realized what I’d put my foot in. And so I had to leave. In the end, I just set up a system for them so that the next nurse who came in would be ready to take over.

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Rosh Hashanah at Division 28

My son’s name was Stanton Walter Willins. He was not quite seventeen when he died. I really pushed it so far back never to think of it. But I never could push it farm enough back to forget about it. I remember him with all those oxygen tents in children’s hospital in Brookline. Stanton loved studying, loved looking things up, he loved scholastics. He was an Eagle Scout. He was president of this and that, had lots of friends, was a strong kid. He had polio when he was young but that never affected him. What comes to my mind, it’s all I can see, it was the Jewish New Year, Rosh Hashanah, and he was in Division 28 of Children’s Hospital, and they had a bed there for me. I used to work nights in Worcester for the money and then go there at 11 o’clock. And the holiday was there, and he asked, “Where you going for the holidays?” And I said, “Where do you expect me to go?” And he said, “How come you’re not at services.” He’s in Brookline and I’m at home. I said, “What, do you want to go?” He was in the hospital and hadn’t been out of bed for weeks. And he said, “I see no reason a rabbi can’t come here. There are plenty of rabbi’s in Brooklyn.” He said, “Where’s our rabbi?” And I said, “I’m sure he’s in that great big auditorium full of people all prettied up, ready for the holiday.” And he said, “Mother, cut it out.” He talked until he died. And so I went to the social worker and said, “I don’t know how to handle this, what would you suggest? I’m perfectly happy to give someone a healthy donation, but whoever you can talk to.” So they sent, they couldn’t get a hold of anybody because all the regular rabbis had their regular services all clean cut so the only person the social worker could get. She said he was from Brookline, and I said, “I don’t care if he’s from Oshkosh.” When I saw him, I almost died. I don’t have too much affiliation with rabbis like that—ultraorthodox, I don’t have anything against them, it’s me. We were on the eighth floor, the critical unit at the Children’s Hospital, Division 28 it’ s called. This rabbi walked from Coolidge Corner to 330 Brookline Ave., that’s like walking from Tatnuck Square to here, because it was the holiday and he was very orthodox.

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And do you think they talked about the holiday? No. He and Stanton talked bout everything going on in the world. He didn’t look very clean and neat but he had a very clean and neat mind for everything that was going on in the world at that time. And that’s how I spent that New Year. We had a regular service. We had the gal who got a hold of him tell him to bring four prayer books. They asked what kind, and I said anything he wants but make sure there’s a lot of English in it. And he was very very typical academic. He looked like these yeshiva guys with the long sideburns and the big beards. I don’t think he was thirty years old. I did no conversing with him, and I felt like saying, “You’re nuts— there’s so much good you could be doing out there besides praying. Don’t give the praying up, but put something else with it.” But he did sit there and talk with my son. And my son told the rabbi that he was very upset with his mother because she was going to skip services. So I’d said, “I’ll do services with you.” So we did it. And the funniest thing about the whole thing, my aunt and uncle in Hartford called the hospital and said, “We’re coming over” and I said “But it’s the new year” And they said “We want to give you a bit of new year too” and they sat with me in that small cruddy room for a long time. Neither one of them are alive today.

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Harriet's Husband

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My Zadie, Part Two My mother’s family came over from Lithuania. Her father sent her with her sister to the states because her sister was pregnant and the sister’s husband was in New York all alone. So he told my mother, who was in boarding school in Vilna, she had to go to the states because the sister was pregnant. He was sending an “aide” with his pregnant daughter who was a couple of years older than my mother. My mother’s father was very knowledgeable. In Europe he was sent to a Yeshiva, which was a boarding school. It wasn’t in the stedtl. His father was a barrister and was in charge of this whole community. And he sends his sons off to school to. At that time they didn’t send the girls off to school in Europe, but he even sent my mother to boarding school. He had enough money to pay for her way and he believed in education. That was very important to him. How one groomed oneself was very important to him; how one spoke was very important to him. He could have been a rabbi. He went to school and took all the courses, but he didn’t like all the politics that went with being a rabbi. So he opened up a private school on his own and it was called a cheder, a school where one learns Hebrew and the bible and all of that. My grandfather was a very loving person to his grandchildren and allowed his children to spread their wings. So one son became a CPA, another one went to Spain with the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. They were interesting people. I think my father got caught with my other at his mother’s house and she made them get married. I remember my sister and I as little girls, every holiday he would take us down to a little store to get paten leather Mary Janes. I remember going there, every Passover in the spring. And he used to buy us white gloves. First of all, my grandfather had a big Seder, and he invited his friends and all my relatives from Hartford would come in, my cousins my age, younger, older, and we had a ball. He would sit down at the regular Seder meal, and he would say open up the sidar (the prayer book), and he would translate what it said there and he was very vivacious and would explain and expand what it said there. Then he would tell us, “Okay, close the sidar, and I have a two dollar bill here, let’s see how many questions you can answer.” And he would bombard

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us with questions. But everybody one, because everybody got a two dollar bill. My Zadie was an observant Jewish old man. He had a Vandyke old-‐fashioned black beard, very handsome. He taught school in his house, and they were all boys except my sister and I, and whatever I know is what he taught me. But he said, “Well, girls, you are too old, because the boys are more interested in you than in the lessons, so you better pay attention to your lessons because this is your last class and you need to study the rest on your own.” I only went to public school, and he didn’t think it was much. So whatever assignment I had I’d bring to him, and he would expand it. I’d go to him for history, which he knew from the top of his head. And I’d say, “You get another A today.” He loved people. Whoever happened to be outside, like kids. Whoever we were playing with—they were black, they were Catholic, but we would all get together in the ______ and he would bring supper to us. He loved those kids, he would take them fishing. I could have gone but I hated it—I’m not a fisherman. Zadie was never strict with us. When I wanted to go into training for nursing, I went to my father, and he said, “I’m not going to have my daughter wiping everybody’s behind.” So I went to my grandfather and complained. And I needed 500 dollars to send away for the books and the uniforms and whatnot. So he said, “Okay, I have a job for you.” And he paid me two dollars a week, and out of that I gave him a dollar a week to pay for my education. And at the end of the three years, he handed me all those dollar bills he’d saved for me—a couple of hundred dollars—and my girlfriend and I went away on vacation together. Now wasn’t he a kind man. My father was very bright but my grandfather was a scholar. He worked—he opened up a school; he taught. He never made much money. But whatever he gave me, he gave as much to charity.

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What I learned from my grandfather is that people are wonderful—don’t push anybody aside. And if you can teach them something, and they’re willing and you’re willing—do it and the man upstairs will appreciate it.

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ROSALYN BORSKY

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I Believe in Peace and Prosperity for All “Peace on Earth” has been very important to me. My cousin Arthur was a gentle beautiful young man who loved music and peace. He was drafted into the Second World War and sent over to Europe, and within a few months he was sent back to us in a box. And I have never gotten over that. My son was born within a few months of when my cousin died and so we named our son Arthur. I was working in the war department during that period and also experienced the deaths of a lot of people who were meaningful to me. And so I hated war then and since then. So I’m glad the war is over and hope we never get involved in another one. Now that the war is over our families will e able to celebrate and look ahead. After my work in the war department, I worked in the department of labor in New York, and we had to work with people who had to come to collect unemployment payments. It was difficult for me to see a lot of people who I knew who had been successful all those years who were suddenly out of work. But helping them find work was very gratifying. So now that the war is over, President Obama is right to try to unite our country to get together and solve the unemployment problem and get jobs for those without. I believe in peace and in getting people back to work so we can have a successful future for everyone.

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Paul Norman Borsky

I’ll tell you why he has that Norman name, because his name was not Norman. But he was given a tiepin with a place for three initials, and he figured N was for nothing. But it turned out his parents said, “How did you know?” Because his Jewish name is Nathan, which means nothing. PNB We were at a sweet sixteen party—I was sweet sixteen that day. We had to wait until we got married at eighteen. My husband was sweet, loving, and adored by everybody. A very involved person, in politics, he was always at the top of the class. He studied everything pertaining to noise. When there was that terrible accident, a smash up, at JFK, it was one of the worst accidents in the United States when the plane crashed in Brooklyn. So I had retired—I’d been working. I’d been involved in the community. I was always right there with my husband and my children—they were all social workers, and I wanted to be involved in social work. As a professor, he was assigned—and we lived nearby in Brooklyn, he was assigned to travel the country and he had to go to all the air force bases, and I went wit him. That was one of the trips we went without the children. He trained people to go out and interview the residents who were surrounding the airports. Since then, a lot of people won’t go on an airplane. First he went down to the crash sight—both of us, Paul and I. The kids were all in different colleges all over the country then. So he had this trip from one Air Force base to another. And when you go to an air force base as a special guest, you get special accommodations. It’s small but really nice, and they invite you to participate in everything on the base you’re interested in. I was a “lady,” and he was the equivalent of a superior officer. He trained people, both those who were in the services and who lived in the area, to go from house to house asking people how they feel about noise from the airplanes. So after this crash, I enjoyed being treated a lady on the bases. We camped along the way. We had a convertible car that we had a bed in the back of the car that converted from a bed into a table so we could

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use it indoors or outdoors. And if the weather accommodated us, we would stay outdoors. We would stay near beaches, we loved beaches and water and going swimming. And this work was working as a teacher to the people who have never done this before. And my husband had to work out forms and the questions they would ask. He was a psychologist. We traveled all over: China, Russia, we became very close with people in Puerto Rico, and we would go there regularly when we retired and the weather was beautiful there. We made wonderful friends both Puerto Rican and American who came each year—that was also camping but we had accommodations so we didn’t have to provide anything. We were always involved in children. We loved children.

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Sixty Five Years with My Best Friend It was love at first sight, but we went steady for almost six years before we were married. My husband Paul was a very intelligent, outgoing and handsome young man. He was Valedictorian in his high school in Brooklyn New York. I met Paul soon after his family moved to Brighton Beach from New Jersey. We were both only sixteen. Both of us had to study for year-‐ end tests -‐-‐ Regents -‐-‐ and we would go to the beach. Paul would sit on a jetty over the water, and I would be on a blanket on the beach. When we went on dates it was usually walking down the Boardwalk toward Coney Island. Sometimes we got five-‐cent hotdogs from Nathan’s; sometimes we got soft frozen custard.

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After high school Paul went on scholarship to Brooklyn College. In December 1941, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor and the U.S. went to war. I moved down to Washington to help with the war effort. I stayed in a boarding house and worked as a secretary to an army officer in the Pentagon. In February Paul was graduated from college and he moved down to Washington. We were married, and moved into a double suite at the boarding house. Other friends and family also wound up in D.C. as we called it. They had places near us, and we were newlyweds who worked during the day and then enjoyed evenings and weekends together. Sometimes we rented boats and took them out onto the Potomac. There were riverside concerts, and we listened to the music from the water. I remember one friend -‐-‐ Ida -‐-‐ who was very pregnant. It started to rain and it was hard to get back on shore and we were worried that she would get sick or go into labor. It was frightening, but we got her dry and warm and it worked out OK. In September 1943, the first of my three children, Susan, was born. I was twenty-‐three. Then came my daughter Phyllis in 1946 and my son Arthur in 1950. We were able to move from the row house Washington to Greenbelt, Maryland. This was a planned community, put together for all the families that had moved to the Washington area during World War ll. Even though I didn’t go to college, I had been able to pass the Civil Service exam needed to be able to work in the War Department. When we moved to Greenbelt, I began to defer to my family life instead of pursuing higher education as a social worker. I am pleased that both of my daughters picked up on my interest in helping others, and earned their Master’s degrees in that field. We had a wonderful family life in Greenbelt. Paul continued to work for the government. On weekends we would take the children swimming at the Town Center pool. There was a Co-‐op grocery and a play area, a movie theater, and other stores. You could get there by using pathways and underpasses, so it was very child-‐friendly. We went on outings to Rock Creek Park, and sometimes took the children to an Agricultural Research Center in Beltsville Maryland.

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Scientists there were learning to breed cows that gave more milk, and turkeys that had more white meat. We’d honk at the turkeys, and they gobbled back. The turkeys took the name of their breeders for a while – Beltsville Turkeys. Now most turkeys are descended from these big-‐breasted hybrids, so they are just called “Butterballs.” For two weeks every summer we would rent a house right on the beach in Fenwick Island, with several other families who had become good friends. During the day we would stay close to the water on the beautiful sandy beach. We would surf in the waves and bake in the sun, and no one worried then about skin cancer. The children would make elaborate sand castles and we have pictures of my handsome husband standing with one of the girls on his shoulders with the water in the background. Sometimes we would take a rowboat out in the marshes of the bay, and go fishing. Mostly we caught crabs, and the children would walk along side of the boat and dig into the mud with their toes. When they felt a clam, they would duck under water and dig it out. Later we would have a crab feast with fresh clams, and fresh corn and tomatoes. We would finish off by digging a hole in the sand and building a campfire out of driftwood and having a sing-‐along.

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We lived in Washington area for about ten years, and then Paul got a job developing and doing public opinion research. We moved back to New York, and with our three children, we were naturals to go for one of the new tract homes being built on Long Island. The homes sold for ten or eleven thousand in 1953. When I moved forty-‐five years later, the much improved and expanded, but the same homes sold for three hundred thousand or more. My daughters were ten and eight when we moved in. Susan went to fifth grade in the only school – a converted one-‐room schoolhouse that had been divided into two classrooms. I don’t remember where Phyllis first went. Within a year, there were so many young families moving into the area that several elementary schools were hastily built. After that came a Junior High and a High School and the school budget ballooned. Paul became active leading efforts to support getting the funding necessary to build and run the school system, and to hire a School Superintendent. Meanwhile, my son was a preschooler. I worked with several other women to develop a co-‐op nursery school where parents rotated as teacher’s aides to reduce the cost. The idea of co-‐op nursery schools was new, then, and has since become a very common way to develop preschool programs. All three children eventually went to college. Susan settled in Maryland, Arthur in Massachusetts and Phyllis lived for twenty years in Manhattan, and then moved to about fifteen minutes away from us on Long Island. I enjoyed being a mother, and I enjoyed my work as an Administrative Secretary at a local Department of Labor office, but mostly I enjoyed relaxed times with Paul. After the children were out of the nest we went to concerts and the opera, and we traveled all over the world, and enjoyed our children and grandchildren. I was depressed for a long time after Paul died. All I could think was what a great guy he had been. I have wonderful memories to comfort me, and now I am living a new stage of my life at Eisenberg.

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My Life as a Camper I’ve never been much for formality. I love the outdoors, love traveling to interesting, beautiful places, and I don’t enjoy staying in expensive, fancy places. Throughout our married life, my husband and I enjoyed camping, and did so in many ways. When our kids were young, we got camping gear and a rooftop car carrier, and we took the family across country twice. My mother and brother lived in California, and we would take a week or two getting there, stopping at the Grand Canyon and the Painted Desert and Yellowstone and other national wonders, and at different ones on the way back. We got pretty good at setting up sleeping and cooking arrangements, and then we camped in the rough, sometimes with just a water pump at the campsite and a latrine nearby. We would cook at the campfire and then invite nearby campers to join us in a sing-‐along. Those are wonderful memories. On the east coast, we would take camping trips to Arcadia and Tanglewood and Niagara Falls and the Finger Lakes in New York and the Smokies in North Carolina. I loved making friends with the other people who shared the camping areas. Later, my husband and I also discovered a Y camp, I think, where adults stayed in basic cabins and got to enjoy the outdoors while engaging in interesting programs. My daughter Susan now talks about how much she loves memories of all the places we visited and explored, although she says that she definitely prefers “porcelain” and hot running water for her sleeping accommodations. After our children were grown, my husband and I bought a van, which we had outfitted so that we could cook and eat in it, and then convert it for sleeping. We used it to take weekend trips, and then Paul got a contract with the Air Force to study people’s reaction to airplane noise. Since people living on air force bases are constantly exposed to the sound of planes landing and taking off, the plan was to train interviewers and to set up interviews with samples of the residents at several air force bases. For a year, Paul and I traveled around the country with the camper, staying in modern campgrounds on the way to a base.

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When we were working at a particular base, Paul was given access to Officer’s Quarters and we stayed there. Paul liked to jokingly call himself “General Borsky.” It was a terrific year for me. We spent a lot of time working on California bases, and got to visit with both my mother and brother and his family. My daughter and son-‐in-‐law were living in Denver at the time, and they drove to California and camped with us at Yosemite and outside San Francisco. Our last experience with informal living began by accident. We were visiting Paul’s parents, who lived in Miami Beach. We heard about an area in Puerto Rico that was basically a state campground, right on the ocean, and decided to visit it. There we discovered Boquerón. It was on the west coast of Puerto Rico near Mayaguez. You could rent a cabin right on the beach – a 100 yards from a beautiful, calm bay – palm trees, local fishermen selling their catch right off the boat – a concrete overhang for a picnic table – sand in everything -‐-‐ for a week. We went there the following year with some friends, and discovered that there was a whole community of Americans who arranged to spend their winter months enjoying their cold-‐water showers and one bulb illuminated kitchen and bedroom, and some of the best waterfront living in the world! One week we would reserve the site in our name, and the next week in our son’s name, then our daughters’ names and so on. The manager was happy because it kept the campgrounds full during months where locals thought it was too cold to be at the beach. We made friends with others who stayed at the same time, and this became our winter holiday for more than ten years, after we retired. I loved to swim when the water was calm, and I stayed all day in my bathing suit so I could just go to the water and relax. Paul got a hammock where he relaxed happily during the day, and then in the evenings people would gather for sing-‐alongs and table games by lantern light. Paul devised a "solar heated" shower. We would walk a mile to a nearby little town for our mail and necessaries. It was simple, healthy living and I looked forward to it every year.

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The man who ran the campground was Dagaberto. He and Paul became fast friends – sort of a father-‐son relationship. We got to know Dagaberto’s family and looked forward to seeing them each year. Dagaberto stored equipment that we put together, so that we were able to travel light and then to set up a functional campsite easily when we got there. We continued to go to Boquerón until Paul developed colon cancer. When he was dying, Dagaberto and his wife actually came to New York to be with him and with me. It is a part of my life I will never forget.

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Roz's Mother and Father

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Music and My Life Music has always been very important to me. Both my mother and father loved music, particularly singing. My mother sang with her guitar for friends at many social events. Mama continued to sing Russian and Yiddish songs well into her seventies; my father unfortunately died when I was two so I really don’t know of his likes, except for opera. Mama used to tell me that when they wanted to go out, they would buy tickets for the opera, and sit in the highest, least expensive seats in the back – but they could enjoy the music. I think I raised my children on music. As a child, I’m told that I showed the same musical talent as my mother and I would sing with her when friends would gather. We sang Russian tunes, Yiddish tunes, Irish folksongs, and lullabies of every language. I taught them to my children. I was six or seven when a friend who played piano showed me how to play. To this day I don’t know how I do it but I caught onto the basics quickly, and have since then been able to play almost any melody that I know by ear – without music. My daughter Phyllis who understands music theory says that I play all kinds of melodies in the key of C major and C minor. I don’t know about theory, but chords come naturally. My two daughters sing beautifully – one in the key of C and the other can do beautiful harmonies – also completely by ear without written notes. When I married and had children, we had a green painted piano in the living room. My talented sister-‐in-‐law Ruth painted a Russian dancer doing the Kazatzky on it. We added American folk songs to the list of songs we sang together – Old Smoky, and Comin’ Round the Mountain… "When all good folks are fast asleep and all the stars are out, that’s the time the brownie boys are up and run about ...Tip toe, tip toe, can't you hear them then, busy little Brownie helpers, tiny little men.” When the children were younger we would rent a large house with a couple of other families on Fenwick Island. There was sunning and swimming and fresh food cookouts. We would sing at night around

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a campfire on the beach. There were guitars and mandolins everywhere. I can’t begin to list all of the songs that I learned. There were Jewish songs like “Tumbalalika” and “Dona Dona Dona.” We sang Pete Seeger songs and show tunes from Rogers and Hammerstein. Many years later I got a Melodica, which I took with me when I traveled -‐-‐ a piano keyboard you blow into. Then I literally had music wherever I went. As I mentioned, all three of my children were talented musically. Art played clarinet and sax and sang beautifully. Susan played the flute. Phyllis played the violin and the guitar and always sang in choruses. She and Susan harmonized every night as they washed and dried the dishes. They sang show tunes, and pop, country, Kibbutznik songs and folk songs. On many occasions we would take car trips – to California, to Florida, to campgrounds and other places. Car trips were a musical feast. When I moved to a condo after my husband died, I could play the piano at every hour of the day or night without disturbing anyone. Sometimes I entertained at the YMHA in Plainview. Sometimes I found myself improvising and composing melodies of my own. Here at Eisenberg there is a beautiful grand piano. I love to play while I’m waiting for an event, or after dinner. People join me and ask me to play pieces they can sing along with. I’m glad to share my love of music with others here.

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In Conclusion

As I look back, now, I think a great deal about my grandchildren and great grandchildren. I was there with my daughter and her husband when my oldest, Matthew, first arrived. Paul and I came to Maryland as often as we could to spend time with him and his parents. When my son Arthur lived on Long Island close by, I got to spend lots of time with his little daughter Amanda. Paul and I also made it a point to get up to Massachusetts as often as possible when Arthur moved to Princeton. We kept in touch with Amanda, and then several years later her little brother Alex joined the family. Amanda is now married to a wonderful man, Dan, and is going for a PhD! Alex is going to be a senior in college in Maine.

When I think about my grandchildren, I remember them mostly when they were babies and toddlers. They were precious and lovable,

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and I wanted to hug and kiss them all the time. As each grew up, I loved him or her even more. I never got enough of seeing and being with them and I think they felt the same. Now, all three are adults, and Matthew has a new family with a seven-‐year-‐old child from his wife’s first marriage, and a new baby just four months old. I’m a double great grandmother! I get lots of pictures and I’ve spoken with Ryan, the seven year old, on the phone, but I can’t wait until baby Benjamin is old enough for the family to come here so that I can hug them in person.

I have good, loving memories of my life as a wife and mother and a traveler, and I am so proud of having a strong, active family. My daughter Phyllis stays in touch with me every day. She is very gifted musically, and extremely loving and supportive. I see Arthur and his wife Anne Marie regularly, and their children come by whenever they are in town. Maryland is just too far for me to travel now but we stay in touch by phone and pictures. I never thought that I’d live to be 92, but here I am! What do you think about that?

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Alberta “Birdie” Chase

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Is It or Isn’t It? At the end of December I was thinking about our beloved resident, Lillian Meyers, who had recently passed away. I pictured her walking the Eisenberg grounds as best she could and as long as she cold. Then I thought about other residents who religiously walk the corridors. They are older than I. Some use walkers. Yet they are all disciplined enough to keep moving as difficult as it may be. I thought perhaps I should start walking as I feel my balance is not what it should be. Fast forward to Monday, January 2nd. Our activities director, Lisa Brown, was in the Community Room about to begin our daily chair exercise program. In her warm-‐up greeting, she told how the Greendale Y was mobbed that morning with all the folks who made New Year’s resolutions either to lose weight or to just get in shape. And she wondered how many would show up in a week or even in a month. A light bulb flashed before me. I would make a New Year’s resolution to walk—outside preferably. I had never made a resolution before. Before I moved here I always walked up to the second floor. But now that I lived here I thought the stairs looked scary because it’s such a long flight. But one day I saw Lil and Joe Goff going up and went with them. Here it is the middle of January. I have tried to climb a flight of stairs daily in addition to walking. And now my legs feel better—they really do. My goal is to go up and down two or three flights a few times weekly. The question is—is it or is it not a resolution made after the first of the year, and will I or will I not stick to it? See me in 2013!

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Here’s To You

Dear Debbie, You are probably tired of hearing this story, but I want you to have it in writing for posterity. Now you are a beautiful young happily married woman with a nice professional career in Baltimore, Maryland. Then you were a two year-‐old curly haired blond little girl sitting at Grandma’s and Grandpa’s Seder table celebrating our Jewish holiday of Passover. As you know a Seder is a ceremonial dinner that includes the reading of the Haggadah and the eating of specified foods. Another symbolic gesture is to imitate the royalty of that time who sat propped up with pillows and leaned to the left, eating with the right hand. One did not lean to the right, as that would cause choking. During the reading of the ritual, we drink four cups of wine. We either never thought of or perhaps there was no kosher grape juice around the year 1955 so you were given a few sips of Manischevitz red wine. Before we knew it, you were leaning over in your chair dosing off. Your parents quickly laid you down and stayed with you while you slept it off. You know we tease you about that episode. But perhaps that’s why you hardly ever imbibe now. Here’s to you, kid! With all my love, Birdie

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Two of Birdies' Fortunes

Same Old, Same Old

Whenever I see chop suey or egg rolls on the menu, my thoughts go back to the summer of 1944. My brother enlisted in the Navy right after high school graduation. He was bright and qualified to be in training to be a pilot and was assigned to classes at Harvard University in Cambridge. I remember he lived at the Elliot House and my folks would drive him back to school each Sunday afternoon after spending the weekend at home. In the early 1920’s, my dad’s father owned a notion store in what is known as Chinatown in Boston so my father was familiar with one particular restaurant called the “25.” I don’t recall the name of the street. The owner’s family always welcomed us and that was our favorite place. We did not need a menu as the same dishes were ordered each week in and week out. We began with egg rolls—nice and crispy. Then we had egg foo yong, chicken chow mein, spare ribs, plain white rice and French bread. No one now eats bread but that was our ritual. The meal was topped off with fortune cookies and Chinese tea. The only dressing we used was soy sauce. In later years my brother acquired a taste for real hot spicy flavorings but I’m happy with low-‐key additives.

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I was in high school then, and my friends and I weren’t even really aware of the war going on. My brother deliberately flunked out of officer’s training because at eighteen he felt he was too young to be a superior of men in their thirties. So he shipped to boot camp at the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Chicago. He became a seaman, and he learned to do Morse code. But for that brief period when he was at Harvard we could get together and enjoy our family dinners at the Chinese restaurant. The whole bill was $6.00 for four. Those were the good old days.

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Birdie’s Parents

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New York, New York Our family always went for a Sunday drive. In 1938 when I was 10 and my brother was 12 my folks thought we were ready for a weeklong trip. Off we headed from Worcester to New York City. There were no super highways so it took about 5 hours. I remember seeing the magnificent George Washington Bridge and the apartment buildings in the Bronx that were perhaps 15 stories high. Imagine how we gazed at the skyscrapers in Manhattan. We saw a movie and stage show at the famous Radio City Music Hall. We also took the ferry to the Statue of Liberty and climbed 345 steps to the crown of the lady. Even my mother was able to reach the top although we were all breathless for a while. It was a thrill to look out at the skyline. Sightseeing included a 5-‐cent subway ride to Coney Island. We didn’t go in the water but strolled along the boardwalk and took some “kiddy” rides in the amusement park.

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At that time the Empire State Building was the highest in the country at 102 stories. There were elevators, which took us to the lookout posts. I had a fear of heights and stood way back from the best vantage points but could still see all the activity on the Hudson and East Rivers.

Fun was having a light meal at the Automat. Drop a nickel or a dime and out came your choice. The slots were always full. You could see the help behind the glass doors filling the empty spots. We had dinner at the famous Lindy’s Restaurant. The service was A-‐1. I remember their tender lamb chops and the delicious plain cheesecake. After that experience, my dad was ready for another few hundred-‐ mile trip to Montreal, Canada. But I’ll save that for another story.

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Kvelling

We of the Writers’ Roundtable are still “kvelling” (a Yiddish word loosely translated meaning “to take great pride and joy”) over our reading at the Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence on Thursday, August 18, 2011. Kudos to our gracious master of ceremonies, Joseph Zaucha, father of our teacher and mentor, Lucia Knoles, for putting us at ease by his informal introduction of us. Needless to say, we were all supportive of each other but I found the audience of residents and guests warmed up to us as the program went on. And we taught Joe how to pronounce and spell “kvell” and even use it correctly in a sentence. Next to memorizing, I least like to read aloud. However, I bit the bullet and felt relieved when my portion was over. My regret is that I did not stand, nor did I glance up at the audience. The management team put out a table of delicious pastries, fruit, and beverages. Even I took a cookie, which is unusual for me, but who could resist? The piece de resistance over the whole evening, in my opinion, was to see the reaction of the children of our group speaking to each other. I overheard Esther’s Wendy, Harriet’s Terry Lee and Helen’s Annie talking about where they were brought up, professional careers, etc. I hope when there is another family gathering these young ladies will seek each other out and bond again as their mothers have through this program.

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The Joke Was On Us April 1st was coming upon us and my brother Walter and I were thinking of what to do. My dad was a chain cigar smoker, about ten a day. So we thought if we wet his matches he wouldn’t be able to light up. The evening before the “big event” we soaked his book of matches. (I don’t remember if my mom was aware of our prank.) The next morning we were anxiously waiting for the first cigar to be puffed. How would eight or ten year olds know that the matches would dry and would ignite upon striking? We looked at each other with amazement. My folks didn’t know what we were snickering about. The joke was on us. Another year we tacked an empty pocketbook on to the pavement of our driveway near the sidewalk. We lived on a busy street and there was a lot of foot traffic. My mother was in on this. We all looked out the window to see how many people would stoop down to see if perhaps there was something valuable in the bag. Of course, they had different expressions on their faces when they came up empty. We had a good laugh.

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Memories of Mollie

The first time I met Mollie was last year at Eisenberg’s July Strawberry Festival. How she loved those chocolate-‐covered strawberries! We became tablemates at breakfast time. The conversation was always lively. This incredible lady was tuned into a radio show each morning. No topic escaped her. However, we mostly chatted about family affairs and her projects for writing. She spent at least an hour a day in the sunlight in the activity room writing the weekly “assignment” for our Writers’ Roundtable group. We are all acquainted with her lectures. Did you know her latest subject was to be table-‐hoppin’? I don’t know exactly what she planned, but she was going to try to say something about each person she visited as she strolled through the dining room, exchanged greetings, sometimes gave a back rub, and commented on the weather or a new outfit. May Mollie’s memory be for a blessing.

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Joseph Goff

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My Sister Eva Eva was born in 1907. Eva was born blind. She was the third child of six children—Rose, Bessie, Eva, and Harry. Ten years later I was born in 1920. I am now the only living member of my family, and I am 94 years old.

My mother was ill. I remember that vividly. Her finger, the skin scraped off and the bone exposed, and I remember that vividly. I was a young child in grade school at the time, and my older sisters and brother were adolescents and teenagers. My sisters took over when my mother became ill. They cooked, they cleaned, they washed the dishes, and they washed the clothes. They got me ready for school. They took care of Eva.

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Eva was an important member of our family. She needed our help. It was hard. She was always a source of concern for the whole household. We worried about what would become of her. Every Saturday my brother, Udell, and I would walk with her to the Rialto Theater. We walked downtown from Vernon Hill. After the movie we would stop for ice cream at the corner store. It cost a nickel. For me it was chocolate. Then we walked home—how else were you going to get around? When Eva was younger our Uncle Benny paid her tuition to live and to study at the Perkins School for the Blind. We missed her very much. When Eva came home she could read and write Braille and was more independent. Even though she needed our assistance, she was a responsibility but never a burden. When the older siblings worked, Eva stayed home alone until Udell and I came home from school. We then did the chores in the house under her supervision. Eva’s friendliness and personality drew people to her. She cared about them and they cared about her. She socialized easily. She could discuss any subject with anyone-‐-‐especially the games concerning the Red Sox. She listened intently to every game.

Eva (center

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Rose and Eva became inseparable. They lived together in an apartment in different ones at different times in their lives. Both of them began to work in the stores which Harry opened and Udell soon joined him. The Mart was the first discount department store to open in the city of Worcester. It was a large two-‐story building. The first floor was level to the street and the basement was entered down a stairway inside the building. A branch of my paint and wallpaper store was located in the basement with other departments. The back entrance to the store was entered off a large parking area. It was near the entrance where Eva worked at the switchboard, met and greeted everyone who entered the store. This was just her cup of tea.

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Both Rose and Eva went to the legitimate theater performances in Boston practically every Saturday afternoon for years. Sometimes they took their nieces and neighbors. All the ticket sellers at the Colonial and Shubert theaters came to recognize them. Rose would drive and Eva would sit beside her. They constantly went to movies, restaurants, were invited to dinners, and were very family oriented. Eva was very clothes conscious. The colors of her clothes had to blend; the jewelry was silver or gold. When Eva decided it was time to buy a mink jacket, she bought herself a mink jacket. She was always well dressed and made up. She never wore glasses. When Rose died, Eva lived independently in their apartment until it became apparent that it was not really safe for her to be alone. She moved into the Jewish Health Care on Salisbury St, Worcester, where she lived for a number of years. Eva was a wonderful and remarkable woman. The people who knew her will never forget her.

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Envy

Envy is a peculiar word. It involves another person. It is neither a healthy feeling nor a pleasant feeling. It makes you desire what is not yours. It is a feeling of resentment. In the dictionary, the synonym for the word “envy” is the word “jealousy,” If what I say is true, I am not a perfect person and I want to be perfect. I resent not being perfect.

Just the word “envy” brings about a personal feeling. I know myself—I like it and I do not like it. Maybe that is why I do not want to remember being envious.

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Experiences of Joy

The feel of hot, hot water rushing over my body during my morning shower. The taste of creamy chocolate ice cream. The sound of my golf club cracking the golf ball off the tree. The taste of a Jack Daniels on the rocks after an 18-‐hole game of golf. The smell coming from Hot Dog Annie’s as we drive into the parking lot. The taste of one of Hot Dog Annie’s hot dogs, spread with mustard, ketchup, and relish. The feeling of joy and nostalgia as we sit with our 50 and 60 year old children and our teenage grandchild at one of the wooden outdoor tables at Hot Dog Annie’s. Our children were so young when we started to drive to this famous Hot Dog Stand.

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LILLIAN GOFF

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Invitation to the Dance

I had been playing the piano since I was ten years old and this was the first recital, which included most of the students of my piano teacher. The recital was held in Boston in a building which had many sized rooms for different sized recitals and concerts. When it was time for me to perform I sat on the bench, placed my hands on the keyboard—and silence. My fingers and my mind did not coordinate. After a few seconds my instructor came out, played a few notes and left.

This was a piece I loved to play because it was a performance when done well. There were long stretches of full chords up and down the keyboard. It was powerful and I played it well. The applause and my family’s smiles redeemed me.

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Growing Into Maturity The summer day was sunny and warm, the grass was green and had just been mowed, and I was standing alone thinking to myself that Sidney would be very proud of me. Five years before, in 1958, Sidney had died. He had been sick for a number of years with a kidney disease, which could only be alleviated by a kidney transplant from an identical twin. His illness began when he was stationed on Guadalcanal during World War II. The morning I told my two sons that their father had died, Barney, my nine year old, asked who was going to pay the bills and was I going to marry again. Fred, my six year old, who had just celebrated his sixth birthday a few weeks before, stood beside me with his hand on my arm. I told them that I was going to take care of everything. My 37th birthday was December 31, 1958, during the week of mourning. I was scared. The doctor and I had finally zeroed in on a tranquilizer, which was low in milligrams and made me feel calm and capable. Finances were another scare. However, I was fortunate and lucky, as a nephew of my sister’s husband had just become a stockbroker. He was young, bright, and eager. I invested some money with fingers crossed. Those were the golden years of the stock market and its growth. Life was easy, but living was difficult. I had worked before my marriage, so I knew how to make necessary decisions, use a checkbook, and solve problems before they developed. I became much more outgoing and much more assertive out of necessity. I managed the household finances and whatever else that came up during each day. It was not easy, but I did it! My mother and my father were always there for me. And my older brother was there when I needed him. He was a lawyer and I needed him often. My younger sister had her own problems. Her

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husband died from lung cancer two years after Sidney, leaving her with a four-‐year old daughter, and a two-‐year old son. She needed me. My children were my salvation. I HAD to get up every morning for them. They needed to know that I was always there for them and would always love them unconditionally. Then one day a young man called me for a date. When the doorbell rang, I opened the door. I looked at him, and he said, “I’m Joe.” And I thought, “He’s nice. I could like him.”

Now, forty-‐seven years later, Joe and I are living in the Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence, enjoying the “good life” and looking forward to our fiftieth anniversary.

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My First Attempt at Art After many years of doing volunteer work, I started to think about what I could do that would be different. The idea of some form of art came to my mind when I remembered one of my son’s elementary school teachers asking if I ever thought of art as an outlet. After brewing over this for a while, what better place to start than the Worcester Art Museum, which was located right in our city and only a five-‐minute drive from my home. During a September registration period, I signed up for a beginner’s painting class, purchased all the necessary brushes, paints and paper and was ready to begin. A real beginner was I, in a class of students who thought themselves beginners after three years of painting lessons. Little did I realize, I would think the same way no matter how many years I took lessons. I did not know how to mix colors, how to blend those colors or how to make my brush strokes move from thick to thin or vice versa. It was very frustrating until one day the instructor said that I painted like Picasso-‐ bright, thick colors. My esteem rose slightly, however I knew I would never be an artist. In the next fall’s registration period, I enrolled in a drawing and watercolor class for beginners. This time it did not bother me how many students were not beginners. I was going to work at my own level. This class was taught by a young man with whom I continued to enroll in his classes for three years. Always beginners’ classes, as there was something new to learn at each lesson. We used pencil, charcoal and paint and the instructor was always patient and helpful. One day, he held up my still life watercolor, pointed to the apple and said to the students, “this is what an apple should look like.” Imagine!!! My work, I was flabbergasted and proud. After all, there were so many talented students in the class. I had the painting framed, gave it to my husband, Joe, to hang in his office and now it decorates a wall in our apartment at the Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence. At this point, I felt I needed to further explore my talent in another form of art as how much further could I advance after the instructor’s glowing compliment.

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Furthering My Art

Again I had to decide what form of art I would now pursue. After printing birthday invitations, which turned out quite nicely, I thought of approaching our Rabbi’s wife for advice. She was a calligrapher and fortunately for me she was starting a beginner’s class in Calligraphy in her home once a week. Calligraphy is the art of writing beautifully by using penholders with different sized nibs dipped in special inks or watercolors. Learning Calligraphy is by practicing. Some of us practiced and practiced and practiced at home and in class on paper that was photocopied with the different styles of calligraphy and the lines to follow. I preferred Italic, Gothic and the Roman. Eventually our teacher moved from venue to venue increasing the size of her class until she was appointed to the Worcester Art Museum as an instructor in Calligraphy and Oriental Brush Painting. Since I was in her Calligraphy class, I naturally went to the Worcester Art Museum with her to continue to explore Calligraphy and to begin to explore Oriental Brush Painting. Oriental Brush Painting instructors must be trained in Chinese and Japanese Brush Painting. We mainly worked with the Chinese form of Brush Painting.

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Brushes having special hairs are preferred more than regular paintbrushes. Chinese based paints may be used or regular watercolors. However, the Chinese paints are deeper in tone and I found them more exciting to use. I like the Chinese paintings because of the variety of mountains and water scenes, the Chinese pagodas and the many floral designs. This was an exciting time as we grew in knowledge and expressions, we developed friendships. Each year, students displayed a choice of artwork at the museum’s biannual student art exhibit. The day of the opening, students, families, friends and many visitors walked along the corridors viewing and discussing the individual artwork. Such talent was amazing. Since our children were no longer living at home, Joe helped me set up an art room in the smaller bedroom. We sold the furniture in that room and bought a large light box to place on a tilted art table, a comfortable adjustable stool on which to sit, two long tables for all my artwork, shelves for art and Calligraphy books, paper, paints and brushes. When I do something I do it right. When I was working in that room I lost myself in what I was doing. Hours would pass until my husband’s “Hi” would bring me back to reality-‐-‐-‐ dinnertime. When our instructor moved out of state, another instructor replaced her to expand the Calligraphy class to Calligraphy II and begin a new Calligraphy I class. Also, a Taiwanese artist drove to Worcester form Cambridge once a week to instruct us in combined Oriental Brush Painting I and II. These classes still continue at the museum. I would have been at the museum much longer than I was, but one day I found it difficult to carry the bags of art supplies, open the doors and climb the stairs to the art room. Later I found out I was suffering from Poly Myalgea Rheumatica, which needed two years of Prednisone treatments, and so my work continues at home. From the beginning, I combined my artwork, Calligraphy and Oriental Brush Painting into designing my own greeting cards. Each card was personally painted and using calligraphy with my own words. For years, I continued doing this artwork to send relatives and friends on different occasions. My paintings have been given to relatives and friends who have hung them

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on their walls in their homes. Each one was professionally framed as they hung in my home. Art filled my hours, gave me an outlet, which I never knew I could use and gave enjoyment to others. Now, at ninety years of age, I am in the Writer’s Roundtable at the Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence, expressing myself in another art form. This wonderful class is taught by professor Lucia Knoles of Assumption College here in Worcester.

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A Step Stool

The high hill was a wide steep dirt road on which people could climb and a car would be driven beside one another. I was climbing the hill on a very warm summer’s day, carrying on my back a two-‐step aluminum step stool. Halfway up the hill, I stopped to rest, when a small white delivery truck stopped beside me. A man stepped out to ask me if I needed any help. “No”, I said. “I will make it on my own.” He drove on slowly to let me know that he was there if I needed help. As I continued climbing, each step became heavier than the one before. Finally, I was at the top. I turned around to see a different perspective and was thrilled with having finished this climb. When I awoke, I was exhausted. This was one of my few sensible dreams-‐-‐-‐ most have been very weird. However, the end of this story is much more profound. During the day after the dream a sudden thought entered my head. This was a special dream, which had meaning. I came to the conclusion that even though my life has had its difficult and burdensome times, I am going to be able to handle anything that comes my way. What a revelation!

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VITA HIRSCH

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A Tribute to My Parents

I write this as a tribute to my parents, so that my children and their children will understand how outstanding their life was together. In one way, they came from different backgrounds, though both Jewish. My mother, born of Lithuanian immigrants in NYC, had only one sibling, a sister. My father, arriving in this country at the age of 13 from Romania, joined older siblings already here. How they first met, I do not know. She was only 14 and he was 21. I doubt they had any ongoing relationship over those early years. My mother graduated high school in 1900 at the age of 17. I assume they got to know one another after that. In the meantime, my father had established himself in the grocery business, the first of several businesses he would by necessity eventually be in. In 1904, at the age of 21 and 28 respectively, they were married. It was truly a love marriage and not arranged as many were in those days. I was the youngest of six children born over a fifteen-‐year period. A tragedy in their life of which they never spoke was the loss of their second child, a girl, from diabetes the year before insulin came on the market. Evidently, as his grocery business declined, he opened a pawnshop in downtown Minneapolis in a less desirable neighborhood. But after a few years at my mother’s suggestion (or insistence), he relocated to a more upscale site, on Nicollet Ave., the main avenue in downtown Minneapolis. He probably stayed there until the 1929 crash—dates were never recorded and I was too young to remember any of that period. From that time on, my father was away a lot. He did various things to provide for the family. I remember the heavy cases he would carry into the house. There were “fake fur coats” which he traveled around the state selling. He also purchased bankrupt stocks in rural towns in Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin (of which there were many

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because of the financial situation. He would then set up sales and reset the merchandise. Since he knew the jewelry business, he began by bringing old gold rings, watches, trinkets and whatever people bought to sell. He would rent a small area in a drug store or some retail establishment, advertise and conduct business there. We have to remember it was the depression, gold was selling for 35.0/oz, and people needed money to live. My mother’s role was essential. Not only did she maintain the home, but also as my father sent all he purchased to her in Minneapolis, she in turn went by streetcar downtown to resell the gold and send money orders back to my father for his working capital. The streetcar line was immediately behind our home in the alley. I would often wait to see her get off at our stop. During this time period, he had my older brothers doing the same thing—what an undertaking to set things up for them in adjacent locations so they could earn money for college tuition. My mother was a full-‐time homemaker. It would be impossible to ever begin to describe all that she did, the wonderful home she made for all of us, her talent in cooking, in baking, in stretching the remaining money to the fullest. The love she bestowed on each of us would take a book alone. As times improved, my father opened a jewelry and gift shop in Rochester, Minnesota (ninety miles from Minneapolis). My youngest brother, by then married, was in business with him. Eventually he and his wife decided against spending the rest of their life in cold Minnesota and moved to California, where my brother still lives at the age of 93, in reasonably good health. My mother had stayed in our family home until both my sister and I graduated from the University of Minnesota in 1944. She then moved to Rochester to their apartment where they lived until 1952. My mother enjoyed being at the store doing some selling and meeting customers. In 1952 my father retired and they returned to an apartment in Minneapolis. They had retained ownership of the

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family home but had by now given it to my sister and her husband, parents of six children including two sets of twins. In 1954 there was a wonderful 50th anniversary celebration. How happy my parents were to have their children and grandchildren together! My mother passed away quite suddenly without warning in August 1956, a devastating blow to all of us. That day my father left the apartment never to return. He spent the rest of his life with my sister (of blessed memory). In the summer of 1957 I returned to Minneapolis for the monument unveiling at the cemetery. Two weeks later when I was back in Massachusetts my father died. I believe, with all my heart, he was waiting only to see that stone up, by the way, a particular one he had ordered from Vermont. It may seem that I have concentrated on my father’s life, but in truth their lives were completely intertwined. I never heard a harsh word between them. My mother was the principle influence of who I am today.

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Vita and Her Beloved Sister, Sylvia, in Jerusalem, November 1999

Growing Up Jewish

Despite growing up in a completely white Christian neighborhood, being Jewish was a non-‐factor in our relationships there. We knew all our neighbors, they knew us, and we were never aware of any prejudice against us. Our home was on the West side of Minneapolis, whereas the majority of the Jewish population at that time lived on the north side of the city. My life centered on school, where there were a few other Jewish students remaining about the same right through high school. However, at home it was a different story—strictly Jewish, conservative, and observant.

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Nevertheless, I took part in all school activities never noticing any discriminatory remarks. During WWII, Minnesota was a hotbed for several Nazi Bund groups. We never came in contact with any of them personally, but newspapers gave them plenty of publicity. Judaism remained a central factor in my life. Holidays and the Sabbath were always celebrated as a family. I remember large Passover Seders with friends of my older brother from the University joining us since they couldn’t go to their homes for the holidays. School absences for the major holidays were a given and accepted by the schools without question. I considered myself part and parcel of the general population and never felt being Jewish made me an outsider. I had many friends and sustained those relationships through high school.

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Starting Out

On June 10, 1940, I held a bright green folder and inside it certified I was indeed a graduate of West School in Minneapolis. I knew I would be attending the University of Minnesota in the fall but had no clue as to a course of study. It made sense to enroll first in the College of Science, Literature, and Arts and find my way from there, but one thing I did know, it would be geared toward a science field. I already had one brother who was a doctor, another in dental school, and my sister was headed toward nursing. I really dreamed of a medical career but somehow strayed from that path. A medical emergency caused me to drop out of school that first semester and upon my return I had made up my mind to pursue a B.S. degree in Nutrition. It was a combination of liberal arts and science, especially the final two years. A dietetic internship was usually sought but because I had quit a bit of practical experience my junior and senior years, I opted to take a job that was offered to me in Chicago after graduation in June of 1944. Circumstances led to my marriage the following year, and I did not work again for quite a long time. But eventually I took a position as a therapeutic dietitian, one of a staff of four at the hospital in Natick, Massachusetts. Our responsibilities were varied and interesting. There was routine office work, checking patient lists, keeping individual records of each one, and updating them daily. But the most interesting duties were our interactions with patients and also with doctors who ordered diets for each of the admissions. Checking patient charts to confirm the orders, visiting the patient, first to interview and subsequently to offer instruction on any special diet ordered and provided material for them to take home.

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Charting our findings was important so that a doctor would know his patient had received instruction on the diet ordered. We learned a great deal from reading charts and could relate medical history to the necessity for dietary restrictions. If we thought a different or further diet might be helpful, most members of the medical staff were very willing to discuss it with us. Changing dietary habits is very difficult but we always remained available for those calls and follow-‐up visits. Seeing outpatients who had M.D. orders was also one of our responsibilities. Whoever took the call made an appointment to see the person. One of mine was a young woman about 20, newly diagnosed with Diabetes Type I. She was very bright and responsive to all instruction. She called me several times, was most appreciative because all was going so well for her particularly when I was able to assure her she could go on a camping trip she was anticipating. There was one aspect of my job I particularly enjoyed, and that was instructing new mothers on the value of breast feeding their infants and the food they needed to eat. It was a joy to see their happiness at this stage of their lives. We were a congenial group in the office. Our boss, so to speak, was the administrator of the Dietary Department, but we all worked together and shared the work. Because I had been out of the field for some time the younger women were very helpful to me. One of them and I took the Dietetic Registration together. If you passed that test of your professional knowledge, you officially became an R.D. We both passed. I attributed that to my work experience and was happy to have achieved that goal.

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I Never Knew

Sometimes it is possible to hurt someone and not because of having done so at the time. This happened to me, and I wasn’t aware of it for some years later. WWII was winding down. Germany had been defeated but we had yet to deal with Japan. I was about to be married. Two of my brothers were overseas—my sister’s husband was in the Army stationed in Maryland. My husband to be had started his medical practice just six months previously, so it was mutually agreed for a small wedding in this area instead of back in Minnesota, my forever home. My immediate family members were able to attend. We went to Boston for a very brief honeymoon, and my parents were to leave to return home by train that next day. I don’t know why but I never went to South Station to see them off. It was incredibly thoughtless and actually stupid of me. I should have realized I would not be seeing them for some time because of the distance. I never knew until some years later how hurt my parents were, but wonderful people they both were, their love for me remained unconditional. They had forgiven me right away, but I had to struggle for some time to forgive myself for such a selfish act.

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Parenthood 101?

Why isn’t there a handbook offered? No one ever prepares you for the “little” trials and tribulations of raising children. We all go through the sleepless nights, trips to the pediatricians for the many shots (with the accompanying screams), the endless watching their faltering steps as they progress from toddlers to school age. At the same time, in my home with two boys fifteen months apart followed in four years by another boy, there was rarely a week that didn’t bring an emergency. How about a toy truck, small but deadly (in those days made of metal) that somehow ended up with force against some one’s eyebrow—resulting in stitches at the ER? An accident, of course! Or a hard ball hit right to the eye of the younger brother when he was six. He just happened to get in the way of a backyard baseball game. He was fortunate not to have had any permanent damage to the eye. But there was a girl, finally, and really adored by her brothers. They were always good to her. But one day when she was about eight or nine and the proud owner of a new bike, the youngest boy challenged her to a race down our dead end street. Sure enough, as they neared the bottom of the lane and she was ahead, it seems her brother didn’t want to lose and gave her a little push on to a patch of sand. She skidded, took a bad fall, and ended up with a chipped front tooth. It had to be capped eventually. Parenthood 101 probably would have helped anyway. However, there is no greater joy than raising children to adulthood and to happy and successful lives. Not to mention eight grandchildren and seven great-‐grandchildren.

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Tools

There I was in my laundry room looking at the “upstairs” tools, the major one being in the basement workroom. What should I take with me to my new residence? Would I need any tool at all? I didn’t think I would need a vise grip or pliers, a monkey wrench or a level, useful as they are in certain situations. I finally settled on a regular screwdriver, medium sized, and a small hammer the handle of which unscrewed to become another screwdriver. I wish that one had been a Phillips type or that I had taken that instead of the regular one. It turns out I really needed none with the great maintenance department here. When my husband retired after a medical career that lasted forty years forty years, he tried a variety of hobbies, one of which was carpentry. The sales person at the lumberyard came to know him well and many a time we would be driving home with wood protruding from the back window. He had always been a customer at our neighborhood hardware store and now was there more frequently. I was the “go-‐for” person, an apprentice my husband called me. A major project we tackled —major for us—was an Adirondack chair. Lumber was purchased according to the plan, plus extra just in case. It took quite a while but we finally finished it, painted it green and used it in our backyard. It currently is in my daughter’s yard in Rutland. Every time I am there, I am reminded of the fun and frustration we had completing that chair together.

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A Gratitude Letter Dear Sandy, How time flies! Two years ago we first met you—four women with varying levels of Hebrew knowledge. There you were advising us that yes—we could learn enough to achieve our Bat Mitzvah right here at Eisenberg. Certainly it all started with Harriet Katz broaching the idea to us. We were all regular attendants at Sabbath services here, and Harriet having read about a similar program at other senior facilities thought we were capable of doing the same thing. I was hesitant at first. I asked myself why it even matters to be called to the Torah as a Bat Mitzvah? What difference would it possibly make at this stage of my life? Then I remembered my four children all reaching the same goal and what an achievement it was for them, theirs involving much more preparation than mine. But now it was my turn. I had a basic Sunday school education leading to confirmation at 15, while attending Hebrew School at the same time. But Bat Mitzvah ceremonies for girls weren’t an option— they hadn’t even been “invented” yet. What a treasure you were! Nothing was too much for you to do. You met with us every Wednesday morning for four months, studying as a group and one on one if necessary. You made transliterations of the text if someone needed it; you wanted us to be letter-‐perfect. When that momentous day came, you were right there to boost our morale and to answer any last minute questions. The administration had been supportive all along and many of the staff attended the services. The maintenance crew worked magic to fit fifty chairs in the hall.

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The community room was filled, overflowing into the hall. I shall never forget that day. Each of us read a portion of that Sabbath’s Parsha and gave our individual comment. Rabbi Bernstein’s presences and message made the service even more meaningful. At the conclusion my family came up to me with hugs and congratulations, sharing in my pride. Now I have a framed certificate to prove that accomplishment. For all these memories, I have you to thank, Sandy. May God bless you always. Vita

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Courage Who can define courage? Webster’s Dictionary says it is a “quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to face difficulty, danger, pain, etc., without fear.” I think courage is specific to individuals in specific circumstances. So it was for my late husband. He was born with a genetic physical disability that did not become apparent until he started to walk, with a limp. His parents took him to many doctors to no avail. In spite of this he grew up able and perhaps determined to participate in may sports, ride a bicycle, and generally have a normal boyhood life. As an adult, he wore special shoes to accommodate the slight difference in leg length. College, medical school, advanced training, private practice, marriage, children—sounds ideal. But age brings added problems with walking. He progressed from one cane to two over the years and by age 50 it was evident his condition would only worsen. Finally his condition had been diagnosed some years earlier as Legge-‐Perthes disease (Legge-‐P), named for the doctor who identified it. It is a malformation of the hip socket so that the femur does not fit in correctly. We are talking about the 1960s. At that time total hip replacements, so common today, were not yet on the horizon. There was another procedure called a cup arthroscopy in which the surgeon attempts to reconstruct the hip socket. My husband knew if he didn’t at least try the operation (which by no means guaranteed a successful outcome) he would probably end up in a wheelchair. His walking by that time was getting close to a scissor gait. So in 1968 at age 52 and at a peak moment in his medical practice, he realized he had no choice. But it still took a lot of courage to go forward. He was well aware of his family responsibilities and the burden which would fall to me. All of us encouraged him. Many arrangements had to be made: other

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doctors to cover his practice long term. There would be no quick return to the office. So with the numerous details finally taken care of, he entered Mass General Hospital in late June of 1968 to be hospitalized to mid-‐ September of that year. Surgery was done a week apart on each leg. I’ll never forget walking in his room to see his legs held upright at a 45-‐degree angle (I think) attached to multiple pulleys. That was the only time he broke down with tears saying, “What have I done?” It was traumatic for both of us, but he regained his composure hoping for better days ahead. My days from early afternoon until 8 or 9 pm were spent at the hospital. Mid-‐September was the discharge goal. He came home to months of intensive therapy. All the furniture in our living room was pushed back to make room for an electric hospital bed, outfitted with a pulley and weights system. Plus there was a stationary bicycle, which he was never able to use because of excess bone growth at the surgical sites. Bone is living tissue and grows like any tissue, and he was one of only 5 % of the population who grow excess bone after bone surgery. He used a rocking chair—supposed to help regain hip motion—it didn’t. So many little things were tried, but in the long run he accepted the results as being the best that could be. He didn’t achieve all that he expected, but he returned to his office in February 1969 after eight months and was able to continue his life’s work without ever being in a wheelchair. My principle support all summer came from my children. My sons—17, 21, 22—were able to help in many ways-‐shopping, cutting the lawn, visiting their father when they could. They were deeply affected by his situation. I was especially proud of my daughter, 13 at the time, who really took over many of my duties. She made sure dinner was ready every night and kept that kitchen in good shape. I call them all courageous. Meanwhile my husband faced up to an operation that offered no guarantees, kept up his spirits over long months of recuperation, who

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persisted in doing physical therapy despite the pain and limited results, and finally graciously accepted the results even though they were not what he had hoped. He was the most courageous of us all.

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The Writers’ Roundtable

I did not participate in the initial Round Table group that resulted in the publication of their book. I was busy with other activities, but in my mind was the thought that I really could not write anything of substance. Nevertheless, words had usually come easily to me when my children asked for help in various English assignments. Then I started to feel a little envious of the Writers’ Group. They seemed to share a certain comradeship and I wanted “in.” So having joined the second go around, I find myself looking forward to every Wednesday morning. Listening to other members’ stories gives me an understanding of who they are, where they came from and perhaps how they came to be the person they are, So now I write—about my life, my parents, my husband, my children—and find I can probe my memory to recall years’ past. There is a sense of being a part of a close-‐knit group. I hope other members have come to know me also.

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FLORENCE BLATT

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My Mother: In Those Days You Didn’t Say It, But It Was There

My mother was the sweetest, loveliest person, and she had integrity. I never heard her cursing or saying words that today people might say. She just ad something refined about her, even how she spoke to us. She would sew little doll dresses for me. I once played with another little girl, a neighbor friend, and I came home with this little dress for a doll. And my mother said to me, “Where did you get that little doll’s dress, wasn’t that your friend’s dress?” And I said, “I just picked that up.” And she said, “And you have to take it back to her.” So I did. And the next day she made a pattern, and made the most beautiful little doll’s dress on her sewing machine with rickrack all around the border, just done with perfection. And I think she was trying to teach me about refinement, love and honesty, just by her words and actions. Also she had a great loss. My oldest brother, her son, was killed in California in an automobile accident. Aaron was twenty-‐four years old, and he started to write song for the studios. And he had already submitted some songs, and so he moved to California where we had some relatives so he could be near the music industry. My mother begged him not to go. Suddenly he was working out there for Douglass Aircraft. He worked three to eleven for a shift and came out one day to get a bus to go home. There were dim outs in those days, because of the war, and a car came along and couldn’t see him, hit him, and dragged him

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hundreds of yards and killed him. And that was the biggest shock of our lives. She adored him; he was six feet tall and a gorgeous fellow. A call came in at eleven o’clock one evening: “Your son was in a terrible automobile accident,” and said that they had taken him to a certain hospital. And I sent a telegram back asking to please try to help him so he would not pass away. I didn’t receive an answer; it was eleven o’clock at night. And the next morning at eight o’clock the phone rang, and I answered it. The telegram said, “Your wonderful son passed away last night.” And screaming began in the house, my mother and dad. Hysterical crying. That was the beginning of weeks of pain and suffering. It took two weeks to bring the body back—somebody had to accompany it from California. It was tragic, and I was young—about sixteen or seventeen-‐-‐ and this was a very bad pain for all of us. And during that time the next youngest brother (who was about nineteen or twenty) was stationed in India during the war for about three years. My mother had to live with that heartache. She was very tiny, but she must have had a strong constitution and a strong mind to be able to deal with this. No hysterics, no screaming, but I’d see her sometimes weeping to herself, especially each year in July. She was sad for a long time, with a broken heart. My mother worked, too, taking care of women in their homes. If they were older, she would be a companion and dress them and cook a little bit—chicken soup or whatever. And I worked since I was a little kid, babysitting, earning a few dollars all the time. But even though my mother didn’t have a lot of time we always had a good relationship. We had quality time, whatever it was. We did housework together all the

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time. I liked to clean, even as a little kid. I’d wash the floors, and every Friday we had to wash all the stairs of the three-‐decker. That was a big thing in Worcester. We would go walk downtown and go shopping, and she’d buy me as a little girl the Hershey kisses, wrapped in silver. She didn’t like me to eat other things, nuts for example, but this was the best she thought. I would take one while we were walking, and I’d have a little white bag from the five and ten and keep the kisses in there. Another thing I remember about her is she’d wake up early in the morning and make breakfast for every one of us. I would go and pick up my little girlfriend when I was only eight or nine, and no one would answer right away because they were all sleeping. When someone would finally answer, my friend would slip her dress on and just drink a half a cup of coffee from what was on the stove, and then go to school. I noticed that. Years ago a lot of mothers didn’t get up, they were tired, they had other children. But my mother always got up and made us all breakfast. She would cook cream of wheat or oatmeal. She’d squeeze the oranges herself, and made toast and we had butter or jelly. Always fresh milk was delivered. When I got home from school in the early years, she was always there and had something to give us. She nurtured us with her love and her actions. Those days you didn’t say, “I love you,” not like today. Today I tell my little grandchildren I say, “I love you,” or when the grown grandchildren call they say, “I love you,” but in those days you didn’t say it. But it was there. As the years went by and she got elderly and my dad passed away, she went into the Jewish Healthcare. And there wasn’t a thing I didn’t do for her, and nothing was hard for me to do. I came to her almost every day. And whatever she needed, I got it. I was working full time then. But it was my pleasure to do what I could for her, because she always had a broken-‐heart, and even though she never talked about it, I ever forgot about it. So I always wanted to make it up to her in every other way. And that’s the love that pours out of a child.

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My Daughters: A Special Bond

There’s a special bond between a mother and a daughter. Of course, not everybody has that. But when it works, it’s the most marvelous feeling you could ever have. What could be nicer than that, I ask you? And it has to be earned. When my children were growing up I enjoyed being home with the little girls, cooking and taking care of them. In those days they came home for lunch. I had a lovely lunch ready for them, not just throwing something out. They would come home and eat and skip back up the hill to school. I enjoyed taking care of them: baking something every day so every day when they came home there was a cupcake or brownies with milk for them; sewing, taking the hems up or down. And I enjoyed that. We always were together. We took them to dancing school; we

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went to all the recitals. I made the costumes-‐even Japanese costumes with a fancy little umbrella we bought her. It really was a very loving situation. I think it’s in your genes; you inherit certain traits from your parents. I think it’s my nature; I love to help. Why do I care? I don’t know. I just love to help when I know people need it. And my daughters are kind too. So I have this special bond with my three lovely daughters. My oldest daughter would tell me, she had a lot of little girlfriends from school, and she would tell me later on (not in those years) when she would go into other girls’ homes the mother would be screaming and yelling, and she said, “In our house you never screamed like that or anything.” No, I talked quietly. They were good little girls; they didn’t do anything where you had to spank them. They were busy playing with jump rope and dolls, and everything was okay. It’s just the feeling and the way you act towards your little children is what makes them who they are. It’s not what you tell; it’s what you do. I think they notice. I just wanted to say to my three daughters, “Thank you all for being so loveable and attentive to me. I love you very much.”

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Memories of a Good Neighbor

Mollie Galub was my next-‐door neighbor. I moved into Eisenberg Assisted Living on a Tuesday morning and the next day, I found a gift bag on my doorknob. I took it into my apartment and read the card. It was from Mollie wishing me well in my new home. Also enclosed was a big bar of soap all wrapped up with a lovely scent. I did not know who this person was, so I went down to the desk and asked what apartment she lived in. Immediately, I sat down and wrote a thank you note and slipped it under her door. We then met in the dining room. She was just a lovely and friendly person and we became friends. Every time we would have a box lunch, Mollie would invite a group of us up to her apartment for tea and she would pour. It was easy to love Mollie. She was just special. So interesting and knowledgeable on any subject. Each day we would see each other and converse about any subject. She started to inform me of the Writers’ Roundtable and would mention it to me often. She said, “Try it, you might like it.” So I have to say Mollie was the one who inspired me to come to class and just listen. I did and loved it immediately. So, Mollie, thank you for your friendship and advice. We all love you. Rest in peace.

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DR. AUGUSTA KRESSLER

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This I Believe

Can you imagine being one girl being born between 5 boys? I had 5 brothers and no sisters. Three boys were older, two were younger, and I was the only girl, right in the middle. I imagine in some circumstance it couldn’t have been too unusual, but at the time my parents were new immigrants, very busy, trying to make a living to support their growing family. They didn’t have much time to entertain the newcomers nor did they have any idea to keep them busy or how to entertain them. Looking back, I think they thought al six children were the same sex. Even if they didn’t they were not able to treat them differently. In their eyes, they were all boys. As it happened, I was a big baby—not tiny or feminine. Until I was 11 years old and started menstruating (early)—there was no difference in the attention I received from my parents. The toys I received for my birthdays and holidays were the same ones my brothers received—toys with wheels: skates, wagons, bikes, etc. I didn’t play boy games like baseball, football, but I did spend a lot of time exercising, like walking, rope or tree climbing, or rope jumping. All that ended when I was 11. My life changed and I became a girl. By that time my parents were older, more financially secure. They knew a little more about treating a boy as a boy and a girl like a girl. By that time I felt that if a person was physically able they should exercise. They didn’t have to do formal exercises unless they wanted to. I couldn’t play games with my brothers so I had to find other activities. What I turned to was walking, bike riding, skating, and jumping rope. The boys were always exercising: wrestling or fighting or jumping. So I could be busy with MY exercise. I loved jumping rope. The sound of the rope hitting the ground. The rhythm of it. It wasn’t so much that it was a group activity, for me it was individual. There was only one person jumping at a time, and that was me.

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All my life I enjoyed walking. I would walk to and from school to the library, to the movies, even if they were miles away. When walking, I enjoyed the destination. Going to the library, there was a book I was going to get. Going to a movie, there was a movie I was going to see. I felt purposeful. It was rewarding. I was not interested in competition and I never entered contests. When I was in High School I did have an interesting diversion. The gym class was arranged in lines of 10 students with a leader to demonstrate the activity to be performed. I was always chosen as a “leader” of a line. I enjoyed that. And when I was a leader in High school, I felt I was going to help the other girls with their activity. Today, I use a walker to prevent falling but I do walk straight and tall in it, not stooping. When I go to the gym, I feel that I’m going to get some activity. At ninety-‐four there isn’t much you can do. I sit on the recumbent bike, and my feet are going, and I’m going even though I’m not getting anywhere. I don’t think, I don’t imagine, it’s all movement. And it’s all movement that I don’t get any other way. I walk on the treadmill. I feel alert and alive on the treadmill. My blood is circulating. Those are the two things I really enjoy. Did you notice I never said “swimming”? There was no pond or lake or other body of water near where I lived. So my main physical activity was walking, but when I came to Eisenberg I learned they had a gymnastic program. It was an hour of non-‐competing moveable pieces of equipment to activate various parts of the body—legs, abdomen, chest. I spend an hour a week at this program but added a little more to it by walking to the gym and back. I take a certain pride that I can do it.

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My Grandmother

In the forty years I knew my father, he only spoke to me two times about his mother. Once he said four words: “Her name was Freeda.” The other time was when my newborn baby was a girl. He said, “You will name her Freeda.” But I couldn’t obey him because my husband had already named her after someone in his family. The best I could do was give her Freeda as a middle name. Many years later, when I thought she was old enough to understand, I told her if she didn’t like the name Freeda she could eliminate it from her signature or change to any name she liked. She didn’t do either. Out of respect for her grandfather, she kept the name Freeda as a middle name. My father never gave me any other information about his mother, Freeda.

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My Grandfather

I know you won’t believe me but although my father lived to be 94 he NEVER spoke to me about his father. I don’t know where he was born, where he grew up, or what trade, business or profession he followed. Nor do I know how he looked. Was he tall or short, fat or thin, dark or light? My father never told me a word about him. Was he kind or cruel? Generous or stingy? Not a word. But if I had to assume I would say he was tall and handsome because my father was tall and handsome. He was religious because my father was observant of all religious duties. I will never know for real because there is nobody left to tell me. I do know my father was very proud of being born in Russia so I have to be satisfied.

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How A Pollack Became a Woman Doctor

I don’t know how old most people are when they decide what they want to do for a living, but I know I was 12 years old when I decided to be a doctor. It happened in a logical manner. I was driving in a car at age twelve with my mother when we were hit by another car. The police insisted we go to a nearby hospital to be checked. At the hospital, I was attended by a lady physician. She was pleasant, kind, gentle, and considerate. I enjoyed the experience. When we left the hospital I said to my mother, “I want to be a doctor,” and she said, “We’ll see what we can do.” Scholastically it was no problem because I was an “A” student. Financially it should not have been a problem because my father had lots of money. But it didn’t work out like that. My father didn’t believe in female doctors and he was very reluctant to pay. Very reluctant! Every semester my parents had a big argument. I don’t know what my mother had to do to get him to pay, but she did! After I graduated from the University of Pennsylvania I went to the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania. Finally, at graduation my father came. A friend said to him, “How wonderful! Your daughter is a doctor! And he said, “So what? These other girls are doctors too.” I married, had two children and practiced for 30 years then I retired and lived a sedentary life.

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The Haircut It was a Saturday morning in October when I was having breakfast with my brother and my father joined us. He didn’t usually have breakfast with us, but I think this day he had an early business appointment. While we were eating he said to me: “Get your haircut today. It looks awful. “ I said, “OK.” As a matter of fact my hair was my one attractive feature. It was dark brown in color, thick and wavy. In fact, it was my best feature, and my father had never referred to it before. I said “o.k.” and went on eating my breakfast. As a matter of fact, I fully intended to have my hair cut but I had a lot of errands to do and I just didn’t find the time to include a haircut. That night at supper my father said to me, “Did you have your hair cut”? “No,” I replied, “I meant to; I just didn’t get to it!” He said nothing, got up, and left the room. In a few minutes he was back with a scissors in his right hand. He said to me, “When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it. I will cut your hair.” As he approached me, I got out of my chair and started up the back kitchen steps heading for the second floor. He followed up the steps. I raced across the second floor hallway and started down the front steps. He was right behind me! As I started down the front steps his hand reached my hair. He reached a handful and started to cut. I sank down on the step. He grabbed another handful and made another cut. By this time there was hair on me and on the stairs. I was sobbing as though my heart was broken. Meanwhile, he kept saying in a cold voice, “When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it!”

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There I was, on the front stairs with my hair in every direction, hair on my face, my clothes, and on the steps! Then he stopped cutting. He walked away leaving me in a real mess and crying like a baby. His final words were, “When I tell you to do something, I expect you to do it.” I’ve often thought about this since then and wondered how he could do it. But I know how he could do it: we were Pollacks, and Russians don’t like Pollacks.

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MICHAEL KATZ

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The Prize Polluter

My name is Michael Katz. I’m a hundred and one years old. And I was born in Nashua New Hampshire a hundred and one years old. Nashua was a little town of about thirty-‐five thousand people about forty miles north of here. Through the center of the town is a little river called the Nashua River. And because of the fact that the mills and factories upstream, the river became considerably polluted. Therefore, as civic-‐minded woman by the name of I’ll call here Mrs. Armstrong enlisted the services of other civic-‐minded people about three years ago to clean up the river. And with the aid of city employees, they did a creditable job. And it’s very nice of them to do it because originally the river was a source of recreation for the citizens of Nashua. But that’s not the end of the story. When I was twelve years old, I won a spelling bee in the sixth grade. And the pride wasn’t a scholarship or many thousands of dollars. Actually, it was jut a leather belt. So I took it home, showed it to my mother, and she was very proud of me and placed the leather belt on the mantle above the fireplace. Several days later, I was involved in a program, a baseball game us kids had. And I had to skip Hebrew school in order to play the game. Rabbi Barron wasn’t very happy about this because he used to get fifty cents per pupil per session. And he complained to my father. Dad didn’t like the idea of being scolded by the rabbi. So he took the nearest thing to his hand, which was the leather belt, and gave me a couple of whacks with it. He said, “Don’t do it again.” In any event, a couple days later I grabbed the belt off the mantle and shoved it into my blouse. And on my way to Hebrew school, I had to cross the Nashua River, on the bridge. And while nobody was looking, I took the belt out and heaved it into the river. So I have to confess that I was probably one of the first polluters of the Nashua River.

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Tillie

In one hundred and one years you get to acquire quite a few stories of what happened during your lifetime. And although I lost my wife about three years ago, we had a very happy life together. We were married for seventy-‐three years. She gave me a wonderful marriage, a loving marriage for seventy-‐three years. She gave me faith. She gave me trust. She gave me a beautiful family. What more can I ask? Before we were married, I had several friends and we got together and we rented a summer cottage at Lake Quinsigamond. And we enjoyed each other. We played cards, we sang songs, we made our own meals, and strangely enough, there was a group of girls who did the same thing not too far away. My Tillie was part of the group.

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There was a dance, an outdoor dance, somewhere up country—I think it was in Northborough. So we invited the girls, to the dance. That’s when I met her. And we enjoyed each other’s company. I think it was love at first sight. I like to think it was anyhow. And about two years later we were married. She was very nice. A lovely girl. With that wonderful personality. And I don’t know what she saw in me, but anyhow, we got married. We had two children. For about a year or so after we were married, we lived with Tillie’s parents, until we finally found a home of our own. An apartment of our own. It wasn’t very pleasant living with her parents. I don’t think they could stand me. Anyhow, later on we bought our own ranch house on Asberry Road, which is a little street off May Street. And we lived there for twenty-‐five years. That’s where we lived when our children were born. We spent our time in the living room, with the TV. of course. We lived there for twenty-‐five years as I said before, until I retired from my job and we moved to Florida, we bought a condominium in Florida. Today, my daughter Ruth lives in Worcester; she comes here quite often. As a matter of fact, she’ll be here tonight. And I have a son in Florida. Jerry is an aircraft engineer. He has one daughter, Tamara. She’s a physician specializing in children’s, and she works at the Georgetown medical center in Washington. She’s married to another physician. And I hear from her very frequently by telephone.

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How About Moses?

How about Moses? I can talk about Moses from a standpoint of Biblical, historical, and satirical. Mostly satirical. My father of blessed memory claimed that he was born and named Moses, without any other instances. On the other hand, my great-‐granddaughter Erica, who is in the only Jewish girl in a Catholic high school, claims that she heard Moses means “from the river.” However, my story starts with Miriam, who has this little child, is fearful about a decree that Pharaoh puts out that the first born of every Jewish family should be put away. And because she’s fearful, she wraps the little baby in the blanket, puts him in the basket, and sets him afloat in the river. The basket flows down the river, and before too long it gets snagged by a bush, very close to where the princess of Egypt is bathing with her friends. And she rescues the baby, and she says, “Jeepers creepers, finders keepers.’ (Satirical) Anyhow, she takes the little boy home to the palace and shows him off, and they adopt him. And he grows up to be a handsome young man, well educated in religion, mathematics, and law, and he’s a favorite with everybody in the palace. One day when he was riding his horse in Pharaoh’s fields, he came upon a situation where a guard was beating an elderly Jewish man with a baton because he claimed he wasn’t producing enough. Moses got off his horse and sent the guard on his way, and bent down to help the old Jewish gentleman. And he said, “Do you know who I am?” And the gentleman says, “Yes, you’re the prince in Pharaoh’s palace, but I know who you REALLY are because my name is Jacob, and I was present when you were born. You were the son of Miriam and the brother of Aaron, and you’ve got to help us slaves.” So Moses resolved to find out what the story is, and he goes to Pharaoh, and he asks him to free the slaves. Pharaoh pooh-‐poohs the

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idea because he needs the slaves for his economic well-‐being. But Moses gets together with other protestors and they request that he let my people go. And people started singing, “Let my people go, let my people go.” Finally, pharaoh is annoyed by all the objections, and he says to Moses, “Go, take your people and go.” And Moses takes the people with their animals and their possessions, and miraculously they cross the river into the desert. And they wander for forty days and forty nights until they finally come to a hill. And they stop there and Moses says to his followers, “I’m going up to find out what’s going on around here.” So he finds a trail, and he starts climbing up the hill, and he bumps into George Bush’s cousin Bernie. “Hey, Bernie, what’s going on here?” Bernie says, “This is a wonderful place. Travel a little further up the hill, and you’ll find the pearly gates.” Sure enough he goes up there, and he sees the gates marked “Gabriel and Elijah,” and he knocks on the gates. And the gate opens, and Gabriel says, “Hello, Moses, we’ve been expecting you.” So he goes in there, and they show him around, and it’s beautiful green valleys and hills and groves. On one side is a grove of fig trees, and on another side is a grove of olive trees. And there are vines with abundant grapes. And he sees some objects leaning up against a tree, and he says, “What are those?” And Gabriel says, “Those are the tablets.” “Really? How much are they?” Gabriel says, “They’re free.” And Moses says, “That’s great, I’ll take two of them.” So he walked around a little more. Finally Moses says, “I’m hungry. Is there a place that I can eat?” So they lead him into a grove of fig trees where there are tables and chairs set for dining. And the tables have tablecloths on them. And in one corner there’s a logo, Hebrew National. And on the other side is a phrase, “We’re kosher, we answer to a higher authority.” So they ask Moses what he wants. He looks at the menu, and he says,” I’ll have a corned beef sandwich, a half-‐sour pickle, and a bottle of cream soda.” (I said it was satirical.) So, he enjoys his meal and after a little while he says, “I better be going back to my people because they’ll be worried.” He picks up the tablets, says goodbye, and starts down the hill. On his way he bumps

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into burning bush again. “Burning,” he says, “you were absolutely right. It was a beautiful place.” He gets down to the bottom of the hill, and they’re waiting for him. And he embraces Miriam and Aaron and says, “This is a beautiful place. It’s very promising. As a matter of fact, this looks like the Promised Land. I think we’ll settle here.” And he points to the hill and says, This is Mt. Sinai. This is where we’ll build the hospital.” That’s it. I just think of these things as I go along.

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The Durfee College of Technology

Mike Katz (seated, far right) with his fraternity brothers.

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My Life as an Engineer

I graduated from Commerce High School in 1928. I had a choice of becoming a lawyer—but my vocabulary was limited at that time—or a doctor—but I hated the sight of blood. But I had a tendency to like engineering because of the fact that I had a workshop in my father’s house in the basement where he had some tools, and he taught me how to use them and I enjoyed it considerably. And I figured that with that kind of a feeling that I was suited to be an engineer. So from high school I went to a little college called the Durfee School of Technology in Fall River. It later merged with the New Bedford Textile School and became part of the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. I studied mechanical engineering and graduated with a B.S. degree in 1932. I couldn’t get a job anywhere. I tried Norton Company, Rice Martin Company, I couldn’t find a job. I had a brother in Waterbury, Connecticut, an older brother, and went there. Couldn’t find a job there; I came home. So I had an idea, maybe I should change. So I wrote a letter addressed it to the Worcester Knitting Company, in Worcester, attention of Mr. Persky. Sent a copy of my resume; put it in the mail. A couple of days later—about a week later, I’d say—I got a telephone call from that company asking me to come for an interview. So I went there. Present at the interview were: Mr. A.S. Persky, the president of the company; a man by the name of Sidney Davis, who was the New York manager; and David Clark, the supervisor of the company. They interviewed me, they talked to me, and then they asked me to be excused. I went out into the library of the company and waited for them. It seemed like about a month. But it was only several hours. And Mr. Clark came out and he said, "You’re hired." In my letter I’d told him about how old I was, where I went to school, my grades. I don’t now why that letter worked. I think it was because of the fact that they had had someone in the company who had passed away, and they needed a replacement.

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Anyhow, the first job I had was under the supervision of Mr. Clark. And the first job strangely enough had nothing to do with engineering. But it was a project of manufacturing a fabric used in ladies’ corsets—two-‐way stretch. Royal Worcester Corsets was a nationally known company, very well known to women around the country and in foreign countries as well. And it was one of our clients. And there was a problem of being able to knit cotton yarn with elastic yarn so that it wouldn’t crinkle and they would be compatible to making a fabric that would stretch in either direction and hold its shape. We finally solved the problem. I don’t like Mike's first project at the Worcester Knitting Company was done on behalf of the to say that I was responsible for Worcester Royal Corset Company. solving the problem but Mr. Clark was a very intelligent imaginative inventive gentleman, and we successfully succeeded in manufacturing a product that was acceptable to places like Sears Roebuck and Marshall Fields and so forth. One of the highlights of my jobs was they needed a model for swimming suits, and because I was a size 36 which was the norm for male models at the time, I used to model bathing suits for the company. It was called the Invitation Two Piece Bathing Suit, with a trunk of a dark color and a top that was generally of a white jersey. I haven’t seen yet a store that has a fabric that was comparable to the None of these men is Mike, but these are the types of bathing suits he would have modeled. one we had there and was part of my bathing suit costume.

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The demand for bathing suits diminished and we went into another situation of manufacturing and we decided to make polo shirts, mostly for children. We had a wide variety of sizes for companies to purchase. And at that time there wasn’t too much to do as far as the engineering was concerned, so I turned my efforts to design. And I did have a little knowledge as far as design was concerned and I was able to adapt myself to the design department, designing stripes and jacquards and fancy knitting fabrics. It’s something I learned myself and was able to pick up and give myself an advantage. My granddaughter Debby is a vice president of Liberty Mutual Insurance Company in Boston, and she gave me this sweater for a birthday gift. And it reminds me of when I as working at the Worcester Knitting company, and we were looking for different products to manufacture. We had in our upper floor about ten knitting machines named Crane that were idle. They were adaptable to manufacturing a knitted fabric with a herringbone kind of design. So we discovered a source of yarn that was suitable for use on these machines and experimented with it. What happened was we knitted the fabric and then sent it to our finishing plant in Cherry Valley, where we went through a process of what they call fulling: it’s wetting it out, swelling the yarn, and making it tight. After wetting it out we dried it and rolled it up and sent it to our cutting department. And we made beautiful samples and showed the samples to our salesmen, who showed them to possible customers, and it became an immediate success. We sold thousands of units. My memory serves me because of the fact that I got this sweater with the herringbone in it, and it’s almost exactly the same kind of a design. One of the sneaky things that we did was to go into some of the fancy department stores and copy their styles. That was a job by itself because we always had somebody looking over our shoulders to find out what we were doing, but it worked out. And I worked in that department for twelve years. When World War II came along. I was sent a draft notice, but I was refused, I was 4-‐F because of my vision. So I had to change jobs,

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and I found a position with a company that manufactured engine lathes. We had problems with the lathes and in order to solve them we had several conferences and people had different opinions about what should be done. However none of the solutions seemed to be logically good. So on one Sunday I took myself into the shop and I procured the fixture which was used to manufacture the head of the machine, and using a surface gauge I measured the height of the front and rear holes holding the main shaft together. And lo, I found they were eighteen thousandths of an inch out of line. On Monday morning I reported to the supervisor of the plant and we decided what we would do to solve the problem, and we did it. So it turned out I didn’t do too badly in engineering.

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Mike Katz and his siblings.

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PEARL TRIESTER

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The Snow Day

It had snowed that day A perfect day for sliding So all we went with our Flexible Flyers. All wrapped in coats, mittens, and hats We went to WPI field and the Sliding down the hill was such fun. One time when I was trudging Back up the hill a boy on a sled Going downhill was heading directly For me and sure enough slammed Into me! I was hurt, I knew it. Some friends took me home On a sled and I was traumatized. My leg hurt so badly—it was broken! I was put in a case for 6 weeks and crutches Got lots of TLC and attention. My Dad even Drove me to school.

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This I Believe

I believe in my country—the USA! This land is my land; this land is your land. People run to Europe but we have so much beauty right here in this country. I firmly believe in the tenets of this country. I know my country is the best. When our flag passes by or the national anthem is played I get tingles of pride and joy. I am so fortunate to be living here and enjoying being an American.

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Finally a Home

Captain, my captain, he’s finally home. He ate like a pig because he was so unaccustomed to getting food. He was very thin, and everyone in the family was feeding him. He liked everything except citron. I was working at the time for three surgeons, and I suddenly started to feel queasy and not so good. And I had the symptoms, so I told my boss that I was pregnant. And they gave me a month, and I had to leave. I hated to leave, but I had to. So then we had the problem of housing. There just wasn’t any around. There were so many shortages because of the veterans coming home. My husband wanted a white shirt, and he couldn’t find one. And apartments—there weren’t any that was decent. We finally found a place, which we had to pay 500 dollars under the table for. It was really dumpty but we took it. I had to have a place for the baby. So we finally got our own place, which was wonderful—even though it was a dump. We found a potato-‐pudding in the oven. It wasn’t very pretty, but we did our best to jazz it up. We bought a crib and some other furniture and we thought it was heaven. Then one day my water broke, and my husband immediately called his father, who lived very close, and they both took me to the hospital. Twelve hours later I had a baby girl. My husband and his father were very close, and they went into the real estate business together in New Jersey. His father had been in real estate, and he wanted to be with his dad. Business was terrible. There weren’t places available. We managed with difficulty. Then came a call from my brother who lived in Massachusetts. And he asked Jerry to come into his plumbing supply business with him. I was delighted because I was going to come to my family, but it was a very difficult thing for Jerry to

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do because he had to leave his. But we thought it would be better as a business, and my brother really needed him. We moved in my mother—big mistake. True. Oh, I could write a book on that alone. She was an asthmatic and a sick person, really, and I think I was available all the time for her, and I wasn’t as available anymore now that I was married and had a baby. I’d give her shots and other things, but I couldn’t be there all the time. She did not take that very well. It wasn’t what she said; it was the attitude. I used to get calls in the middle of the night. We lived on the second floor and she lived on the third floor. And that had to stop, so we got her a companion but she still called me. My husband was quite the gentleman and put up with it. But it made me very depressed, and I knew we had to get out of there. We had this three family house, and so we moved our way down from the second floor to the first—just to get a little more distance away from my mother. That helped a little bit. But I still got calls. She knew exactly when I drove into the driveway, and then the phone would ring. So that set-‐up wasn’t so good. We stayed on the second floor for maybe three or four years, and then my brother who was occupying the first floor moved out and we moved in. We stayed there probably about five years. My mother adored my daughter and was very good with her. Business was better for my husband once we moved. My husband and my brother formed a wonderful relationship—they were like brothers. They worked together and played golf together, it was really quite unique. It was wonderful being a mother. It was just a delight, and it was good for me because I had something to do that I liked. Putting her to bed at night and snuggling up with her, reading a story, was one of my favorite parts of the day. I was a very cautious mother. One time when we were living on the second floor, my brother came up to visit my mother on the third floor, and my baby was in her stroller and she managed to move herself over to the stairway to see what was down there and she fell all the way down the stairs. I took her right to the doctor, and she was all right.

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She was getting ready for school one day when she was five, the teacher (who was my kindergarten teacher too), came to the door and introduce herself to my daughter. I thought that was so special. My daughter loved her. And she loved school. It was the same school that I’d gone to. It was fun dressing her. Buying clothes, and she knew what she wanted too. I’d take her with me and she’d say yes and no. When my brother lived downstairs, he had three children, and that was kind of fun too because they always played together. They loved it. It is a very happy time in my memory, except for my experiences with my mother. But eventually, it just became impossible. I was turning into her nurse, so we had to look for a house. And finally we found a house of our own. And I know that was a tough time for my mother, but it gave me some freedom.

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SYLVIA KLAUBER

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The Origins and Development of My Independent Nature

My brother, sister and I had to learn how to take care of ourselves when we were still very young. We were self-‐ taught. We were living in Ridgewood, New Jersey but our Father's silk mill was in Little Falls, New York. Our Mother usually stayed with Father and that left us three little ones alone in a very large three-‐story house on an eight-‐acre farm with a barn. I can remember a time when we completely lost our electric power. We survived by eating peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Today our parents would probably be arrested for child abuse. Our Mother had a wonderful personality. She never said “no” or directly disagreed with anyone. When we moved into the house with the barn Father announced that we were going to add a cow and some chickens. Mother as usual didn't say “no” or disagree but for some reason we never did have our own milk or eggs. I like to think that I took after my Mother. With the depression and declining business Dad had to close his mill. Out of work our Father became a salesman selling mill equipment including the machinery standing unused in his former factory. He died at a relatively early age. Mother sold the farm that didn't have a cow and moved into a smaller residence. She took a job keeping books for a Hebrew Free School in Patterson and also did several payrolls for friends who owned a weaving shop.

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My first job was with a Company that made cabinets for kitchens. Thirty-‐five men were employed in our shop making various sized and types of cabinets “to order.” A customer could purchase cabinets made from light birch or dark mahogany or even plain white Formica; whatever best fit their kitchens or taste. Formica was one of the new synthetic products and was cheaper than wood but not as sturdy. The business office of the Company where was very small and rather crude. I was the only office girl. As a result it was, “Sylvia get this” or “Sylvia get that.” I was a little feisty in those early days and the one that always got me was, “Sylvia empty the waste basket.” The space was so compact that for me to get out the bills or write letters I had to stand up and peck on my antique typewriter that sat on a chin-‐high high table. I performed all of the clerical duties from payroll to bookkeeping and even helped sell cabinets to some of the customers. I would show them various colors, patterns and styles that they could choose from. During my three years in the cabinet business I became very interested in politics. Ridgewood was quite affluent and heavily Republican. In accord with my independent nature I began spending my spare time working for the local Democratic Party. When all three of my Democratic candidates for Freeholder of Bergen County swept the ticket they showed their appreciation by appointing me as the Jury Commissioner of Bergen County. It was a three-‐year appointment. I also held a position in the ten-‐year national census.

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Letter to a Friend As you can see from the return address, I have moved. All the widows in Worcester (pronounced WOOST-‐AAH) have come here to be near their daughters, not so many to be near their sons. I am in an assisted living facility, where I have to sign in and out, and forget every time, so I am reprimanded!!!! Tough. My daughter lives about twenty minutes from here, and I am expecting her soon for our usual Friday together, since she works two jobs and has little time for herself. Believe it or not, I just came upstairs after playing Bingo. Can you imagine me doing that? I think Bob is up there laughing at me!! I have no responsibilities here, except to be in the dining room at the appropriate time. But it was too much of a chore for Helen (Michael is in South Carolina) to run to Connecticut every time she had a day off. We had the snowstorm Irene, and she told me she didn’t have to worry about me, as she knew I was dry and warm, but if I had been in Connecticut she would have come down. So this is better. (If I am writing too much, it is because the institution I am in has a class in writing, led by a professor for Assumption College, just down the road, and I have learned to write from here.) Am I the last of the old guard left? It seems odd for me, because I was always the youngest in the group, and here I am, the oldest. I miss all my friends from New Jersey and Connecticut, and mostly I miss having Bob beside me. I wonder how he would have reacted to being in such a structured community. He would have fought it all the way. You said nothing about your children, but I assume they are near you, and you see them often. Good to hear from you, and have a good 2012. Happy, Healthy, etc. Love from As one of their early initiatives the new Freeholders followed through on a campaign promise to establish a Bergen County Junior College. I decided that this was my chance to go to college. So I asked for a meeting. After the next three years as Commissioner and also

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graduated from the new three year Junior College. I then went on to obtain a Business Degree from Patterson State. This time I paid the bill. One of my jobs after graduation was with a new company that like my first employer also made kitchen cabinets. With my past experience I was again in charge of the book keeping but this time I didn't have to stand on mu toes to use the typewriter. This Company also had an upgraded sales program that included a second floor with vignettes of sample kitchens. It was very professional. The customer could see his or her new kitchen before buying. With America in the War I took a job with the Curtis Wright Propeller factory. I manned the only clerical desk on the production floor for the midnight shift. It was the age of the telephone operator and an operator was required for the shift to plug the incoming call into the right plant telephone extension. Unfortunately the night operator frequently came in a little drunk leaving me with the problem of directing the late incoming calls. From my desk I could also observe the production line balancing the propellers. It wasn't long before I noticed a young man with beautiful blue eyes shining from under a round black cap. His eyes looked just like my Mother's. It wasn't long before Bob and I were having dates, which weren’t always that glamorous at eight o'clock in the morning. We went horseback riding, swimming and dancing plus a few bars. He had a wonderful personality to go with the big blue eyes and it wasn't too long before we decided to get married.

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But in 1943 he was taken by the draft and ended up in the Army. He was assigned to the infantry and ended up under General McArthur in the bloody battle with the entrenched Japanese for the Philippine's. He brought one thing back from the Pacific, a strong distaste for powdered eggs. But forever loved fresh eggs and could sit down and eat them by the dozen. We had a son and daughter. Later in life we moved from New Jersey to Mystic, Connecticut so that we could be about the same short distance from our families and friends. After 61 years of married life Bob died at the age of 91. As my life was happening I didn't think much about it but now when I have the time to look back and think about it I guess I really enjoyed myself.

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My First Trip to Chicago—A Big Hit Shortly after my daughter got married, her husband got a job in Chicago. We felt they should not be alone on their first Thanksgiving, so we packed our bags and set out. Not only did we pack our bags, we packed a few other things. Like, for instance, six double packages of Thomas’s muffins, at the time unavailable in Chicago; one of those ugly turkey platters, of deep red borders, and a picture of a really ugly turkey, and two of the Orifers champagne flutes they were collecting. So, we packed our bags, and set off for the Windy City. It was not a bad trip, but I could not sit with Bob, because he had a seat in the smoking section, and I gave up my seat to a lady who said she MUST have a cigarette. We were, of course, careful of our bags and packages, and arrived at O’Hare with everything safe. After we arrived at their apartment and admired their new furniture, the scenery, and anything else we could think of to admire, we presented our gifts to our new son-‐in-‐law. The turkey platter was well received, and we gave it to our new son-‐in-‐law to put away. Admittedly, it was so ugly you could not help but like it. And of course, the glasses— well! They were a big hit!! And indeed, they were a big hit! My son-‐in-‐ law was putting them on a shelf, and he banged them into the shelf and broke them! Big Hit. Of course, he was contrite and apologized, but we made light of it. And the muffins were cordially received, though they had found a store that sold them just a short time before we came. The new platter was to be put away, but since it was Thanksgiving, we kept it out for the turkey the next day. I’ll just put it here until tomorrow, “ he said, as he crashed it into a shelf and broke it into small pieces. The Thanksgiving dinner was a success, and we went home with many less packages than we brought.

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Night Scenes

Little things come up at two o’clock in the morning. The other night I thought of this: When I was 12 We lived across the street from the woods. One winter, I put my skates on And went across the street And skated on the snow. I can’t explain What a feeling that was. My feet didn’t hit the ground. I glided through the trees.

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A Fish Story

I was always with my mother, She drove with two broken front fenders Because she couldn’t make it through stonewalls. And I would go with her when she went shopping. There was a place in the next town in Patterson on Washington street, Where there were all individual stores: produce stores, grocery stores, fish stores, butchers, I don’t know if you remember but The fish stores had live fish, Swimming in tanks. My mother bought a fish one time And we got it home and it was still alive. I can’t tell you how we chased that fish with an ax All over the kitchen Give it a wallop on the tail and it would slip off the counter Fall on the floor. We’d get our hands on it And it would slip right out What we finally did My mother and I Was throw a dishtowel over it And the fish didn’t know how to get out And my mother took the flat side of a axe and whacked it and killed it And then we ate the fish.

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GEORGE ENGELSON

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George's Parents

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Weisenburg Strasse, Our Street in Berlin

Mother Kept Us Alive I was born in a most unlikely place, in Berlin, Germany in 1921 between WWI and WWII. My father Jonah had been grabbed off the street in Vilnia (Vilna), Lithuania where he and mother lived by the invading German army during the First World War and summarily sent back to Berlin as a prisoner of war. Mother Ida was thereby left alone to keep her (then) three children alive, deal with the starvation and devastation of war, and then possibly find her husband alive after the war to continue the family. All of which she hugely accomplished in Berlin despite the virtual impossibility there for Jews. Somehow, with much difficulty crossing borders, with three children to provide for, feeding, housing, avoiding starvation, inflation in Berlin, my mother kept us alive. In the meantime, Father evidently had been kept busy catering to certain German officers’ personal preferences for custom tailoring. Jonah evidently was satisfied with the status quo, sheltered by the German officers who demanded his tailoring skills. But it was mother’s self-‐appointed mission to find her husband no matter what.

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Line 22 of the Shipping Manifest Above Records the Entry of George's Father into the United States by a Ticket Paid for by His Brother and with $40 in his pocket). Below that is His Passenger Record from Ellis Island.

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My mother’s mission then became to bring family out of Europe. While I have few memories of Germany, my sister remembers the brown-‐shirts gathering in the streets of Berlin, anxious to take over and terrorize the people. So after mother had finally located her missing husband in Berlin, despite so very many difficulties she now started to push Jonah to emigrate (by himself, mind you) to his relatives in New York, USA for an eventual reunion of our enlarged family (which now included me). Mother unbelievably accomplished this “fantasy” too, with the help of HIAS (The Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society). Once safely in New York, having emigrated to his relatives there in 1924 at the urging of my mother, Ida, my father Johan awaited the arrival of his wife and children from Berlin. But he was upset because apparently he had learned of his mother’s demise in WWI as well as the death of his older siblings. He may also have been upset that his father had emigrated to England with a new, younger wife to produce a whole other family there. This knowledge so enraged by father that he had disavowed his family name of “Port” (or Portnoy?) and adopted the name of his apprentice family of “Engelzin” (or Engelson) and that is how our present family name came to be. My two older siblings, sister Ethel and Brother Max made the trip to the US to rejoin their father in 1927. I may have completed the first grade of Berlin’s grammar school when mother, brother Joe and I set off for New York from the port of Bremen, Germany to rejoin our now self-‐ sufficient father during Passover of 1929. My mother managed to get Passover food from a ship’s worker (also Jewish) on a lower deck. It was pleasant enough for me. What did I know? I remember very little of the trip except being put on a swing on ship board (good!), but struggling to keep from thinking about getting seasick while swinging back and forth high above sight of the surging sea (not good!) The rest of the trip is a blur of faded images now. It was a two-‐week long voyage back in 1929, about 83 years ago.

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Braves Field, Where George Sometimes Attended Games Courtesy of the Knothole Gang

Growing Up: School Year and “The Braves”

So my dad wound up with a little tailor shop in Dorchester, and I grew up in Boston and went to school and was fairly happy. I didn’t think that being in a depressed economy which was worldwide was that terrible compared to Europe. We were out of Europe and we were in the land of the free and happy. In the first year or two I was the hated German kid, but I could outrun everyone else. The discrimination that justified that was with the neighborhood kids who thought of me as the hated German. My immigrant-‐kid status did not seem to linger long as a burden in my growing up through grade school, junior high, and high school. I loved playing baseball and was a member of a kids’ club-‐team, the “Braves” filling various team positions such as short stop, second base, catcher, as needed, competing against other similar teams of boys organized under the welcome supervised auspices of Boston’s suburb of

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Dorchester. Young boys of the “Braves” were even occasionally invited to watch our professional heroes from empty bleacher seats as guests of the “Knot-‐Hole Gang”—a special treat at “Braves Field.” But, of course, finishing school, then landing a paying job were more realistic immediate goals than our child-‐like hopes to become famous “Big League” baseball players. I can recall only few specific incidents from those distant years other than a particular special friend, Herb Richmond, our team’s best pitcher, and his super-‐friendly family of father, mother, aunt Norma, and grandmother. I also remember their welcoming home upon Wellington Hill Street, in a three-‐decker house in which also lived (separately) two other members of our Braves. All of these good people left me with favorable memories of my school years, growing up, and happy membership in the “Braves.”

The Junior High School George Attended

We boys attended different high schools and started going our separate ways, especially as the whole world changed forever with WWII. Herb naturally attracted girls (which I did not), though sometimes I accompanied him on his dates with “Sissy,” providing a musical (whistling) background to their mutual teenage attraction. I

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also do recall Sissy’s brother, Bert Orenberg, a well-‐known and much-‐ admired big-‐muscled athlete (a discus thrower). I, on the other hand, was a little “Shrimp” trapped in a much lesser body but not particularly frustrated (if my faulty memory serves me). Also, at that time, I was busy building crude club house “accommodations” under an unused enclosed front porch in a three-‐decker house on nearby Evelyn Street, where we club members met often.

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The High School Teacher and the “Filthy Habit”

There are many details about a valued high school teacher that I cannot now honestly recall, such as his appearance, his body language, his academic specialty, etc. Yet I am constantly on guard against self-‐ serving selections from my faulty memory that could reduce his all-‐ important message to me, to a questionable exercise in persuasion. This teacher, Mr. Hill, one day in a calm even tone unemotionally declared to my class unprovoked by any relevant lecture that day that cigarette smoking was a “filthy habit,” probably unhealthy, and a waste of money. The message was so totally convincing to me that I never again from that day on (over 70 years ago) picked up any discarded cigarettes from the street for later smoking them (in a special holder), together with a close friend, Arthur, a co-‐conspirator. Not many years later after the war had broken out, I took a temporary wartime job at the Bethlehem Hingham Shipyard to build “Destroyer Escorts” for the U.S. Navy, where evidently I was inhaling considerable amounts of asbestos fiber dust. The asbestos subsequently caused the death of many shipyard workers 25 to 50 years later, including a good friend, Frank Okun. This same asbestos Dust (normally present in the air on ships being constructed) was also later diagnosed in my own lungs. Fortunately, it proved to be non-‐lethal in my case, as medical follow-‐ups to the original diagnosis have confirmed. Perhaps my abrupt non-‐smoking habit since high school accounts for that. I am close to 91 years old now in 2012 and still feel relatively well. So I continue to laud this very special teacher, Mr. Hill, for my lifelong abstention from the “filthy habit” now widely known as a killer. Thank you again, Mr. Hill, wherever you are!

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College, the War, Cabot Corp.

After graduating form high school in 1941, I had enrolled as a student at Boston’s Northeastern University, where tuition would be earned in a Co-‐op (work-‐study) plan. So I got a job working part-‐time at Ben Burke Liquors, Inc., where my brother Max was head of the liquor sample department. We hoped the arrangement would let me alternate work-‐study sessions with my (still) good friend Arthur Ofstein. However, when the world changed that December after Japan attacked the U.S. at Pearl Harbor Arthur was drafted into the U.S. Army, along with most other young American males our age. I promptly volunteered for service in the U.S. Air Force and passed the written exam but was rejected in the follow-‐up physical (a HUGE disappointment!) all because of a perforated right eardrum, which had probably occurred in Germany years earlier. Yet, my brother Joe was drafted (and destined to be sent to North Africa as part of a military team trained to shoot down enemy—German—aircraft). They drafted him with a troubled health history and discarded me with a non-‐ disabling minor ear problem! I had taken a temporary wartime job at the Bethlehem Hingham Shipyard to help build destroyer escorts for the U.S. Navy. There I evidently was inhaling considerable amount of asbestos fiber dust, which subsequently caused the death of many shipyard workers 25 to 50 years later (including a good friend, Frank Okun). This same asbestos dust, normally present in the air on ships being constructed, was also later diagnosed in my lungs. Fortunately it has proved to be non-‐lethal in my case, as medical follow-‐ups have since confirmed. Perhaps my abrupt switch to a non-‐smoking habit since high school accounts for this? I am close to 91 years old now in 2012 and still feel relatively well. So, disappointed with my status of “4-‐F” (a deferred war-‐time civilian), I left my frustrating rules-‐overloaded job at the shipyard to apply directly to the National War Production Board for their immediately placement wherever they decided I could be most useful in the all-‐important war effort. This turned out to be at the Cabot

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Corporation Research Laboratory as a “Beaker Boy” paid $0.55 per hour. I stayed with Cabot well beyond the end of WWII, working there for the next 33 years as I married, had children, and continued my schooling. My retirement in 1967 came during changes in Cabot’s administration and a period of uncertainty for business futures. By then, I had progressed from “Beaker Boy” duties to “Associate Research Engineer” responsibilities, which included the operation of a round-‐the-‐clock pilot plant for experimental production of white powders analogous to Cabot’s “Soot” (carbon black). For this look-‐back I do admit to having learned a lot in my lifetime of work and school, mostly good. But I still don’t savor the memory of frigid wind/snow blown winter evenings in the parking lot at NEU’s night school, worrying whether my old jalopy would get me safely from there to the Cabot lab and then home late at night to Nantasket/Hull. But I did appreciate my subsequent night school graduation with honor.

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On an Endless Ocean Under a Darkening Sky There I was on a tiny boat following a coast guard vessel on an angry boat-‐tossing endless ocean under a darkening sky, heading to a highly uncertain future. Here’s the story of how I got there. Rubber was scarce but essential during the war. We needed tires for jeeps, troop trucks, planes and other military equipment, and natural rubber was the only source for tires. Unfortunately, to get that we needed to tap rubber trees in tropical areas in the Far East. So it was important to find a source of synthetic rubber or extend the natural rubber. Cabot Corporation’s contribution to this effort had been to produce a black powder commonly known as “soot.” A fine particulate, it could be used to bulk up and extend natural rubber. My job was to manage the day shift in the pilot plant to produce a white powder that could be used to substitute for “soot,” particularly for use in the manufacture of products that were not black. The rubber industry wanted to be able to produce tires of any color to match the vehicle. The idea was that if we could get our pilot plant to operate effective, Cabot Corporation would eventually scale up to full production. Our pilot plant was located on a rented industrial property on the waterfront in Chelsea Mass so that you could receive raw materials and ship your product by water rather than having to get involved with city regulations regarding the transport of potentially dangerous materials. The Cabot Pilot Plant had acquired a number of fifty-‐gallon drums of the liquid raw material, some of which had been exposed somehow to the rain and formed a nasty semi-‐solid sludge. Knowing this, we had arranged to dispose of these few “faulty drums” into the nearby Atlantic Ocean. Only one company in our area had been approved by the government to dispose of these dangerous materials: the Northeast Disposal Company. And so we planned to use their boats to transport the drums to the ocean-‐dumping site. But trusting in the expertise of Northeast Disposal turned out to be a big mistake.

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When I arrived at work the next morning, there was an irate phone call for me from a Boston City official demanding my immediate presence at a particular Boston street. Employees of Northeast Disposal Company had panicked when they heard the noise of a barrel lid popping off and abandoned an open truck in the street with nasty fumes issuing from the drums. (The drivers probably thought the barrels were about to blow up.) Of course, I hurried to assure the Boston city official that Cabot would do all it could to cooperate to solve the problem. I found out that some efforts had already been attempted to “spoon out” one gallon or one quart-‐sized amount of liquid from the open drum for spilling into the harbor. But the resultant stinging nasty fumes quickly discouraged this approach. With the reappearance of Northeast Disposal employees and the sudden presence of the Coast Guard vessel at harbor-‐side, we all agreed to attempt the original plan to dump all the drums in the Atlantic at a location specified by the Coast Guard, but only if the Cabot person in charge of the pilot plant would personally accompany the disposal. That, of course, was me. So we set off, having carefully transferred all the suspect drums of liquid on board Northeast Disposal’s tiny boat. And that’s how I ended up on a small boat following the Coast Guard vessel for an unknown number of miles on an angry ocean under a darkening sky to a highly uncertain future. Suddenly at dusk, the Coast Guard vessel stopped and its loudspeaker announced, “This is the place.” And just as suddenly took off and left us there alone in this small boat on an endless ocean. It was pitch black, and I despaired of ever seeing my family again. What now? Well, first things first. The drums of liquid tetrachlorine silicon were gently eased overboard and then shot at and punctured by Northeast Disposal’s marksmen until each was swallowed up by the raging ocean. Hallelujah! Now to get back to land and find our cars though we had been lost in an unmarked hostile ocean. Yet somehow we did it?? A small miracle! All this was duly reported the following day in a memo from me. My colleagues celebrated the event by creating a phony award that I think they dedicated to “Admiral Engelson.” I believe the intended pilot

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plant investigation was subsequently discarded in favor of purchasing the needed design know-‐how from the German company Degussa. As for me, I was just relieved it was over and that I was back on land again and home!

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Our Summertime

We raised our four happy children in a house within sight of the Atlantic Ocean, and still remember fondly those pleasant summers and the beckoning beach in Hull, MA. Of course, its steady year-‐round small community went out of its way to make us welcome, though Hull doubled in population (and traffic) during each of those hectic few months of summer. I was working during the week but the house was always full on weekends. My wife’s’ sister and her children, relatives. The boys always got along beautifully, they played ball. But the showers, the food, the getting everybody to beach, the chairs. For the hosts, it was a busy time. Happy to have them but parking was another problem, the cars. Trim the lawn. Cut the grass growing up against the fence. There was kind of a ruined shower down in the basement that wouldn’t drain down— And then the showers, the cousins, they had to rinse the sand off from the beach. The kids had no notion of these concerns, and I didn’t want them to. I had to worry about getting everything heavy done with an overload of people using modest facilities. So the best day of the year for us came just after the peak of visitors had left on Labor Day, when traffic suddenly ended and quiet abruptly returned. The beach was empty. The waves angrier, but now warm enough to entice us to stay upright in them. (More so for we forgiving adults than four our impatient children.) Labor day just couldn’t last long enough ever (we seniors agree, especially now in retrospect.) How sweet it was, that day!

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Revisiting Berlin

Some years after WWII, the city of Berlin, Germany, introduced a welcome program to invite its former citizens and their spouses back for a one-‐week, all-‐expenses prepaid visit. The city had been subdivided into three allied sectors by the war’s victors, each separated by walls into American, British, and Russian zones. So my wife (American-‐born) and I (born in Berlin) applied to participate in this generous offer. After about a ten-‐year wait, we were accepted and treated well, as promised. One of the most memorable things for me was an eye-‐catching display for every passer-‐by to read at a subway station Entrance/Exit (and elsewhere). A list of the infamous names of Nazi death camps where millions of Jews, men, women, and children, had been incinerated and/or otherwise worked-‐starved-‐buried alive to their horrible death. (A public admission of Nazi war crimes?) The Rykestrasse Synagogue A considerably less welcoming aspect of the trip to Berlin consisted of seeing the neighborhood where I had lived as a child (which still bore the scars of war on its buildings and still included its old water tower (wasserturm) which stored city water! I had played near there as a young happy child but I quickly realized it was now a housing unit for people! Also, I had to go see the local synagogue that I may have attended, although most Jewish houses of worship had been

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deliberately destroyed, this one was spared because it as so closely adjacent to the neighborhood buildings and consequently desecrated by converting it into a stable for horses (restored now since then.) The camp I went to was near Munich, Dachau. I wrote something in the guest book, it was very mixed feelings about being there. The people who qualified for being there that year some of them were angry at themselves for accepting, and angry at themselves for being there to see the pile of shoes at the camp and the pile of hair The Infamous Gate to Dachau Which Proclaims: that was shorn from the "Work Will Set You Free" victims. But we did tour Dachau. At any rate, we were the lucky ones that survived. The American sector where the city was divided there was a platform which those on the tour ascended to look over the way across no man’s land where the Russians were patrolling and a view of the wall where some had tried to cross the wall and were shot and killed as a warning, so I was unhappy, to say the least. But I was too young to really understand. Because just rethinking, we were already married then so I was an adult, this was in 88 I think. Getting into East Berlin (the Russian sector) was an eerie experience. You had to appear in person at several dimly lit stations to answer questions by gruff guards and purchase their currency—a minimum of $25 worth and they did not return any of our dollars. Yes, we were stuck with their useless German marks. They then took us on a tour in the Russian sector to a location where the plot to assassinate Hitler was hatched and foiled. Its participants were of course hanged (tortured?). So the impression that I accepted was that they were trying to show us skeptics on the tour that they were trying to make up for their misdeeds. To put it gently. But I did have that experience of living in

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Berlin between the wars. And my kids want to know about Germany then and now. And I think I owe them that; it’s part of the heritage that they’re entitled to.

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The Inevitability of Spring

Absurd? (It surely will happen again.) Believe it, though absurd. A discarded, brown-‐dry tulip bulb Buried months earlier in ordinary earth Quickly forgotten during last winter’s cold and snow. But spring is coming, whether you want it to or not. Comes the spring, in its eager search for renewal When pale-‐green surprises Issue from brown lumps buried below Now confidently continue their pre-‐planned mission To enter radiant, full-‐view into a world of Dominant color. Absurd? Yes!! Another witness of glorious springtime is reborn.

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A Life Gone It’s so very sad that she is gone. As of our last anniversary on July 4, 2011, Bernice and I had been married for a good lifetime of 67 years. And I foolishly took for granted that our years together would just continue unchanged But now only nine months later, I am intently watching her labored breathing, together with our children and grandchildren, counting the seconds between each heaving of her chest. Why count them? I don’t know, -‐-‐ except otherwise something awful would happen! (Does that make any sense?) After hours of senseless counting, suddenly everything stops. Despite my frantic fears. How could I let this happen?? An attending nurse quietly announces, “It is over. She suffers no more. Go home now.” We follow her directions numb-‐ly. Stumb-‐ly. Days later, as I dimly remember it now, afterthoughts appear with troubling questions: Why? Why? . . . Should have left sooner, later. The good memories are surely there somewhere. But not yet. Will they return? Let us cling to hope so. For now, it is just so very, very sad that Bernice is now forever gone from sharing my life.

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Unlooked for Joy Joy is the welcome touch Of my great-‐grandchildren. A reserve of expected strangeness never appeared. Instead, unreserved (undeserved?) affection Was instantly offered, And continues to amaze! Wow! Can I ever merit such naturalness?

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JOSEPH E. ZAUCHA

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Laura: A Woman of Many Hats

(Based on an interview with Laura Susanin)

Preface It has been said that in any enterprise “People make the Difference”. Eisenberg depends on a team of quality people to monitor its programs and maintain continuing “hands on” communication with its residents, staff and each other. Laura is one of those “People”.

Her Story Both of Laura's parents were first generation New Yorkers. Her red headed Mom's family (Pappalardo) came from Sicily. Her Dad's mother and father emigrated from County Cork, Ireland. Dad Peter was born in the Bronx and later moved to Westchester. He was a Brooklyn Dodger fan who would stand outside the stadium with his glove before every game. Though New York was his heart and soul he was also interested in exploring other places. As an undergraduate he went west to the University of Albuquerque. Back in New York after college, Peter went to a June wedding and met Sylvia. She had been living and teaching pre-‐school in Eastchester and had just broken off her engagement to another man. That December, Sylvia was married at a very Italian wedding to Peter. It has been about forty years since the young couple moved to Massachusetts so that Peter could attend the New England School of Law in Boston. They rented a small one-‐bedroom apartment in Framingham. As time passes they decided that they couldn't have children so they adopted Chris, a sixteen-‐month-‐old boy from just outside Bogota, Columbia. Shortly after, they received a phone call asking them whether they would want another child. Without hesitation they said, “Yes” and added a six-‐month-‐old daughter, Lisa to the family.

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As often happens, about two years later a red headed baby sister, Laura, was born. When Laura was growing up her mother's Italian side of the family was more prominent. They were not only larger but they also tended to gather together on Sundays and holidays. Grandmother’s Thanksgiving dinners were nothing short of amazing and always featured her chicken parmesan. She was strong and was always at the center of everything and was considered the family matriarch. Her leadership continued even as she grew older. When she eventually retired to Sunrise, Florida all of her brothers followed her. They could not be separated from the person who would never speak out critically but if she had to object would find a more subtle way. She also loved her daughter’s Irish husband. On Peter's side of the family, Laura essentially had only her Dad and grandparents, William and Rita, who resided in New Jersey and visited often. They were Irish and she bore their name so she even had wanted to go to Ireland for her honeymoon. Peter's cousin, Alice McDermott, is a famous writer whose bestselling novels were even considered for the Pulitzer Prize. The stories she wrote were loosely based on the extended stories of Dad's Irish branch of the family including his Aunts and Uncles. To Laura they were real “eye openers” involving family secrets that she would otherwise have never known or understood. They created further dissension within the family. However, Laura felt that keeping secrets did not help the family. It was her feeling that if you didn't learn the truth it would just cause continuing further damage. Peter’s extended family learned to forgive one another and his cousins, aunts, and uncles became an important part of their lives. Laura found growing up a very interesting part of her life. The immediate family included an interesting mixture of Irish, Columbians and Italian. They spent so much time with her Mom's Sicilian side of the family plus the dark skins of her brother and sister from Columbia they were usually identified as Italian. Laura's Mom and Dad had even hoped that she would also have had dark skin and features. So while growing up Laura constantly would get, “They're not your brother and sister!”

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It's funny what other people see that we don't see. She thought she looked just like them. She would always respond by saying, “Well Chris's nose is kind of like mine”. Their Mom though Italian was redheaded and green eyed. In the meantime Laura became more and more frustrated as she grew older and became more aware of people’s beliefs and prejudices. She also felt that people at times were not even acknowledging her family as a family. When she was 11 or 12 when the children would go away to camp her brother and sister were both really popular and she would proudly say, “That's my brother and sister”. But no one would believe her. She concluded that adoption was a beautiful thing but she could see that it had some hurdles. Even her brother and sister had some problems in finding their identity. For example the high school soccer coach made some prejudiced remarks about her sister when she was 16. Though she was a reasonably good soccer player he also cut her from the team. From that point on she began to perceive herself as different and started having trouble in school. It was a defining moment and began to change her life. Growing up the majority of their friends had been white and Jewish. But Laura's sister from that point on didn't feel the connection to her previous Caucasian friends. It was a defining moment for Laura too for she could feel her sister's pain and began to see the world as a prejudiced place. Her brother had a different experience. The children had grown up in Framingham, a large and diverse town. The local government decided to merge their two high schools. Chris was fortunate to have been in the last class before the consolidation. He then went on to college. Unfortunately Laura's sister, Lisa, was still attending high school when they were combined and was faced with the change in attitude. Brother Chris was fortunately in the last class before the consolidation and then moved on to college. Lisa was younger and still in high school. She became lost in the transition and its prejudice and new unfair pressures. Did she ever find herself? Not until years later when she became a Mom. When she was younger she identified herself as Italian. But she subsequently felt at

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times rejected by the white society and connected to being a Columbian. She eventually married a black man and today has a nine and four year old. That's when her life began to make sense to her again. Laura recalls that it was an ongoing problem. She even recalls her sister being followed in a store. She couldn't understand this. She did not personally believe in discrimination and couldn't understand this. She felt a sense of guilt because of the things such as this that her brother and sister went through and she didn't. Her brother and sister's adoption and lives have become an integral part of what and who she is today. However, she also believes that if she adopted someone from Columbia she would try hard to raise him or her within her culture and heritage and also expose them to a stronger awareness of their heritage. She now also believes that if she had as many ups and downs through the years as they did that her parents could not have handled it. As a result she tried harder to be a steady kid and a good student and made good friends. She always did things to hold things together. She probably didn't become the real “Laura” until she got to college. Laura always had heard good things about Cornell from a cousin. She found a program she liked and decided to go there. One of her most interesting experiences was spending the second semester of her junior year at the University of Seville in Spain. She attended class with Spanish students and had to really know her Spanish. The thing that she enjoyed the most was the people and she loved them. She would walk through the beautiful parks and say to herself, “This is where I'm living right now”. It was like a dream. Everyone she met was part of the experience. She literally became a part of the family where she was staying. She could even feel their acceptance and warmth. Her parents visited and both families had dinner together. They were all laughing and repeating, “My American family and my Spanish family”; Laura and her parents even went to a bullfight. But she and her Mom left early crying. She did not enjoy bullfights. Back in Cornell the schooling seemed intense compared to Seville.

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Laura's senior year was a very hard year. Unexpectedly her Dad died of a heart attack. At that point she decided that she didn't want to go back to school but desired to stay home with her Mom. Mom made her go back to school. It was the hardest thing she had ever done and was one of the most defining moments of her life. She also realized how much sadness a person can have. Going through teenage and college years you try to be independent but you also feel that you can always fall back on your parents. Then suddenly they are not there. At every milestone: graduation, marriage, having children, she still thinks about her Dad. Even when she decides to take a job she tries to consider what her Dad would think. He was and still is a big part of her life. Laura graduated in 2000 from Cornell's School of Human Ecology with a degree in Human Service Studies. Actually, after she lost her Dad she didn't know what she wanted to do. She was grieving and confused and took the first job that came down the pike, which happened to be with Laura Ashley finance. She next moved to a position with Harvard University as an assistant fundraiser. While doing this she kept thinking, “What am I doing here? I don't want to ask people for money.” She finally realized after two years that what she really wanted to do was social work involving real people. It had taken two years to get back on track. She had originally thought about working with children and families. So she now decided to go to Boston College and get a degree in Social Work. That was until she had this professor who was really amazing and opened her eyes to gerontology. She decided that this is what she specifically wanted to do. Laura now says that such a career would in part be a spin-‐off of her long relationships with her grandmother who had played such a huge part in her life. She wanted to hear and deal with people's stories. In addition in school they had strongly warned that you should not just figure out your areas of interest but should also decide specifically what the student didn't want to do. Social work is such a broad field. For example some students may end up going into the prisons and dealing with forensics. There were many options but most

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people were not thinking about gerontology as they considered it as an area of sadness. But Laura didn't consider that dealing with old age was sad. She felt that there was so much that could be done but people were overlooking the field of gerontology. Instead children and younger people have been given the attention yet the people who are growing old still have a lot to live and give before they die. The professor at Boston College was so dynamic about how we could learn about older adults and why we should support them. That's when Laura began to feel that way too. So her first job out of Boston was with the Laboure Center, part of Catholic Charities. She served a diverse caseload of people ranging from young Spanish families to kids to elders. She found herself having a hard time staying as the biggest part of the charity was the adoption center and they had decided not to do gay adoptions. Laura felt that her values did not align with theirs and it was not the right place for her as she didn't fit and left. She then did Hospice work for about the next three years. She now refers to it as an unbelievable experience. Almost each night she would come home and tell her husband that she didn't know whether she was getting in over her head. She would get attached to her cases. She considered it to be the most challenging thing she had ever done. You get involved with the families who are filled with anger and hurt. Some had issues that festered and lingered and they would hold on because they were seeking some kind of reconciliation or peace. It was during this period that Laura lost her grandmother, Ann, at the age of 96. When Laura had originally told her that she was going into gerontology she responded, “Why do you want to work with old people? We're all so depressing”. But it was partly because of her that she wanted to do it. When you lose someone it can be very difficult. Laura has recently kindly said, “But it's not sadness but grief when someone like Bridget passes”. But day-‐by-‐day it doesn't even feel like work for she loves it. Each day she converses with the residents and there is always something new. Even when the resident is depressed they can usually enjoy an upbeat conversation. And the residents have such a dynamic range of backgrounds and interests. It's actually inspiring. There are

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even residents who are 100 years old who are still giving lectures or writing biographies. In 2005 Laura made probably the most important decision of her life. She married Michael Susanin. Three years later she had a red headed son, Patrick. Though she loved her work she was finding it a hard to balance her work with her home life. She would drive around the state all day and then have to pick up her young son from day-‐care. Then when she arrived at home, after a short period of playing with Patrick, she did her day’s paper work usually until ten or eleven at night. Then on a very snowy night in 2009 Patrick went from playing on the floor to having a fever and vomiting. He also became very lethargic. At the hospital in Framingham they did all the standard battery of tests but couldn't determine what was wrong. They sent him to Tufts Floating Hospital in Boston where he was diagnosed as having meningitis. After two weeks in ICU they still did not know what was going to happen to him. They had determined that Patrick had a very rare strain of meningitis called H flu meningitis. They could not determine how it entered his body; ear, nose or mouth. For the first week his temperature wouldn't go down and he wasn't responding. Thankfully antibiotics gradually helped that and they were finally able to take him home. That was another of life's turning points. Laura had left the hospital only once in two and a half weeks. During that time she was with him constantly except for one test. During that test that took one hour her husband insisted that she leave the hospital. They missed Xmas that year. It tended to put the job into perspective. Their young son came home with his mother after Xmas with a Broviac line that would continue to give him a direct dose of the antibiotic. At this point Laura realized that she couldn't go back to the hospice. She wanted to love a future job somewhere but when she went home at the end of the day she wanted to be able to concentrate on and also love her family. Patrick is the most important thing in her life and tends to keep her life in a balanced perspective. Laura decided that she didn't want to work in an environment where she would spend much of her time filling out forms. She wanted to still be face to face with people, preferably older people like her

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favorite professor had suggested. So when one of her co-‐workers told her of the opening at Eisenberg she applied. She has now been there for over a year. Professionally it has been a great fit for both parties. It also enables Laura to have time to share with her family. It is unusual for “assisted living” programs to have a trained Social Worker on the staff. The Executive Director at Eisenberg, Vinny, also obtained his Master's Degree at Boston College and recognized the important things that she brings to the staff. So Laura now works daily with the residents of Eisenberg assessing their varying requirements. They are sometimes difficult to define for almost every resident has a different situation. She works with many families of the “keepsake” unit and their problems of dementia and trains new employees. She also is assigned special projects and participates in management conferences on short and long term planning. In between she has lunch. Like the Queen of England she pleasantly wears a lot of hats.

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STORIES OF THE SHOAH: A Project of the Eisenberg Writers’ Roundtable

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Welcome by Dr. Augusta Kressler

The members of the Eisenberg Writers’ Roundtable would like to welcome you to “Stories of the Shoah.” We are meeting tonight to remember the Holocaust, one of the most horrible events in human history. Eli Weisel asks: How does one mourn for six million people who died? How many candles does one light? How many prayers does one recite? Do we know how to remember the victims, their solitude, their helplessness? They left us without a trace, and we are their trace. Tonight we will honor those six million people by lighting six candles and telling the stories of six individual human beings. We here at Eisenberg have residents who have had personal contact with the Holocaust, and tonight they will tell us their stories in their own words.

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Remembering Those Who Resisted by Birdie Chase

Josef Kessler grew up in a very poor Orthodox family in Chelm, Poland. When the Nazis came to power, his family was broken up and Josef was sent with his brother to a ghetto in Lithuania. In a personal testimony he composed after the war, Josef wrote: “On the 8th of December (1941) they organized the first massacre of Jews in Nowogrodek. In this action I lost my only brother who was with me in exile. Horrible scenes were taking place.” One day, after he had polished the boots of a German officer, the soldier told him: “Its too bad you are a Jew and I can’t take you with me.” It was clear more executions were coming, and so Josef managed to trade his watch for a gun and escape to the woods. There he joined up with an assortment of other survivors including four sons of the Bielski family. Calling themselves the “Bielski Brigade,” the group built a small village in the woods that included a gun workshop, a bakery, a synagogue, a communal bath and even a theater company. They named it “Jerusalem in the Woods.” During the war years members of the brigade executed raids on German troops and saved more than 1,200 men, women and children, more than the number rescued by Oscar Schindler. Josef never told his children of his wartime experiences, and they only learned of them after recognizing his face in a photograph of the Bielski Brigade when they visited Auschwitz. Later they found a copy of his personal testimony in the Archives of the Jewish Historical Institute of Warsaw.

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The Bielski Brigade in the woods. Josef is in the center, kneeling, in a light colored shirt,

Josef’s daughter, Dorota Feinzeig said the things he did in the war were “very inconsistent with my father. He was a very non-‐violent person. He would never spank my sister or me.” But the testimony Josef left behind made it clear how a non-‐ violent man could take up arms to resist the Holocaust. He wrote: “The ghetto was small. The atmosphere depressing since everyone felt the lack of their closest ones. Here the thought of partisan war was born. Alone, men who lost everything and have nothing to lose began to steal away from the ghetto. On a certain day, I too decided to follow in their footsteps.” And so tonight I light this candle in honor of Josef Kessler and all those who fought in the resistance.

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Remembering Those Who Left Germany by George Engelson

I was born in Berlin, Germany, in 1921, between WWI and WWII. Very fortunately, my mother, Brother Joseph, and I were able to emigrate from Germany to New York in 1929 (after my sister Ethel and another brother, Max, had managed to come in 1927). To a boy of 7 ½, all this emigration stuff was pretty ordinary. But I realize today, it must have required tremendous courage and persistence on the part of my mother. Some years later, with all of us safely in America, I found myself scanning photographs of Jews caught up in the horrors of the Holocaust in Germany. I was especially captured by one photo of a frightened little Jewish boy swept up in a street round up of Jews in Berlin, evidently destined for the death camps. His arms were raised high in surrender, with a recognizable expression of fear at the gun thrust at him by a soldier. My reaction was immediate and lasting: “That little boy could have been me!”

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At about the same time I became aware of a memory in my head from Germany as I repeated the words of a soldiers’ marching song that was taught to me as a first grader in Berlin. It was titled “Ich Hat Ein Kamerade.” I had a comrade A better one you will not find. The drums sound for the march, We march together in step, side-‐by-‐side. A bullet flies toward us. (Was it meant for me or him?) It tore him away from my side He lies at my feet As though a part of me His arm outstretched. I cannot grasp your hand now But be assured You will live forever in eternity My dear comrade, my dear comrade. This song merged in my mind with that picture of the little frightened Jewish boy. With such touching words repeating themselves over and over inside my head, I cannot hold on to hatred against the German people as a whole who are fellow human beings. Shouldn’t we be urged to try to distinguish between Nazis—German and non-‐German—who brutally destroyed millions of our people en-‐masse, from those individuals (German and non-‐German) who risked life and limb to save Jews, even as specifically honored at Yad Vashem in Israel?

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George and Rita Lighting the Candle in Remembrance of Those Who Left Their Homes

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Remembering Those Who Left Germany by Rita Wahle

We arrived at Ellis Island on February 9, 1939. I was four years old. My father shared with me that when we got to Ellis Island he felt like kissing the ground. We had been on one of the last boats out of Germany. When we left Europe, my grandparents had begged us to stay. My grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, all stayed. They all lost their lives during the Holocaust. I wept for their losses. I didn’t remember any of them. May 1982, I was 52 years old. I took El Al and flew to Israel. The flight was on Yom Hashuah. I spent Yom HaMitzot in Jerusalem. The wonderful memories of my time there will be with me as long as I live. My father called Israel “das goldena medina.” This golden land.

The Children's Memorial at Yad Vashem

When I entered the Museum at Vad Ya Shem, I saw little girls’ faces, their smiles, their hair. As I kept looking, I felt some of us could

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have been friends, jumped rope, and all the other girlie things that four-‐ year-‐old girls did. I began sobbing, and felt that I would never stop. It was then that I began to grieve my own losses. Thank you, God, for my life.

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Remembering Those Who Fought: Victor Pigoga Interviewed by Joseph Zaucha Tonight I ask that we honor one of our fellow residents, Victor Pigoga of the sixth floor. Victor enlisted in the army at the age of 18 and became a member of the Fifth Infantry Division (mechanized), nicknamed the Red Devils. On July 9th, 1944, Victor stepped out of a landing craft onto the sands of Utah Beach in Normandy. With his unit, he fought his way through Normandy up to the very border of Germany. In order to assault the strategic city of Metz they needed to establish a beachhead on the Moselle River. But they found themselves up against heavy German resistance, which included 8.8-‐millimeter anti-‐tank artillery (sometimes referred to as the “dreaded 88”) that sprayed the Americans day and night. When of the shells from an 88 hit a tree near Victor’s position, he was wounded by the scattering shrapnel. (This is the same shrapnel –known as flak-‐-‐that was used to shoot down allied aircraft.) At the field hospital the doctor made a series of six incisions but couldn’t remove the shrapnel. In serious condition, Victor was transferred to the 160th General Hospital in London, where the surgeon indicated it was the worst case of its kind he had ever seen. From there Victor was next transferred to a hospital in New Hampshire, and from there he was finally sent to Fitzsimons General where he spent over a year recovering. Instead of complaining about the fact that he was discharged as “permanently disabled” with a hole in his back that is still there today, Victor has nothing but positive words for his experiences at

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Fitzsimons General, which he still refers to as “The Country Club of Hospitals.” “They really treated us like royalty,” he says, as he recalls recuperating in the shadows of the beautiful landscapes of Colorado. I sometimes wonder how the world would have ended up if a bunch of young men—many of them not old enough to vote like my school buddies Randal Hackney and Phil Moser hadn’t been willing to put their young lives on the line to stop Nazism’s warped ideologies. And so I’d like to ask all those present who served in the armed forces during WWII or after to stand and be recognized as I light this candle in honor of them, Victor Pigoga, and the 50 million military casualties in the bloodiest war in history.

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Remembering Those Who Rescued Others by Mollie Galub It was 1967, after a period of deep mourning, that I decided that I had to change my life. So I went to New York, got a job, and joined the Institute of Retired Professionals at the New School for Social Research. It was there that I met Ruth Gruber, a shining beacon of light in the darkness of the Holocaust, who dedicated her life to rescuing thousands of Jewish people from death. She was very bright, having received her Ph.D. at the age of 20— the youngest person ever to have done so, and she had become a reporter for the old Herald Tribune. In Germany, she was horrified by the spectacle of all property and dignity taken away from Jews and by the wanton murder of millions. She took pictures to report the atrocities, which the Nazis themselves had proudly recorded—even showing the hungry masses eating eggshells that had been thrown at them. She reported the truth of Hitler’s crimes and the stories of the refugees. Under Lekes, secretary of Labor, she brought 1000 refugees from Italy on troop ships with wounded servicemen, and found homes for them through every Jewish organization and temple in the United States. She continued to bombard Franklin Roosevelt and the congress to allow masses of Jews in the D.D. camps and even to bring thousands of orphans here to be adopted by American Jews. Great Britain took some and was to allow 4,000 Jews into Palestine. After an official change of mind Gruber applied to every country for safe harbor but was refused. Eventually all those on the Exodus were sent back to Germany and exterminated. This was one of Ruth’s great heartbreaks, but she continued to rescue thousands of Jews, fighting against all obstacles that were placed in her way and in the process writing articles for the New York Times, the New York Post, and the Wall Street Journal. The world Press reaction was outraged. But she continued on in Hungary, Ethiopia, and Belgium until her personal sacrifice was completed.

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We were born two weeks apart and are both 100 years old. Today she is still alive and continues to be remembered as the Joan of Arc of all the Jews in danger throughout the world. Does she deserve this candle to commemorate her efforts on behalf of others? Yes, yes, yes! And so I light this candle in honor of Ruth Gruber and all of those who rescued others from the Holocaust.

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Remembering Those in the Concentration Camps: Iboja Goldspiel Interviewed by Joseph Zaucha As I tell this I am 91 years old and living in the Eisenberg Assisted Living Residence in Worcester, Mass. I was born on August 31, 1920 in Mukachevo, Czechoslovakia . I was given the Hungarian name of Iboja meaning Violet. We were nine siblings including my twin brother. Originally our parent's home was actually located in Austria-‐Hungary before it became Czechosvakia. Then later it became a part of Russia. My father was the oldest son of his family and helped out in his father's grocery store. The store wasn't anything like today in America where you have everything packaged. If a customer bought a kilo of sugar or flour it had to be measured. It was the family custom that one of the boys should learn the business. My brother Slomeo was the oldest son but the other brothers also helped. My sister Malka was actually the oldest but she was a girl. We also had another business, an Inn where people could come and eat or sleepover. Munchau was actually like a little city and anyone who had something to sell would do business there at the town’s weekly Friday market. It attracted everyone in the area. Actually most of the visitors were goyem. Also the drinkers especially liked to visit the Inn on Friday night. My parents were orthodox Jews, middle-‐class, and we all had a religious upbringing. If you were a girl a teacher would come to your home and teach you the ala bais and daven (how to pray.) But the boys went to Haid (Hebrew school). Most of the time the family lived together in a group, like they lived here in Flatbush—you wanted to be with your own. At home we spoke Yiddish or Hebrew. The language in the local schools changed from time to time. When we were occupied by the Czhechs we went to a Czech school. We next went to schools taught in Hungarian and then Russian. Finally the Germans came in. Of our nine siblings the first male, Slomeo, was a student of Hebrew and Yiddish and he had a “Smeecha”—that's like be was a rabbi. Although he was a student our rabbi and had the degrees to be a rabbi,

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he didn't practice it. Though he had the degrees he didn't practice it. Among the other children my sister Michelle Maliki became my Mama's helper. But my sister Frieda liked to be a lady and every Friday went for a massage and had her hair done. Then there was Nathan a true male. He went to high school and took English rather than Jewish literature. He was a very smart guy and later became a writer. Brother Nathan learned to be a Jewish linotype operator. Then he taught himself English by mail and became so good that he was hired as a writer for the Daily News in New York. Brother Jacob became a manager in a dry goods store. Morris was a “Vbatarik” and since he wanted to someday go to Israel he was taught how to work in the fields. He became a Zionist and even opposed our parents. Some of the families in our hometown were Zionists who wanted a future homeland in Israel. My parents, however, belonged to the Munchausen and were led by Rabbi Haim-‐ Elazaar Shapiro, who opposed the Zionists. I didn’t work until I became sixteen. I had gone to school to learn sewing and became very good at it. So I became a seamstress. First, I started out with alterations, and then I was a presser. Eventually I began making clothes. But my customers who worked during the day had to be fitted at night. That didn't make the men in the family and later my husband very happy. So I had to give that up. So I wondered what I was going to do. I finally decided that since I was good at sewing I'd go into window dressing where everything had to be custom made. I was able to make the curtains, valences and festoons for the windows as long and deep as needed and wanted. When I went into decorating I also obtained a special factory Singer Sewing Machine. Before that I'd only had a table-‐model; now I needed one that worked hard. I was twenty-‐seven when I was first married. Up until that time I had lived with my family. I had been engaged before but my first boyfriend died. For a while I just didn't want to go out on dates. I just worked and worked very hard. Then I met my husband through my sister. He was a federal employee, an engineer, who lived net door to her. They eventually talked me into meeting him. He was a nice guy and I wouldn't have to work. So we met a couple of times and after six months we decided to get married. However, my brother was now in Jerusalem and I said let me go to Jerusalem for six months and after that

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if we still wanted to we would get married. But he didn't wait six months but came after me and we got married. He was actually a well-‐ known metallurgist. He was even included in a book of famous people called “Who's Who in the East”. WWII broke out in September of 1939. I was still living in Mukachevo when the Germans came to end our freedom. The Germans first took the families from areas around the city. When they had congregated all of the “out-‐of-‐towners” they took us too. When we heard that they had first taken the people away from the small villages we knew that there were going to come. They knew that Friday was when the whole family would be home for dinner so that was the night when they came. We had about 36,000 Jews in our town and were the last ones to be shipped out of the area. The soldiers told us they were taking us to work, and we believed that. We were told to take shoes, comfortable shoes. All we had with us was a little package with some clothes. They loaded us up in the dark in the back of a truck and then took us to a wide-‐open space next to the This picture of the Jews of Munckacs leaving town and headed for Auschwitz is part of Vad Yashem's Exhibition: The Story of Munckacs, a Town in the Carpathian Mountains. You can see the whole story online at: http://http://www1.yadvashem.org/yv/en/exhibitions/communities/munkacs/

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railroad tracks. We called the place Mexico because it was wild and undeveloped at the time. There we waited all night on the ground. Eventually they loaded us on a cattle train. They separated the men and the women. We rode the train for three days and three nights. The conditions were just horrible. We all did everything in the same place and then you threw it out a little window. The people in the trains had no place to even lay down. If you were an elderly person they let you sit in the back of the car against the wall so you could support your old back. You couldn’t lay down, you just slept sitting up. For food we got a slab of bread and a piece of margarine and that was it. The bread was black like a burned out television. Nobody wanted to eat that bread. So when we arrived, we threw it away into a furnace. But two days later we took it out because we didn’t have anything else to eat. Our destination was Auschwitz. When we arrived at they first took us out for “lapel” or roll call. The boys and men went first. My husband and I were separated right away because I was from Czechoslovakia and he was from Poland. He did not survive and I never saw him again. The notorious Mengele was standing by the gate. As we walked in he took a close look at you and then had you undress so he could see if your body was clean and that you didn't have any lesions. He would then point to one of two lines, left and right. We didn't know what left and right meant. So my sister and I both got in the right line. But we also had a niece by the name of Leah with us who was only twelve years old. (My brother was married to Leah's mother, Esther Yita.) So Leah also chose right to be with us. She was tall but skinny and when she was undressed you could see she was only a kid. In order to keep her with us we would always send her through first then where she went through, we'd go through. Later we were told about the people who came there before us. A guard had told them “You see that chimney over there?” Smoke was coming out. If you didn't react the guard would become more bitter. So he then said, “You came in at the gate, but you will go out in that chimney.” The people who had arrived before us were also bitter because at that time we still looked normal.

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My younger sister, Helen, and I usually tried to survive by pretending to be non-‐persons. We always tried to not be visible. We avoided the SS men if possible and the SS women were even worse than the men. They carried hard rubber weapons and whenever they could they would hit you on the head or the shoulders. So you were in danger if you even walked near them. So if you stayed in a corner when they walked by you weren't that visible and they didn't hit you. My sister and I were always together in the camp. We helped each other. We would also take turns going out of the barracks to find anyone from our city or from our family. I went a lot of times to the same barracks and people became annoyed with me. So I said to myself I have to get organized. I needed a piece of paper and a pencil. But where do I get a paper and pencil? I was very good with sewing so I did some sewing for some Jewish prisoners on the kitchen staff who had more access to supplies: a little bread, a little margarine. I always managed to do something with my hands so I could get us some food. They gave me a little sugar for my sister who was very frail. She would lick the sugar and then it later turned out that she was diabetic. There was also a German soldier who had pity on us. So they gave me the pencil and piece of paper and I got organized. I kept track of the barracks by their numbers. Some people on my list I found were already dead or were dirty and hungry. We had saved some margarine and a couple of days of bread for our other sister, Frieda, but we couldn't find her. When we finally did find her she was in horrible condition. The air in her building was terrible. We didn't even want to open the door when we went to visit her afraid that we would find her dead. Shortly after we finally found her Helen and I both came down with Typhus. But we didn't want to go to the hospital. We decided that now we had found Frieda we were not going to leave her. But eventually we did end up in the hospital. We were delirious and didn't even know what we were doing. My younger sister would get up and walk outside. They asked her where she was going and she told them that she was going back to our home in Mukachevo. So I found a piece of electric cord and bound her leg to my leg so that if she moved it would awaken me. But then Frieda died.

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The camp was surrounded by a forest with hiding Partisans. But they had to stay hidden. They would try to help us but it wasn’t good if somebody escaped. If that happened the guards lined up the remaining prisoners and had them count “one two three four” up to ten. They then shot every tenth prisoner. It taught the rest of the “workers” that they shouldn’t try to escape anymore. Under the hardship and constant pressure people lost their humanity. There was even a mother and daughter who when they got the bread rations would steal from each other. They were no longer human. They were just concerned about surviving. They didn’t care about each other and whether the mother or the daughter would die. My sister and I tried to do things for ourselves. If it was Passover we wouldn’t eat any bread even if we didn’t have any matzo or anything like that. There were girls working in the kitchen. As I continued sewing for one of the girls and she would supply me with some potato peels. I would wash the potato peels and we would sometimes make soup in an iron oven in the middle of our barracks with no salt or anything. If someone was lucky enough to get into the kitchen they would steal a potato or two. But you couldn’t carry them out because someone was always watching and if you were carrying something they would examine it. So we’d carry socks and roll them up and inside we would have one or two potatoes. But what were we going to do with them? We had a daily allowance for bread and margarine. So we took the potato and sliced it thin and carved a make-‐believe radish or something and put it with the margarine on the bread. My sister and through the selection process, we had to go to work. You had to show production. Now Leah couldn't work like a grownup for she was just a kid. So we had to also work for her and managed to keep her with us. We worked for Krups and they needed ten thousand workers. Who came cheaper than we did? They gave us striped light and dark grey uniforms (not a coat or a dress). On the left side was a yellow star. There were also Russian prisoners of war and they had red stars. In the early morning we’d go for roll call at 4:00 AM and they’d have to check that no one was missing. And then we went back in and got a bowl of soup from a big kettle with someone who dealt it out. We

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always carried our own bowl with us. If we were lucky the person giving out the soup would dip all the way down in the kettle and you got thick soup with potatoes. But if it was from the top, it was nothing. For the whole day of work, you also got a slice of bread and a little square of margarine. Then off to work. They put us in a munitions factory. We handled large bombs that were about two feet high and a foot wide and even without explosives they were very heavy. My job was loading the empty bombs. One person would lift the bomb onto a conveyor. I stood on the conveyor and poured a hot orange liquid into its funnel shaped nose. A third person removed the finished bomb and placed it in line for shipment. The bomb couldn't explode by itself. When dropped from an airplane it exploded when it hit. Orange drops sometimes ran over the sides and onto our clothes. Everything turned orange. The Germans were very clean people and they wanted us to stay clean too. But we didn't have a washer. So what do we do? We washed them in the washroom and then laid them under our bodies to dry while we slept. We also had shoes with heavy wooden soles. The upper part of the shoe was made from linen or some other fabric and when the shoes got wet the cloth separated from the wood. Then you had no shoes. So we took a string and tied it around the shoe top to hold everything together. Even early in the cold winter mornings we had to walk to the factory in our tied up wooden shoes. We would be tired and cold before we even got there. We sometimes received help from the Russian prisoners. They were treated somewhat better and took pity on us. They would bring us some bread and help lift the heavy bombs onto the conveyor belt. Though prisoners they were getting better treatment because they were soldiers and prisoners of war. But we were dead because we were Jews. The plant operated 24 hours a day. We worked ten hours shifts during the week and six hours on Saturday and Sunday One of the worst things was that we had to alternate our schedule working one week at night and one during the day. We were all mixed up. When we had six hours, you would go into the barrack where you lived and you would think, now I am going to relax? But No! We also had a woman guard who was beautiful and could have been a movie star. But she was in the

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SS and must have also been a sadist. On our day to relax she walked around with her rubber billy stick. If she didn’t like someone or if someone wasn’t standing straight she would hit them on the head or whatever she could reach: Boom! Boom! Boom! She wore a black hat and we called her the “Schwartza” or Black Lady. We didn't have to work on Sunday unless you volunteered. So why would people volunteer? Because you got an extra bowl of soup and to help avoid the beatings of the Schwartza. One Sunday in wintertime we had volunteered but we didn't want to leave Leah alone and took her with us. It was a snowy day, and we were traveling both walking and riding in a truck. The snow was high and heavy and the truck got in the snow and couldn't move. So we had to get out of the truck and push it out of the snow. As we were pushing the truck started moving and we had to jump out of the way. But Leah got caught under the wheels and crushed all the bones in both of her legs. Now we had a crippled child with us. But fortunately we managed to save her because we had a Jewish lady doctor who worked in a little makeshift hospital and had “racmonus” (pity) on us and let her stay in the hospital. Hiding her there and not pushing her out to work enabled her to survive. Later, when we were liberated Leah chose to live with had her real aunt in another place. We eventually lost contact of her when we finally came to America. I worked at that factory fourteen months, and one of the regular German soldiers (not SS) kept telling us to “hold out another three days and the Russians are coming.” But it never came true and so we called him “The Story teller.” And then when it actually happening we didn’t believe him. Finally one morning at 4:30 we heard all kind of shooting. We didn’t know what it was. Was it safe? But it didn’t matter for we had to go see. No, the soldiers didn't have German uniforms. It took us a little time to figure it out and we even lined up for muster. But the English and the Russians had come to liberate us. That was May 22nd of 1945, the day that I was liberated from Auschwitz after 14 months. Representatives from the Red Cross came and interviewed us. They wanted to know where we were from and whether other family

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members were still alive. They were going to try and reunite us. My sister Frieda had died at Auschwitz. They finally found two of my brothers who were forced workers in Russia. But by the end of the war they were also missing and never survived. I had a twin brother but we had been separated. I never saw him again. Of our nine siblings only my sister Helen and I and our one brother, Morris, survived. That's all. Nobody else. Three of nine children.

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Dr. Kressler: And now Iboja will light a candle in honor of all those who survived the holocaust, and a candle in memory of those who died in the Holocaust.

A Presentation to Iboja Goldspiel and Eli Shaw by Sylvia Klauber

Eli and Ebi, these plaques represent only a small bit of our acknowledgment of what you have survived before coming to live at Eisenberg. We thank you for sharing your stories with us. In your honor, a donation has been made to Vad Yashem, the Jewish people’s living memorial to the Holocaust, which for 50 years has been committed to Commemoration, Documentation, Research and Education. We do this in the hope that neither we, nor our children nor our children’s children, will forget the holocaust or its horrors.

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A Prayer for the Future by Florence Katz

Let all who care Do their share To repair the world for peace and not despair.

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A Prayer for the Future by Joseph Zaucha

We mourn the death of six million people who died in the Holocaust and fifty million military casualties. What do we tell our children? As Eli Wiesel says, “the opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference.” What do we tell our children? So we must not be indifferent to our neighbor’s, our country’s, and the world’s problems. What do we tell our children? We must teach the children of the World to smile. What do we tell our children? We must not let our individual dedication to God separate us. What do we tell our children? We must eliminate Greed from the world’s vocabulary. What do we tell our children? All citizens of the world must learn to live in peace and understanding. That’s what we should tell our children.

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Harriet Willins and Her Grandson Light the Candle in Honor of the Children of the Future