My Gramma
Mon., October 6, 06:40 PM
Thanks to Denver Doug, who picked up a mention of Gramma and said he’d like to know more about her.
I’m talking about my paternal grandmother, who lived with us until I was about six years old. Daddy was her baby – an unexpected bonus, I think – and he would have been ninety-four this year, so we’re talking about a long time ago. She seemed very old to me then, but I looked at this photo of the two of us
taken in the early forties; she wasn’t much older than I am now.
I never asked her questions about her early life, because I wasn’t old enough to realize there was a story there. Dad passed along some information that helps us build the story. Let’s call her Rebecca for a while.
Rebecca was born in Romania. She had some brothers (I know of two, but there may have been more), but she was the only girl. Her brothers went to school. It wasn’t important to educate a girl, and so she had to stay home and help her father with the business. She resented it, but she did it.
She was devoted to her father. There’s a story that once she actually attacked a Romanian soldier who visited their tavern, because she was afraid he would hurt her father. (It was not an illogical assumption.) She must have been something of a spitfire. I only remember her with white hair, but a woman who knew her when she was young told me she had luxurious black hair and was very beautiful. (And why didn’t I inherit that?!)
In due time, she married Samuel and had two children – my uncle Abe and my aunt Esther. It must have been Samuel’s decision to go to America, although one of her brothers also immigrated. I don’t know who came first, can’t find information at the Ellis Island web site. (For some reason I was able to find my mother’s ship, although her name was much more common. That’s an entirely different story.) Nevertheless, I am sure that they came in the early 1900’s. My uncle Mayer was born in America, quite a bit older than Dad, who was born in 1909.
According to what my grandfather told Dad, the Hebrew Immigration Aid Society was willing to fund their coming to the “Goldene Medina” as long as they settled somewhere other than New York. If you read The Grandees and Our Crowd by Stephen Birmingham or Poor Cousins by Ande Manners, you begin to recognize the charitable goals of the affluent Jews in New York. (And I understand their logic – don’t necessarily agree, but I understand.) Whatever the reason, Rebecca and Samuel settled in Stamford, Connecticut.
Over the next thirty years, I would have to say they did all right. Samuel did some factory work, but eventually they ran their own business (several different ones, I think). They owned property. They raised and educated four children. Abe was at least twelve years older than Dad, who said he never remembered him in “short pants.” Abe was a high school football star and a lieutenant in World War I. His first child made Dad an uncle when he was only nine years old.
Esther was a telephone operator before she married. Her children made Dad an uncle again. After Mayer married, Dad was the only child left at home. He was the one who bought things for his mother, like a dog to keep her company when he was gone and an electric refrigerator to replace the icebox. He took her to the (silent) movies and read the subtitles for her. (Evidently that was not unusual; our literacy rate was a great deal lower eighty years ago.) She was very devout, although Samuel was the one who was learned in religion (of course). Dad was religious too; he was very much his mother’s son.
Samuel and Rebecca ran a grocery store in the building that eventually became the house at Court Street. Rebecca spoke three languages – Romanian, Yiddish, and English – and she ran a couple of different stores, but she never did learn to read. We have a feeling that she must have picked up something; she knew the letters of the English alphabet. She certainly had the aptitude for arithmetic that we all had, as well as facility in languages. When a letter arrived from relatives in Europe, her brother Adoph (whom we just called “Uncle,”) would come over and read it to her.
Uncle was another person we should have learned from. He was older than Rebecca, and I never knew what his trade was. His sons included a doctor and an accountant. Uncle may have been born left-handed, for he could write with either hand. Dad said he could write – different things – with both hands at the same time.
By the time my father met my mother, Rebecca was a widow and Dad was the breadwinner. After they were married, Rebecca let my mother run the household, teaching her whatever she needed to know. Within two years, her name was Gramma; I never heard anyone call her Rebecca. I’m not the oldest grandchild, obviously, but I think my brother and I were the only ones she lived with.
Some of the things I remember about Gramma: she had diabetes and Dad gave her an injection every morning before he went to work. She got up every morning and dressed and did her hair, but she spent a lot of time sleeping in an easy chair. Every Friday she baked bread, excellent rolls and an occasional challah. She also made wonderful apple strudel. She cooked home-made dog food for Chang. She got lung from the butcher, which she prepared according to kosher ritual before cooking it and putting it through the grinder. Chang wouldn’t eat food that wasn’t kosher.
With the arrival of my sister, the house was overcrowded (only four rooms) and Gramma went to live with Aunt Esther, about a block away. My brother and I could walk there to visit her. My last memories: she was bedridden, so happy to see us, pulling out the candies she kept just for us. She passed on a couple of years later; my sister doesn’t remember her at all.
My feeling is that I never made the most of what she had to offer. And I don’t think anyone ever loved me as much as she did.
