The Other Samuel
Wed., May 24, 11:49 AM
When I wrote about my gramma, I mentioned that she was married to Samuel. I never knew that Samuel; he died years before my parents married. But I did know a grandfather named Samuel because both sets of grandparents were Samuel and Rebecca. (When we were little, my brother and I thought it was a rule – didn’t everyone have matching grandparents?) This Samuel was my mother’s father.
My personal memories of Grranpa [that’s not a typo, that’s the way he said it] are, of course, as an old man, although from my current perspective, he wasn’t all that old. But as the first grandchild, I was the one who “made him an old man.”
He was gentle and loving, and he absolutely adored his grandchildren. It was as if they were the reward for all his hard work. When I apologized for making him old, he said, “For this I’m glad to be old.” I recall his insistence on carrying a suitcase for me; “it’s my happiness,” he said.
The more I learn about the old country and the hardships he must have endured, the more I admire my grandfather. This gentle little man, a tailor and a scholar, braved far off dangers like ocean voyages and strange new places, in order to make a better life for his family. Wherever did he find the courage!
With two small children, the family left Dvinsk and settled in Glasgow, Scotland. (My mother, the younger of the two, was born in 1913; if World War I had not yet begun, she was just an infant.) I am sure my mother told me that he went first and they came later; my sister is just as sure that all four of them traveled together. You’ll notice that the details don’t make a difference. Either way, it must have been a frightening trip.
A paradox of Russian thinking was that, although the Russian people hated their Jews, they didn’t want them to leave. Men were expected to serve in the army, and army life was especially agonizing for Jewish men, who were regularly tormented by officers and fellow soldiers alike. Samuel did serve in the army – there’s a photograph of him in uniform – but I don’t think he stayed until he was discharged. That might well have made him a “wanted” person. Who knows?
Women and children – and perhaps men too old for military service – might buy official documents to emigrate legally. Those without papers sneaked across the border in the middle of the night. In a book called World of Our Fathers, author Irving Howe suggests that the border guards paid no attention to the illegal emigrés. Howe says that those stealing out under cover of darkness may have been safer than travelers with official documents, who were often detained at the departure ports despite the papers they had bought so dearly.
Whether or not that was true, the refugees didn’t know it; my grandmother was terrified that the crying baby would alert the guards. Many years later, my aunt would taunt my mother: “You scared Mama when you cried when we were leaving Russia. I remember.”
After about eight years in Glasgow, Samuel traveled once again, this time to America. I can’t find documentation of his arrival, but he may have entered at a different port or even under another name. (It was not uncommon for passengers to travel on the ticket of someone who was unable to go. Do you think he would have been classified an illegal immigrant?) The family followed (I actually found the ship’s manifesto at the Ellis Island web site – Rebecca with her children aged eleven, nine, seven, five, and one. Samuel was listed as the official greeter and guarantor for the family. What a trip that must have been!
My grandmother must have been pretty gutsy herself. My mother never talked a lot about her mother, and it’s not easy to build a picture from just bits and pieces. On the other hand, the children of her daughters can infer a great deal; I suspect she was a no-nonsense person, to put it mildly. Her health was poor by the time she came to the U.S., and she had another baby a year or two later. She died around 1930, when the oldest girls were in their teens and the baby was about five.
Eventually, Samuel married a widow with three sons, thus providing a housekeeper and mother for his children. We children were horrified to learn that our mother had had a stepmother, like in fairy tales, though my mother assured me that her stepmother was a nice lady. The oldest sister, who considered herself the woman of the house after her mother died, had no intention of relinquishing her position to the newcomer. Since there was no other option, she went to live with a cousin.
When I was a little girl, Grranpa and his wife still lived in Staten Island, New York, but they moved to Los Angeles not long after the end of the war. Whenever Grranpa came east, he traveled alone. I absolutely cannot remember anything concrete about “Grandma Minnie.” I asked my sister, since she had visited them in Los Angeles; she remembered a “whiner.”
My father liked to tell the story of the time he came to visit when no one answered the door, although he rang the doorbell several times. He could hear the girls laughing upstairs, but they couldn’t hear him, and finally he left. He later found out that Minnie had heard the bell, but she didn’t answer it because “it wasn’t for me.” I always thought that spoke volumes about her relationship with Samuel’s daughters.
Wherever they lived, Grranpa did tailoring and often operated his own dry cleaning shop. He had been trained as a tailor but, according to my mother, he hated it. Nevertheless, his trade supported him and his family throughout his life. (After all, the Talmud says that he who does not teach his child a trade is teaching him to be a thief.) He often created clothes for his children when they were adults. My mother particularly spoke of a nice suit he made for her and how he approved the blouse she chose to wear with it. He made one item that survives; Sister still has my mother’s fur coat. Even though I don’t make a habit of wearing fur and, of course, it is now very old-fashioned, I would wear that coat if I were thin enough. It is full of history and love.
Rebecca was a seamstress too, so I always found it interesting that not one of their daughters sewed. I got the impression that she didn’t have the patience to wait while children learned; “it’s quicker to do it myself.” My mother always intended to make things when she retired; she collected interesting remnants when she sold fabric, but she never used them. The last time she attempted to knit a sweater, I finished it for her.
We were in the wrong places at the wrong time. Our grandfather was the kind of person I would have loved to know better, and I probably would have, had he lived a little closer – or had I been more adventurous. He was living on the west coast when I finished college and died perhaps a year later. We’re all a little poorer for it.
Grranpa’s life spanned several worlds, from the 1890’s in the shtetl to California in the 1960’s. He had lived with the immigrants in New York City and among the farmers of Pennsylvania. He held onto the things that were important to him, like his family and his religion. Like many Jews of his era, he spoke at least three languages – Yiddish, Russian and probably some Lithuanian, and English – with the strong Scottish burr that he never lost. He impressed my Dad as a learned man. (I have to accept hearsay evidence; we were too young to be able to make that evaluation for ourselves.)
My youngest cousins don’t remember him much; fifteen years makes a big difference. Their mother has some of the documentation, but in all likelihood, she doesn’t remember much now either. All of his other children are gone now too; I guess I’ll have to remember for everyone.
