Friday Oct 3

Philip my brother in law
had a serious accident
his hands are wounded
and his children are not well,

Oh God help them get well
again

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As I've mentioned before, Papa's sister Nettie seemed to suffer far more from the day-to-day indignities of Jewish immigrant life in New York's tenements than Papa did, at least in 1924. Her children were sick and wracked with coughing fits; the joy of her son's birth was compromised by a telegram from overseas announcing her father's death; her husband, Philip, got pushed around by an opportunistic shyster posing as a teacher of English; and now Philip, already in and out of work, suffered an accident from which, I've been told, he never quite recovered.

Unfortunately, even as Papa constructed a more uplifting story for himself in subsequent years, Nettie's life continued to describe a tragic arc. Her daughter, Ruchale, would die of meningitis and Nettie would eventually conclude a long struggle with mental illness by taking her own life. Her sadness was of a very different sort than Papa's, incurable, bleak; I wonder if, in subsequent years, Papa contrasted his own life to hers and felt, through his empathetic sadness, somehow thankful.