August 2, 1928 - New York City

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New York Aug. 2nd 1928

My Dear Jeanie: -

I am in receipt of your card and letter
which is so peculiar of that fighting spirit of yours
which I so admire, in fact I got a kick out of reading it,
I am really sorry if I made you sore, and please
let's consider that a closed incident.¹

From your meager description of the place I can
gather that it is an ideal place for you to get a real
rest, with noise and excitement the city can supply you
plentiful.²

Your folks received your card and letter as well
dad told me that he was feeling fine and so does everyone
in your family.

My working season is getting a slow start, I am
off again today and tomorrow on again, my business
to me is a like a barometer description of the poor
business conditions of the current times.³

This morning my dear I mailed you a
package of candies I hope that you will receive it
before the end of this week.

And now I intend sending you some funny
magazines, at a quiet place like the one you're at
it would serve well to fill out your leisure time by
reading light literature.⁴

./.


2.

I think that your neighbor Etta the Kid, her
mother and Phil are leaving for the country today
and my friend Jack will be lonesome for awhile.⁵

This Friday I will be up your house and
see everybody and hear little Shirley's greeting to me
which is something like this Alloh Messah Shaman⁶
that's the way she saluted me last time, and besides
I expect your father to have a revival of old music like
Ich bin a yingele von Poilen, the Bowery, etc. and if
I can hook you up on the phone you will have the
pleasure of listening to this Grand Operatic Concert.⁷

Here I'm closing that I may leave
space for another poem this time by Robert
Burns the immortal Scotch poet.

Your Harry.

Intermingled with Scotch words.

It is Na, Jean, They Bonie Face

In is na, Jean, they bonie face,
Nor shape that I admire,
Altho thy beauty and thy grace
Might well awauk desire

Something, ilka part o' thee
To praise, to love, I find,
But dear so is thy form to me,
Still dearer is thy mind.

Nae mair ungenorous wish I hae
Nor stronger in my breast,
Than, if I canna make the sae,
At least to see thee blest.

Content am I, if heaven shall give
But happiness to thee;
And as wi' thee I wish to live,
For thee I'd bear to die.

H.

P.S.

Jean is the correct name
as used by Burns in the
above poem.

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1 - We can’t be sure, but it looks like my grandmother gave Papa a figurative earful for his July 29th letter, in which he took her to task for blowing off a scheduled phone call with him and upsetting his plans. True to his remarkably forgiving, generous nature, Papa takes what was almost certainly a grouchy card and a nasty letter and interprets them as admirable, entertaining signs of her “fighting spirit”. This may seem like an exaggerated response designed by Papa to demonstrate his devotion to my grandmother or defuse her anger, but I don’t think it’s too far from sincere. My grandmother gave what we could politely call enthusiastic voice to her “fighting spirit” throughout her life with Papa, and had he not a real capacity to admire it, or even enjoy it, he likely wouldn’t have been able to tolerate it.

2 - On the other hand, Papa still hasn’t stopped expressing dissatisfaction with my grandmother’s infrequent and spare correspondence, in this case her “meagre” description of her summer vacation spot, the Viola Hotel in Lake Huntington, New York. Perhaps, as a non-native English speaker, Papa has improperly used the word “meagre” to mean “short” without understanding its connotations of deprivation, but I think his oft-demonstrated, admirable writing skills preclude the possibility. He’s just not going to let my grandmother off the hook for her lack of interest in communication.

3 - Those of us who haven’t formally studied economic history tend to think the Great Depression hit the United States rather suddenly in 1929, but of course it couldn’t have happened all at once. American workers like Papa obviously detected “the poor business conditions of the current times” much earlier, and in the election year of 1928 Democratic Presidential candidate (and New York Governor) Al Smith and other critics of President Coolidge publicly questioned whether the economy was as healthy as it looked. (Perhaps the subject of the economy came up in Papa’s letter because it was a hot topic of conversation that year.) Papa had shown his support for Al Smith and his anti-Prohibition, progressive platform during the disastrous 1924 Democratic Convention, so he was probably as happy about Smith’s candidacy in ’28 as he was unhappy about Herbert Hoover’s eventual victory.

4 - This reminds me that my grandmother had a strong appetite for “light literature,” especially Harlequin Romances and the like.

5 - “My friend Jack” was, as those of you who have been following along well know, the legendary Jack Zichlinsky, one of Papa’s best friends. Jack lived just a few doors down from my grandmother’s family on Hart Street in Brooklyn and, judging by the familiar way Papa discusses him here, knew my grandmother fairly well.

6 - That’s “Hello mister Scheuermann” in baby talk, in case it wasn’t clear.

7 - My mother tells me that everyone in my grandmother’s family yelled at each other all the time, but Papa’s letters indicate that they liked to sing together, as well. (Perhaps they were a musical bunch in general; they even boasted a professional violinist among their ranks in the person of my grandmother’s brother, Bob.) If you've been paying attention you'll remember that Papa had already established my grandfather's mastery of the traditional Yiddish song “A Yingele fon Poilen” in his May 7, 1925 postcard, but in case you missed it here’s a version of it by the Kharkof Klezmer Band from Last.fm:



This is the first time Papa has mentioned “The Bowery,” a beloved ditty from Charles H. Hoyt’s 1891 musical “A Trip To Chinatown.” The blog Vitaphone Varieties tells us that vintage recordings of “The Bowery” are difficult to come by, but it does make this contemporary reproduction available:



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Update:

In his last letter, Papa quoted a Robert Browning poem because he found himself unable to compose for my grandmother a "sentimental" passage of his own. Though he blamed the summer heat for his sluggish writing skills, I think he was (as I noted previously) angry with my grandmother for blowing off a phone appointment and for her ongoing lack of interest in written correspondence. He expressed his irritation in mild ways, but I think he really wanted to say more, maybe even explode with frustration over her five years of spare communication and withheld affection. At odds with these feelings, he may have developed a little writer's block to keep the words at bay. Perhaps he quoted another poem in this letter because he still felt angry, still needed to keep his safety valves shut tight against the gathering flood.

References:

• 'COOLIDGE ECONOMY' MYTH, SMITH TELLS MISSOURIANS; CHARGES REPUBLICAN WASTE; GETS OVATION AT SEDALIA, MO - The New York Times, October 16, 1928
• A Trip to Chinatown at Wikipedia
• Al Smith biography at Wikipedia
• 1928 Presidential Campaign coverage from Time.com
• Lyrics to "The Bowery" at A Traditional Music Library

Sunday Dec 28

Sadie B's company was
pleasant.

Just Kissable.

Evening at Channukaa
Partyat Jack's (Zichlinsky)
Hart St. home.

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Matt's Notes

"Sadie B." must be Sadie Breindel, one of the three distant cousins with whom Papa shared a bed when he first came to America (Clara and Eva were the others, and all were the daughters of Max and Dora, who continued to favor Papa with their generosity throughout his young life).

As we've noted before, my grandmother used to shout "you slept with my husband!" when she'd see Sadie in later years, and though this line never failed to kill I'm now starting to wonder if Papa didn't actually carry a torch for Sadie. I thought it might have signalled more than just brotherly affection for her diminutive figure when he called her "little Sadie" earlier in the year, but what else are we supposed to think when he refers to her as "just kissable" in today's entry? (At least I think it says "just," though the word "kissable" is unmistakable.)



Papa may have had Sadie's kissable lips on his mind as he watched her eat latkes and sing about the Maccabees at Jack Zichlinsky's party, but little did he know my grandmother (a.k.a. "Nana") was less than three blocks away, or that he was destined to meet her and fall for her completely within the next four months. (Jack was at #24 Hart Street and my grandmother lived with her family at #226.) I don't know exactly when he met her, but we've recently unearthed the letters he wrote her throughout their courtship, the first of which is dated April 22, 1925. I'll be posting them next year.

Friday Nov 21

visited Arin Schneiderman
taking her afterward to the
camp ex. meeting at Jacks
house.

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Matt's Notes

Most of this entry will make sense to those of us following Papa's diary: "the camp" refers to "The Maccabean" chapter of B'nai Zion (a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion) the fraternal order to which Papa belonged; "ex. meeting" must be a meeting of the The Maccabean's executive committee, which Papa was part of in his capacity as Master of Ceremonies; "Jack" is none other than the storied personage Jack Zichlinsky, who lived on Hart Street in Brooklyn (and, as I scarcely need to add, would later move to Sheepshead Bay).

Ms. Scheiderman, the woman Papa brought to the meeting, is a bit more mysterious, not only because we haven't met her before but because I can't read her first name. Papa's handwriting is normally exceptional, but it looks like he wrote this entry quickly and I don't think the pencil he'd been using lately was at its sharpest. (I like to think that his meeting went late but, intrigued by his encounter with Ms. Schneiderman, he felt like he had to jot something down before turning in, dull pencil be damned.)

In any event, here's a closer look at how he wrote Ms. Scheiderman's name. It looks a little like "Arin," but while that seems like the first name of a modern person with hippie parents, it doesn't seem like an old-fashioned first name. It also looks a little like "Unis," which could be a misspelling of "Eunice," though that's a stretch. Take a look at see what you think:

Friday Oct 24

A camp Ex. meeting at
Jack Z's house

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A "camp Ex. meeting" likely means an executive meeting of Papa's chapter, or camp, of B'nai Zion (a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion) the Zionist fraternal order to which he belonged. His camp had formed just nine months earlier and went by the nickname "The Maccabean," a reference to the Jewish warrior heroes of the Hanukkah story. Papa had fought for the nickname, believing it conveyed an image of strength and competence, in the same eventful meeting in which he was elected Master of Ceremonies.

Papa's B'nai Zion brothers were also some of his best friends; "Jack Z." is, as our regular readers know, none other than the legendary Jack Zichlinsky, whose home on Brooklyn's Hart Street saw many a visit from Papa. I expect Papa had just hung out with a lot of his camp brothers on the previous day, too, when he attended a reception for the Zionist leader David Yellis at the Hotel Astor.

Friday Oct 10

Spend the evening with friends
at Nathan Zichlinsky's house
until after 2 a.m.

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Papa's diary features supporting appearances from three men named Zichlinsky: Jack, one of Papa's closest, lifelong friends; Julius, whose full name appears only once but may be the same Julius with whom Papa enjoyed many an outing but only referred to by first name; and Nathan, whose home on Brooklyn's Willoughby Avenue was previously host to a meeting of B'nai Zion, Papa's fraternal order.

Your Papa's Diary Project scorecard is surely too covered in scribbles and arrows by now to be of much use, but yes, I'll confirm that you did, in fact, make a little notation about yet another Zichlinsky, this one named Jacob, and you made it in reference to my September 19th post in which I questioned whether Jacob, who is listed in the 1925 New York City directory as a leatherworker residing at 24 Hart Street in Brooklyn, was actually Papa's friend Jack. At the time I assumed he wasn't.

Ah, but how different I am from the headstrong, impetuous incarnation of myself who occupied this chair three weeks ago! Younger, yes, unbowed by experience, to be sure, but so presumptuous, so careless! Since then, I've done a bit of research on ancestry.com and learned that: three men named Nathan, Julius and Jacob Zichlinsky all hailed from the same town in Russia; they were all around Papa's age; they all lived together for a time on Broome Street; Julius and Jacob worked in the same leather goods store together when they were younger; and, finally, Jacob eventually resided in the very Sheepshead Bay neighborhood where my grandmother could be relied upon to shout "Jack Zichlinsky lived there" when passing through. The evidence isn't bullet-proof, but it certainly implies that these Zichlinskys were the brothers Papa palled around with and that Jacob of Hart Street was Papa's friend and went by the nickname "Jack."

Long live the Internets.

Friday Sept 19

A pleasant evening
at Jack Z's house

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"Jack Z." is, as my legions of readers know, none other than Jack Zichlinsky, Papa's lifelong friend whose name was legendary in my family. I'm not sure where Papa visited him on this day; the 1924 and 1925 New York City Directories list a Jacob Zichlinsky at 24 Hart Street in Brooklyn's Bed-Stuy neighborhood, but I don't think that's our man. (Jacob was a leather worker and likely owned his home, as indicated by the lower-case "h" in front of his address in the Directory. Papa's address, 94 Attorney Street, in the same book is preceded by a lower case "r" to signify that he merely resided there. Anyway, I'll add Jacob's address to our map of Where Papa's Been just in case.)

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Update

Since writing this post I've deduced that Jacob Zichlisky was, in fact, Jack Zichliskly. The October 10th post has the thrilling blow-by-blow account of my investigation.

Thursday Sept 11

Visited Julius Zichlinsky

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Julius Zichlinsky was the brother of Brooklyn's own Jack Zichlinsky, and both were, I am told, members of Papa's Zionist fraternal organization, Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B'nai Zion).

As we've discussed before, such groups provided essential services to immigrants like Papa; B'nai Zion sold affordable life insurance, guaranteed its members a proper Jewish burial, and ran a credit union that Papa and Jack helped organize. I'm not sure if fraternal orders guaranteed friendship among its members as well, but Julius and Jack were two of Papa's closest companions in 1924 and, in fact, remained so for the rest of their lives.

Tuesday July 15

Went with Jack Z. to arrange
with a lawyer about the
camp credit union.

I am alarmed not having
received any call yet
about my naturalization.

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Matt's Notes

"Jack Z." is, as we've noted before, the august Jack Zichlinsky, one of Papa's best friends and a brother in the Zionist fraternal organization Order Sons of Zion (B'nai Zion). Immigrants like Papa were used to getting a number of financial, medical and legal services through private, dues-supported organizations like B'nai Zion, which was already a burial society and a reseller of life insurance for its members. As an officer of his local chapter Papa was obviously responsible for organizing its credit union as well.

Though he's discussed B'nai Zion many times before, this entry has the first mention of Papa's naturalization status. According to The National Archives and Ancestry.com Web sites, naturalization would have been a two-step process for Papa: after living in the U.S. for at least two years, he would have filed a Declaration of Intention to naturalize (a.k.a. "First Papers") and after a waiting period of another three to five years he would have filed a Petition for Naturalization.

Ancestry.com's New York County Supreme Court Naturalization Petition Index shows that Papa probably filed his petition in June of 1920. He'd been waiting a while for his naturalization, but I wonder why he picked July 15th, 1924 to feel especially worried about it. Maybe Jack Z.'s own naturalization has just come through and he'd discussed it with Papa while they were out and about, or maybe naturalization chatter had increased in the local community, in the newspapers, or on the radio for some reason. The Johnson-Reed Act of 1924, a bill that imposed heavy immigration restrictions on Eastern Europeans (among other groups) had also become law couple of months earlier -- maybe Papa had just gotten around to worrying about it now since it happened around the time of his father's death. In any event, I have to look into this more.

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Additional References

• The Lower East Side Tenement Museum Web site has a good overview of immigration law.
• Wikipedia's entry on the Immigration Act of 1924
• HUGE VOTES FOR EXCLUSION; House 308 to 58, Senate 69 to 9, Pass Immigration Bill. (From the May 16th, 1924 New York Times.)

Sunday June 15

Spent all afternoon with
the boys at Jack Zichlinskys
house, the occasion was the
brief visit of Friend Wiener

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As I've mentioned before, the words "Jack Zichlinsky's house" are comedy gold in my family, since we used to laugh about my grandmother's tendency to blurt out "Jack Zichlinsky lived there" whenever we drove with her past his building in Sheepshead Bay.

Papa and Jack were both fraternal brothers in the Order Sons of Zion (B'nai Zion) as were many of "the boys" they hung out with. I'm not sure why Papa capitalized "Friend Wiener"; is it just a mistake or was Weiner part of some affiliate organization and therefore deserving of the title "Friend"?