Papa's World's a Stage

Papa's quiet strength and generous spirit, so readily apparent in the pages of his diary and letters, has inspired my wife, Stephanie, to include a character who is very much like him in her one-woman show, "Feed the Monster."

A good chunk of "Feed the Monster" takes place in 1940's Brighton Beach, where Stephanie's character grew up and, of course, where Papa lived with my grandmother and later raised my mother. Stephanie's character deliberately has Papa's last name (Scheuermann) and quite accidentally shares my mother's Hebrew first name (Tsipporah, or Tsippy for short). "Papa", as Tsippy's father is known in the show, has a lot in common with Papa, most notably the way his outwardly ordinary, nearly anonymous existence belies the influence and inspiration he brought to the lives of others.

If you're in New York tonight I hope you'll come see the show's opening, of course (excuse the plug; I'm incredibly proud of Stephanie for putting her show together and making it to the Fringe Festival). If you don't get to see it, I hope you'll think again about Papa's Diary Project and one of the most enduring lessons it taught me: even a seemingly typical, quiet and anonymous life can, if we take the time to record and remember it, reveal itself to be remarkable, dramatic and significant, full of stories worth telling over and over again in many ways, on many stages.

Hennington Hall Revisited

A blogger who writes about Knickerbocker Village, the Lower East Side housing complex of his childhood, tells me he recently stumbled across Papa's October 20, 1924 diary entry while researching Hennington Hall. (Hennington Hall, located at 2nd Street near Avenue B, was a meeting facility where Papa's nomadic congregation apparently celebrated Simchas Torah that year, though they normally gathered at another location on East Broadway.)

He was kind enough to look into his own records for traces of Papa's history and came up with this 1927 photo depicting the corner of Rivington and Attorney Streets, just up the block from where Papa wrote his diary:

The Knickerbocker Village post has other artifacts as well, including a census record of Papa's residence at 96 Attorney Street (and listing his country of origin as Poland) and a newspaper clip describing the October 1931 shooting of a neighborhood thug known as "Big Schafie" (real name: Alfred Mederisch) whose corpse was found on the roof of Papa's building. (On the roof, I should point out, despite the promise made by the killer, Joseph Schoeffer, to "get big Schafie and throw him off a roof". I suppose he wasn't that reliable a fellow.) Papa, newly married and living elsewhere by then, would have missed the resulting hullaballoo, though it's hard to imagine that he didn't recognize Mederisch or Schoeffer's name when he read about them in the paper.

June 5, 1930 - New York City

--------

June 5th 1930

Dear Sweetheart: -

I had no chance to call you
My Dear after 5 where I stopped working
and since I cannot call you on the phone
next door, I shall related to you about
the demonstration in this note. ¹

I arrived at Madison Square
at the start of the parade, the square was
jammed with countless thousands, Rabbis
and radicals young and old came in
masses notwithstanding the terrific heat to
join in protest against the recent action
of the British government in stopping
Jewish immigration into Palestine.²

I had to be there, dearest I have
been inactive for too long a period in
a cause that is so dear to me, for
the Zionist cause is romantic one
that fire the imagination of every

./.

2

Jewish dreamer, and there I found
myself again amidst old timers,
veterans in the movement, to me it
was a sort of reunion.³

Once more I convinced myself
that when the Jewish cause is in
danger strife among Jewish factions
dissappear, as the parade has
proven, where every faction of Jewish
society life participated.

I know my Dear that you
weren't feeling well today, but I can't
see you tonight, that long march in
the hot sun got me all fatigued,

I sat at the store however all
evening but nothing came my way,

Baby I hope that by the time
you read this letter you will have

./.

3

enjoyed a good nights sleep and
be all well, and Baby remember
I will call you as usual at the
usual hour.

Mr. Katzman is waiting for me
to finish this as he wants to close
the store, ⁴So I will close

with love and Kisses

Your Harry

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Matt’s Notes

1 - Papa often used his letters to schedule phone calls with my grandmother, sometimes while she was away on vacation (in the Catskills, of course) and sometimes when he just wanted to call her at home and hear her “sweet voice.” As I recently noted, though, in 1930 he began to write about calling her “next door,” probably because the financial reversals her family had suffered in the wake of her father’s death forced her to share or borrow a neighbor’s phone.

2 - The British government’s move to restrict Jewish immigration to Palestine was in part a response to a series of infamous riots and massacres that had, a few months earlier, demonstrated the severity of Arab-Jewish antipathy in the region. (The Hebron riots are probably the most well-known to casual students of Israeli history.) This policy change did not sit well with Zionist activists; according to the New York Times, an estimated 25,000 took part in the protest “parade” Papa describes above:

In the sultry heat of late afternoon yesterday an 85-year-old Jewish patriarch, holding Hebraic writings, walked slowly down Fifth Avenue, while behind him followed 25,000 of his faith, voices changing an age-old song of Israel, a song of hope...

From Madison Square, down Fifth Avenue and into the depths of the East side, past the Bowery to Rutgers Square, over a tow and a half mile course, the white bearded man, carrying a small blue starred flag of Zion, marched. For nearly three hours the aged man, Dr. Manesse Nezinzha, born in Palestine, walked in the hot sun or stood in Madison Square to listen to a fiery speech of protest by Rabbi Stephen S. Wise...

In Grand Street near Rutgers Square the marchers passed beneath an arch of flags and then gathered under a temporary speaker’s platform on the balcony of The Day, Jewish daily, at 183 East Broadway.

My request for help (via Twitter) finding images of this event yielded a good one from our faithful reader Jim. Its rights are expensive so I'll have to settle for this link rather than display it here, but I have helpfully included a map of the likely march route below as a courtesy to my legions of obsessive readers who get together on weekends to retrace Papa's steps. (Note that Rutger’s Square, the sliver of space at the intersection of Rutgers Street, Canal and East Broadway, is now called Straus Square in honor of retail legend Nathan Straus, who devoted his life to philanthropy after his brother, Isidor, died on the Titanic in 1912. Double note that Straus Square is not the same as Straus Park, another triangular bit of greenery at 106th Street and Broadway, which is named for Isidor and his wife, Ida.)


View Larger Map

3 - The Times lists the organizations that took part in the march, many of which Papa has mentioned either directly or by association in his diary and letters, including Hadassah, Poalei-Zion, Zeiri Zion, and Jewish Sports Clubs. Order Sons of Zion, a.k.a. B’nai Zion, the mutual support society and Zionist fraternal order to which Papa belonged, also participated, and I imagine Papa joined the parade as part of their contingent.

Those less familiar with Papa’s diary and letters should note that, despite the countless Zionist meetings, speeches and fundraising events he arranged or attended throughout his adult life, he frequently wrote self-critically about his own “inactivity” or lack of attention to “the movement.” This was, of course, more a symptom of his dedication, his need to keep doing more, than an accurate assessment of his contributions. The Jewish National Fund certainly recognized his work, as evidenced by the certificate pictured below:

The certificate reads, in both English and Hebrew:

FROM THE GOLDEN BOOK OF

THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND

Provisional Certificate

INSCRIBED in honor of

Harry A. Scheuermann

Inscribed by - The Maccabean Camp Order Sons of Zion #91 - New York, N.Y.

In Recognition of His Devoted Services To The Cause of Palestine

and The Camp

(signed) Israel Goldstein

PRESIDENT OF THE JEWISH NATIONAL FUND OF AMERICA

Issued by the Jewish National Fund of America pending receipt of permanent certificate from Jerusalem

While this certificate is not dated, it was obviously issued at some point before Israeli statehood, though the only other clue as to when Papa received it is the fragment of the World War I-looking war bond poster on which it's mounted:



If there are any experts on identifying war bond poster fragments out there, I'd be much obliged if you could tell me when you think this one was in circulation. I'll keep poking around, of course.

4 - Because this letter is the last bit of Papa’s writing I’ve got (yes, it’s true, this is it) it’s hard not to see the Zionist march he describes as a sort of valedictory circuit, a farewell tour conducted for our benefit of his most trafficked pathways between the Garment District and the Lower East Side. It rounds out the narrative of Papa's Diary Project, once again giving me the sense that Papa has obeyed an unseen god of literary structure in choosing what to write about: When we first picked up his story in 1923, he walked down a crowded Broadway on New Year’s Eve, cold and contemplative, surrounded by people but feeling entirely alone. Seven years later, when he gives us this last look at the world through his eyes, the day is sunny, the weather is hot, and the packed streets, no longer indifferent, throng with friends, allies, and those who make him feel comfortable and at home. His words appear not in a diary written in solitude, but in a letter to the woman he would marry. Does this not seem like a happy ending?

Even our last glimpse of Papa is fittingly conclusive: Sunburned and exhausted, surrounded by dresses and bolts of cloth, he sits at his sewing machine in the tailor’s shop where he moonlights. He is half perched in his chair, ready to pop up, rushing to finish a letter as Mr. Katzman stands impatiently behind him. (Papa usually works with someone he calls Archie, so presumably Mr. Katzman is a more important person, probably the store’s owner.) Papa stands up, seals his letter in an envelope, crosses to the shop's glass door and pulls down the shade. Papa holds the door open while Katzman exits, turns off the lights, grabs his hat and follows Katzman out. From inside the darkened store we can see Papa, silhouetted by streetlight, as he locks the door. We hear a gentle click as he checks the doorknob for good measure. Then his shadow moves away, mixing in with those of other passers-by, and he is gone.

-----------

References

25,000 JEWS MARCH IN PALESTINE PLEA; Led by Patriarch, 85, Paraders Brave Heat to Protest Immigration Ban

COMMITTEES BLAMED FOR PALESTINE INFLUX; British Tell League Mandates Commission Jewish Groups Push Emigration Too Much.

WALKER BACKS JEWS IN PALESTINE PROTEST; Expresses Sympathy for Mass Meeting Against British Ban on Immigration.

QUESTIONS BRITISH ON PALESTINE RIOTS; League Mandates Body Closely Presses Examination on the Wailing Wall Incident

April 17th, 1930 - New York City

--------


April 17, 1930.

Dearest:

I couldn't call you before
6. p.m. so I didn't, knowing that you
would go to the dentist earlier.

But I do wish I could
Call you now but I just won't call
you next door on the phone, I just
want to know whether the dentist
cemented the bridgework and how
you feel in it. ¹

When I left the place I went
downtown immediately to the synagogue
just in time for the evening prayer
to say Kadish.²
2.

Sweetheart: I hope you will go to
bed early tonight so that you may
have rosy cheeks in the morning
after a real good nights rest.

There's nothing doing at the store
tonight which may be due to the
weather.

Tomorrow I will call you earlier
about 12:45 because I have to to to meet
someone (about work) but if you
desire to be down in the sunshine
(if any) don't let the fact that I want
to call you earlier keep you within
the office if you should not be in
I will call you back later in the day.

Beloved: My spirit is high
my courage is great just because
I am inspired by you Dearest
of all Dear ones to whom my life
is dedicated.

There's not a moment when the
sweet thoughts of you should leave
me, your image is always with
me, even in my slumbers I dream
of you my "Beautiful Chippie"³

These lines a written at
the store, and as Archie is
proposing to close the place,⁴ I
will have to close this note with
the sweetest thoughts of you

and countless kisses
to you My Precious

Your own Harry

------------------

Matt’s Notes

1 - Those fascinated with the minutiae of Papa’s Diary Project will no doubt remember that my grandmother paid a visit to her dentist’s 42nd street offices on February 27th; the bridgework mentioned in this letter was probably related to that appointment. My cousin Ken, who is a dentist (and of whose existence, as you may recall, I was unaware until he discovered this blog and wrote to inform me that we shared the same great-great-grandparents) tells me:

A bridge takes a few visits, the teeth have to be prepared and shaped, an impression taken which is then sent to the dental lab where a technician would make the bridge. If it was a bridge replacing a back tooth it would have been made out of all gold. I'm not sure if they used porcelain to replace front teeth back then but it was very common to have gold front teeth also. If porcelain was used, it was probably very expensive. When the bridge was finished, it is tried in, the bite adjusted and then cemented with a dental cement. The procedure must have been somewhat uncomfortable because they did not have high speed drills and the slow speed drills produced a lot of heat which could cause pain, even if you received Novocain.

Update: My mother says that my grandmother always had trouble with her bridgework and eventually had it removed in favor of a dental plate. She also points out that Papa probably wrote "I just won't call you next door on the phone" because my grandmother may have been sharing a phone with a neighbor at this point due to her family's recent financial reversals.

2 - Observant Jews like Papa say Kadish, the prayer for the dead, at several intervals throughout the year, most notably on Yom Kippur (a.k.a. the Day of Atonement), just after or on the anniversary of a loved one’s death, and on a few other occasions. Papa wrote this letter on the fourth day of the eight-day Passover holiday, which is not normally a day of mourning (correct me if I’m wrong, dear reader) so perhaps he said Kadish for a member of his family, a member of my grandmother’s family, or even a fraternal brother. (Papa was a member of B’nai Zion, a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion, a Zionist fraternal order and mutual support society which, like many organizations of its kind, guaranteed its members a proper Jewish burial and the attendant mourning rituals.)

In any event, Papa did not mention any deaths in the April 17th entry of his 1924 diary, so whomever he prayed for in 1930 almost certainly died in the intervening period.

3 - I assume that Papa, who had an old-fashioned respect for grammatical rules, capitalized and enclosed in quotes the phrase “Beautiful Chippie” because it was in popular circulation in the late 1920’s and early 1930’s, but then again he may have just been having fun with a nickname he came up with for my grandmother. I’ve been poking around to see if it might be a reference to a movie, book or celebrity, but so far I haven’t come up with anything. Stay tuned.

4 - Papa wrote many of his 1930 letters from a retail store where he moonlighted as a tailor and attended to his correspondence between jobs. I suppose, had Papa’s co-worker Archie glanced at this letter, he would have thought Papa was freshly captivated and excitedly planning a future with his “beloved.” I’m sure Papa didn’t reveal, even on slow nights when he and Archie had nothing to do but chat and smoke and watch the clock, the difficult six years he’d spent courting my grandmother, his painful efforts to overcome her and her family’s indifference to him, or how reluctantly she’d finally agreed to marry him.

I think Papa would have had more to reveal than appropriate had he tried to explain to Archie his commitment to my grandmother. Would he have mentioned how displaced he felt years before as a young man in America, how attached he remained to his family and memories in Eastern Europe, how hard he found it to meet a woman, fall in love, start a new life if it meant letting go of the old? Would he have even recognized the urgency with which he fell in love with my grandmother in the aftermath of his father’s death, furiously compelled to start a family of his own as if he’d suddenly awoken from a spell? Could he have explained that his own endless wellspring of empathy and self-sacrifice could flow into no more appropriate vessel than my grandmother’s own bottomless dissatisfaction and neediness?

Perhaps Archie once met my grandmother, perhaps he noticed the difference between Papa’s happy glow and her dour expression, perhaps, at a moment when he felt his relationship with Papa was turning from something incidental into a genuine friendship, he tried to find out, without seeming overtly puzzled, why Papa had put so much effort into courting my grandmother and winning her hand. “She’s a lovely girl,” he might have said, “but tell me, Harry, how do you romance such a serious person?”

Papa surely would have understood the confusion behind Archie’s question, but he would have known how to answer because, in fact, there was only one answer he could give, a simple and sincere answer, an expression of a desire he had nursed through his whole youth in exile, through all the years of solitude and cramped quarters and sewing machines and nights alone with his radio, through all the activism and baseball and opera and visits to Coney Island, the synagogues and subway rides and distressed letters from the old country, the dating and disappointment and expectation, the train trips to the mountains and the occasional motor car rides, the diaries and letters, the whole intimate epic of his life in New York.

“Archie,” he would have answered, “I just try to make her happy,” though he would never have known if Archie understood.

April 2, 1930 - New York City

--------


April 2, 1930.

Dearest:

I'm so blue because you didn't feel well this
evening, I pray that when this reaches you, you
will be restored to good health again.

Instead of going to the touring agency, I called
up that office, they promised to mail to me immediately
a prospectus on tourist prices on various steamers, the
dates and departures and returns.¹

Beloved: My mind isn't at rest just because
of your indifference to my most ardent courtships, I
know that your so called acting of last night was
true to an extent.

It tortures my mind to live in doubt, Would you
have said those things if you really loved me?

You told me Sweetheart that I'm getting what I
want, its true, but my my life will be miserable
knowing that you [are] unhappy.

Can't one whose love is holy and pure ask from
the only girls to reciprocate?

Especially when she is ready to trip to the altar
with him.²

I feel Sweetheart that the realization is dawning
upon you and that eventually to will find that
that you're loving me a great deal more than you
think you do, and when the realization comes
you will keep faith with me and be content
with my life companionship and all that I'll
be able to offer you.³

Don't expect of me a sudden revolutionary
transformation, I will endeavor to raise my
standards step by step.

I've already learned (thanks to your urge)
the value of a $ and I'm clinging on to it
as soon as it comes my direction.

After all in this worst industrial crisis
in years when most everyone is affected, I can
./.

I can manage to save, and believe me I'll
take care of it.⁴

It is very late now, and I have to rest a little
for tomorrows grind.

I will call you at 1:05, and please don't refuse
when I ask to meet you at 6:15 on 42nd St.

God Bless You Darling Sweetheart
and countless kisses from your
own

Harry

-----------

Matt’s Notes

1 - Papa and my grandmother must have been planning a trip to celebrate their engagement (they wouldn’t be married until a year after Papa wrote this letter, so I don’t think he was looking into their honeymoon arrangements already). With steamship travel as common as it was, they could have had in mind anything from a short jaunt up the coast to a longer ocean voyage, but in any event I’ll try to track down what the “tourist prices” would have been like in those days.

Update: In response to an e-mail inquiry, Michael at the shipping history site wardline.com tells me:

I have also looked though my files and come across timetables for NY-area steamship lines like the Merchants and Miners Line and Eastern S.S. Co. which had ships on shorter, tourist-oriented routes... rates range from $1.75 to $3.00 per berth (not room--generally 2 berths to a room) for short votages to up to $37.50 for one of the better private rooms on slightly longer voyages.

Michael also pointed me to the travel history site, Maritime Timetable Images, where we can find the following images of Cunard line brochures from 1929 and 1930:


-


We don't know what kind of trip Papa was planning, but I'd wager that, due to the Cunard line's popularity, he received at least one of the brochures pictured above.


2 - Oh, dear. If I’m reading this letter right, it looks like my grandmother must have said some really nasty things to Papa the previous evening: she wasn’t happy about marrying him; it shouldn’t matter to him because he was getting what he wanted; he was an unworthy candidate for her affections. It also seems like she tried to take a little of it back and tell him she only said those things because she wasn’t feeling well, but Papa clearly knew better.

3 - I’ve speculated quite a bit about why Papa pursued my grandmother so persistently in the face of her years-long efforts to dissuade him. I suppose the same theories apply to the question of how, now that her decision to marry him had apparently inspired her to treat him more harshly, he could remain so doggedly hopeful about their potential happiness. (In later years, those who knew them would but marvel at both the sharpness of my grandmother’s tongue and the contrasting evenhandedness of Papa’s attitude.)

4 - Throughout his diary and letters, Papa has shown himself to be both romantic and pragmatic, an idealistic dreamer who does not practice wishful thinking, a believer in God who would never count on divine intervention. From the moment he called himself a “nonbeliever in resolutions” in the New Year’s Eve entry of his 1924 diary, he has outwardly eschewed unrealistic concepts like “sudden revolutionary transformation”, though he would, in his darkest moments, believe in luck long enough to question his own. (Interestingly, the one resolution he did make in 1924, “to spend less and save more,” did not come to fruition that year but, according to this letter, finally did by 1930 despite the unfolding Depression.)

This belief in “step by step” progress shows itself in Papa’s approach to the most important pursuits in his life: the Zionist cause, for which he worked as a grassroots activist and to which he made countless small contributions over the course of decades, knowing he might never see it fulfilled; the garment industry labor movement, a perfectly literal demonstration of the way a class of people, seemingly powerless on their own, could, bit by bit, join together to wield great influence and improve their lot; and of course his courtship of my grandmother, a six-year affair that may never have led to an ageless romance but did lead to marriage, a child, and something like the life Papa dreamed of as a young man.

March 26th, 1930 - New York City

--------


March 26, 1930.

Dearest

It is 8:30 now and I am writing this
at the store, I chalked up two alts. ¹
there is a lull now, nobody in the store
I hope I am interrupted with a few
more jobs, but it seems that I'll be
able to finish this note without any
interruptions.

Tomorrow at this time we will be
at Mecca Temple ² honoring the memory
of the greatest friend the Jews had in
modern history, you will at the same time
have the opportunity to listen to some
very interesting adresses. ³

I may not be able to call you up
tomorrow (Thursday) at noon as I
expect to be detained settling prices.

At 6:15 P.M. I shall be at the
appointed place to meet you and
to take you in my care until you are
safely home.

God Bless You Beloved
and countless kisses

Your ardently loving

Harry

P.S.

This is the only kind of paper
at the store, Forgive for using
such plain paper to write to you ⁴

-----------

Matt’s Notes

1 -  In a letter he wrote a few days prior, Papa told my grandmother  “it is 7:50 P.M. now I am at the store and already registered job #1”, and now he writes “It is 8:30 now and I am writing this at the store, I chalked up two alts.”   “Alts.” almost certainly means “alterations,” so he must have been working a few nights a week as a tailor in a retail clothing store and getting paid by the job. (As I've mentioned before, I don't think "the store" had anything to do with Papa's longtime employer, the Lion Costume Company.  I've questioned whether it was the same store he intended to buy and run with my grandmother and if he was working there to do some advance scouting of its customers, but if that was the case he would have written about it differently.  I think he just had a straightforward night job, and unfortunately I don't think I'm ever going to find out where it was.)

2 - Mecca Temple, located on 55th Street and 6th Avenue, was originally built and managed by the Ancient Arabic Order of the Nobles of the Mystic Shrine, a.k.a. the Shriners, who opened it in 1924 for their own use and for rental income.  The Shriners ran into financial problems shortly thereafter, and New York City eventually took over the building and turned it into City Center, the well-known performing arts venue that's still there today.



3 - When Papa refers to “the greatest friend the Jews had in modern history,” he means Lord Balfour, the statesman whose famous Balfour Declaration articulated British support for “the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.”  Papa felt genuinely attached to those world leaders he admired (remember how loyal he was to President Wilson) and, considering his powerful belief in the Zionist cause, would have been deeply affected by Balfour’s passing. 

Balfour’s memorial service was organized by the Zionist Organization of America, a group Papa had been involved with for many years. (One of the "interesting addresses" was delivered by the now-famous writer Maurice Samuel, who Papa secured to speak at a Z.O.A. district meeting back in 1924 and thereafter knew as “Maurie”.) When Papa surveyed the 5,000 attendees, he must have seen scores of the comrades with whom he’d campaigned in the streets, laid plans in crowded apartments and offices, and spent countless, coffee-filled nights reflecting on the countries they’d lost and resolving to make a new country of their own. Perhaps, despite the melancholy circumstances, this gathering felt something like a family affair.

4 - This composition on “plain paper” is one of the last of Papa’s letters, and because it comes toward the end of his written narrative it feels to me like it has additional literary weight, as if some unseen author had placed it toward the end of a book for closer examination. But is this book about the American Jewish experience, with Papa standing in for all Eastern European Jews as we watch his progression from emigration to assimilation? Or is it a more intimate work, meant to examine the trade-offs and decisions one man has to make to find his place in the world?

I suppose Papa’s narrative can serve both purposes: When we first meet him, he is a lonely tenement dweller, sleeping on someone’s couch and laboring in a garment factory, longing for the simple confines and the familial comforts of his Eastern European boyhood. He devotes his time to organizations and the landsmanshaftn where he might find safety among others like himself, but glimpses and tests and samples a little more each day the vibrant city, the young country he finds himself in: baseball games in three different stadiums, opera, movies, boxing on the radio, Election Day, the Democratic Convention, automobile rides in the mountains and the boardwalk of Coney Island. Still, when his father dies back home and the old world is finally, clearly lost to him, he learns that without someone else to love as much he cannot make the new world his own.

The story continues and claustrophobic depictions of tenement life and factory work give way to wider vistas and brighter thoughts: Papa meets a woman, falls madly in love, and begins a long campaign to win her affection. (But is he, a devotee of self-sacrifice and hard work, more fascinated with her or with the fortitude he must muster to pursue her?) His boss gives him more responsibility, his co-workers look to him for guidance. He becomes an American citizen and crosses international borders at his leisure. His Zionist work takes him to Atlantic City, where he moves and socializes with surprising ease among its wealthy goyish visitors (and learns that, perhaps, all boardwalks are more alike than he thought).

And so we arrive at this latest milestone, where he joins hundreds of friends and thousands of fellow Jews in the strangely American exercise of paying open tribute to an English lord in a huge Midtown Manhattan auditorium named, oddly enough, for the city of Mecca. All this with his fiancee in tow, as if to announce: I am here, I am going to build my family in this city, I am going to make its vast and varied streets my own because it is, after all, where I live.

---------

References:

• JEWISH LEADERS PAY TRIBUTE TO BALFOUR; 5,000 Bow Heads in Service at Mecca Temple--Plan Palestine Forest to Honor Him. The New York Times, March 28, 1930.
• The Balfour Declaration at Wikipedia
• Streetscapes/City Center; From Shriners' Mecca Temple to Mecca for the Arts.  The New York Times, April 11, 1999.
  

Image source: Mecca Temple postcard at Wikipedia

March 24, 1930

--------


11:30 P.M.

March 24. 1930.

Dearest:

It is getting to be a habit with me to
write you a note before retiring.,¹ It is indeed a
pleasure to write and relate to you everything that's
happening around me.

My implicit faith in you Sweetheart was
amply rewarded by your attitude of late, it was
heaven on Earth to gaze at your sympathetic eyes and
to listen to your sweet and friendly voice.

Oh Dear, words fail me to express the true
feelings and heavenly joy I've experienced in
your company Sat. and last nights.²

My only object in life shall be to make you
happy and contented, I shall try hard to live
up to your expectations, and with the Lords help
I shall succeed.

The fact that you gave my competitor the
(as you call it) b.r. proves to me that your mind
and heart have cooperated to guide you in the
right path. ³

It was divine power that impelled you
to look at my approaches in a different light
to see that my love for you was of [the] immortal kind.

I have ever since I've known you Sweetheart
known of the existence of a spark of love for me,
and now I shall make myself worthy of it, for
when you Dearest love it is more than sincere. ⁴

And now in closing I want to let you know
how anxiously I'm looking forward to meeting you
tomorrow (Tuesday) night, but I'll have to come a little
later as Archie is off tomorrow and I'll have to close
the store at 10 sharp. ⁵

So Dearest Good night,

Pleasant dreams tonight and every other night,

Your devoted

Harry

----------------

Matt’s Notes

1 - Remember, in the days of twice-daily postal delivery, Papa could send a letter late at night and expect my grandmother to receive it in the following morning’s mail. (He wrote this at 11:30 PM and it’s postmarked 7:00 AM the next day.)

2 - In his Thursday, March 20th letter, Papa mentioned that he wanted to take my grandmother’s mother and brother for night out at Cafe Royale (a famous gathering place for New York Jews in the early 20th Century) on Saturday the 22nd.   I’ve speculated that Papa planned to pitch them on his plan to marry my grandmother, who still had doubts about his matrimonial viability, and drum up their support. It appears, from this letter, that my grandmother joined the party as well, and in the ensuing few days turned the corner in her attitude toward Papa. In fact...

3 - ...it looks like I must have have misread Papa’s last few letters. I’ve been thinking my grandmother dismissed her other suitor and agreed to marry Papa in January of 1930, but clearly she waited a bit longer to give Papa’s “competitor” the “b.r.” (“B.R.” is, I expect, short for “bum’s rush,” which you may or may not recognize as a slang expression for chasing away undesirable people. According to multiple dictionary sources, this phrase was in relatively fresh circulation in 1930.)

The anxiety Papa expressed in his last few letters makes more sense to me now; he was worried not because my grandmother was second-guessing her decision to marry him (as I had thought) but because she was still entertaining thoughts of marrying someone else. Now, though...

4 - ...the decisive language he uses in this letter clearly indicates that my grandmother had, at last, accepted his proposal (perhaps over dinner at the Royale). Alas, though Papa believed her “mind and heart" had "cooperated to guide [her] in the right path,” my grandmother would, in later years, admit to my mother that she married Papa for practical, and not romantic, reasons.  Her mind said he would take good care of her and that was, at a time when her family’s finances were in disarray, the loss of her father was still on her mind, and a Depression loomed large, more important than whether her heart said she truly loved him.

5 - As in many of his other letters, Papa suddenly switches here from soaring, romantic rhetoric (“It was divine power that impelled you to...see that my love for you was of the immortal kind”) to mundane business (“Archie is off tomorrow and I'll have to close the store at 10 sharp”). I find this transition to be a little jarring in a love letter, but I imagine it wasn’t so odd in an era when letter writing was (as noted above) a frequent and relatively immediate form of communication (and perhaps more so in Papa’s case since he typically wanted to squeeze everything into one note while stealing time at work or “before retiring.”)

March 21, 1930 - New York City

--------


March 21, 1930

Dearest:

Isn't it funny, just about when the time
was approaching to cease work a heated argument
started between Mrs. Surdut ¹and one of the cutters,
the entire place was in uproar.

It was my lot to settle the argument
between the two but I did it even if it took me an
hour to do so thereby avoiding a crisis at the place.

It just had to occur at a time when I was
so anxious to talk to you, and when I finally had
time to call you up a mans voice informed me
that you were gone.

I missed your sweet voice so much,
but I will with the Lord's help have the pleasure
to listen to it tomorrow after you'll have read these lines.

It is 7:50 P.M. now I am at the store
and already registered job #1. I hope there will be
many more before I leave tonight.

Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart

Your Harry

P.S.

In recognition for settling the argument
Mr. Surdut told me a nice little joke, it was
the first time in a long while that he was in good
humor. Please pardon the hurry up scribble.

------------

Matt’s Notes

1 - Mr. and Mrs. Surdut, owners of the Lion Costume Company and Papa’s employers, have appeared regularly throughout Papa’s diary and letters. They had taken an interest in Papa as early as 1924, inviting him to their home for holiday dinners, giving him sales work on the side, setting him up with women, and, in Mr. Surdut’s case, traveling with him to Zionist conferences. (Mr. Surdut may have been a member of Order Sons of Zion, a.k.a. B’nai Zion, the Zionist fraternal order to which Papa belonged.)

I have speculated before that Mr. Surdut was a sort a father figure to Papa and may have eventually placed Papa in a position of authority at Lion Costume, which could be why it fell to Papa (who was also a union activist) to resolve a dispute between Mrs. Surdut and a worker.

2 - I think Papa often worked into the evening at Lion Costume, but I’m not sure what “it is 7:50 P.M. now I am at the store and already registered job #1” could mean. Was he working the sales floor for some kind of pre-Spring seasonal push or trade event that featured lots of nighttime buying and selling? (Such pressure might account for flaring tempers at the shop.)

Then again, Papa’s shorthand term for Lion Costume was usually “the place” and not “the store,” so “the store” might have been a different establishment where, eager to make some extra money and prove his viability as a husband, he did piece work after hours. Papa also hoped to buy a dress store in partnership with my grandmother (provided she finally married him). Could this have been “the store” he meant? Was he working there in preparation for taking it over?

3 - Papa wrote this letter in March of 1930 when the Great Depression was gathering steam, so I’m sure purveyors of ladies’ dresses like Mr. Surdut had little to keep them “in good humor” at this time. Things must have been troubling indeed if the “nice little joke” Surdut told Papa “in recognition for settling the argument” (I expect it was a casual quip and not a self-contained knock-knock joke or the like) seemed so important. Perhaps Papa’s own worries about the the economy, and his need to reassure my grandmother of his ability to provide for her, made his employer’s rare lighthearted moment seem particularly welcome and worth reporting.

March 20, 1930 - New York City

--------


March 20. 1930.

Dearest:

I'm writing this at home, I was rather
busy at the store this evening with no chance to write
there.

But the time you will receive this my Beloved
it will be the final day of spring, the hard cold winter
has passed and this is the dawn of a world reborn.

To You my Dear this passed winter was one
of deep tragedy and suffering, may the beginning of this
new season mark a new era of joy and happiness in
your life.

You know well my Dear that since I've had the
extreme happiness to learn to know you, your happiness
and joy was mine and your sorrows were mine too,
my fervent prayer goes fort to the Lord that we may
share our happiness together forever after. ¹

Tomorrow (Friday) I shall call you (I hope you
will forgive me for taking the liberty) at 1:05 P.M. and
again at 5:30 or a little later.

It will be a pleasure Sweetheart if you could
arrange to have your mother and brother to go with me
to the Royal for a little diversion Sat. night. ²

I intend to take off Sunday, that I may
spend the day with you, that is with your kind
consent of course.

In conclusion may I not ask you to offer my
kind regard to Mr. Richman? ³

Your own Harry


--------------

1 - Those of us who have been following Papa’s diary and letters for the past couple of years will recognize a few of his essential qualities in these first few paragraphs: His taste for romantic language, as reflected in his turns of phrase; his optimism, as reflected in his belief that Spring will soothe the pain of my grandmother’s difficult winter (in which her father died and her family’s financial security dissolved); his empathy, as reflected in the way he accepts my grandmother’s sorrows as his own; his faith, as reflected in his prayer for a happy future.

2 - “The Royal” most likely refers to the popular Cafe Royal, a lynchpin of the lower Second Avenue strip known as the “Yiddish Rialto” for its prominence in New York’s early Twentieth Century Jewish cultural life. Papa spent many a youthful night there debating the intricacies of the Zionist movement and socializing with friends, but he certainly didn’t invite my grandmother’s mother and brother there for a casual night out. He was, at the time, quite worried that my grandmother might break off her engagement to him, and the Royale excursion was probably part of an ongoing campaign to line up the endorsements of her family and friends.

3 - Mr. Richman was the attorney for whom my grandmother worked as a legal secretary. As we learned in Papa’s last letter, Richman supported my grandmother’s engagement to Papa and therefore made Papa’s list of her “better friends” who had her “bests interests at heart.”

March 18, 1930 - New York City

--------


March. 18. 1930¹

Beloved:

Before I go to the store I wish to write to you a
few lines, it is raining now and I won't miss anything
if I'll get there a little late. ²

You know Dear, your promise to be at the store
tomorrow after the court session was the stimulant that
gave me new life.

I had passed another miserable night in the fear
that I might lose you a thought that is torturing my mind.

You know Beloved: that I am of the idealistic
kind, and of all my ideals you are the one and only one
worth living and fighting for. ³

I have often read of people who who felt tired of
life, then I could hardly conceive anything of the sort, but
last night I felt it, I was so sceptical for a moment that
I really had those thoughts.

Sweetheart! let the opinion about me by your
your better friends like Mr. Richman, Aunt Celia etc.
outweigh that of gossips who really haven't your best
interests at heart.

Oh Dear: when I reached home last night the world
was dark for me, I was whol wholly distressed.

With you Beloved life will be one of sunshine, everything
happiness, ambition and indefatigable spirit.

Without you (Lord beware) a life of desolation and
neglect, ambition killed and nothing to live and fight for
If I'd hear a melody it would fill my heart with sadness
instead of joy, The sun, the moon in fact everything that
beautiful nature has to offer would only remind me of You Sweetheart
and my lost happiness.

Beloved we are both meant for each other, Believe in
me, trust me. I am fighting my uphill battle and with your
encouragement nothing will stop me from getting to the top. ⁴

I will call you at 1:05 P.M. tomorrow (Wed.) on phone.

Meanwhile Dear Sweetheart Adieu.

Your loving

Harry

----------------

1 - I have only a few of Papa's letters left and, since I remember how melancholy I felt when I published the last entry in his diary at this time last year, I’ve tried to put off the day when I publish his last letter (and with it the last words of his in my possession) by taking longer and longer between posts. In any event, I’ll pick it up again with this particularly difficult and raw moment in March of 1930, after my grandmother had agreed to marry Papa but had not, apparently, let him think it counted for much.

2 - Papa was an honest and responsible sort who was probably never late to work, much less deliberately so; his need to get his feelings on paper really must have been overwhelming. What could my grandmother have said to him to make him think their engagement was so tenuous? Had she hinted that she might change her mind, or even overtly told him that she was having second thoughts?

3 - As we’ve discussed at length before, Papa’s idealism was one of his most admirable qualities, but it may also have led to many of his romantic difficulties. As we saw in his 1924 diary, his need to find an ideal, perfect partner often left him unexcited by “ordinary” women, or, even more dramatically, resulted in cycles of elation and disappointment in which he’d meet a seemingly perfect woman only to be dismayed when she (as all people do) inevitably displayed less-than-perfect behavior.

For a number of reasons that we’ve also discussed, Papa had decided, by early 1925, to break these patterns. While I have no doubt that he truly loved my grandmother, I also think he was resolved not to find fatal faults or grow disenchanted with her. The fact that my grandmother was not ready, at 17, to be the object of his resolve didn’t seem to bother him much, at least for a couple of years. It was not until 1929 that his belief in the inevitability of their union started to buckle under the weight of her pointed attempts to cool his ardor and her ongoing interest in other men.

By the time Papa wrote this letter, though, my grandmother had agreed, decisively if not enthusiastically, to marry him. This would have been a great relief to him because it put an end not just to six years of courtship, but to the sense of displacement Papa had never shaken in the seventeen years he’d been in America. Now, at last, he could settle in this country and make it his own. Expressions of doubt from my grandmother, at this late stage, revived the specter of Papa’s long bout with loneliness and disorientation, and I don’t doubt that the idea of slipping back into that state was truly “torturing” his mind.

4 - Papa was a romantic sort and loved the melodrama of opera, great poetry, silent movies. I think the language he uses here stems from those influences, though of course the worry he expresses is sincere and immediate. What he meant here by getting to "the top" is hard to say since it means different things to different people, but I think I can guess what he had in mind:

February 26, 1930 - New York City

--------


Feb. 26, 1930

Beloved:

I called you this evening at home
and left a message with Sylvia. ¹

I gave in your dress to the cleaners last
night figuring that I'd get it back on Friday
but passing by this evening the man called
me in and explained to me that his dyer
was there during the day and told him that the
material of your dress would shrink considerably
if dyed, you see it has to be boiled in dye for
a half hour.

So I've decided that rather than spoil the
garment I'll have it pressed only unless you
still want me to have it dyed.²

I got another string of beads in exchange
for the others, should you not care for them
I'll get a credit slip for a dollar.

I have seen some real nice suits I
wish you could see them before I decide to
get one.

Since you told me that you would go to
the dentists tomorrow (Thursday) I'm sure
that you will forgive me if I'll take the
privelege to meet you in front of the building
at 6:00 P.M. (at 100 W. 42nd St.) ³

./.


I've got my first weeks salary in this new
season so I can buy the things I need.
I had hoped that you'd come to the
store this evening after the court session
but I'm certain that somebody took
you home safely.

I may call you before I meet you
that is if I can manage to get away before
5:45.

Beloved: I am so longing for you
I know that I shall be impatient tomorrow
but happy in the thought of meeting you
in the evening ⁴

For the present

Au revoir

Your devoted faithful and loving

Harry.

------------

1 - I’m not sure who Sylvia is, but my mother thinks she may have been a boarder my grandmother’s family took in as their financial situation worsened. (As we’ve previously discussed, my grandmother’s father died unexpectedly in late 1929, leaving behind an impenetrable tangle of business interests. The start of the Great Depression was obviously not the best time for this kind of thing to happen, and not surprisingly the financial stability of my grandmother’s family fell apart with the rest of the country’s.)

2 - What was the cleaner’s shop like? Was it a Garment District storefront, its front room bright and clean and filled with paper-wrapped packages of laundry? Was its back room contrastingly dark and humid, concealing a pessimistic dyer who muttered his predictions over vats of boiling clothes? I’m looking for photos of Prohibition-era laundry shops, so send ‘em if you’ve got ‘em.

3 - My grandmother’s dentist was fifteen blocks from Papa’s workplace (the Lion Costume Company at 13-15 West 27th Street, near Broadway) so Papa may have taken the Interborough subway line (the blue line in the illustration below) from 28th and 4th to Grand Central Terminal at 42nd and Lexington, grabbed a crosstown train to Fifth Avenue, and walked a block west to 6th Avenue, where my grandmother was waiting at 100 West 42nd Street. It's more likely, though, that he took the BMT (the orange line below) from Broadway and 28th to to 42nd and 7th and walked a block east.




4 - When Papa met my grandmother, he felt like he'd been waiting for her his whole life. (For those of you just joining us, he courted her for five full years despite her and her family's efforts to dissuade him. She had only decided to marry him a couple of months before he wrote this letter.) As I've mentioned before, though, what I really think he was waiting for was the chance to take care of someone like her, to see her happiness and comfort as his responsibility. Thus, no everyday domestic errand, from taking her clothes to the cleaner, to exchanging her necklace at the jeweler, to waiting for her at the dentist's office, was too mundane to seem like less than a "privelege".

---------


Image source: 1930 Subway map from mappery.com

November 4, 2008 - New York City (Obama Wins)

I've tried to keep this blog focused strictly on Papa and his diary and letters, but I feel like it's okay to break that rule just once (especially because it's been weeks since I've been able to concentrate long enough to write a new post about Papa).

The Bush administration has authored a grotesque and shameful chapter in our country's history, but today we started to turn the page on it. I hope, years from now, this moment will still seem as important as it does right now.

A reader writes about the ILGWU

A reader named Barbara, having come across Papa's account of the February 4, 1930 Dressmakers' strike, writes:

My 95 year old grandmother was a seamstress in the New York garment district during the Depression. She participated in two strikes. We are trying to piece together the years that these strikes took place, and some of the other details. She remembers leaving work at 12:00 (your [grand]father's diary says 10:00), she was in the needle district, and that everyobody was pouring out of work and wandering around in the streets, as your [grand]father says. She says that they didn't have signs and picket, that it was all workers in the streets, she doesn't remember any violence.

And, on the subject of whether or not the Dressmakers represented a subset of the International Ladies' Garment Workers' Union:

It was the whole ILGWU. My grandmother has referred to it as the Dressmakers Union throughout the years. When I read the whole long name of the Union, I thought the Dressmakers were a subsection. She said no, that the ILGWU was the actual union she was a part of.

Long live the Internets!

February 4, 1930 - New York City

--------


Tuesday

Most beloved Jeanie Dear:

I sincerely hope that you are in a
better mood today, I was really sorry
to have seen you aggravate yourself last
night the way you did.

It is in my belief a nervous state of
mind due to accumulation of various
troubles of late.

I'm sure you're over it now.¹

I've had no chance to call you up
today so I'm writing you these lines,

This was quite an eventful day
to me as well as to many another
person connected with the trade
I am pertaining to the walkout in

./.


2

my industry.

Being in the midst of it all
throughout the day and being a keen
observer I've got enough impressions
to last me for some time.

From early in the morning the
people in the place looked up to me
as their guide and leader waiting
impatiently for the hour when they
would lay down their tools.

Promptly at 10 o'clock we stopped
and the establishment became all
quiet.

We said good by to the employers
who watched us in amazement at
the unanimous response to the Union
Call, and as we came down
streams of enthusiastic workers

3

were emptying the huge buildings
in the garment district, The scenes
were very touching indeed, The
strickers went to many halls
Similar scenes as I have described
have been repeated at almost
every dressmaking establishment,

Every canopy in front of of big
buildings on 7th Ave. was occupied
by news and reel cameras taking
down scenes of the masses.²

Of course whatever I'm writing
here is from the human side of it,

The only embarrasment of the
day came while standing on the
platform at Bryant Hall ³an Italian
girl worker overcome with emotion
ran up the platform and

./.

4

embraced me just immediately
after I've made an announcement.

It appears that the stricke won't
last long I am very optimistic at
the outcome of it.⁴

I don't know whether you are interested
in the descriptions of scenes, but I
am connected with it, and thought
I have to share my impressions with
my beloved.

So long Jeanie Dear, I
will call you at the office tomorrow
(Wed.)

Your

Harry

P.S.

Fathers photograph buttons will be ready
Thursday night.⁵

--------------

1 - My grandmother’s “nervous state of mind” really was “due to accumulation of various troubles” at this time, as she was both mourning the recent, premature death of her father and struggling to prevent the consequential, sudden dissolution of her family’s wealth. (As I’ve mentioned before, her father had built his wealth by financing his holdings against each other. This house of cards quickly collapsed when he was no longer there to tend it, despite the best efforts of my grandmother and her brother, Bob.)

That said, my grandmother wasn’t exactly known for her adherence to the Serenity Prayer, and as my mother points out might have had “a fit the night before” Papa wrote this letter for any reason, or even for no reason. I think Papa’s willingness to explain away her mood tells us less about her specific circumstances than it tells us about his capacity to tolerate (and even take pleasure in tolerating) her chronic grouchiness.

2 - While Papa’s last few letters showed him at his most desperate and helpless as he virtually begged my grandmother not to reject him, this passage reminds us that he occupied a much more authoritative and respected position in the world of labor activism (and was, it seems, admired by women like the “Italian girl worker” who embraced him during his speech.)

The strike detailed here involved some 25,000 to 35,000 garment workers who, according to the New York Times, sought “a $5 wage increase for week workers; a 10 per cent increase in the minimum basic rates for piece workers; elimination of the sweatshop; confinement of all outside production to union contracting shops; creation of impartial machinery to police the industry and establishment of an unemployment insurance fund.” The International Ladies’ Garment Workers’ Union was the primary labor “factor”, while the Affiliated Dress Manufacturers, Inc., the Wholesale Dress Manufacturers, and the Association of Dress Manufacturers represented the management “factors.”

Papa’s account of the walkout provides, as he points out, a good look at the “human side” of the story and a good complement to the Times’ coverage:

Approximately 25,000 men and women employed in the dressmaking industry here went on strike at 10 A.M. yesterday to reorganize and stabilize the industry, to eliminate sweat shops, and to regularize employment.
...

Promptly at 10 A.M. the shop chairmen gave the signal. In thousands of shops power was shut off, sewing machines stopped, pressing irons clattered on the shelves and scissors and needles were thrust aside...

Chatting and joking vivaciously the dress employees circles the garment zone under the eyes of 4,000 patrolmen and then marches to the fifteen meeting halls, where they were registered and advised of the tasks awaiting them...

The union leaders were gratified by the large number of negro women who responded to the strike call. The walkout is the first one involving the negro dressmakers, who are comparatively new to the industry. Bryant Hall, Arlington Hall and the other meeting places were jammed with strikers who registered and who will return today for mass meetings.

3 - It looks like Papa was one of the “shop chairmen” mentioned above and, as his account indicates, supervised some of the goings-on at Bryant Hall, a venue with which he was probably quite familiar; located at 1085 6th Avenue near 42nd Street, it was an important gathering place for labor activists until the Horn and Hardart company converted it into a restaurant in 1934. Here’s a photo, via the Library of Congress, of a mass meeting held there in 1912:

Papa’s political activism stemmed from a sincere wish to make the world a better and safer place. His descriptions of his leadership role, the “anonymous response to the Union Call,” the stunned faces of factory managers, and the welcome site of “the masses” on the march show how truly carried away he was by the ideological and historical thrill of the moment.

4 - The Times' coverage characterizes the dressmakers’ strike of 1930 as a rather orderly and reasonable affair thanks to the negotiating efforts of then-New York Governor Franklin D. Roosevelt and Lieutenant Governor Herbert H. Lehman. Still, the Times does mention one violent incident in which strikebreakers brawled with Millinery Workers on 38th Street, which implies, I think, that plenty more violence went unreported. My mother reminds me that that Papa had his nose broken by a strikebreaker at some point before he got married; could it have happened during the eight days of this strike?



Papa with his original nose (left) and strike-broken nose

5 - It was fairly typical for people to make photo buttons of loved ones back in the day, though why my grandmother wanted photo buttons of her father made three months after his death is a mystery. Perhaps she ordered them right after he died and it just took a long time to make them, or maybe she planned to distribute them at some sort of memorial service. In any event, it looks like Papa, who was now engaged to my grandmother and increasingly involved in her day-to-day life (in his last letter he discussed an electric bill he payed on her behalf) took care of the arrangements.

---------

References for this post:

• DRESSMAKERS VOTE TODAY ON STRIKE; Balloting to Follow Address by Green at Ratification Mass Meeting. - The New York Times, February 1, 1930
• GARMENT STRIKE SET FOR TUESDAY; 35,000 Dressmakers Will Get Call to Quit at 10 A.M. and Go to 15 Meeting Halls. - The New York Times, February 1, 1930
• BRYANT HALL YIELDS TO MODERN BUILDING; Landmark Near Park in Hands of Wrecking Crew -- Site Leased for Restaurant. - The New York Times, June 20, 1934
• GOV. ROOSEVELT ACTS TO END DRESS STRIKE AS 25,000 WALK OUT; Calls Leaders of Four Factors in Industry to Albany for Conference on Friday. - The New York Times, February 5, 1930
• FOUR HURT IN STRIKE FIGHT; Millinery Pickets Clash With Negro Strike-Breakers in Street. - The New York Times, February 7, 1930
• DRESS PEACE SIGNED AFTER 8-DAY STRIKE; SWEATSHOP END SEEN; Compact Provides Impartial Chairman and Board to Study Reforms in the Industry. - The New York Times, February 13, 1930
• Biography of Herbert H. Lehman from Wikipedia

Yom Kippur

Papa's 1924 diary entry from the eve of Yom Kippur is worth another look.

January 20, 1930 - New York City

--------



Monday 4:30 P.M.

Dearest: -

This is the only paper that I
have on hand so you will have
to excuse me. ¹

I have spent all day serving
on two cases and being empaneled
on a third one,

It looks like I'll have to lose
full days while serving on
the jury.

Out of 150 people trying to
get exempted only 2 succeeded
the others including myself
will have to stick through the
2 weeks.

I will have to take advantage
of my evenings to make up for
part of my lost time. ²

As far as the "Roseland" is
concerned they won't be ready
to start for another week and
when they do its full swing it
will be at the end of this month. ³

In case I'm a little late tomorrow
night at Rose's, know that only urgent
work at the store can detain me.

As you will note by the enclosed
everything is attended. ⁴

Everything being O.K. I am as ever

Your Loving

Harry.


-----------

Matt’s Notes

1 - Papa wrote this letter on a torn strip of paper, the other side of which bears the letterhead from “THE LAW OFFICES OF HARRY GRAYER” at 44 Court Street in Brooklyn, New York.



I’m not sure why Papa was still carrying a letter dated November 20, 1929 as late as January 20, 1930, but its importance obviously did not supersede his need to write my grandmother a report on his jury duty status. This leads me to think...

2 - ...we should, at this point, pause to discuss why Papa was writing to my grandmother at all in 1930. Remember, when he wrote his last letter in September of 1929, it was to beg my grandmother not to throw him over, after five years of intense courtship, for another suitor. He was frustrated, angry and sure his dream of transforming his life through partnership with my grandmother was about to dissolve. Yet here he was, just four months later, sending my grandmother a casually scribbled, familiar note to tell her he might be late for dinner at her sister Rose’s house. So what’s going on here?

As the family story has it, my great-grandfather, Samuel Pollack, died unexpectedly and relatively young in late 1929 or early 1930. He had been successful in business, counting at least one factory and an array of Brighton Beach properties among his assets. Unfortunately for his family, his wealth was tied up in a byzantine system of debts and credits that he had not yet, at the time of his early death, started to explain to anyone. My grandmother and her brother, Bob, tried to decipher his books, but it wasn’t long before they’d sold off everything and could no longer count themselves among the wealthy.

It was during this time that my grandmother, convinced of Papa’s good character and stability, announced her decision to marry him. Some members of her family objected, citing her father's feelings about Papa (remember, her father introduced Papa to my grandmother’s less desirable sister, Sally, for matrimonial purposes and was dismayed when Papa fell for my grandmother instead) and tried to change her mind. As my grandmother used to say, though, she would not be dissuaded because she knew that Papa would “take care” of her.

The psychologist in me shouts "aha!" to see how my grandmother, faced with the loss of her real father, chose an older, paternal figure like Papa to fill the role of protector and provider. The death of a parent can lead to such decisions. In fact, we've seen it before in the course of Papa's Diary Project: For emotional reasons I have previously discussed in detail, Papa had real trouble accepting America as his home until his father, who was back in the old country, died in 1924. After that, Papa seemed to realize he wasn’t going home again, and he became single-mindedly compelled to start a family of his own. (Ironically, this single-mindedness led to his exclusive commitment to my grandmother, who kept him in limbo for six more years.)

What should we make of Papa and my grandmother's courtship, triggered as it was by the death of one father and resolved years later by the death of another? Is it sad, or odd, or more typical than we think?

3 - Though the famed Roseland Ballroom was in operation in 1930, Papa probably wasn’t referring to it here when he wrote about “the Roseland.” It was more likely a dress store he’d hoped to buy and run with my grandmother (Papa mentioned in his last letter his dream of marrying my grandmother and building a retail empire with her) though, according to my mother, my grandmother “chickened out” after they’d put a deposit on it.

4 -This letter contains a Brooklyn Edison Company electric bill that Papa must have paid for my grandmother while he was on jury duty.



The bill is addressed to my grandmother’s family’s home at 226 Hart Street, but it’s in her name. It shows a charge of $2.17 for the December-January billing period and an arrears charge of $2.22 for the previous month. It’s pretty clear, then, that at this point she’d lost her father and was having trouble managing his business affairs.

If you’re interested in such artifacts, the back of this bill contains an especially intriguing marketing message designed to get Brooklyn Edison customers to use more electricity:



Here it is transcribed:

MODERN AIDS TO COMFORT

ELECTRIC HOME APPLIANCES REMOVE DRUDGERY FROM THOUSANDS OF

BROOKLYN HOMES

TOASTERS - PERCOLATORS - TABLE STOVES - COOKERS

WAFFLE IRONS - FANS - VACUUM CLEANERS - WASHING AND IRONING

MACHINES - REFRIGERATORS - IRONS

PORTABLE LAMPS - MAZDA LAMPS

ON DEMONSTRATION AND SALE AT ALL DISTRICT OFFICES

OR A REPRESENTATIVE WILL BE GLAD TO CALL AT YOUR REQUEST

LIBERAL TIME PAYMENTS ARRANGED

Perhaps this is an appropriate way to begin 1930 and, as it happens, our final set of Papa's letters. At long last, Papa has officially started caring for my grandmother and entered the world of electric bills, Mazda lamps, and dinner at his soon-to-be sister-in-law's. In a way, this mundane bit of domestic correspondence could be the most satisfying letter he had yet sent.

October 11, 1929 - New York City

--------

[this is a pre-printed card]

To Jeanie Dear:

From the dawn of this day
until the sun's sinking,
Each moment, Sweetheart of you
I'll be thinking;

Just as I always do, day after day,
Loving you always, dear,
just the same way;

Wishing you all that you're
wishing-and more
And hoping the future
has blessing in store.

Harry A Scheuermann

-----------

Matt's Notes

Let’s get the cosmetic details out of the way first: This 1929 Rosh Hashana (a.k.a. Jewish New Year) card is made of pink cardboard, has a matching pink envelope, and is addressed to 226 Hart Street in Brooklyn. (As Papa alluded to his last letter, my grandmother's family had once lived at 183 Hart Street. I'm not sure when they moved, though I do know that Papa was sending letters to 183 as late as 1926.) Its flower illustration and the words "TO MY SWEETHEART" are stitched into a light sheet of gauze and glued into a cutout in the front cover, the bottom of which displays the words "A Happy New Year" in both English and Hebrew.  The pre-printed poem, and Papa's handwritten salutation and signature, appear on pink paper glued inside the cover, while the back cover informs us the card was, oddly, made in France.



Coincidentally, it’s the morning before Rosh Hashana, 2008, as I write about this card, which is the next and final piece of 1929 correspondence I’ve got from Papa.* An off-the-shelf card, however French and beribboned, seems a rather impersonal and anticlimactic way to conclude his correspondence for the year, especially because his last two letters, written just after he found my grandmother with another boyfriend, fairly tremble with all the anger and frustration he felt over her indifference towards his five years of courtship.

What had happened in the intervening three weeks? Had Papa finally given up? Had he stopped putting energy into his letters? Had he foresworn his lengthy romantic declarations and transcriptions of canonical love poems? Stay tuned for 1930.

-----------

*If you’re wondering why Rosh Hashana could fall on October 11th in 1929 and on September 29th in 2008, remember that Jewish religious holidays follow the ancient Hebrew calendar and are therefore out of synch with the modern-day Gregorian calendar.  Here ends my scholarship on this subject, though I do know one other thing: my grandmother, whose clockwork tendency to point out whether the holidays were “early this year” or “late this year” remains a joke in my family, surely thought Rosh Hashana was “late” in 1929.

September 23, 1929 - New York City

--------



Jeanie Dear: -

If I was excited last night I am fully aware
of what I am saying now, I am really ashamed of
myself. If I said things insulting and of having your
mother [excited] so much, I am sober now, sober but suffering
immensely pangs worse than death, Never before did
I realize how close I am at losing you as I am now.
How I messed up things.

But can't you see that it was a fit of jealousy that
almost maddened me, and [upon] my word of honor this was
the first time that it ever occurred to me to get into
the situation I am in,

Picture yourself how completely I was taken by
surprise to find you alongside your other boy friend
with his arms around you, my heart almost flew out.
Every person possesses enough knowledge of human
psychology to sympathize with a person in my state of mind
I was in last night, You therefore should not condemn me

In order not to burst in tears in front of your father I went
home soon after you left, but I remember telling your mother
that I cannot give you up as a parting word. ¹

No about your letter, It is true that I told you long
ago that I would step aside should you fall in love with
someone else, of course. I would have to, whether I like
it or not, but when one cherishes something I realize now ./.




2

that one has to fight for it,

I fully realize that you are entitled, more than entitled
to be happy with the one of your own choice, but I
misunderstood your attitude toward me it seems or
would not have dreamed and planned for our future.

Oh please I plead with you don't think me so rude or
bad, during the past 5 years you've had enough
time to observe that I am not as bad as I seemed to
be last night, There is no person in this whole wide
world that can say that I have harmed or wronged
anybody.

I humbly beg forgiveness for my childish sort of
action last night.

Inasmuch as I hate to refute you, I must try to
bring back to you recollections of a conversation when
you still lived at 183 a short time before you moved. ²

You said to me then that I was just talking but don't
mean what I'm saying I then stated that I was ready
to buy you a ring, You asked how much I would spend
I said $500. You said that it was too cheap, that Sadie
had a better ring and that you would like to get one
like Yetta Hammers you also said what you're saying
in this letter that I haven't got at extra $25 for an
engagement ring, I said that at that time was was
ready to spend $500 -. Being cooly received with



3

My ring proposal I abstained from pressing the
subject any further, It is possible that you did not
take me seriously or you were not in earnest and so
it slipped off your mind. ³

And now please please consider of what I am
about to write.

I don't think that I need further illustrate my
great undying love for you We know very well each
others faults and weaknesses, to me it seems that we
have known each other for ages we cannot get separated,
the only way you can separate from me is when you
tear my heart out to remain with you.

Without you my dear I am doomed to stoop
into the lowest depths of destitude, with you the world
is mine to conquer, I am not writing this to influence
you in my favor.

I want to you to love me, I would try hard very
hard to be deserving of same, to slave away for
you would be a pleasure, I know what your feared most
if you had been with me it is misery, but you were
wrong, I am fully capable now to provide for
a family I would be more than capable to provide for
a household, and with one kind word of encouragement
nothing would stop me from going out to make money
working nights, etc. ⁴ At this moment I am thinking that

./.




4

now would be the opportune time to open a dress
store with you without giving up my daily job
temporarily, with this project a success I can
see a number of chain stores ahead, of course all
this requires hard very hard work but most of all
insipiration, and you know what I mean, ⁵

And I have never given up my ambition to write,
more than ever I am thinking of it now, With God
Almighty's help I shall take advantage of every moment
the muse is with me and put down on paper any idea
I may get at any time or any moment. ⁶

No Jeanie dear concentrate, consult with your
innermost soul, you know you have your caprices which
I honestly believe that I alone can understand, and
here I am pledging to you a life of service, I do not
ask hasty action, can't you see that a turning point
has arrived abruptly when we have to show our cards
on the table, I am not so impatient as you may be
inclined to believe, All I am asking is please, please
do not reject me now consult your mother, father etc.
please don't be swayed by prejudice against me,
I welcome an opportunity for you to study other boy
friends, don't think (if you are) that because I
am not dancer I am passe. You my dear know very
well my worldly leanings.

./.




5.

My world is the one of literature and [the] arts, I
solemnly pledge myself to make you socially prominent
not only in my immediate circle of friends but into
foremost Jewish society, this is part of my great ambition
Again, with you at my side as my own nothing
could stop me I honestly believe to climb the narrow
ladder of success.

My diagnosis is that disappointments, setbacks
and fear of losing you have tended to keep me back,
I'll treatment on your past one dissolutions after
another have certainly contributed to my discouragement
the reject [text illegible] I am further way from success than
I was 5 years ago. ⁷

I feel that I could not have opened my heart
to anyone not even to my mother the way I did to
you in this letter,

Contrary to last night my eyes are dry now
I am [not] just writing impulsively, my mind and heart
are cooperating, I could write a lot more,

Please read it through carefully, over again if
necessary but no hasty action please pro or con
I shall call upon you Thursday as you desire
but please forget and forgive for what happened
last night should you desire me to stay away
for awhile please say it kindly without hurting



me, I pray that Allmighty shows you the vision
whereby you can see the right path on which
your future life depends.

Please do me this one favor tell your mother
that I feel that my action that got her so excited
will ever be a stain upon my character, She has
always been to me the impersonation of everything that
is noble and beautiful.

About your father you need not worry he has
plenty of his own troubles he won't know of mine.

Memories oh without you they will haunt
me and torture me a great deal is written down
in diaries until I discontinued them about 2 years
ago but they can never be eradicated from my mind. ⁸

I am again enclosing a stamped envelope
after baring my heart to you I expect a different sort
of reply.

I am awaiting your reply with trembling heart
I shall never act again like I did last night, Please
state the exact time you'll be home Thursday night.

As a parting word PLEASE let bygones be bygones.

Your tried lover

Harry

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Matt’s Notes

1 - In his last letter, written a few hours before this one, Papa expressed the raw dismay he felt immediately after seeing my grandmother with another boyfriend. This would have been bad enough had he merely seen them on the street or cuddling on a park bench, but, according to this letter, Papa encountered “the other fellow” in my grandmother’s house while paying a casual call.

Then, it seems, Papa gamely stuck around until my grandmother and her interloping companion went off together, after which he made some kind of testy declaration to my great-grandmother, went home, and started writing. He sees this, his second letter, as more “sober” and reasonable than the first, but I think it’s even more disjointed and anxious.

For those of you just joining us, a little context: Papa foreswore all other women the moment he met my grandmother and had, at the time he wrote this letter, already courted her for five long years despite her serious efforts to dissuade him. We could chalk up this dogged commitment to the magic of Cupid’s arrow (he was a romantic with a proven capacity for feeling passionately smitten) but I think it was also the solution to a complicated emotional puzzle that Papa had been trying to solve for most of his adult life. I’m not sure I possess, in Papas words, “enough knowledge of human psychology” to be sure of this, but I wrote about it at length in my last post, so please give it a look and check my work.

2 - Papa refers here to 183 Hart Street, where my grandmother’s family lived for many years until they graduated to fancier digs. Papa sent this letter to my grandmother's work address (the law office of Louis Richman, where she worked as a legal secretary) because he was in a desperate way and wanted her to receive them quickly. (The mail came twice a day back then and she would have only seen his letters in the evening if he sent them to her home.)

3 - My grandmother had undeniable nasty streak and appears to have displayed it in full during the episode described here. First, she accused Papa of not seriously wanting to marry her; when he told her he had, in fact, put aside $500 for a ring (a hefty tab for a factory worker, equivalent to $6000 in today’s dollars) she told him it wasn’t good enough. I suppose, since her family had encouraged her to dismiss Papa and had even plotted with her to keep him at bay (as I’ve mentioned before, they used to dress her in glasses and ugly wigs when he’d visit so she’d look less attractive) she felt her nastiness was well-supported and sanctioned, but it’s still pretty shitty behavior.

Which leads us to point out, once again...

4 - ...that Papa could not have tolerated and persevered through so much rejection if he did not, in some way, want or need to see himself as someone who could remain generous, faithful and tolerant in the face of it. I think he truly loved my grandmother and saw her clearly, but because self-sacrifice was so important to him, he also found some abstract satisfaction in his ability to love her despite the costs to his pride and comfort.

5 - Papa may have been a romantic, but he wasn’t impractical. Even as he pens a letter full of impassioned rhetoric and describes his heady dreams of a retail empire, he lays out the baby steps necessary to get there and knows he’d have to work nights and keep his day job to make it happen. He doesn’t promise anything, he just promises to try, keeping in mind how important it will be not to risk what he’s already achieved.

I also think he’s trying to convince my grandmother, who came from a wealthy family and had wealthy suitors, that he’s not without financial ambition.  Interestingly, though, his plan to build a business includes my grandmother as an active partner; having her in his life was, I think, are more important dream to him than making money.

6 - He didn’t learn English until he was eighteen, but Papa filled his diary and letters with impressive and occasionally beautiful English prose. I suppose his talent for writing must have been genuine if it was strong enough to be visible through such a language barrier, but as far as I know he didn’t get to “take advantage of every moment the muse” was with him as much as he would have wanted. It wouldn’t have been like him to wish he had more time, but I like to think that, with this project, I’ve given him some.

7 - This passage is not an example of Papa’s best writing, though the strange phrasing and misused words show how distressed he is to discuss his fear of losing my grandmother, how held back he's felt by "disappointments" and "setbacks," and how desperately he wants to move on with his life.  His battle with emotional stasis, his inability to let himself build a full life in America was, as I’ve discussed on this site (and, again, most recently in my last post) the central struggle of his young adulthood.

It's clearly evident in his 1924 diary and had developed long before he met my grandmother, but he felt his passionate commitment to her would cure his inertia. She only had to marry him. As we know, and as the last five years of Papa’s letters show, it didn’t work out that way. It was unusual for Papa to blame someone else for his troubles, but in this case I can see why his “diagnosis” of his situation includes, among other things, my grandmother’s ongoing indifference. He saw her as his ticket out of limbo and couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to be.

8 - I realize I've convinced myself that Papa's 1924 diary was the last he wrote, perhaps because he seemed so weary by the end of it, perhaps because I can't read more of what he wrote.  Still, if he really discontinued his diaries two years prior to this 1929 letter, it would mean he kept them through 1927.

I’m not sure why he brought up his diaries here or why he thought the memories they contained would “torture” him. Perhaps he filled them with pages of agonized speculation about my grandmother’s behavior, detailed in them the romantic opportunities he turned down with her in mind. Perhaps, as he wrote this letter, he pictured himself spending the rest of his days poring over his diaries and reliving his failed relationship with my grandmother, wondering what little moments he might have changed or words he might have said or gestures he might have made to change the story’s ending.

But, as we know, Papa, this is you: