Susan's Story
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Chapter 4. Marriage, War, Motherhood
"A Thought Sent To my Husband In The Middle of the Night"
Have I thanked you yet
for calling me to come
and see the beauty of
yesterday's
yellow flowers?
“And I would like to go”, Dick had said on the first Shabbat of our marriage. “Would you mind?”
“No, of course not. I would like to go too”, I said.
Hand in hand we walked to the large white building in Brookline, Mass and up the front steps. I was Dick’s wife attending services and sitting next to him in a house of worship. Dick kept showing me the proper place in my prayer book and whispering explanations throughout the service. Afterwards, he introduced himself and me to Rabbi Epstein and we were promptly invited to come home with him for lunch. We walked there together.
“Had you known that your pediatrician’s brother was a Rabbi in Boston?” I asked Dick, many years after our honeymoon.
“Of course”, said Dick and reminded me that his mother had suggested we attend services at Rabbi Epstein’s. Synagogue.
“Oh”, I said, thinking of the young couple we were then. It was a dim October day. My memory gives the Rabbi’s home a Rembrandt quality. The room, its furnishings, paintings, books, yes…and even its occupants seemed to possess a certain richness of content, a glow, a special warmth and handsomeness….all muted by the kind of day- light available. I learned then that religious Jews do not turn on lights during the Sabbath. I remember feeling on the fringe of that charmed circle…enjoying the food and conversation…somewhat in awe…just listening and learning. It was the first time I had met Jews of this caliber, so learned, so fine, so deeply Jewish. It was the first time, too, I had ever experienced Shabbat.
A week after Rosh Ha Shannah, the honeymoon was officially over because Dick’s leave was up. We had traveled by train from Boston to Portland, Maine where the Navy had sent him for a special six-week course. Six weeks in wartime seemed like a lifetime to us and we married because of the promise of being together for that long. The top-secret course to which Dick had been assigned was about High Frequency Detection Finding Equipment. Since he was Communications Officer, he needed to learn to operate the equipment which had been newly-installed on his ship. We had checked into Portland’s Lafayette hotel for the night. Next morning, Dick reported for his first day at the school in Casco Bay and I spent my first day alone exploring Portland, searching for a place to live and buying tickets for a concert to take place that evening. There was certainly a lot to talk about when my new husband returned but Dick was not talking. The minute he walked into our hotel room, after a short embrace of greeting, he went directly to the telephone book and, with no explanation whatsoever, began to search through it. “Who are you calling? What are you looking for?” I kept asking and the only answer I got was, “Wait a minute…wait a minute.” I was becoming irritated.
“H”, he said, “I….Jay….Je….Jeh….Jew….Jewish. Here it is! Jewish Community Center!” he cried out triumphantly and then explained to me. “I want to make arrangements for Yom Kippur. Sometimes you can’t get tickets, you know.” He called the number while I listened.
“Hello”, he said, “I’m a Naval Officer. I’ve just arrived here in town and am stationed in Portland. I’m here with my wife” (How new those words were for him to say!)…”And I was wondering….is there any problem getting tickets for Yom Kippur services? We’d like to attend. Uh huh…..um we’re staying at the Lafayette Hotel. Yeah. Now?” He covered the mouthpiece and said, “They want us to come over right now”…I told him about the concert tickets. He returned to the phone. “No, we can’t now. We have tickets for a concert this evening and….after the concert? All right. Yes. Yes, we can. All right, then. Thank you. Thank you very much. Goodbye.”
He hung up and explained the conversation to me. “They were so nice! They said, ‘Where are you? Well, come over right now…we want to meet you! When I told them we were going to a concert, they said to come over after the concert. They’re going to wait for us.” And so it was that we met the Director of the Jewish Community Center of Portland, Maine, Norman Godfrey, his wife, Ethel, and two other couples, Harold and Gladys Potter and Harold and Milly Nelson….all awaiting us at the Center when we walked in after a very nice concert. Not only did they have tickets for us to Yom Kippur services, but we were informed that we were to stay at the Potter’s home, to have the final meal with them, attend Kol Nidre services, sleep over, attend Synagogue with them the next day, break the fast at their home, and go with them to a Party afterwards at the Community Center where we would meet the entire Jewish Community.
We went to bed so happy that night. Being Jewish took on a whole new dimension for me. After only one day in town, we were no longer strangers. It was because we were Jewish that we were included as family and made so welcome.
The Potters lived in a nice house. They had a five year old daughter named Beverly. They had been married for eight years. They thought we were “adorable” (Glady’s word). We thought they were nice. We ate a very good dinner in a very great hurry and rushed off to get to Kol Nidre Services on time.. I hadn’t known what “Kol Nidre” was. Its history and significance were explained to me while at dinner. Later, when sitting upstairs in the Synagogue with Gladys, I first heard its melancholy notes and shivered, I think, because of the moment, as well as because of the cold.
We slept in the Potter’s comfortable guest room after a chilly autumn night’s walk from the “Shul”. I was grateful for the nice warm quilt on the bed.
Next morning we walked to synagogue. Again, I climbed the stairs with Gladys. The day seemed endless. The prayers were in Hebrew. The Rabbi’s sermon was in Yiddish. I understood nothing except my hunger.
After breaking the fast with our new friends, we went to a “Break-the-Fast-party” at the Jewish Center. Dick played the piano and amused everyone with his rendition of Yiddish Songs including a song about Borscht sung to the tune of the “Drinking Song from the “Student Prince”. “Trink, trink, besser vie vine. Trink, trink, for ald lang zyne……”
The crowd applauded and laughed. They requested one encore after another. The Yiddish-Jewish bond between Dick and these people left me feeling out of it and yet, from that evening on, for the six weeks we stayed in Portland, we were the “pets” of the entire Jewish community. “Dick-n-Susan are coming to our house for dinner tonight”, one Jewish child would boast.
“Well, Dick-n-Susan are coming to our house next week”, another would counter as if our invited presence in to their family circle lent them some sort of prestige. Dick and I were amused at how the children would say, “Dick-n-Susan” as if it were one name.
Our first Erev Shabbath in Portland after Yom Kippur was spent at Ethel and Norman Godfrey’s house. Ethel helped me say the words as I lit Shabbath candles for the first time. I liked it. I also liked feeling Dick’s pleasure and happiness. I liked the Shabbat table and saying a blessing over the Challah and over the wine. I equated the religiousness in that household with Christian Americanism experienced up at Colby….grace before meals and all that.
During dinner, Dick told how he had been confused as a child because his Mother had a friend named Minnie Horowitz and he had thought for some time that the Hebrew prayer giving thanks to God for bringing bread from the earth went “Ha Motzi Lechem Minnie Horowitz” instead of “Ha Motzi Lechem Min Ha Eretz” the way it is meant to be. That amusing little story helped me remember the Hebrew words of the prayer. It was also comforting to know that there was a time when even Dick didn’t know.
Ethel Godfrey and I talked a lot that evening about being Jewish. Judaism and its way of life meant a great deal to this woman who was so happy to explain it to me. I might have understood even without her words, however, because it was obvious and could be felt just from being in their midst. It was joyful in that home with the husband, the wife, and their two bright pretty little girls. I thought that this must be what Rabbi Woolsey had meant when he told me to be a good Jewish wife and to raise our children in a good Jewish home. This was the way I wanted to do it, the way I wanted it to be. But I did not yet know how.
Shortly after the evening at the Godfrey’s, I became sick, had a high fever, and was confined to bed in our dingy hotel room. Dick had to work during the day and Ethel took it upon herself to visit me daily. She came with chicken soup and competent, comforting kindness and she nursed me back to health. When I tried to express my gratitude, she brushed it aside saying, “Listen! If my daughter were eighteen, sick, and alone in a strange place, I would want someone to do the same for her.” I understood then, and have never forgotten, that concept of responsibility to others. From then on, everybody’s children were mine.
In February, after a separation of four months, Dick’s ship came into Boston and I went up to be with him. I had a dream there. I dreamed that old Dr. Wise, who had doctored me through all my childhood diseases, told me, in a very nonchalant way, that I was going to die in six months. My Mother, also in the dream, coolly accepted this prognosis as fact and so did others to whom I turned as I desperately sought someone to negate this horrifying news. Finally, I cried out, “Six Months! That’s not even time enough to have a baby!” and I awoke, extremely disturbed.
Though Dick and I had sensibly agreed to wait until after the war before starting our family, the dream had had its effect and our oldest daughter, Carol was conceived. During the course of my pregnancy, that dream haunted me. A heightened awareness of the miracle of love and life, of sex, the human body, my own in particular, the growth of the baby within my womb, my gradually swelling belly, breasts, already preparing to feed a child….all this was accompanied by a new awareness of death….the end of things. The possibility of being cheated out of a life whose threshold I was upon. I worried until I passed my sixth month of pregnancy and then I continued to worry after that. I told myself I was foolish but my fear grew. I prayed to God. I could not shake the dream. It became an obsession.
There was another anxiety too. Dick said, after learning that I was pregnant, that if the baby was a boy, we would have to have a Mohel perform the circumcision. “That’s ridiculous”, my Mother said. “I won’t have a dirty old man performing it. It’s unsafe and unsanitary. The doctors do it nowadays as a matter of course.” There was a heated discussion between them. I didn’t know what the argument was all about. Didn’t know who was right or who to obey, my Mother? my husband?
“A mohel?” I asked.
“A religious ceremony”, said Dick, “A Brith milah. A circumcision. Remember Abraham and his covenant with
God”?
“Oh, yeah”, I said, wondering what to do.
What a relief that the baby was a girl! She was born November 14, 1944 at the Lying In Hospital in Philadelphia. Dick’s ship was in Boston. The proud new father went to the same Synagogue we had attended while on our honeymoon. He named our daughter Rachel Leah after his Father’s Mother. I called her Carol.
Giving birth to Carol was an ecstasy. Never before had I experienced God’s presence with such certainty and clarity. With sudden illumination, I understood for a moment, the purpose of everything. I was so grateful. “Oh, thank you. Thank you”, I said to the doctors and nurses. “Thank you, God. Thank You so much”, I said, feeling the weight of Carol’s seven pounds six ounces on my stomach instead of in it.
My elation, my moment of insight and revelation, my encounter with God experienced during childbirth, did not eliminate the dread of death. I thought perhaps it might strike when the baby was six months old. “Six months” were the key words from my dream. ‘Nobody knows’, I said to myself. ‘On the outside I seem normal and happy. Nobody knows how terribly frightened I am. Nobody knows how I’m shaking inside”. The peculiar thing was that Dick was the one at war and in danger, but it was apprehension of my own demise that so troubled me. I was living with my parents at the time and one night, when Carol was a few weeks old, I was home alone with my baby. I could bear my terror no longer and called Gertrude Grey, who had been my nurse in the maternity hospital. She came right over, found me shaking, stayed with me, talked to me, and calmed me down somewhat until my parents came home. The next day, Dr. Wise was called.
“No, no, you don’t need a psychiatrist”, he said to me because I thought I did. “It’s just a case of war nerves, that’s all. Don’t smoke so much. Don’t drink coffee. Go to bed early. Get plenty of rest. Take this tonic. You’ll be all right”. He gave me a reassuring pat.
But I was not all right. Not for a long time. Long after Carol had safely passed her sixth month, in good health, even after the war was over and Dick returned safely to me, the fear stayed. It did not jibe at all with my faith in God. Did I believe in a God I could not trust? Perhaps I was afraid of life as much as I was of death. In any event, the fear vanished in time as inexplicably as it had appeared.
For Carol’s first summer, when I was still very much going through the “war nerves” phase, my parents thought that a change of scenery and a place in the country might do us some good so they rented a furnished house for us all. One day, Carol was in her play pen and I was browsing through the bookshelves there when I discovered a prayer book for the day of Atonement. With great emotion, I read it from beginning to end. It was the first time I had an opportunity to read those prayers in English and at my own speed.
I read, “O my God before I was formed I was nothing worth, and now I have been formed I am but as though I had not been formed. Dust am I in my life: how much more so in my death.”
I prayed, “O save with thy right hand and answer me.”
I asked, “Who is like unto thee, Father of mercy, who in mercy rememberest thy creatures unto life?” I answered, “Yea, faithful art thou to quicken the dead. Blessed art thou, O Lord, who quickenest the dead.”
I pleaded, “Now, therefore, O Lord our God, impose thine awe upon all thy works, and thy dread upon all that thou hast created, that all works may fear thee and all creatures prostrate themselves before thee, that they may all form a single band to do thy will with a perfect heart, even as we know, O Lord our God that dominion is thine, strength is in thy hand, and might in thy right hand, and that thy name is to be feared above all that thou has created.”
I cried, “Remember us, O Lord our God, thereon for our well being; be mindful of us for blessing, and save us unto life, by thy promise of salvation and mercy, spare us and be gracious unto us, have mercy upon us and save us…”
I acknowledged, “We have turned aside from thy commandments and good judgements….”
And recognized my sins, “What shall we say before thee, O thou who dwellest on high….”
I trembled, “Thou knowest the secrets of eternity and the most hidden mysteries of all living……Thou searchest the innermost recesses, and triest the reins and the heart. Nought is concealed from thee or hidden from thine eyes.”
I beseeched and begged forgiveness, “May it then be thy will, O Lord our God and God of our Fathers to forgive us for all our sins, to pardon us for all our iniquities, and to grant us remission for all our transgressions.”
I sobbed and sobbed. My tears were for myself. I was praying for my life!
When I finished, I felt very much better, cleaner, happier, and relieved of burdens. My faith had been reconfirmed and I was reassured. The fear was not gone, but instead of worrying about it, I felt quite right to be so afraid. Was not God to be feared? And thus, I experienced Yom Kippur in mid-July.
My Mother and I were sitting in the living room listening to the radio when we heard that the war was over. “You are a Very! Lucky! Girl!” my Mother said dramatically. On thinking about it later, the way she said those words was an indication to me of how much she must have been worrying about us, but at the time I just said, “I know” and ran from the room. I ran from the house and searched for a place at the back of the house, a place to be alone, a place to burst. I dropped to the ground, stomach first, face down.
“Oooooooooohhhhhhh” I let it out…..”Thank you. Thank you, God. Oooooooooooooooohhhhh”, it came from my stomach, from inside my insides..”Thank God, Thank God, Thank God….my life can begin…no more waiting. No more killing. He’s coming. He’s coming back to me. No more loneliness. We’ll be together. He’ll see his baby….no more death…..no more bombing, no more torture…no more mourning and grieving….and worrying. He’s coming. He’ll be back. It’s over. Over. OVER! It is all over. Thank God! God, thank you so much. He’s coming back. It’s over. And I went on in much the same way I had years before, at Nanny’s death when I tried to make myself understand what the word, “never” meant. How could I possibly have understood, in only an instant, the meaning of the announcer’s four words just heard on the radio. “Peace has been declared.”
I received a letter from Dick saying he’d be back by the end of August or the beginning of September and that I should meet him in Cleveland at his parent’s home. Carol, aged nine months, and I had our first airplane ride. Dick’s Mother, Dad, and sister welcomed us warmly. We met Aunt Blanche and “Grandma”, both of whom lived with Dick’s parents on Edgehill Road. Everyone was excited to meet our wonderful baby and we were all so grateful that Richard, as they called him, would soon be back. But this is not to be an account of my reunion with Dick, although of course it was thrilling to be reunited with him. What is important here is all I learned about Judaism during that visit to Cleveland.
I remember I followed Dick’s Grandmother around their kosher kitchen, wanting to learn how she cooked the dishes that Dick so loved. He had told me about his Grandmother’s cooking! I was also interested in learning about the dietary laws and keeping kosher. I asked questions. Sarah Stashower, aged seventy-some, said, “Listen, my dear, I live this way because my Mother did. Minnie, Richard’s Mother, does it because I do. You? You’re not used to it. Your Mother didn’t do it. Don’t bother. It’s too much trouble.”
Friday in Cleveland, I observed, smelled, and felt the preparations for Shabbath. Early in the morning Dick’s Grandmother and Mother began their kitchen bustling.
Soon after breakfast, chicken soup was already simmering on the stove, liver, onions and hard boiled eggs were forced through the meat grinder by grandma’s gnarled hands. My Mother-in-law kneaded kuchen dough then put it aside to let it rise slowly under a clean kitchen towel while she attended to other chores. Later, from the oven, its sweet aroma rose and mingled with that of onions sautéing in a large pan.
The women of the household took a quick break for a light lunch, then swiftly cleaned up to get the “milchic dishes” out of the way so they could continue with their chopping, grinding, washing, mixing, paring, stirring, basting and tasting. I became their most enthusiastic taster and though I wanted to help, it was the only job they let me do. "What do you think? A little more salt?"” they would ask, knowing full well that I was absolutely correct when I told them it was perfect. Dick too would come in now and then, as he must have, when a small boy, to taste, to sample one of his Grandma's pickles, to drink a glass of pop, and to "smoosh" a bit until he was kicked out or given a job to do like extending the dining room table.
Guifillte fish, soup, homemade noodles, chopped liver, meat, vegetables, potatoes, salad, desert, meals for the next day, all were prepared in advance. Silver candlesticks and wine cups were polished, the table set beautifully, as for an honored guest. The final task was removing the newspapers which had been spread to protect the spotless linoleum kitchen floor from any spills during the cooking. Then, the two Jewish housewives went upstairs to ready themselves for the approaching day of rest. Blanche came home from work. Dad came home. We all dressed and met together at candle lighting time in the dining room. Shabbath was here.
At the Shabbath table, Dick’s Mother tried to answer all my questions and took the responsibility of transmitting her faith very seriously. Minnie S. Rosenberg was a Sunday School teacher, and the first American born Hebrew teacher in the city of Cleveland. She was also a passionate zealot. She had a ferocious pride in her ancestry (“our people”) and in their accomplishments and contributions to civilization throughout the centuries. Her convictions concerning the positive values of Judaism were of such magnitude that one could not help but be influenced and inspired by them.
I was eager to learn all I could from this woman whom I admired and respected. All the same, there were moments, even on that first Shabbath when communications between us seemed jammed. I, with my Christian approach to religion, interpreted what she was trying to teach me, in ways that she did not mean. And though she patiently bore with me, I must have caused her anguish and must have exasperated her. I, on the other hand, felt antagonized because she seemed unable to acknowledge that there were any truths at all in what I was saying. It was as if she feared by so doing she might, somehow, diminish the beauty and absolute qualities of her own. I was disappointed too because I had so wanted her to know, admire, and respect me, yet she would neither listen to nor take cognizance of my own particular philosophical insights. I had thought religion would be the common bond between us and it wasn’t. That evening after dinner, Dick led the praying (called “benching”). The melodies were beautiful and were chanted in Hebrew and in harmony. Dick, his Mother and his Aunts explained their meaning to me.
As we sat around the table after prayers, Dick told us about his experiences in the Navy. He said that while he had been at sea, when he had had the watch, if it were on a Friday night, he would do the entire “benching” to himself right up there on the bridge. It wasn’t only praying to God that was important to him but it was a way for him to be connected to his family again. Even as the U.S.S. Harding pitched and rolled, Dick would imagine himself in the dining room on Edgehill Road, at its specially set table with those he loved seated around it. He could feel their warmth, see their faces, smell the aromas, savor the tastes, hear their voices singing, and thus span the interminable distance.
On Friday nights at sea, the Rosenberg’s son brought himself home.
Dick’s many cousins, aunts and uncles all came over to greet him and to meet me during that Shabbath weekend. Sarah Stashower was indeed the matriarch of her family. Her five children all lived within a five minute walking radius of the Edgehill Road address and came to call Friday night after dinner. After I had chatted for awhile with each family member, Uncle Joe, with a grin on hjs face, stood up abruptly and announced that he was going for a little walk. Dick quickly said he’d go with him and then explained to me in a whisper that they were going out for a cigarette because smoking was not done in the house from sun-down Friday to sun-down Saturday out of respect for his Grandmother. I decided to “catch a breath of air” too and enjoyed lighting up while strolling around the block with Dick and his Uncle Joe. The rationale about smoking was explained to me in this way:
Firstly, an observant Jew does not work on Shabbath. Since methods for lighting fires were, at one time, primitive and entailed labor, it was one of the chores forbidden for Shabbath which is to be a day of rest and one free of ordinary daily tasks.
Secondly, even though in modern times it is possible to light a fire with no effort at all by simply striking a match, Orthodox Jews still cling to the original admonition not to light fires.
Thirdly, Dick and his Uncle were enlightened Conservative Jews who believed that everything in the Bible was open to interpretation. They believed that they could observe Shabbath and smoke at the same time but they didn’t want to upset Grandma who believed differently…..thus, the occasional walks around the block.
Later I discovered that one of Dick’s cousins satisfied her cravings for nicotine on Shabbath by smoking in the upstairs bathroom. Dick did not approve of her behavior at all and thought that smoking anywhere in the house was out of bounds.
There was a rationale about driving on the Sabbath too. Dick and Uncle Joe explained it all to me as we drove down to the old Cleveland Jewish Center together next morning:
Firstly, not only were Jews themselves commanded to refrain from working on the Sabbath, but they were even ordered to keep their animals idle on the sacred day of rest.
Secondly, in early times, the only modes of transportation, of necessity, employed animals and therefore, travel per se was forbidden on the seventh day.
Thirdly, even though nowadays, travelling by automobile involves no work at all, Orthodox Jews still cling to the original precept and don’t travel.
And Fourthly, Dick and his Uncle were enlightened Conservative Jews who believed that it was quite all right to drive on Shabbath.
“After all, it is better to drive to Synagogue than not to go at all”, they reasoned. Still, they parked the car a few blocks away from the Synagogue, “out of respect”, they explained.
The Cleveland Jewish Center was the place where Dick had grown up Jewishly. He had attended Sunday School, had had his Bar Mitzva, and had been confirmed there. His Mother, Uncles, and Aunts had all taught and been active in one capacity or another at that Institution. Uncle Fred had at one time served as principal of its religious school. Park Synagogue was being built on the “Heights” then. It was to serve the congregation of the Center but in the mean time, the old Center was still in use. When we entered the building, Dick hurried to point out his Confirmation Class picture hanging on the wall lined with all the other framed confirmants. He was so proud of the attachment that he and his family had with that place.
We entered the sanctuary and sat in a wooden pew belonging to the Rosenberg-Stashower clan. Dick kept flipping pages of the prayer book for me so that I could keep pace with the worshippers. In the process, he interrupted my thoughts and the continuity of my reading. This annoyed me somewhat but since the assistance was offered lovingly with a desire to teach and be helpful, I complied with the urging to keep to the proper page and learned to say, “Baruch hu ve Baruch shemo” Blessed is he and blessed is his name” each time “Baruch Atah Adonai” (“Blessed art Thou O Lord”) was uttered and thereby, listened and remained alert.
After services, I was introduced to people. One man said, laughingly, “I was watching you. I saw you sleeping!” I was alarmed that he thought that of me.
“No, no, I wasn’t sleeping, I was praying!”, I said earnestly. He pointed a finger at me. “I saw you!”, he kidded.
On the way home, Dick reminisced about how he and his friend, Lewis, had always walked together on the High Holiday, from the Heights all the way down to the Jewish Center.
“That’s a long way to walk!”, Dick pointed out to me, impressed with his accomplishment in retrospect. “We’d walk back too after having fasted all day”, he added, recalling with pleasure how the two of them would stop on the way home and break their fast with a root beer soda….not a very traditional way to end the Jewish day of Atonement.
Later, at home, Aunt Blanche reported with some amusement that one of the congregants wanted to know who I was and when Blanche had told her that I was Richard’s wife, the woman commiserated with her…”Tsch! Such a shame! Your nephew married to a shiksa.”
Well, it was happening again! That good old being converted feeling! Everybody in Cleveland was so pleased with me. I was making Dick, his parents and relatives happy because I cared, wanted to learn, wanted to be all that they wanted of me. I made Rabbi Armond Cohen and his wife, Ann happy too. My young husband took me to call on them that same Shabbath in the afternoon. Our hosts were cordial and pleasant. We sat comfortably in their attractive apartment while they reminisced with Richard about Sunday School days and Confirmation Class. Then they asked me about myself. I was excited to be with them and glad to have the opportunity to tell of my religiously-deprived background and of my desire to be a good Jewish wife. To help me begin, the Cohens presented me with a gift. It was a book entitled “Three Pillars” and was a how to and why to book for Jewish women. I was thrilled with it and could hardly wait to read it.
When we said good bye, after our short visit, I did not realize how many times I was to see them again through the years. Because they were the ones who sort of “started me”, the Armond Cohens hold a special place in my assortment of memories.
Continue to Chapter 5 »»
