The farm in Rockland County

 The group of farm people my mother's cousin Jack brought over in 1939 and 1940.  German Jews, very dangerous.  Don't know how he did it.  Though my mother insisted they were self-sufficient and sometimes they brought vegetables.  I don't think the farm lasted very long.  Not much agrarian background among European Jews.

Some of  my closer relatives are in this picture; I can identify them.  Left was the cousin Jack.  Next to him is my Aunt Ruth, I think the lady in the white jacket in the middle is my great aunt Gertrude with her youngest son Jim crouching next to her.  Farthest to my right is my grandmother Regina.

I haven't figured out the rest of the people.  But it was Jack's sister Flora, her husband Wilhelm Adler and her father in law Abraham Adler.  Jack's brother Julius and his wife Irene.  I don't know about Flora.

Julius and Irene had their children in the 1920s as did my grandmother.  I don't know who the other young boy is.  

This is around 1940, don't know how to date it.

But here's the kicker.  Jack, Flora and Julius' were siblings.

Another sibling -- David Baumann, for whom we laid the stolpersteine memorial in Amsterdam two years ago.  

I wondered why my mother and family didn't know about David and his family.  My mother had passed away when we discovered it.  Oh, people didn't know, they didn't know my grandfather's cousins, they were far away, people didn't talk about it,  it was different then, no computers, etc.

Nope, not buying it now or before.  Here are 3 of David's siblings right in this picture (somewhere) posing with my grandmother, my aunt, my great aunt and her son.  My mother telling me the story of the farm in 1985.  Flora and her husband sailed from Rotterdam and registered in Amsterdam.  They had to know about David being in Amsterdam.

Temple Israel Boston

 One thing that I wanted to do in Massachusetts was to visit Temple Israel Cemetery.  My grandparents and my grandmother's family are buried there.  There was a very helpful person at Temple Israel, told me that Edward Cohen (my great-grandfather) had purchased a plot with 12 spots in 1945.  Of course he would.  He has six children.  He himself is buried in a similar monument a little bit down.

I found my grandparent's stone and lots of great aunts and uncles though I did know that much about them

We placed rocks on the stones, as always, to show that we were there..They had a graveside there in the mid 1990s when my grandmother passed.  But my father forbade myself, my brother and sister from going.  I could never figure that out.

But now me, my husband and my sister have visited.

My grandparents

My paternal grandparents, Harold and Betty Ginsburgh, pictures taken in their 70s  in the 1970s.

I've bristled against the steriotypes coming out of the large migration of Eastern European migration of Jews in the early twentieth century, the lower east side, garment trade, yiddishkeit.  I was truly appalled when somebody I knew assured me that she knew all about my Jewishness based on her familiarity with this culture.

Being born Jewish has a lot of implications which I ponder.  I cannot escape these strong cultural roots and inheritance.  I find it rich and confounding.  Maybe one reason why I keep writing about it.

My mother's family came to the US during the earlier German migration of the 1840s.  The high German Jews; a stereotype which I luckily did not have to deal with growing up on the west coast.  My father's family was more from the later Eastern European migration but push the boundaries.  My paternal grandfather was the son of an immigrant from eastern Prussia.  But my great grandfather came to the US as a young child around 1880.  I don't know much about my great grandmother, the census record says the family came from 'Russia'.  But I think she was native born.  My paternal grandmother's family came from the Pale, now Ukraine around 1890.  My great grandfather was a carpenter and a housepainter but, like other stereotypes, he rose dealing in real estate, apartment buildings and built up a sizable mortgage brokerage business in Cambridge MA.

My grandfather grew up as a classics geek in Rochester NY.  He loved to show me his books and read from them in the original greek and latin.  He spent his first two years as college at the University of Rochester, then transferring to Harvard on scholarship graduating in the Class of 1920.  As I've written before, Harvard stayed the dominant institution in his life.  I think there wasn't room at Harvard for transfer students for the first year (or maybe they didn't make any) and Jewish students boarded with Jewish families in Cambridge.  I think my grandfather boarded in grandmother's home where they met.

To me, the astonishing part is that my grandparents, both children of immigrants, had no trace of immigrant culture about them.  None.  No Yiddish, no stories of the old country.  Nothing.  They identified as proper Boston citizens.  That heritage occupied no part of their lives.  My grandfather, an insurance executive and his proper wife participated in high culture activities.  It wasn't a secret, it simply did not exist for them.

Mothers Day 1994

In Rockford Illinois, not here.

21 years ago.

My father and mother stand with my grandmother outside of Wesley Willows.  Probably they've just come to visit.  But my father, especially, is dressed up.  Maybe they had some special luncheon so everybody wanted to look nice.  That's one thing about my family of origin.  You were always supposed to dress nicely.  Very important.

Somehow that message never quite rubbed off on me.  But my mother tried, really tried, always pointing out that I never was dressed nice enough.  Not to her standards, anyway.  sigh.  What can you do with those tapes playing in our head?

We were talking about childhood tapes playing in your head in a team meeting today.  And how powerful those memories and conversations are.

So as I do, how old was everybody in this picture.  My father is 68, my mother 70, my grandmother 94.  Everybody's looking pretty darn good.

My grandmother's 99th birthday

1998 -
Rockford, IL

I was there for a number of these late birthdays, but since the picture has my mother's writing on it, maybe she just sent the picture.  I did crop out a snippet of my sister of the right.  So maybe my father took the picture.  When I would be there, often he wouldn't go unless my mother guilt tripped him into it.  This is his mother but he really did not like going to the retirement facility.  Because it just reminded him of his own age.  And, as far as he was concerned, none of this aging and dying thing would happen to him.  He would have none of it.

My mother always did make a party for her.  The fancy cups and napkins, the wrapped gift.  My grandmother, as usual, dressed rather formally.  And looks pretty happy with what's going on but, if she had her wits about her, she probably would say something unkind to my mother, her devoted daughter in law.

It was at these little parties, that I learned how important it could be to send a card to remember somebody.

But the downside of photos, the farther back in time you go, the better everybody looks so, if you don't watch out, you fear the future rather than embrace it.

My grandmother died in 2001 at age 103, my father in 2006 and my mother in 2010.

I want to write about my paternal grandparents.  Officially they came from that later immigration from eastern Europe.  Technically, they are both children of immigrants.  But my paternal great grandfather came from East Prussia as a child and my paternal great grandparents came early, in 1890 from the Pale of Settlement (Ukraine specifically).  But you could not see any of that immigrant influence in my grandparents.  They lived in Boston, my grandfather attended Harvard and was an insurance executive.  They always dressed formally and only participated in high cultural activities (classical music, etc).

New Haven 1955

I'm cleaning out my main office; my brother's coming and I've got to make a little room.  Here's a big photo album from the 1950s.  Of course, I have to look at it and pick out a picture before I put it away.  I've used this album for the Glendora pictures.  I joined the Glendora Historical Society btw and get their mailings.  The place is part of the greater LA contiguous city in the San Gabriel Valley.  But somehow it had a small town feel to it when we visited last February.  The Historical Society emphasizes this, July 4 parade and the primo seats in front of the Historical Society which is the old firehouse.

This picture dates from that era but is clearly taken in New Haven, I'm guessing the summer of 1955.  When my mom was older, she swore that she took us to New Haven every summer.  Not true, maybe when I was little like this.  I remember a trip when I was in kindergarten, then one in 5th grade and that was it.  My parents made sure that my grandparents came regularly to visit.  I totally get that, it is very hard to travel with small children.  We didn't!

My mother (of the small waistline) on the left with me in front of her,  She's holding my brother who I am sure is going to take off the minute he can.  Her sister Ruth on the right, with my cousin Mary Ann (a few years older than me, eyes closed) and her son Malcolm (same age as me) on her lap.  Their mother, my grandmother Regina with glasses and big bow maybe kneeling behind us.  And the other lady?  I'm guessing it's my other grandmother Betty maybe come down from Boston.  I've asked Mary Ann (same one) she will know if it's somebody else.  But she's dressed as Betty would with the belted sundress with the understated pattern, matching jacket and the necklace. And she's looking at her grandchildren.

There was quite a disparity at that time between the class status and assets of my grandparents with my paternal grandparents very much better off.  Harvard, insurance executive, etc.  My maternal grandparents had nothing really.  But go back to when my grandmother was young and the situation would have been reversed.

UPDATE: I knew Mary Ann would know.  That's Aunt Dede in the middle.  Gertrude Baumann Kleiner,  My maternal grandfather's sister who was quite close with the family.  Makes  perfect sense.  More sense than Betty coming down from Boston.   She also thinks that the location was the back yard on Foote Street in Hamden.

Photoessay #2862 - Petey in the 1970s

Dennis took some enigmatic pictures of my grandmother with her parakeet in the mid 1970s.  I think there were some even more interesting than this one.  Petey, their parakeet, bought by my mother on impulse as a surprise birthday gift.  She had no idea whether my staid grandparents would go for a parakeet.  She figured the worse thing that could happen was that she would end up with a blue bird.

My mother, not shown, would have been in her early 50s; my grandmother Betty Ginsburgh, her mother in law in her mid 70s.

But it was a good call; to everybody's surprise, even their own, they loved the bird and kept him well-cared for for his entire bird life.  When he died they didn't want another. 

Did I pick him out?  Maybe.  Somehow, I have a memory of going to the bird place and picking out a more pastel bird.  But I could be making it up.