Part 1: Paradise

 

If ever there was a child welcomed into this world – with love, excitement, hope…

If ever a child was made to feel wanted and loved from moment one…

If ever a child’s home and family extended a message of acceptance, support, pride….

I was that child!!

 

I was born on the morning of July 8, 1920, delivered at home by my mother Rose, aided by midwife, Jenny Korin, a friend of the Lisenco family from the “old country”. (Jennie and her sister Sylvia both had come from the town of Brailov where the Lisenco family lived in the” old country.” I never knew Jennie, as she died while I was very young; but Sylvia and Joe Rosenfeld, whom she married sometime later, were both family friends well-known to me.) 

 

My family lived in a small building on the northeast corner of Hoe Avenue and 172 Street in the Bronx. The household consisted of four people: my mother Rose and my father Froim Camenir, recently graduated from NYU dental school in 1919; and my maternal grandparents, Zayde Fishel and Bubby Sonia Lisenco, whom everybody called “Mama.”

My earliest memories of life in that apartment are few but very clear, as is the memory of the apartment itself. I was a little more than 3 years old when we moved away yet the events I recall stand out in living color.

 

Our apartment was one flight up in the building which I think was only two stories high. I never went anywhere “upstairs.” Our apartment was directly above the grocery store on the street level, run by a pleasant couple, Mr. and Mrs. Stedman. 

 

You entered our home from the street by mounting a short “stoop” outside the building. These stairs were flanked on each side by a broad silver-tin balustrade so wide that it resembled a slide in the playground. These steps brought you to a short hallway above the grocery and led you to the door of our apartment’s long hall.

 

At one end, on the left, was the kitchen. Immediately beside it, doorways meeting at an acute angle, there was a large, bright living-dining room. The furniture included a brown leatherette couch, a large round dining room table and chairs, upholstered in brown leatherette, and a Victrola phonograph. Of course there may have been other pieces, but these were obviously the most important ones to me.

 

The round dining table, as I recall it, was always surrounded by family and friends, drinking tea (from a glass, sipped through a lump of sugar held between the teeth, the “old-country way”), eating simple suppers,(corn bread, herring, potatoes), laughing, talking, talking, talking. They spoke in three languages- Russian, Yiddish, English, so interwoven that it became their unique medium of communication. I understood all three languages and spoke some of each. I remember music in the house, singing around the table. I’ve been told that Zayde played the guitar but truthfully I don’t remember that. I do, however, remember playing my own little phonograph records – small circles of red and yellow with pictures of small children and tiny words on the labels. 

I remember waiting while someone wound the phonograph for my records to go round and round. I was too little to do that myself. Then, as the music played, I’d sing along and twirl in dance, feeling certain that I looked exactly like one of those colorful little girls on the labels.

 

Among the numerous visitors in the house, and to me the most important, were my Aunt Sabena and Uncle Mosei (pronounced Moysay) Millstein. Their daughter, my cousin Teiby (teibele, means little dove in Yiddish) was 3 years older than me. She became and remained through our lifetime, my playmate, friend, role model and idol. We felt like sisters throughout our lives.

One often recalled anecdote is about Teiby and her doll carriage. It had been kept somewhere in the cellar during the winter and brought upstairs when the weather cleared. Teiby tried to fit me into it, as if I was a doll, but I was too big. She began to cry saying “There are devils in the cellar. The baby used to fit in my carriage, but now it’s gotten too small for her.” She remained unconvinced no matter how emphatically the adults explained that although as a baby I once did fit in the carriage, I had since grown bigger! Teiby could not be consoled and stubbornly maintained her own theory about “devils in the cellar.” 

 

Turning right as you entered the apartment, the hallway led to the corner of the house. Here were my father’s dental office and his “waiting room.” All my young life, my father’s office and waiting room were part of any apartment in which we lived, and so I grew with a father who worked at home. Between the two ends of the hall were several bedrooms; one for my grandparents and one for my parents, where I probably slept. There was also a bathroom and a spare room, which housed the inevitable “boarder” about whom I remember only her unusual name, Miss Insulbook, and very little else. 

 

But there was one more important door in that hallway, and it led to the “back stairs” which brought one directly down to the grocery store beneath our apartment. Even when I was very little, I could walk down the stairs and “buy” a loaf of bread or even, I remember once, a “measure” of milk.

 

In those days, we bought milk in a tin milk can with a tight round cover and a looped handle. The grocery man ladled it out from a huge milk can by a large one-quart measure scoop with which he poured the milk into the customer’s smaller milk-tin. I recall, one day, standing in the living room holding the quart sized can by its handle and swinging it round and round. I was being trusted to go down the back steps and bring up a measure of milk. I felt very grown-up, responsible and important. 

 

My grandfather, lying on the brown leatherette couch, admonished me not to swing the can, as I would spill the milk. I remember my feelings at his warning. Did he really think I would swing it when the milk was inside? I remember feeling “put down” and not appreciated for my matter-of-fact intelligence. I told Zayde that of course, I wouldn’t swing it when it would be filled with milk, but I felt rebuked. (My grandpa, frail and bedridden was still the power person in the family, although, as I learned later, it was always Bubby who provided the fuel and the action!) I think that must have been one of very few times such a thing happened. I recall mostly being praised and loved, especially by my grandparents.

“Shurele” they called me. My truly earliest memory is of jumping on their bed in my long white nightgown while they both stood in the doorway of their bedroom. They’d say, “Shurele, mach a comedie” (“give us a performance”.) “Shurele” they called me. 

 

I’d stand up on the bed-pillows, wave my arms wildly above my head, and let myself fall, face down onto the soft mattress, bouncing after I fell. They’d clap their hands and laugh. I knew they doted on me. I was a happy little child. I felt secure and loved. 

 

I must have been about two years old at the time, for shortly after that, I do not remember my grandfather standing or walking very much. He was a heavy smoker, and developed cancer of the throat sometime before I was three years old. My memories of him, thereafter, are of lying on the couch and being tended mostly by my mother. A few more incidents during this halcyon period remain in my memory. I recall sitting in my father’s rocking chair in the waiting room, drinking orange juice and biting the glass. The juice spilled and my lip was all bloody. Another time, in that same chair, I rocked and rocked until it and I both turned over. Both times I was not chided, but comforted by my mother and grandmother, who ultimately advised me not to repeat the follies. I was never punished…only admonished. (That rocker is still part of my furniture, in use to this day!)

 

But a third misdeed was not received as benignly. One day, playing alone in my father’s office (I don’t know how that happened!) I noticed the resemblance between his dental chair and the chair in the barbershop where my mother had recently taken me to trim my Buster Brown bangs. I decided to play “barber shop”. Since the barber had seated me on some sort of elevated board, I looked around for something similar to place across the arms of the dental chair. Behind a three-paneled screen in the office, I found a white piece of something that fitted nicely. I placed it carefully on the dental chair, climbed up upon it and promptly broke it, falling down and crying out in surprise! The white thing was a new glass sign saying “DENTIST” which my father had just purchased to put in his office window! Needless to say, the adults came running to investigate my bellows of 

pain and suffering.

 

I was picked up from the floor, unhurt and uncut by the broken glass. I was told in no uncertain terms never to go into the office by myself. Of course, after that, I never did! 

 

But I was never, ever physically punished… not then... not ever! I don’t know what my father said, but I knew, somehow, he was angry and disappointed in me. I was embarrassed and ashamed.

 

Sometime during 1922, my father’s two sisters, Aunt Manya and Aunt Paulya came to the States from Russia. I don’t remember their arrival, - but suddenly they were among the adults in my world. They were warmly welcomed by my mother’s entire family and became increasingly important to me. They had survived the turbulent days in Russia; the days after World War I ended. After the Russian revolution of 1917, a subsequent blood bath ensued when soldiers of some thirty-five countries were sent to Russia to stop the takeover of the Russian Dumas (the Parliament) by the Bolsheviks. During the street fighting in that civil war, my aunts were both wounded.

 

Paulya’s right hand was severely crippled for the rest of her life, the fingers paralyzed into a claw-like position. Manya carried the ugly scars of a very deep gash in the upper part of her right arm. She also developed epilepsy, which plagued her throughout the rest of her life. Despite their traumatic experiences, both young women settled into a constructive life in their new country. Both found employment and became citizens. The very eccentric Manya worked in the garment industry of New York City. Her job as “finisher” was to examine finished, low cost dresses and clip off any hanging threads. Our very sweet Paulya, after some difficulty in finding employment because of her obvious disability, found a job with the National Biscuit Company. Her job was to stand, knife in hand, at an assembly line, separating chocolate mallowmars as they flowed from the icing machine.

 

At about the same time, there was another important arrival, the Frankel family; Zoya and David (pronounced Dahveed) and their two little daughters, Melia (who became Mildred in America) and Dusya (who became Dorothy). Melia was a little older than I. Dusya was still a babe in arms. Zoya had been my mother’s girlhood chum in the old country and they had attended the same school. Very recently arrived in the United States, what could be better than to visit the family of “Mama Lisenco?” Contact with us was undoubtedly affected through the Brailover Landsmanschaft of which my 

grandfather was secretary. 

 

I recall their first visit. Melia and I were told to play together in “my room.” She spoke only Russian. I had a large box of toys, which I began to share with her. I remember giving her a toy, then taking one for myself. Finally, I came upon one of my favorites, a little grinder with a handle that really 

worked. It was her turn to receive the toy.

 

For one long moment I remember savoring the feel of it in my hand, wishing I didn’t have to toss it over to her…wondering how I could work things out so that I could play with it myself.

 

I remember thinking “She’ll only be here for a little while. When she goes home it will still be mine. “After one long moment of guilty hesitation, I tossed it over to her side of the pile and said “Nah!” We continued to play gaily side by side and remained playmates for many years to come. As Zoya and my mother were fast friends, we saw much of each other during our childhood, and later on as well. Somehow, we three girls drifted apart after we were married.

 

Other adults remembered from those earliest days in my Paradise included Bella Rosen and her husband, whom we called Rosen to the end of his days although his given name was Isidore. Bella was also one of my mother’s girlhood chums and her “best friend” as well. To the end of her days, she and her husband remained important to us. 

Other members of her family, the Render family, were Bella’s sisters, Lily, Rachel (pronounced Rahcheel) and Frieda; and also her brothers, Haskel (Rachel’s twin) and Joe. 

 

Other friends included a pretty dark-haired, pale-skinned woman (also named Rachel) whose husband was a photographer. Like all the men in that group, he was mentioned only by his last name, Dolin. I never knew his first name. They had a pretty little daughter named Lorelei. 

 

My grandmother also had her friends who visited; two of whom I recall vividly. Mr. Hellner was a tall, courtly gentleman who came calling on my grandmother during the day. He was one of the Brailovers and one of the few people who, I realized even then, was not a family member. He struck me, even in those tender years, as being somewhat formal. My aunt Sabena told me later that she always thought he was in love with my grandmother, even though he was married. That didn’t surprise me. Who wasn’t?

 

One day I was holding a little book with a picture of a lamb on the cover. (From my earliest days I was surrounded by books and music). As I stood by the open window of the dining room, the book fell from my hands and landed on the rolled up awning of the grocery store below. 

 

I cried out and Bubby came over to see why. At that very moment, Mr. Hellner came rounding the street corner and saw what had happened. He raised a reassuring hand to us at the window and went into the grocery. He soon reappeared with Mr. Stedman, who carried a long metal rod with a hook at one end with which he unwound his awning. The book fell out of its folds and Mr. Hellner picked it up, thanked Mr. Stedman and brought it upstairs to me. Odd, isn’t it, that the little girl has remembered such an incident for so many years! I remember feeling his kindness as he handed me the little book, with a smile. He never patronized me.

 

Bubby’s other friend was Mrs. Pevsner. She was a very dignified lady who spoke excellent English, by comparison with all the other adults in my family who mixed three languages shamelessly. Mrs. Pevsner also visited at times other than when the family came. In retrospect, I realize that these friends of my grandmother were older people who had time to visit during the day. My family and my parents’ friends all worked by day, or, if they did come by day, came with their children. 

 

(To me at the time, all the adults in my world seemed of the same age. I never thought of anyone being “old” or “older.” The world was divided, age wise, in two parts, namely, grown-ups and children.)

 

I recall one particular visit with Mrs. Pevsner who told a certain story which I overheard while playing with my toys in the same room. It was not intended for my ears. They were talking about World War I. The Armistice had been signed in November 1918, and this conversation must have occurred sometime in 1922 or 23. Memories of the war years were still very vivid and remember, too, the Lisencos were all pacifists, socialists, and against the war!

 

Mrs. Pevsner’s story, dramatically told, has continued to burn in my memory. Her son had been in active service in the American army. She was recounting an incident that he had shared with her because it had traumatized him.

 

A group of American soldiers had captured a German enemy soldier. On his knees, (said Mrs. P.) he begged his captors to spare his life, saying partly in German, partly in broken English (which she imitated) “Please…please… meine kinder... my children, mein frau... my wife…” The American soldiers laughed at him saying, “Well, she’s a widow now.” And they killed him with their bayonets, right then and there. 

I remember the shocked silence that greeted this ending – and the subsequent comments of her listeners. They condemned war in general, describing how terrible it is, and what it does to people, not just to those who die but also to the survivors. Mrs. Pevsner said that her son could not forget that incident. Nor could I forget it, little as I was when I heard it. I have remained a “peace-nik” to the end of my days.

 

These small but important memories, and probably others that I don’t recall as readily, have, in part, shaped my worldview. My conscious decision to share the toy with Melia, Mr. Hellner’s kindness, and Mrs. Pevsner’s chilling story all impressed me deeply. Reinforced by my entire family’s outlook and philosophy, these small incidents have remained illustrations of what my family believed and provided guidelines for me as well.

 

The image of my entire family sitting around a big dining room table at various get-togethers remains crystal clear. I remember the festiveness, the togetherness, the palpable caring – and it all belonged to me and I belonged to it all. I felt safe, so very 

safe.

 

My Paradise, like Camelot, was short-lived. My grandfather grew worse. I’ve been told my mother took him for endless hours of radiation treatment. He was cared for at home. I remember the contraption in his throat. When he wanted to speak he’d put his finger there and speak in raspy tones. I loved him very much and did not understand that he was dying. But everyone around me, of course, knew it. No one spoke to me about it.

 

One day, my sweet Aunt Paulya took me and my cousin Fanchon (6 months younger than I) to Crotona Park. I remember there was a baby in a carriage, also. That must have been my cousin, Yasha Millstein; he was a year younger than me. Fanchon and I were playing, running round and round at a water fountain. Paulya admonished us to stop running as we would fall. We didn’t listen and one of us did fall. I think it was Fanchon, who scraped her elbow and cried at the blood. I cried too, although I don’t think I fell. What I remember most is that no one was very happy. Paulya took us home. My grandfather wasn’t there. 

 

It had been the day of his funeral, but we had not been told. My Bubby told me years

later that when she tried to tell me that Zayde had gone away, I cried loudly, “ No, no I saw them put him in a big black box. Somebody took him away!”

 

I don’t remember that part at all, but I do believe my Bubby. I don’t remember where my mother was, or my father either for that matter. I do remember that it was not a happy day, but I didn’t really know why. 

 

I do know, however, that nothing in my life was ever the same after that.

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