Papas Diary Project – A life in New York, 1924

Wednesday Oct 15

October 15, 2007 by munger

[no entry today]

—————

Matt’s Notes

Papa’s periods of diary silence usually occur when he’s overwhelmed by difficult emotions, often in the aftermath of birthdays, holidays, or other milestones designed to trigger introspective stock-taking. We’re now five days into his latest quiet period (he accidentally wrote his October 22nd entry on his diary’s October 15th page, which is why you see writing on the October 15th image at right) related, I think, to the October 8th Yom Kippur holiday in which he mourned his beloved, recently-departed father for the first time.

His entries leading up to Yom Kippur were either non-existent or uncharacteristically abbreviated, and, with the exception of a long, lyrical passage on the eve of the holiday, he has maintained his quiet for almost two weeks. I have speculated for months on the nature of his grief and on the complicated internal struggles triggered by his father’s death but, no matter what I say, Papa’s own feelings remain, for him, inexpressible.

———

We know, of course, that Papa’s inherent optimism and capacity for constructive change would win out in the end; those who knew him would forever admire his sense of calm and warm, contented vibe. I expect, then, he would be satisfied by yesterday’s reaction to an article about this project in The New York Times, which has had results both expected (my mother enjoyed the article but felt it was too short) helpful (people have chimed in with research ideas and good comments) and fantastic (at least one e-mail from a long-lost relative and two from the descendants of a character who appears several times in the diary).

Meanwhile, for those of you just joining us, I’ll repeat yesterday’s list of links to posts about some of the major subjects my grandfather has covered thus far:

– “The 20th Century Girl”

– The New York Academy of Music

– B’nai zion, a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion, the fraternal order my grandfather belonged to

– Baseball

– The Capitol Theatre, one of New York’s great movie palaces

– Cars of the 1920’s

– Coney Island

– Calvin Coolidge

– The 1924 Democratic Convention, the longest and most contentious in history and the first to be broadcast live on the radio

– The Brooklyn Dodgers and Ebbets Field

– Fraternal organizations and mutual support societies, a.k.a. landsmanshaftn

– The New York Giants, 1924 pennant winners

– Keren Hayesod

– Silent Movies (1924 was a great year for movie lovers like my grandfather; several monumental films including The Thief of Badgad, The Ten Commandments, Sherlock, Jr., and D.W. Griffith’s America were out that year. I’m not sure if he saw any of those, but I do know he saw at least The Song of Love, The Unknown Purple, The White Sister with Lillian Gish, and A Woman of Paris, Charlie Chaplin’s first serious directorial effort.)

– The Metropolitan Opera

– Papa’s Father’s Injury and Death

– Prohibition

– Prospect Park

– Early radio (Papa was an early radio adopter and frequently wrote about what he heard on New York stations like WEAF and WNYC)

– Sniatyn, Papa’s Ukrainian home town (part of Austro-Hungary when he left in 1913)

– The New York Subway

– Telephones in 1924

– Tenement life

– Woodrow Wilson

– The New York Yankees

– Yom Kippur

– Zionist Organization of America

Thursday Oct 16

October 16, 2007 by munger

Attended membership
meeting of the downtown Z.
district. It certainly did
not turn out, the way I wanted
it to.

I feel a little apathetic
toward the membership work

My pep in this direction of
former years is gone.

————–

The “downtown Z. district” likely refers to “the First District,” or Lower East Side chapter, of the Zionist Organization of America.¹ We learned back in January of the First District’s attendance woes when Papa, under the supervision of a mysterious figure named “Blitz,” spent several weeks organizing a membership meeting and pitching the Z.O.A. to various other groups and clubs around town. The results were disappointing, and we’ve heard so little about the First since then that I figured it had given up the ghost. Looks like it’s still limping along, though, and Papa is still involved with its care and feeding.

Despite the First’s discouraging difficulties, I find Papa’s harsh assessment of his own dedication to Zionism to be rather incongruous. He has spent countless hours attending lectures, receptions, talks and dances and running fundraising drives and meetings, and he would in fact remain an enthusiastic activist for the rest of his life. How could he say his enthusiasm of former years “is gone” when only nine months he could be found on the street giving out membership flyers when the weather was too brutal for even his closest associates?

I think, perhaps, the overall sense of loss Papa has struggled with in the wake of his father’s death — attenuated, at this time of year, by the intense mourning associated with the Jewish holidays — colors just about everything else in his life. It must be especially difficult when he deals with “dying” things like the Z.O.A.’s first district; why else would he speak with such exaggerated finality when, as we know, he was by nature such an optimistic dreamer?

———

1 – The Z.O.A., formerly known as the Federation of American Zionist, had about 40,000 members at the time and counted among its affiliates Haddasah, the Jewish women’s organization, Keren Hayesod, the Zionist fundraising group, and B’nai Zion, the fraternal order and mutual support society to which Papa belonged.

Friday Oct 17

October 17, 2007 by munger

[no entry]

————

Today I shaved my face and watching the soap and water flow down the drain the blues came over me. The blues hide and wait and find me at the most unexpected times, when I wash and when see the book man with his stack of books and when I see someone alone at a counter with a plate of eggs.

Even this afternoon as I left the factory I felt a sadness, of course I will be there on Monday but I wished to embrace each worker as if they were never to return.

Thought again of dear H. Eisenkraft taken from us so young and remembered him during evening prayers.

<!– Note: The above photo shows Hyman Eisenkraft (some time between 1910 and 1913) a beloved cousin whose untimely death Papa mentioned on June 16. –>

Saturday Oct 18

October 18, 2007 by munger

[Note: Papa accidentally wrote his October 18th entry on the October 11th page of his diary. I’ve included thumbnails of both pages at right]

————-

Obliged Jeans call to
go there, only to meet the
Phila. girl, who does not
appeal to me in the least,
and again to oblige Jean
I promised to take the
girl out Tuesday.

Later in the Eve, I met
two Bettys, Rosenberg
and Ehrlich, the first at
the Stoyjer S.C., a fine type
and the other at the Welcome
House, very naive and
charming, got both
phone numbers.

——————

This entry feels a bit like it’s missing a first paragraph. We know “Jean” is a cousin who does double duty as Papa’s personal love counselor, but where’s the “there” Papa goes at her behest? Perhaps his disappointment with “the Phila girl” (is this a girl from Philadelphia, or someone whose last name is Phila?) and his annoyance with Jean for arranging his date got him too keyed up to provide many details, as if he just wanted to get it over with when he set down to write about it.

The two women named “Betty,” on the other hand, both earn adjectives Papa reserves for women he likes (“naive” usually means innocent or sweet, while “a fine type” means the marrying kind) and both warrant descriptions of the time and place he met them. The “Welcome House” was, I think, a Jewish settlement house on East 13th Street, and like many settlement houses offered a combination of residential and social services for the disenfranchised and also served as a gathering place for the civic-minded. Papa may have gravitated to the Welcome House, where he encountered Betty Rosenberg, because it focused on Hungarian immigrants, at least according to this record from a 1911 book called the “Handbook of Settlements” (excerpted below from Google Books):

I’m less clear on where Papa encountered Betty Ehrlich, but only because I can’t make out his writing. It looks like he says he found her at the “Stoyjer S.C.”, but while I’m pretty sure that “S.C.” stands for “Social Club,” I’m also pretty sure that Papa really didn’t write “Stoyjer.” Please drop a comment or note if you read it differently:

I should also note that Betty Ehrlich shares my wife’s last name, though I don’t think I’m about to discover that I’m somehow related to my wife or anything; Ehrlich is not a particularly unusual Jewish name and, in fact, my wife got it from her stepfather. Still, it gave me a jolt to see it in Papa’s handwriting and triggered a momentary, science fiction daydream in which I discover some overlooked part of Papa’s diary addressed specifically to me. As if, as 1924 entered the home stretch, Papa saw me in the distance and wrote down exactly what I needed to know.

————–

Update: Aviva, one of our most loyal readers and contributors of well-researched comments, added a comment below that I don’t want to go unnoticed:

I believe Papa wrote Stryjer, a benevolent club from the shtetl of Stryj. See URL http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/stryj2/str005.html

Strij, as it’s spelled in Google maps, is about 100 miles northeast of Papa’s home town of Sniatyn, and both towns are in what is now known as the Ukraine. It looks like, for whatever reason, Papa spent this evening hitting all of New York’s hot spots for Austro-Hungarian Jews.

Sunday Oct 19

October 20, 2007 by munger

The day with friends
at Rothblums.

————–

Matt’s Notes

A Rothblum appearance in Papa’s diary usually means Papa’s having a good time, whether he’s motoring around Coney Island with his pals in “Rothblum’s auto,” taking a shvitz on Second Avenue, or socializing, as he did this evening, at Rothblum’s house in East New York. True, the most disappointing romantic saga of Papa’s year started when he met “The 20th Century Girl” at Rothblum’s last party, but presumably he’s forgiven both Rothblum and Rothblum’s wife for making that ill-fated match.

Rothblum was a brother in B’nai Zion (a.k.a. Order Sons of Zion) the fraternal order to which Papa belonged, so I’ll bet the crowd at his Sunday soirée included usual mugs from B’nai Zion like Blaustein, Breitbart, Bluestone, Shapiro, and good old Jack Zichlinsky. I doubt there were too many fraternal hijinks to be had, but I wouldn’t be surprised if Rothblum broke out the bootleg slivovitz for a toast or two.

————————-

[Note: Papa accidentally wrote his October 19th entry on the October 12th page of his diary. I’ve included thumbnails of both pages at right.]

Monday Oct 20

October 20, 2007 by munger

Simchas Torah

Took half day off for “Yizkor”
for my beloved father (olam haba)

Evening at Country mens
synagogue at Henington Hall
for the “Hakufos”

Enjoyed in the midst of
old country men and
school friends.

——————

Matt’s Notes

Non-observant Jews like me think of Yizkor, or the memorial prayer service, as a once-a-year occurrence associated with Yom Kippur. As I’ve recently learned, though, there are in fact four Yizkor services on the Hebrew calendar, and the one Papa mentions in this entry always takes place thirteen days after Yom Kippur as part of the agricultural festival Succot.

Holidays and milestones have given Papa trouble all year because they force him to take stock of his life and invariably lead to feelings of great loss and longing — not just for his father, who died back in May, but for everything he left behind in the old country. I would therefore expect him to write something mournful, or perhaps lapse into a contemplative silence, on this day of Yizkor. But, it also happened to be Simchas Torah, a joyful holiday in which observant Jews literally dance in the streets to celebrate the completion and re-opening of the annual cycle of Torah readings. While I have never participated in such a celebration myself, it cheers me to think of Papa crowding onto Second Street¹ with his “old country men and school friends,” smiling and singing the songs of his youth and feeling, for at least a few hours, like New York was really his home.

—————

1 – Hennington Hall, located at 214 Second Street near Avenue B, was a meeting space often used for political gatherings and speeches. I think the “Country men’s synagogue” Papa refers to in this entry means Congregation Sniatyner Agudath Achim, which was made up of landsmen (the Yiddish term for people from the same place that literally translates as “country men”) from Papa’s home town of Sniatyn. I think this congregation normally met at a multi-use facility called Broadway Manor at 209 East Broadway, but I wouldn’t be surprised if they moved around a bit. In any event, Papa has never bothered to specify the congregation’s location before, so I assume he deliberately mentions Hennington Hall because it wasn’t their usual spot.

—————-

[Note: Papa accidentally wrote his October 20th entry on the October 13th page of his diary. I’ve included thumbnails of both pages at right.]

—————-

Update:

Here’s what Henington Hall looks like today (as discussed in a separate post).

——

Tuesday Oct 21

October 21, 2007 by munger

Took Miss Phila, out
and it certainly was the
most boresome evening in
a long while

Jean certainly misjudges me,

————

Matt’s Notes

Though four days have elapsed since Papa first agreed to go out with “Miss Phila.”, his disinterest in her remains as strong as his annoyance with his cousin Jean for introducing him to her in the first place. I’d still like to know whether her last name is really “Phila” or if “Miss Phila.” is some kind of abbreviation, though I can’t imagine what for. She almost certainly isn’t Miss Philadelphia, 1924 (the lovely Ruth Malcomson, who went on to become Miss America) though maybe she’s the winner of some other contest geared more toward Papa’s community (“Miss Philacteries, 1924,” for example). Maybe she actually was from Philadelphia and Papa nicknamed her “Miss Phila.” just to objectify her, though even at his most impatient he wasn’t that mean-spirited.

Still, his dismissive tone leads me to wonder if poor Miss Phila. isn’t just an unfortunate, collateral casualty of Papa’s long-simmering dissatisfaction with Jean’s matchmaking skills, a dissatisfaction that may, in fact, deflect harder thoughts about his own chronic romantic frustration, itself a symptom of whatever keeps him searching for a perfect woman who doesn’t exist, keeps him from accepting anything less than an ideal mate, keeps him, in truth, from exiting the limbo he’s lived in since leaving the old country, dispensing with his dreamy attachment to the lost world of his youth, and, at last, seeing New York as the place to find his his wife, build his home, make a family of his own.

Jean misjudges Papa, indeed. He struggles, each day, with the question of why he prevents himself from having what he can instead of living for what he can’t. How could she know such a thing about him? And how could Papa know he would one day have his answer, unless I could somehow tell him:

Papa, this is you:

⇐ Previous 7 Days|Next 7 Days ⇒