A life in New York, 1924
munger 
[no entry]
Matt’s Notes
Since there’s no entry today, I figured I’d share this picture of me and Papa from around 1968. This must be in my family’s Manhattan apartment, where we lived until I was around three.
Note how he keeps a tight grip on that length of string, lest my plastic lamb attain an unsafe rate of speed.
If you’re just getting started with Papa’s Diary Project, here are a few good topics to jump into:
And please don’t ignore my Cry For Help.
[no entry]
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Matt’s Notes
This is the third day in a row without an entry from Papa. I’m worried that I haven’t heard from him, as if he were alive.
I don’t think he was too busy to write in his diary, since he usually reported a full day’s events even if he got home late. Maybe he just went to work and spent the evening listening to the radio and reading the paper.
Some New York Times headlines that might have caught his eye that day included:
This the first Seder night
I celebrated with Sister Nettie
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Matt’s Notes
A “Seder,” for those who aren’t familiar with the term, refers to the traditional dinner served on the Jewish holiday of Passover (I point out that I’m Jewish because someone I met yesterday thought for sure my last name made me a Mennonite). The Seder combines special foods, prayers, and ritualized storytelling to commemorate the Exodus of Jews from Egypt (including all the good stuff from The Ten Commandments like the Ten Plagues and the drowning of Pharaoh’s army).
Like many less religious Jews, I grew up skipping a number of the more drawn-out passages in the Passover Haggadah (the Seder instruction book) to shorten Seder’s length. I remember my mother telling me, though, that Papa used to go into another room after our short Seders and finish the ritual himself, in Hebrew, while we went about our business. I always thought this was because he was older, religious, and stuck in his ways, but reading his diary makes me realize it was much more emotionally important to him than I originally believed.
The Seder commemorates the historical oppression of Jews, urges awareness of ongoing bigotry, and offers prayers for better times. For someone like Papa, who was forced out of his childhood home by anti-Semitism, lost much of his family to the Holocaust, and devoted so much of his life to the Zionist cause, the Passover message must have struck him with particular urgency. Also, we’ve seen before how milestones and holidays put Papa in reflective, often wistful moods; I wonder if his diary silence over the previous three days indicates a contemplative phase — intensified by his ongoing worry of his far-off father’s illness — triggered by the onset of a holiday as family-oriented and personally resonant as Passover.
2nd night with Sister Clara
Saw a ball game today
Giants defeated Braves
Received a letter from
Henriette informing me
that she accepts my invitation
for next Sunday. I’m glad
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The “second night” Papa refers to is a Passover Seder, the first of which he attended at his sister Nettie’s house the night before. Passover traditionally involves two Seders, and in some families it also involves political squabbles over who goes to whose house on which night. Nettie and Clara supposedly didn’t get along, so I expect some such scandal arose; they may not have seen each other at all for the holiday even though they lived in the same neighborhood.
I’m sure Papa wasn’t bothered by any familial tension — or much of anything — since Henriette, the storied “20th Century Girl” who had put his heart through a ringer a few weeks earlier, finally agreed to see him again. (He had written her a declaration of affection on March 30th after they’d gone to the opera together. Could this be the first time he’d heard from her since then?)
Papa further enjoyed himself at the Polo Grounds that day, which answers my question about whether Jewish law permits baseball game attendance during Passover. And much as Moses smote Pharaoh’s army, the Giants defeated the Boston Braves on a game-winning Henry Groh double in the bottom of the ninth. (The New York Times account is a great specimen of the humorous, ironic baseball writing they practiced in that era.)
On the field for the Giants was Irish Meusel (pictured below with his brother, Yankee slugger Bob Meusel, who Papa had seen in an exhibition game a few days earlier) while the Boston Braves fielded the legendary Casey Stengal and a four-time MVP with the fantastic name of Stuffy McInnis.
Here are the full lineups:
New York
Billy Southworth, cf
Heinie Groh, 3b
Frankie Frisch, 2b
Irish Meusel, lf
George Kelly, 1b
Travis Jackson, ss
Hank Gowdy, c
Bill Terry
Virgil Barnes, p
Jimmy O’Connell
Rosy Ryan, p
Boston
Dave Bancroft, ss
Johnny Cooney, rf
Bill Cunningham, lf
Cotton Tierny, 2b
Stuffy McInnis, 1b
Casey Stengel, cf
Ernie Padgett, 3b
Mickey O’Neil, c
Joe Genewich, p
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Additional References:
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Image sources:
Both days of Pesach
with my sisters. —
Met little Sadie at Sister
Claras house and took her
home to Evas, where I sat
a little while.
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Matt’s Notes
Papa had spent the previous two evening at his sisters’ Pesach (Passover) seders, but I’m not sure why he starts this passage off by pointing it out again. Was this a happy recap? Was he flushed with affection because he felt fortunate to have his sisters close by? Or did he just not realize he’d written about Pesach over the last couple of days? A holiday like this with its family-oriented, sit-down dinners must have made Papa especially anxious about his ailing father back in the old country, so maybe this entry’s little Passover wrap-up is an unconscious sigh of relief.
I do wonder if his family in Sniatyn ever got the 20-pound shipment of matzoh Papa sent them back on March 5th. I’m still not sure how he would have sent the matzoh (those who have memorized this site will recall my speculation about the logistics of international matzoh transport in my comments about that entry) but a friend of this site named Ari, an academic who knows about such things, told me recently that the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee had an infrastructure in place to get food over to Eastern Europe back in the 20’s. Perhaps Papa read their ads in the Yiddish papers and trusted them with his precious cargo.
Alas, no one can tell me who “little Sadie” was, why Papa brought her from his sister Clara’s place to Eva’s, or even what it means when he says he “met” her. Did Clara and Eva collude to set Papa up with Sadie and drum up some reason for him to walk her from one place to the other? Was she a young cousin who he just hadn’t seen in a while? Perhaps it was typical for Lower East Siders like Papa to mill around the neighborhood on a Sunday night, dropping in on friends and family, picking up conversations on the street, and sitting “a little while” with someone here and there. It sounds kind of relaxing.
Attended Benefit performance
of the Chalutzial. —
Jack Zichlinsky that all
boys of the camp are either
keeping company or getting
engaged,
Am I to be left behind,
I met Miss Schneiderman
and look her home, Why does
she think of me so much.
Earlier in the evening I
met Miss Schein a new
aquaintance she is a fine type
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Matt’s Notes
I’ve got limited time to post today, but hopefully I can revisit this entry later. Here’s what I’ve got so far:
— The “Chalutzial” benefit Papa attended was, as one would expect, a Zionist fundraiser. Chalutzim (or halutzim) translates as “pioneers” in Hebrew and referred, in Papa’s day, to early Jewish settlers of Palestine. I think the word implies a certain virility and preparedness, too — it’s meant to evoke images of young, rugged people swinging pickaxes and building roads in the unforgiving desert sun. Such images would have appealed to Papa, who has demonstrated on several occasions his desire to challenge the popular perception of Jews as lacking in physical strength and competence.
— It’s terribly sad to see him worry over how his other friends are “keeping company or getting engaged” while he remains intensely lonely, but interesting in its way. Even as he utters the thought, he’s fresh from an encounter with Miss Schneiderman, who desires in vain keep company with him, and Miss Schein, “a fine type” who sounds like a genuine prospect.
I think we see in this entry both the up and down sides of Papa’s idealistic nature. On the one hand, it allows him to support and have faith in the prospects of his brethren to make a new life in a far-off, hazardous place; on the other, it drives him to unfavorably compare his relationships with the flesh-and-blood women around him to his unattainable standards for perfect romance. He knows this about himself, as we’ve seen, but it doesn’t make him feel any less lonely or hopeless.
Luckily, Papa, this is you:
The Linzers introduced me
to a girl for matrimonial
purposes. She seems to be a
nice girl but does not yet
attract me.
Out of courtesy I arranged
a date with her to see a ball
game next Saturday.
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Matt’s Notes
It seems like Passover week involved a little more house-hopping than we’re used to seeing from Papa. My wife Stephanie tells me this makes sense since ghetto Jews were known for opening their doors and moving freely between each others’ homes during holidays. (As always, if you’d like to confirm, correct, or add to any such theories, please drop a comment or write to the address below.)
I’m sure Papa’s friends and neighbors thought, as he did, that it was cause for alarm for him to be single at the advanced age of 29, but this is his first account of third-party matchmakers overtly introducing him to a woman for “matrimonial purposes.” I imagine the Linzers invited Papa to their home, trotted out the young prospect, and left the two of them alone to chat over coffee and Pesadich sweets. (For some reason, I picture them picking at slices of marbled bundt cake as opposed to, say, a plate of macaroons as they tried to figure out whether they’d like to have dessert together every night for the rest of their lives.)
I don’t think Papa, with his gracious and steady demeanor, would have inadvertently betrayed his lack of attraction to the Linzers’ friend, nor do I think he would have let her know he invited her to a ball game out of mere courtesy. Then again, maybe he was giving her a chance. I know he took my grandmother to see the Yankees when they were first dating, so perhaps he saw a woman’s response to baseball as some kind of litmus test. (Such test are common, of course. I subjected Stephanie to the movie Commando during one of our early video-watching dates. Turned out she knew it well enough to quote the dialogue. Is there a more powerful aphrodisiac than hearing a woman say “let off some steam, Bennet” in a Schwarzenegger voice?)