munger

Wednesday June 4

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[no entry]

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Papa leaves his diary entries blank for the next few days, so I’m going to add a few pages to the site I’ve been meaning to work on for a while. First up, a new “Sound and Video” page, accessible from the left navigation, with a collection of all the audio and video files associated with Papa’s diary.

(Now that’s interesting: all this thinking about music and Papa leads me to remember that he used to sing “I Love You, a Bushel and a Peck” to me quite a bit, or at least that’s how it seemed to me. I haven’t thought about that in decades. I wonder how many other memories like this are still waiting to be tapped.)

The contents of the “Sound and Video” page includes:

January 1: The Volga Boat Song was played in the New Years Eve concert Papa attended. Here’s a version from Radio Blog Club:

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January 4

Papa recounts the story of a young Jewish woman who plays Schubert’s Serenade for immigration officials in order to qualify for an artist’s exception to the Jewish immigrant quota laws. It’s here at Radio Blog Club:

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March 21

Papa describes how he listened to a boxing match in which Jewish boxer Abe Goldstein took the bantamweight title. We don’t have any footage of Golstein’s fight, but YouTube does have this 1922 fight featuring Benny Leonard, who was perhaps the most famous Jewish fighter:

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April 6

“Always blues, blues, even the radio is sending me blues through the air,” said Papa one rainy April day. We can’t be sure what he listened to, but here’s 1923 Bessie Smith recording of “Down Hearted Blues” from Last.fm:

And here’s a recording of “Who’s Sorry Now” by the Original Memphis Five from Archive.org:

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April 7

Papa frequently says he listens to an ensemble called The Gypsy String Orchestra on the radio, and while I haven’t yet found one of their recordings, this 1914, Gypsy-influenced Berkes Bela tune from archive.org might be in the ballpark:

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April 28

Papa lists a number of songs the Gypsy String Orchestra played on the radio that day, among them:

“Indian Love Lyrics,” which surely sounded a lot like this 1921 Edison Diamond Disc recording from the Library of Congress:

A “Gypsy Chardash” along the lines of this 1920’s-ish recording by Bibor Olga Ciganyzenekara (Olga Bibor’s Gypsy Ensemble) at Archive.org:

Papa didn’t mentioned the “Gypsy Love Song” specifically, but I thew in this 1923 recording of it, also available at Archive.org:

Thursday June 5

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[no entry]

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These silences from Papa, even when they just go on for two days, feel epic. He has seesawed for several weeks between despair and resolve in the aftermath of his father’s death, looked for ways to exorcise the specter of pessimism with his own idealism. Yet the last thing he wrote about was sending money home to pay for his father’s tombstone. Did the finality of that gesture overwhelm his inherent optimism and temporarily shut down his ability to share his thoughts?

Even though I know the steady, satisfied person he was to become, I still worry when he stops writing, and wish I could say to him “Papa, this is you”:

Friday June 6

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[no entry]

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“It’s when we have the most to say that we’re silent.”

This is one of my favorite quotes from the Max Ophuls movie The Earrings of Madame de… (which recently played at the Film Forum in New York) and, though it’s spoken by an aristocratic character entirely unlike Papa, it comes to mind as we start our third consecutive day without any word from him.

He has been, throughout the year, quite willing to discuss his most difficult thoughts — whether about his romantic disappointments or intense homesickness or dissatisfaction with life in New York — so his silence is glaring. As I speculated yesterday, it seems to indicate a setback in his struggle with the helplessness he’s felt since his father died. Was the feeling so persistent and unvarying this week that to contemplate it any more through his diary was simply unbearable?

I worry for him when he’s out of touch as if he were alive and traveling and not calling home. I think I also feel a touch of somewhat irrational anger when he leaves his diary pages blank; doesn’t he know how important his words are to me?

Saturday June 7

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[no entry]

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Four days without any entry from Papa.

Papa’s silence started after he wired money home for his father’s tombstone. He would have wondered if the money had found its way there, wondered whose hands it passed between, wondered, now that his father’s grave was part of the landscape, what other transformations had taken place in Sniatyn. He would have wondered if he could even recognize his home town after eleven years. He would have wondered who else he would never see again.

Each night he must have picked up his pen to write in his journal; each night he must have put it back down, weary, perhaps, of his faraway thoughts, angered by their contents, unwilling to give them permanence. But still they persisted. What places did he picture as he lay in bed, staring at his untouched diary on the nightstand? What faces did he see when he closed his eyes and waited for sleep to bring him relief?

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Additional notes:

Though most of the above photos are from the 1930’s, they hint at how many people Papa left behind and why he (like countless others who came to America before and after him) struggled with such remarkable homesickness and loneliness.

The top three photos have notes on the back written in Hungarian script (I think) to Papa by his sister Gitel. Here’s the back of the first one:

It says something like: “Schlojme [Schloyme], Tabale, Chave-Surale, Tabel’s husband — Welwel [Velvel], Fulkale, Fule, Ruchale, Leiser. Sitting: Gerschale with Tabel’s younger children — Josale [Yusale], Chaje-Surale [Chaya-Surale].” Gitel is fourth from the right and left herself out of the note.

Here’s the back of the next one:

It says the people in the photo are (standing, from left) Fule, Leiser, [Chava] Suraly and (seated, from left) Gitel, and Pinkas. There are also a few words directed to Papa, my grandmother (Jean) and mother (Phyllis).

I can’t tell what the back of the third photo says, but maybe someone out there who’s used to reading Hungarian script can chime in:

The fourth photo is, of course, of Papa’s father and mother, Joseph and Fagale Scheurman.

Sunday June 8

by


Shebuoth

I’ve installed a telephone
in my house that I may
in my loneliness talk to
my friends direct from
my house

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And today’s theme is: Communication.

For the last four days Papa has maintained diary silence triggered, I think, by the act of wiring money back to the old country to pay for his father’s tombstone. To do such a thing in the impersonal, crowded storefront of his local Western Union telegraph office must have been a shattering illustration of just how far he was from his home, from the family of his youth, from the people he used to see and hear and touch each day. It surely struck him anew that he would never talk to his father again and probably never talk to his mother and brothers and sisters, either. His loneliness must have been too great to escape, too great to contemplate, too great to discuss even in the private pages of his diary. Unable to communicate as he wanted, he stopped trying to communicate at all.

Yet we’ve also seen, in the weeks since his father’s death, how Papa’s inherent resilience, faith and resolve have proved stronger than sadness. On this day, I think, those qualities have helped him to reopen his lines of communication in several ways: Quite literally, through the installation of a telephone; privately, through the resumption of his journal writing; and spiritually, since the Jewish holiday of “Shebuoth” (Shavuot) celebrates the giving of the Torah, a major moment of communication between God and the Jewish people. A holiday this important would also have represented a moment of communication, or at least connection, between Papa and his departed father, who was a Torah scholar and teacher; I wonder if this is what finally inspired Papa to shake his helpless sense of detachment and break his silence.

All that is speculation of course, but here’s something I know for sure: Papa’s phone number was listed as ORChard-0505 in the New York City Telephone Directory for Manhattan and the Bronx. The entire listing read:

Scheurmann A H r 94 Attorney. .ORChard-0505

When I found this number at the New York Public Library I was surprised to see that he had a seven-digit number (for some reason I thought six-digit numbers were in effect in the 20’s) though I was slightly more surprised to see his name spelled with an extra “n”. The “A H” stand for Avraham Hesh, the official English transliteration of his name, and the lower case “r” indicates a residential listing (not a rear apartment as I had originally assumed). The number itself is still active, in case you’re wondering. I called it once, but of course Papa was not there.

Monday June 9

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Shebuoth

Many things have happened
during the course of the last 2 weeks
which could not be entered on
account of being upset,

have induced me to see
some girls whom I did see but they
did not appeal to me in spite of
their money which I could use,

Don’t think that I can depend
on . It is becoming to me
an ambition to marry and have
a child son which should carry
the beloved name of my Father (olam haba)
Joseph Scheurman.

I called up Mrs. Resnick and
made an appointment to visit
her and her husband this Thursday
I will be glad to see old friends

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Matt’s Notes

I haven’t looked at this post since I originally transcribed it last December, but perhaps I unknowingly had it in mind while thinking about Papa’s diary silence for the last week (I figured he fell into an uncommunicative funk for a number of reasons after he wired money home to pay for his father’s tombstone). Papa’s mood seems to be on a slight upswing, though. He started writing again yesterday, he’s called up old friends on his brand-new telephone, and he’s restated his “ambition” to marry and pass on his father’s legacy. (I wonder if his unsuccessful blind dates over the past couple of weeks were helpful in their way because they got him thinking about marriage and heirs.) This is far from the end of his struggle with sadness, of course, but at least the forces of resolve and productivity are making some headway against passivity and depression.

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Additional notes

Papa twice uses the Yiddish word “shadchanim” (the plural of “shadchan“) in this passage to refer to the marriage brokers who aren’t doing him any good. My wife, Stephanie, thinks there’s a chance he’s written “shadchanit,” which would be the feminine form of “shadchan.” His handwriting is a little hard to decipher, but you be the judge:

This isn’t the first time Papa has written about marriage brokers rather dismissively. Maybe Jews from the old country generally regarded them with good-natured derision (see Yente in Fiddler on the Roof) but Papa, who believed in romance, probably found the whole matchmaking process to be distasteful. His attitude may also give us a glimpse of an old country tradition in transition; like midwifery or (to Papa’s dismay) elaborate Purim celebrations, the shadchanim’s business couldn’t compete with the opportunities and services New York inherently afforded in spades.

Tuesday June 10

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May my fathers soul rest
in Paradise among all those
good and true, who have
sacrificed their lives and
helped humanity in their lives,

May the Allmighty give
me the strength to be as good
and true as my departed
father.

Father in Heaven give me
the wisdom that I may carry
out my future plans, now that
my father cannot give me his
wonderful advice.

To his children and family he
shall remain immortal.

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Matt’s Notes

This lovely, homemade prayer distills Papa’s efforts to mourn his father quite handily — it’s both a resolute vow to live his father’s example and an apprehensive admission that he might not know how. If we look at it in the context of the last few weeks, we can also see it as another round in his fight to resist the simplicity of overwhelming grief and take on the far more difficult responsibility of honoring his father through constructive action. This leads me to a similar thought: having discovered traces of Papa in myself, how do I move beyond mere admiration and start to express his influence in my day-to-day life? I suppose many people face variations of this question in their lives. It’s temptingly easy to become frozen in place by simple emotional reactions to life’s circumstances — awe, anger, depression, surprise, and on and on. It’s far more difficult, but far more satisfying, to learn when and how to get on with things.

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As affected as I am by Papa’s diary entry for this day, I’m equally amazed that such a piece of writing was composed by someone who didn’t learn English until he was 18 years old. Simple mastery of English is not the real surprise, since Diaspora Jews have always been inclined to embrace the language of whatever place they find themselves in (Papa spoke at least six other languages besides Yiddish since his hometown of Sniatyn was at a European crossroads). I’m more impressed by the economy of his prose, the layers of feeling he conveys in so little space (I see it even more in his more ordinary diary entries than I do in the entry above, which is structured as a plea and therefore expresses its emotions a bit more directly.)

I’m not really sure I’ll ever be able to successfully describe the tone I’m talking about, but it’s there regardless of whether Papa discusses Zionism or personal tragedy or baseball. It’s some combination of wistfulness and wonder and resignation and irony, and it fills the spaces between his words like the low murmur of prayer from an unseen congregation.

Our friend Aviva recently pointed us to an article in The Threepenny Review in which the author, Leonard Michaels, examines what qualities his native Yiddish might bring to his English writing:

Yiddish is probably at work in my written English. This moment, writing in English, I wonder about the Yiddish undercurrent. If I listen, I can almost hear it: “This moment”—a stress followed by two neutral syllables—introduces a thought which hangs like a herring in the weary droop of “writing in English,” and then comes the announcement, “I wonder about the Yiddish undercurrent.” The sentence ends in a shrug. Maybe I hear the Yiddish undercurrent, maybe I don’t. The sentence could have been written by anyone who knows English, but it probably would not have been written by a well-bred Gentile. It has too much drama, and might even be disturbing, like music in a restaurant or an elevator. The sentence obliges you to abide in its staggered flow, as if what I mean were inextricable from my feelings and required a lyrical note. There is a kind of enforced intimacy with the reader. A Jewish kind, I suppose. In Sean O’Casey’s lovelier prose you hear an Irish kind.

Is that what I hear in Papa’s prose — a “shrug” and a “lyrical note” inherent to Yiddish-speaking Diaspora Jews? It would be interesting to see what a linguistics scholar would make of his influences and structure. But, maybe it’s better to stop analyzing it for now and just be content to sit here, frozen with admiration.

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