Julius

Friday Mar 28

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Sister Clara gave birth to a
baby boy at 10:05 P.M.

This was a complete surprise
as I did not expect her to
give birth now.

I cabled immediately
the news to my parents.

————

Matt’s Notes

When I first transcribed this entry and the words “this was a complete surprise…” I thought Papa meant he was surprised that Clara gave birth in the first place, not that he was surprised by how early she gave birth. I wondered, with a jolt, how Clara could have been pregnant for so long without Papa knowing about it, whether the baby was unusually tiny, or if Clara was somehow ashamed and hiding her pregnancy like the high school girls you sometimes hear about who give birth at the prom. This misunderstanding cleared up milliseconds later as I transcribed the words “I did not expect her to give birth now,” but for some reason the first words of this entry still have a trace of the same effect on me when I reread them.

Maybe I secretly want Papa to have not realized Clara was pregnant until her baby suddenly appeared because it would be a funnier story, or maybe his own surprise and excitement made its way to the page in the form of a surprisingly-worded sentence (then again, I may be the only one who’s thrown by this passage; if any of my legions of readers experienced the same thing, please let me know). Perhaps Papa penned this entry, still breathless, after dashing home from the Western Union office (an overseas telegraph message must have been quite a splurge) though his handwriting doesn’t seem hurried or shaky. Anyhow, the baby in question is my cousin Julius (a.k.a. Julie) with whom I recently been in touch. Stay tuned for anecdotes.

Sunday Mar 30

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Wrote to Henriette (the 20 C. girl)
a letter, asking for admission
into her circle of intimate friends.
She got me thinking of something

Visited Sister Clara at hospital
in afternoon saw the baby.

Saw some friends during day
in evening had a little
sociable game at my house
with Blaustein Friedman and
Zichlinsky.

The operas heard last
night were L’Cock D’or and
L. Oracolo

—————–

Matt’s Notes

I’ve found Papa’s writing style for the last couple of days to feel particularly formal, but this one really rings of 19th Century drawing-room drama. What does he mean when he says he wrote a letter to Henriette “asking for admission into her circle of intimate friends?” Has he given up on his prospects with her, or is this a euphemism for a love letter? (If it was a love letter, I wonder if it was euphemistic and oblique itself, or if he came right out and declared his intentions.) And why has he decided to refer to her by name, at last, instead of as the “20th Century Girl?” Is it just easier to write, or does it reflect his desire for deeper intimacy?

Questions, questions. Still, his abandoned sentence in the first paragraph — “She got me thinking of something — intrigues me most of all. What “something” did he decide not to write about? Or did he just cut his thought short because he needed space to talk about the other events of the day?


Tuesday Apr 1

by

This day will long be remembered
because of the terrific snowstorm.

Visited Clara at Hospital
with David.

Again the radio brought me
old familiar tunes, tunes that
I’ve heard when I was a little
boy, on the old little square
of my European hometown when
I with my playmates [used to follow] the old man
[with the] playing box, who played the
same identical melodies whose
music I always remembered.

Listening to the music I close my
eyes and in my illusions I found
myself on the little marketplace
or outside my fathers house surrounded
by my little friends merrily dancing
around the man with the playing box
who so gladly repeated those enchanting
melodies at our request.

——————

Matt’s Notes

In light of his stylish, expressive prose, it’s hard to remember that Papa was not a native English speaker. Once in a while, though, a missing word or strange turn of phrase serves to remind us: A few weeks ago he repeatedly referred to the headmaster of his brother-in-law’s school as “the school man,” and it looks like he didn’t have the word “organ grinder” at his disposal while composing today’s entry. Still, I don’t think it detracts from the sweetness of his recollection.

In case you’re wondering what early 20th Century Eastern European organ grinders looked like, here are a few photos courtesy of the Yivo Institute’s “People of a Thousand Towns” project:

photo of an organ grinder

photo of an organ grinder

photo of an organ grinder

We also know what Papa’s brothers and sisters looked like when they were children, so perhaps we can get a little closer to imagining the “illusions” Papa saw when he closed his eyes:

photo of an organ grinder

The children in this 1898 photograph are, clockwise from top left: Issac (he gave Papa some grief earlier in the year) Nettie, Ettel, Clara, Papa (his face is distorted in this photo, but that’s him at 3) and Gitel.

Clara, as Papa mentions in this entry, was now all grown up and in the hospital with her new baby. The weather Papa and her husband David braved to visit her was indeed “terrific”: New York got over 8.5 inches of snow accompanied by gale-force winds, resulting in, among other disruptions, an elevated train crash in Long Island City that injured over 50 people, one fatally.

Thursday Sept 11

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Visited Julius Zichlinsky

————-

Julius Zichlinsky was the brother of Brooklyn’s own Jack Zichlinsky, and both were, I am told, members of Papa’s Zionist fraternal organization, Order Sons of Zion (a.k.a. B’nai Zion).

As we’ve discussed before, such groups provided essential services to immigrants like Papa; B’nai Zion sold affordable life insurance, guaranteed its members a proper Jewish burial, and ran a credit union that Papa and Jack helped organize. I’m not sure if fraternal orders guaranteed friendship among its members as well, but Julius and Jack were two of Papa’s closest companions in 1924 and, in fact, remained so for the rest of their lives.