Papa’s Father’s Injury

Monday Feb 25

by

Received a letter from
home, My dear father
had a serious accident, he
slipped and fell and is
confined to bed.

I am greatly worried
I pray for his speedy
recovery

—————-

Matt’s Notes

Here are Papa’s parents, in the only photo I have of them. The photo is mounted on an oval ceramic base with a gold border, hence the curved edges of the picture:

photo of Papa's parents

Papa was the youngest of six children, so his father must have been over thirty years his senior, or at least in his sixties, by 1924. He also had a paralyzed arm, so while he may not have been old enough for falls to be really worrisome (then again, he may have — I don’t yet know when he was born, and life expectancy for Eastern European men of his age was in the low 50’s at best1) any accident may been that much more dangerous for him.

Remember, too, that Papa could only communicate with his parents and siblings on the other side through mail (and not airmail, which was in its early stages in the 1920s) and the occasional telegram. While Papa obviously had no other expectations, we have to remember that an undercurrent of anxiety over his father’s condition, attenuated by separation and slow communication, will run through Papa’s life from this point on.

photo of Papa's parents

————-

References for this post:

1 – This is average, so it’s skewed by high infant mortality rates. From “A New Estimate of Ukrainian Population Losses during the Crises of the 1930s and 1940s by Jacques Vallin; France Meslé; Serguei Adamets; Serhii Pyrozhkov. Population Studies, Vol. 56, No. 3. (Nov., 2002), pp. 249-264.

Tuesday Feb 26

by

Received another
letter from home, father
still sick but not dangerous

Deep in my heart and
thoughts I am praying to
the Allmighty to spare my
dear parents and protect
them from any ills or worries

————–

Matt’s Notes:

I forgot to mention yesterday that Papa’s father’s name was Joseph Scheurman, though back in Sniatyn it was spelled “Szojerman.” Here are Papa’s parents once again:

Here’s a glimpse of where they lived, courtesy of the Sniatyn page at jewishgen.org:

Monday Mar 3

by


Lonesome!!!
to escape monotony I
went to the Capitol Theatre

————-

Matt’s Notes

With his faraway father’s injury and his nearby niece’s illness on his mind, Papa had more to escape from this day than just the monotony of his lonely apartment. Other men may well have sampled a bit of prohibition liquor under such circumstances, but the movie-loving gene runs strong in my line and luckily kept Papa from more dangerous vices.

While I inherited Papa’s taste for cinematic escapism, my New York does not, unfortunately, bear any active trace of the cinemas Papa escaped to. As mentioned before, the Capitol Theater was one of many grand movie palaces designed to give the proletariat a taste of old-world grandeur via nouveau gaudiness. These theaters typically programmed live music, ballet and opera performances along with feature films, too, giving its patrons access to high culture they might not otherwise have had.

On this night, Papa saw a screening of Wild Oranges, directed by the legendary King Vidor and adapted from a novel by Joseph Hergesheimer. (A prologue called “Popular Fantasy,” presumably a live performance of some sort, preceded the film.) The story of a violent man-child who terrorizes a young woman, “Wild Oranges” struck an anonymous New York Times reviewer as “entertaining and thrilling” even if “its subtitles are mostly of the long-winded variety.” (The Times’ blow-by-blow review practically obviates the need to see the film at all, which is helpful in this case since it’s not available on video.)

The Times archive also mentions Wild Oranges in a couple of other interesting articles. One, called “The Birth of a Picture,” tries to disabuse readers of their glamorous impressions of the movie business by outlining the tortuous path a movie takes from concept to completion; it’s a great read. An overview of movie goings-on called “Grinding out Amusement for the Millions” mentions the Wild Oranges opening, but is also has this paragraph:

Joseph H. Hazelton, who is said to have seen President Lincoln assassinated, and Calvert Carter, another aged actor who was an associate of Hazelton’s in the days of the Ford stock companies, the other day worked in the same film studio. Hazelton is playing in “San Francisco,” and Carter with R. William Neill’s production, “Rose of the Ghetto.” Hazelton was a program boy at the Fort Theater in Washington when Booth shot the great Emancipator.

I like to come across these little reminders of what a different era Papa lived in when he wrote his diary. 1924 was a lot closer to 1865 than it was to 2007.

————–

Additional references for this post:

Capitol Theatre Image Credit: Library of Congress LC-USZ62-113144. Inquiring into ownership.

—————-

Updates:

Time Magazine‘s archive also has a write-up on Wild Oranges. According to the anonymous reviewer,

The tale is told with extraordinary vividness and pungency by King Vidor, a director who can evoke a heart-quaking spirit of mystery without a single trapdoor. Frank Mayo, Virginia Valli, Ford Sterling, Nigel de Brulier are splendid instruments in one of the exceptional pictures of the year. And a most extraordinary characterization is done by Charles A. Post as a modern Caliban, a hulking beast with a child’s mind that wanted to be good.

I really hope this gets released on DVD soon.

Friday Mar 21

by

(above date) First day of Spring
proper to renew hopes

I am restless, if my
not for my radio which
kept me spellbound, in
the report round by round
of a championship boxing
fight at the Madison Square Garden
where at the End a new Jewish
champion was crowned,
I would not [be able to] stand my
loneliness. —

Just at this time I am
thinking of the 20th C. girl.

Before long I expect to have
the pleasure of her company
at an opera performance.

Received a letter from home
(parents) father still ill, May
the next letter bring me the news
of his speedy recovery.

——————

Matt’s Notes

The boxing match Papa listened to while he pined for the 20th Century Girl was a bantamweight bout in which Abe Goldstein, the challenger, took the title from defending champ Joe Lynch in a 12-round decision. According to the New York Times, Goldstein was “a product of the Ninety-second Street Y.M.H.A. and a graduate of the fistic nursery over which Nat Osk, Y.M.H.A. athletic instructor, reigns.” This refers to the very 92nd St. Y known today for its upscale guest lectures (“In Conversation: The Nimoys on Collecting”) and adult education programs (“Healthy, Wealthy & Wise: Life After 50”) so it’s a little hard to picture it as a hotbed of pugilism.

Yet so it was. Abe Goldstein was one of the many Jews who, hoping to box their way out of the ghetto, came to dominate the sport in the 1920’s. In Papa’s day, more New York boxers were Jewish than Irish or Italian, and Jewish gym owners, promoters and trainers also “assumed disproportionately prominent roles in all aspects of the sport”.1 In fact, when Goldstein left the Y for Grupp’s Gymnasium on 116th Street in Harlem, he came under the wing of the great Jewish trainer Ray Arcel, a Stuyvesant High School grad who trained 20 world champions including Kid Gavilan, Roberto Duran and Larry Holmes. The owner of Grupp’s was apparently such an anti-Semite that Arcel and his charges picked up and took their act to the little-known, Jewish-owned Stillman’s Gym on 125th street, after which it grew into one of boxing’s legendary gyms.2

Jewish boxers usually wore Stars of David on their robes and trunks and rarely tried to pass for gentile, though their attitudes varied as to whether they were fighting on behalf of the Jewish people or just doing their jobs3. Papa had no such ambivalence, though. Like many Jewish immigrants who had experienced European anti-Semitism firsthand, Papa took pride in his fighting landsmen and other “muscle Jews” who refused to appear stereotypically weak and cowed. Remember, he nicknamed the chapter of the mutual aid society he belonged to “The Maccabeans” after the Jewish warriors of old, so living, breathing Jewish athletes (who probably lived across the alley from him) must have filled him with more than garden-variety ethnic pride.

Alas, no one — not “Slapsie” Maxie Rosenblum, Benny Leonard, or Ray Arcel himself — could have shown Papa how to conquer his loneliness or beat the poverty that kept his ailing parents in the old country. We’ve seen before how milestones made him especially contemplative and melancholy, and though the arrival of Spring was “proper to renew hopes,” I’m not sure he felt genuinely hopeful. Stay tuned.

————-

References for this post:

———————

And here’s a 1922 Benny Leonard fight via YouTube:

————–

Our friend J.R. adds:

For what it’s worth, Abe Goldstein’s first fight was on June 30, 1916, in New York, New York – he knocked out George Lewis in the 8th round. On August 4th, he defeated Kid Rago, and on August 26, he made quick work of a boxer who went by the name Smiling Willie. From what I can tell, the names of his competitors grew more and more comical as he went along culminating in successive and, one would assume, heartbreaking losses in 1925 to Bushy Graham in New York, and Dixie LaHood in Butte, Montana. (Even the names of the towns he fought in got funnier if you read them wrong!)

He was considered to be among the top five bantemweights of all time… presumably by some guy who was familiar with at least five bantemweights.

Thursday Apr 24

by


Enjoyed movie
The Song of Love, at Clinton

I am alarmed I have
not heard from parents
for a long time. —

——————-

Matt’s Notes

As Papa mentioned in an earlier entry, he loved to escape from his daily worries to the “land of enchantment” he found at the movies, an easy enough vice to indulge since both the Clinton Theatre and the Loewe’s Delancey were around the corner from his apartment.


The Song of Love would have met Papa’s need for escapism; it was a big-budget Arabian extravaganza starring Norma Talmadge (“the highest-salaried screen actress,” according to the New York Times review) playing a French spy masquerading as an Algerian belly dancer. Time Magazine described this as Talmadge’s “first semi-vamp role,” certainly a big deal at the time, though I imagine it was equally unusual for films to have a female co-director as this one did in the person of Frances Marion.

I haven’t seen The Song of Love and it doesn’t appear to be available on video (has anyone out there seen it?) but I did find this picture of Normal Talmadge at the Library of Congress Web site:

Norma Talmadge

Papa had little relief from his anxiety over his ailing father in the old country — his “alarmed” words at the end of this entry even look anxious on the page — so I hope the lovely Ms. Talmadge’s excursion into cinematic sensuality was enough to distract him, for at least a little while, from his worries.

————

Additional References

—————-

Image source:

Norma Talmadge. Library of Congress #LC-B2- 5472-10

Friday Apr 25

by

Had dinner this eve at
Claras house, Nettie and Philip and
little Rosie, Max and Dora Breindel
were there too,

Later came Eva, Sadie
and others

A nice little home affair

—————

Matt’s Notes

A few days ago I mistakenly speculated that “little Sadie” was a woman Papa got set up with, but as it turns out Sadie, Eva and Clara were the daughters of Max and Dora Breindel, the cousins who gave Papa and his sister Nettie a place to stay when they first came to New York.1 Papa and Nettie had actually shared a bed with the three Breindel sisters for a long while (in later years my grandmother would jokingly shout “you slept with my husband!” when she ran into Sadie) and apparently everyone enjoyed themselves immensely during that time. (I wonder if, having gotten to know each other under such close and adventurous circumstances, they all regressed and behaved like kids when they got together in later years. What games had they played? What secret language had they developed?)

I think a “nice little home affair” (probably Passover-related, since it happened at the tail end of Passover week, when traditional Jews get together) was just what Papa needed. The holiday had intensified his longing to be with his father, who was struggling with a protracted illness in the old country. He’d written, just the day before, about how “alarmed” he was over the lack of contact from his parents, though I think this was just one intense manifestation of the powerful, pervasive homesickness behind Papa’s chronic loneliness. Perhaps Max and Dora, who had welcomed Papa when he arrived at Ellis Island in 1913, reminded him of a time when his memories of home were still fresh, and the voices of his friends and family still rang in his ears.

—————-

Additional Notes

1 – How could I have erred so profoundly about Sadie’s identity, you ask? I made the mistake of neglecting to run her name past my mother before writing my initial post about her, and I took a gamble and assumed she would remain as mysterious as many of the other people Papa mentions in his diary. In fact, my mother says “they were all lovely people, with whom our family was most friendly in later life.” Lesson learned.

Thursday May 1

by


This is workers day, so
I am off resting.

In afternoon attended
game in Yankee Stadium
in Evening Zionist meeting
at Hotel Astor.

Sent home $5.00

Received letter from home
father still ill, but I am
at least relieved by getting
some news from home.

——————

Matt’s Notes

“Workers Day” refers to International Workers day or Labor Day, a holiday recognized around the world on May 1 and generally associated with the Haymarket Riot of 1886 and its tragic aftermath. (As you remember from your history lessons, the riot took place after Chicago union workers called a general strike in support of an eight-hour workday on May 1, 1886. Four days of mayhem followed. Several protesters died at the hands of the police, though events reached a tragic climax when a bomb exploded in Haymarket Square and killed at least seven police officers and four civilians. Several anarchists were falsely arrested, tried and executed for the bombing, sparking international outrage). Though the riot happened in Chicago, the United States never officially recognized May Day as a holiday, allegedly because its commemoration had quickly become associated with Socialist causes. Meanwhile, more conservative labor organizations had already prompted several states to declare the first Monday in September as Labor Day, and in 1887 Grover Cleveland decided to make it a national holiday.

Papa’s union and employer obviously still recognized May Day as a workers’ holiday in 1924; the New York Yankees, on the other hand, could only wish they had the day off, as they saw their long winning streak come to an end at the hands of the Washington Senators. Papa saw them strand runners on base all day in the course of the 3-2 loss at the Stadium, or, as the New York Times put it, “When a single or a fly meant a run or more, the Yankee hitsmiths struck out or popped out or rolled out in a manner agonizing.”

It looks like the U.S. Postal Service was open that day as well, since, my sources tell me, post offices often served as banks through which immigrants would send money overseas (I can’t be totally sure that Papa sent his $5.00 home through the post office since he had other options as well, but it’s a safe bet). Having received an update from the old country and sent some money to his family, I expect Papa was able to concentrate on his Zionist meeting at the Astor with something like a clear head.

hotel astor

—————

References:

————–

Image sources:

  • Yankee Stadium, 4/3/23. Library of Congress # LC-B2- 5958-11. No known restrictions on publication.
  • Hotel Astor. Library of Congress call number HABS NY,31-NEYO,72-.