CHAPTER 1

MATERNAL FOREBEARS

I. The Goose Girl and theNext Two Generations

This is the story my mother told: My mother's great-grandmother, BerthaBallin, was the first Jewish woman in her village in Germany to refuse toshave her head and wear a sheitel (wig) after she married. Her husband(whose first name never figured in my mother's stories) was handsome butgood-for-nothing. Bertha raised geese as well as children. By diligentlydriving her geese to market, she earned enough money for passage toAmerica. Leaving her husband behind to look after the children and makesure the pigs didn't bite their hands off, she sailed for New York. There shegot a job as a cook in a fancy apartment on Fifth Avenue, during the timeGeneral Grant was president (1869–1877).

When she had saved enough money, she sent tickets back to her familyin Hesse Darmstadt, near Frankfurt am Main. After her family joined herin New York, she looked around to find a husband for her daughter Rosa.Unimpressed by the Jewish young men she saw in the New World, sheremembered the tall, good-looking redhead from a neighboring village withwhom Rosa had danced at folk dances across the ocean. Over her daughter'svociferous objections ("Mother, don't you dare!"), Bertha purchased yetanother ticket and brought the adventurous Franz ("Fritz") Oppenheim toNew York. Rosa took a second look and changed her mind.

Rosa and her husband—my great-grandparents—ran a furniture storein the Yorkville section of New York City "at a time," as my mother put it,"when Jews thought they were Germans." When the store went under inthe Crisis of 1893, the enterprising Rosa and Fritz opened a clam chowderbar in Far Rockaway. There, while still a relatively young man, Fritz wasstanding and talking to his wife when he suddenly dropped dead. Rosa wasso sad that she closed up the clam chowder bar and moved with her children,Mina, Charlie, and Henrietta, to Brooklyn.

When Henrietta—my grand mother—fell in love with Abraham Marks,Rosa disapproved. Abraham came froma Russian Jewish family. As a GermanJew, Rosa didn't want her daughter to "marry beneath her station." Henriettaand Abraham were forced to wait five years before they were able to wed. Inan era of chaste propriety, they "kept company" on bicycles.

Henrietta had been apiano teacher before she wasmarried, but once she becamea wife her husband forbade herto work for money; so she gaveup teaching. Evidently, the NewWorld was uncongenial to theindependent spirit of BerthaBallin. Or perhaps Henrietta'srebelliousness had simplyexhausted itself over the five longyears in which she steadfastlyresisted her mother's oppositionto her marriage choice. It is, ofcourse, also conceivable thatHenrietta was just as happy notto continue working as a pianoteacher, or was even complicit inAbraham's prohibition—thoughthis is not the way my motherpresented it. In fact, Henrietta did not entirely cease teaching; my mother'scousins were the unpaying beneficiaries of my grandfather's prohibition.Henrietta's musical accomplishment, however, had an intimidating effect onher own daughter, my mother, also named Bertha. Discouraged, as she toldit, by the ridges that her mother's constant practice had worn deep in theivory keys, "Little Bertha" eventually abandoned the study of her mother'sinstrument.

I never heard my grandmother play the piano, though there was one inher house. I remember her above all in her kitchen and garden. When I wasgrowing up in Sunnyside, Queens during the 1940s and early 1950s, we usedto drive out to Jamaica every Sunday afternoon to visit my grandmother. Shelived in her own house, along with her son, my mother's younger brother,Uncle Murray; his wife, Aunt Bea; and my cousin Bob (Bobby at the time).It didn't seem odd to me then that they were all living there together. If Ihad ever thought of the situation as requiring explanation, it would neverhave occurred to me that this might reflect any financial difficulties my unclehad. As far as I knew, Murray and Bea were better off financially than myparents were. They always had a car, which we did not, and their cars werealways bigger and fancier than ours (when we had one).

All the conventional wisdom I've heard since, about how two grownwomen can't live together comfortably in the same house, was far frommy experience. From what I observed, Grandma and Aunt Bea had anadmirable division of labor. My grandmother looked after the house, doingthe cleaning and the cooking. Aunt Bea did the shopping and helped Murraywith his work. I had, of course, only a hazy idea of what...