Grandparents

Some of you have asked about my grandparents. Here they are, from my memory.

1. My mother's father was a pediatrician, a graduate of the Washington University Medical School. He lived in University City, Mo., and practiced off Grand Avenue, in what was known as mid-town St. Louis. He came home for lunch every day. He was a conservative doctor - if you even thought you were sick, you should stay home, etc. He made house calls with a black doctor's bag. He always drove an Oldsmobile. I felt bad when I learned that some of my friends went to another pediatrician. One year at the doctors' golf tournament, he received a prize for having the highest score. Everybody liked and respected him. He was born in the Ukraine, and came to St. Louis when he was three (p.s., he came with his parents). He had a lot of brothers and sisters. I think they all lived in Metropolitan St. Louis, except for one in Louisville, one in Dayton, and one in Michigan City, Indiana. After he died, his practice was transferred to another doctor. My sister and I went to this doctor, but my cousins went to another doctor. I thought that was disloyalty, but I am sure they had their reasons. I was ten when my grandfather died. This was really traumatic for me.

2. My mother's mother was born in St. Louis in about 1890. She also had many brothers and sisters. All, I think, were then in St. Louis, except for one brother who roamed around, spending some time has one of Jack Dempsey's seconds and some times as a magazine foot model. She was a very good cook. After my grandfather died, she moved in with my aunt and uncle for the next fifteen years or so. She gave up her friends (including her regular card groups, etc.) and only saw family. Whether she even saw her sisters or brothers, except with my aunt and uncle, or my parents, I do not know. Everyone said that her personality changed, and she became much less self-confident. In addition to her family, she seemed most devoted to "Search for Tomorrow", which she watched religiously five times a week. I was 26 when she died.

3. I never knew my father's father, who died three years before I was born. He was from the village of Srednik in Lithuania (in case you are wondering where in Lithuania, Srednick is about 30 (I think) miles down the River Nieman from Kaunas, or as it was called in real time, Kovno), and came to this country when he was about twenty, starting in Mobile, Alabama. He and my grandmother eventually moved to Galveston, then Kansas City, then St. Louis. He was given traditional religious training in Srednik, and destined to become, like he father and grandfather, etc., a chazzan (cantor) or rabbi. Instead, he (the only one of his brothers to do so) veered totally away from religion. I am told he did a lot of reading and could converse on many topics. He never figured out how to make a living.

4. My father's mother was raised by her mother (her father having been killed at a young age in a tunnel collapse) on a small dairy farm, outside of Lvov, then in Polish speaking Austro-Hungary, and now in the Ukraine. Because it is in the Ukraine, it is now called Lviv. When it was part of the Austro-Hungarian empire, it was Lemberg. She was educated in convent schools, and had few Jewish connections. She was quite sophisticated and spent several years traveling through Europe as an assistant to an opera singer. She met my grandfather through a match-maker. In this country, in addition to having eight children, she operated a small retail business in Kansas City, and was an expert seamstress. She was a costume maker for theatrical companies in and visiting Kansas City. She was very independent. She lived to a very old age, and died when I was 29.