Zeyda originally published on Food and Fond Memories on April 30, 2011 by sandyaxelrod 9 Comments (Edit)
Zeyda
My Grandfather’s Papers
My Grandmother’s and Mother’s Papers
I recently touched briefly on my Zeyda (Yiddish for grandfather) but I really want to tell you a bit more about this amazing man. My Zeyda met and fell in love with my Bubie (grandmother) when they were teenagers in their small village in Russia called Kremenchug. Interestingly enough my Zeyda’s brother Jacob fell in love with my Bubie’s sister, my Aunt Sonia, so they married in a double ceremony celebrating both unions. It was a terrible time in Russia back then for the Jews. Russia was ruled by the Tsar and there were constant pogroms. The Cossacks pillaged Jewish villages and raped many of their women, my Bubie’s youngest sister Monia included. On September 4, 1919 my grandparents welcomed their first child, my mother, into the world. They had prayed for an end to the terrorism but it did not come so when my mother was about a year and a half old they fled on their quest for freedom from oppression. It took them two years to get to America. I remember a story about how my Zeyda had actually punctured his own eardrums so that he would be unfit for the Russian army! And at some point on their trek he stole a soldiers uniform to gain access to train transportation to Riga, Latvia for his family fearing the whole ride that their little Rose would give them away by crying for him. Somehow by the grace of G-d they managed to escape. They arrived in New York harbor and my mom told me that she actually remembered an old with a long white beard lifting her up to see the Statue of Liberty. It was a thrilling sight for the entire family on that day in 1922 when they arrived on American soil and passed through Ellis Island, their gateway to freedom.
That’s me with Bubie and Zeyda on the beach in Ventnor, NJ
Me, Bubie and Zeyda outside of “The Cambridge Villa”
My mother, Bubie and Zeyda settled in Philadelphia because a cousin Dr. Nathan Seidman had sponsored them. Zeyda immediately used his ingenuity and what little money he had to get a pushcart and sell clothing down the streets of the area that is now know as Queens Village. The pushcart business was good and he was able to pay back his cousin for all money lent to him, save enough to build a house at 702 South 4th Street with a clothing store downstairs. The family thrived, my mom grew to adulthood and married my dad, and I was born all in that house on 4th Street. We lived there until I was 9 months old when we moved to our own house. But each weekend my mom and I took the trolley to visit Bubie and Zeyda. My Zeyda got a thrill telling everyone that when I was about two and a half years old I tried to help him in the store by saying to all of the men who walked in the door “Look mister, pure cotton”!
Bubie and Zeyda in Israel in 1965
Still in love!
My Zeyda had very little formal education but he was very smart. He had tremendous business sense and great ambition. He didn’t believe in mortgages or life insurance so he had to have money in the bank. He invested in apartment buildings and well into his eighties he was still doing all of the maintenance himself including climbing on the roof if necessary. He doted on his family lavishly but he did without for himself. He bought a summer home for the family in Ventnor, New Jersey that was lovingly referred to as the Cambridge Villa because it was on Cambridge Avenue. My parents told me I was actually conceived in that house. I also took my first steps there and learned my first Yiddish phrase there. My Zeyda’s mother, my Bubba, used to spend the summers with us but she spoke no English only Russian and Yiddish. Zeyda was so proud when I went out to the sunporch and invited my great grandmother to the dinner table by saying “kim essen, Bubba”. My Zeyda lived a very long and full life dying just short of his 108th birthday. He was loved by everyone who knew him and greatly missed by all of us. I will never ever forget him.
