In the 1930s, when I was growing up in New Rochelle, aunts and uncles were ever present. Perhaps it was because they lived in the city and wanted a taste of grass and trees. Maybe it was because they were second generation, still partly strangers in a strange land. Whatever, family took precedence.
Hyman was my mother's oldest brother. Hyman and Amy -- no children. They visited us about every other weekend. Hyman played checkers with me. Even at age 10, I would usually beat him. His weakness was his fondness for a triple jump. To set up this coup, he might sacrifice four pieces, position, the game. Amy spent the day quietly, passing the time in the country until she could get back to the city, where culture reigned.
Other frequent visitors were Mike and Soph. Mike was my mother's younger brother. Of our upwardly mobile Jewish world, Mike took no part. He was blue collar all the way. Soph brought her gardening gloves and communicated with weeds, not people. She had little taste for poor relative.
Best and most frequent visitors were Tillie and Paul, who had no children. It was Tillie who thrust the city on me, who took me to Broadway shows, Radio City Music Hall, F.A.O. Schwartz, museums, the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, Buster Keaton movies at the Museum of Modern Art. Tillie was my mother's only sister, and only too happy to enjoy her nephews and nieces.
The big treat was playing bridge with Paul. He remembered every card ever played. In the city he played duplicate. At our house he played with my parents and me. He was merciless. No mistake escaped his wrath. He would methodically display your stupidity for all to see. We all wanted to be his partner, to see how many rounds we could go before being floored.
Not so welcome were our drop-ins, Fanny and Egon. Fanny was my father's sister, not a sparkler. They often took a drive from the Bronx and landed on a family doorstep. Never did they call beforehand. They did, however, expect to be entertained -- that is, fed. They would sit and nosh and say, "what's new? what's new?" When my mother spotted Egon's car scrunching our driveway, she would shout to my father, "NO! FANNY AND EGON AGAIN! Louis, you've got to control them." How to control them. Family was family.
Aunts and uncles and cousins too gave me a sense of my place in a family continuum that started in Poland, moved to the Lower East Side, then to the Bronx and Westchester. It was Tillie who kept the family together after all her siblings had died. We came to her apartment in ones or twos or 20s. The family was now enlarged and scattered. Tillie kept in touch with all.
When Tillie died, I wept for a lost aunt, for the mother I had made her into, for the family that now would surely disperse and disengage. It did not happen. Twenty to 30 of us do gather twice a year for Thanksgiving and Passover. Of course these are occasions, not weekends. At such times, this 89-year-old who -- like Tillie -- is the last of his generation, fondly remembers playing checkers with Hyman, Paul at the bridge table, Fanny and Egon, the drop-ins, Soph and her gardening gloves.
Has something been lost?
Earlier on Huff/Post50:
