Storymania - Only In America by Edith Talmason

Only In America
Edith Talmason

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

Sometimes I think that my mother and myself are one person. I seem to be able to see
into her mind and soul. I have the feelings that she experienced and the experiences she
described to me over and over again through the years seem to be a seamless part of my
own life. I can remember her childhood no more sketchily than I recall my own. In fact I
think I have more memory of our joint lives in Poland then of the childhood I alone led in
the Bronx. We seem to meld together, we’re one. I recall the departure from Poland and
the voyage across the sea, the overwhelming experience of coming to America, the job,
the wedding, the marriage, the childbirth. It all seems to have happened to me. I think
that eventually I will confuse our two lives, and we will really be just one.

When she came to America, she was actually a stand-in for her brother. He was the one
for whom the plans had been made. He was the one who should have come, but
fatefully, his wife would not allow it. He was not going off to America by himself
without her and the children. Not even, as he tried to assure her, to prepare the way for
them to follow him and come to America also. She had already heard too many reports
and rumors of families abandoned by the husbands and fathers who had gone to “prepare
the way”, but instead had found new lives for themselves with new wives and new
children, and had simply forgotten the families they had left behind, waiting and hoping.
Often the deserted wife never heard from her errant husband again, and for the remainder
of her life, waited. No divorce, No news. Just abandonment and loss of hope. The
deserted wife was thrown upon the kindness and charity of her family and the
community. Her shame and need was obvious, and in some desperate cases, suicide was
her response. This was what his wife dreaded would happen, and so, she would not agree
to allow him to go. It became a family crisis. Everyone took sides, endless discussions
and arguments arose for and against, until it was finally decided that he would not go.
But for Chaya this was her golden opportunity. She knew this would be her only chance
to get to America, and she began to prepare for the trip. She needed about $20 for a shifs
card, and some small amount of money to sustain her through the voyage, and for those
first days in America, before she could find a job. She had already secured and sent
those necessary affidavits and papers to the Department of Immigration which assure
America that she would not become a public ward. Her sponsors would be her sister
Rose and her brother-in-law Benny.

She, of course wanted to look just “perfect” when she came to America. Her clothing
had to be just right, not only serviceable, but stylish and pretty. So she sewed, and made
over outfits that were in her closet, bartered clothes with her sisters and friends, and
began to say her good-byes to childhood friends and neighbors, and never once suffered a
regret about leaving. She could hardly wait until the moment when her great adventure
would begin. But when the time came, the parting from her mother and father and sisters
and brothers was wrenching. She was young and had led a sheltered life and had grown
up in a religiously observant home. Her pious father did not want her to leave home to
go to America. He was afraid she would lose her faith. All her life she would recall his
words to her: “Chayela, where you are going is a Godless place, even the stones are trayf
(unclean)”. And, indeed, it was a well known fact that in a great many instances the
young immigrants did change their ways. They quickly abandoned the ways of their
fathers, and succumbed to the culture of the new world. It certainly was very liberating
not to have to go to synagogue, or to observe the Sabbath, and with no one there to
demand it, it became easy to drift away from the old formalities. Her mother, on the
other hand, had a more immediate fear, she feared that this parting would be the last time
they would be together, that they would never meet again. And Chaya, with tears
streaming down her cheeks, tried to comfort her, saying that she would work and save
and send for them so they could all be together in America. But, of course, her mother’s
worse fears were realized. They were never to see one another again, and her mother and
her father both died while she was in America and they in Poland.

At last the day of departure arrived, and all the neighbors and friends, the whole town,
escorted Chaya to the strain station. There she would board the train which would take
her to the port of embarkation in Belgium, her ship was the “Belhungaria”. There was
crying and laughing, joking and poking, all the young people were envious of her,
everybody wanted to go to America.

Much to her surprise, Chaya did not have to travel in steerage. She shared a cabin with a
young mother and her two children. It was a lively ship. There were lots of happy and
excited young people abroad. A group of young Hasidic men were on board, and they
tried to make proper conversation with her that could lead to a date, and which might
even lead to marriage. They were a very serious group to whom marriage and children
were an obligation and a necessity for a good productive adult life. But that was not the
life my mother envisioned for herself. None of that old country stuff for her, she had
hopes of becoming a real American. But there was lots of flirting. And someone had a
concertina, another a mandolin, and another an accordion, and so it was a gay time.
Dancing and singing and much anticipation of the wonderful life that was to be theirs.
And dreams the would be able to make come true in their new homeland. And there
were those who found partners for life aboard that ship. The young and unattached made
plans to meet in the new country. It was sheer unalloyed joy.

Although everyone still had to be medically and mentally examined in order to set foot
on these shores, only those traveling in steerage would have to go through Ellis Island. It
was a nervous time. There were children who did not pass the examination. Parents
whose children were healthy and were passed, were themselves excluded for some defect
from entry into the United States. It was a horror, a bedlam. Were they to leave their
children with the relatives who had sponsored them? Would the relatives even want
them? After all, they had agreed only to sponsor the family, not to undertake the
responsibility of raising their children. For who knew how long, or if it might not be
forever. Or should the distraught parents take their children back with them and so
abandon the hopes and plans they had been making for so many years. Many of the
immigrants had eye diseases, and their eyes were red and streaming. They would be
automatically rejected from entry. Those with twisted limbs, or known debilitating
conditions or illnesses, those too would not be admitted. There were cases of lice
infestation. Measles, and other childhood diseases were common among the immigrants.
People who had suffered from sea sickness were in a weakened condition, but given a
few days of rest, they would recover. They were all held in quarantine until they were
cured, or in those saddest cases, sent back to where they had come from. It was very
traumatic, not only for those affected personally, but those who were witness to such
dilemmas were afraid for themselves, and what might befall them. Each one tried to
disguise any abnormality or unattractive condition. They walked tall, and straightened
their spines, pinched their cheeks to look more robust, and tried to move briskly and
energetically so that they would get in to this land undetected if there were a problem,
and avoid being mistakenly singled out if there were none. Many lost hope and were sent
back to they knew not what. Without money, without hope, and often in fear for their
lives.

My mother passed through immigration without a hitch. Knowing now what was to
embroil all of Europe in the coming years, I thank God for that.

My mother was outfitted for the trip in her Warsaw best. She was dressed in the height
of Polish fashion. She wore a full, black woolen skirt which reached to the tops of her
very high heeled black leather boots laced almost to the knee. Her white, hand
embroidered and starched shirtwaist was high collared, with lace trim on the long sleeves
and on the bodice front. The ensemble was cinched in with a wide black leather belt
which accented her narrow waist. A flat brimmed straw sailor hat sat squarely on her
heavy chestnut hair which she had dressed in one long braid which reached to her waist
in back. To complete this outfit she had on a long black cape, and carried in her hands
the few possessions she most treasured, which she was able to bring with her from home.
Photographs, of course, small gifts from home for her sister and family, and a lovely
glass and ruby pitcher which had always been used by the family at home for holidays,
and which her sister Rosie would remember from childhood.

Standing top deck, she could see the famed Statue of Liberty holding out her arms in
welcome. It was July, 1921, and Chaya was in America!!

Anxiously looking around, she spied there in the crowd meeting the ship, her sister’s
husband whom she had never met but knew through the descriptions in letters. He was
very tall and handsome, with a handlebar mustache, and he had come to pick up the
“greenie”. They walked together through the dirty streets of New York toward his home
on the Lower East Side. She looked around and was amazed at what she saw. It was not
at all what she expected. Perhaps she thought that there was indeed, going to be gold in
the streets. She was in culture shock to say the least. Not a blade of grass anywhere to
be seen. Not a growing thing. Garbage strewing the streets, some of it jettisoned from
the windows above. Push carts everywhere, with people shouting out their wares in
many tongues. Ragged children played marbles and mummbely peg in the gutters amidst
the milling crowds. Horse drawn wagons, a few autos, the cacophony of their horns
blasting in her ears, the jostling of the crowds, the odors of the neighborhood all
combined to intensify the strangeness. Her brother-in-law asked if she was hungry and
handed her a strange exotic food to eat. It was called a banana. She had never seen one
before. It had become a rite of passage, some sort of an initiation, a trick the old timers
loved to play on the “green horns”, and Benny anticipated her reaction with only slightly
surpressed glee. He urged her to eat it - and he couldn’t help laugh when he saw the face
she made when she tasted, and even after he peeled it for her, and she tasted it again, it
was still no better, it was like nothing in her experience. She spit out the slimy fruit, and
vowed never to try that again. Looking around, she noticed that even her clothing, so
carefully chosen, was wrong. She had been in America only a few hours, and already she
knew that she looked like the foreigner she was. Here, in America the girls were wearing
short flirty skirts, silk stockings rolled at the knees and flapper shoes, unbucked floppy
galoshes. Instead of the long luxurious womanly plaits of hair, the style was to bob, and
look as boyish as possible. These women were flat, they had no breasts, it seemed to her.
But then again, everything was new and different in this country, and hopefully better
than it had been from where she had come.

But nothing was better, or nicer here than it was back home. Her sister Rose lived on the
fourth floor of a tenement walk up. The rotted wooden stairs were concave and
splintered from the many years of use. The gas lamps, which until recently had lit the
narrow halls, had been converted to electricity, and a single bare bulb burned dimly on
each landing, the originals armature still in place. The toilet was in the hall!! The fetid
odor of cats permeated the halls and stairwells. Cooking odors from every different
ethnicity filled the air, and combined to make an unrecognizable melange of aromas. In
the kitchen stood a huge tin wash tub in which the laundry was done, and which doubled
as a bathtub when a sheet was strung around it to provide some semblance of privacy. To
make hot water, kettles were put to boil on the coal stove, and the boiling water was
added to the cold running water, which they did have. They lived in what we call a cold
water flat. Each one in the household bathed at least once a week, probably before the
Sabbath. For anyone who had the price, or the time, a custom existed on the Lower East
Side of the public baths, where one day of the week the facilities were reserved for men,
and another day for the workmen. There, these work worn men and women were able to
get away from the crowded apartments, filled with boarders and children, and luxuriate
in the hot steam baths for the cost of about 5 cents. More often than not it was less for
pleasure than for necessity. Not everyone had even a wash tub in the kitchen. Her
sister’s household consisted of her sister Rose, brother-in-law Benny and their four
children. Two boarders, single men, whose weekly rent was necessary for the survival of
the family, also lived there and ate meals with the family. The boarders had the beds in
this dark railroad apartment, and the children who were small, slept on two chairs pulled
together and bedded down with pillows. In spite of this unrelieved poverty, their dreams
and hopes stood proudly in the dining room. An upright player piano. It was a reminder
of what was possible to achieve in America. The children were taking music lessons at
the Henry Street Settlement House on the Lower East Side. The Educational Alliance,
also near by, offered courses of instruction in every subject imaginable, and was a
wonderful source of American culture. They took advantage of every opportunity. The
Lower East Side was a hub of activity, a schmorgasbord of choices and a place to grow
and expand into the New World.

The first night of Chaya’s arrival, everyone came to welcome her, landsleit, neighbors,
new friends and old. They fussed over her, admired her beauty, and brought small gifts
to welcome her. They laughed at her clothes, kindly, remembering how it had been with
them when they first arrived. They came looking for messages from loved ones, or the
latest gossip from the old home. They recalled the old days in their small town, and
talked about people long dead, and spoke of incidents which had happened 20 or 30 years
before as though they had happened just yesterday. They brought with them their sons,
eligible young bachelors to view the beautiful Chaya. None of them suited her, she was
going to first become a “real American”. The women praised her gorgeous hair which
reached to her hips when it was unplaited. They felt it, weighed it in their hands and then
one of them laughingly offered to buy it to make a wig for herself. They, half seriously,
warned Benny to look after her well, because soon all the fellows would be breaking
down his door to court Chaya. Everyone was vying for her attention. Each one
expounded on the wonders of America. They all told of others who had become
successful and had moved on to a better street, maybe even without boarders now, or
perhaps with an additional bedroom. Some even bragged about old neighbors who had
moved up to the Bronx. But, no one had prepared her for the modern miracle of radio. A
young boy, Chaya’s nephew, about 12 or 13 years of age had been sitting quietly in the
corner of the room, playing with what looked like a bulb and some wires, and he was
very engrossed, so much so, that the company began to wander over to see what he was
doing. He looked up and said excitedly; “Listen, I hear music, its coming from New
York”. My mother didn’t believe him, and she certainly couldn’t conceive that orchestra
music could be coming from a box and a bunch of wires and a bulb. Even when he
placed the head set on her head, she squealed and laughed, and though she had heard it
for herself, thought it was another “greenie” trick they were playing on her, like that
awful banana. She was very skeptical! It just was impossible! An orchestra in a box!

Chaya’s first few days were spent becoming acquainted with the neighbors, who were
like family. In the morning Chaya was up at the first light of day. She, with her two little
nieces crowded together, leaned over the window sill, and the young ones pointed out to
her the people and places of interest in the street below. Across the road was the fire
house with its smartly groomed horses, gleaming red truck and fire apparatus. The men
there ran readiness drills each day. With the sirens screaming all the while, they ran up
and down four and five story ladders leaning against the sides of the buildings. It was of
great interest to the neighborhood children, and certainly to wide eyed newcomers, like
Chaya. On the corner was the candy store where the children could linger over the candy
counter, deciding among the many choices of penny candies, the storekeeper all the while
urging them to “hurry up and decide, you think I got all day?”. And where Chaya would
soon be receiving telephone calls and messages through the kindness of the candy
storekeeper. The public school stood just down the street. They pointed out to Chaya the
house where their teacher lived. Soon Chaya would be attending night school there,
learning English. On the opposite side of the street was the catering hall, from which the
sounds of people celebrating happy occasions could be heard almost every night of the
week. Rosie had a job there.

The household that Chaya came to was poor and hard working, scrambling to make a
life. Benny worked as a hand finisher on ladies cloaks, earning a mere $6.00 a week,
when there was work. In order to help sustain the family, Rose worked in the wedding
hall. She washed the yards long tablecloths, starched and ironed them and replaced them
on the banquet tables before a wedding. During the wedding she tended to the babies and
young children in the cloakroom. In those days no one ever thought of having a family
celebration without the kids present. Who had ever heard of a baby sitter? After the
affair, when everyone had left, and the hall was cleared, she would scrub the dance floor
and wax it. It was a good job, because in addition to being paid, she could take home the
leftover food. The family was often fed for days with that bonanza. In the midst of their
abject poverty they were dining like kings on stuffed chicken and chopped liver. The
kids were taking to school fancy cakes and candy, and all sorts of delicious treats, they
were the envy of their classmates, and maybe even of the teacher.

When my mother saw the poverty, she was horrified. It was not what her sister had
written to them about her life in America. It was not what Chaya had been expecting at
all. In the letters Rose sent to the family back home in Poland, she told them that
America was wonderful. That it held the promise of a wonderful life and future for
everyone who settled there. She didn’t describe the grinding poverty, and the endless
hours of toil that it took to keep a family, in even the meager conditions her family
enjoyed. She never mentioined the rudeness of the people, driven to distraction by the
pressures of life in the New World, or the stresses of earning enough money to keep body
and soul together. She in fact, sent money home to her family. She knew of their needs,
but they knew nothing of hers.

During those first few days in America, with everyone in the household either at school
or at work, Chaya was free to wander the streets of New York to her hearts content, and
so she did. As she became more familiar and at home, she also became aware of the
contradictions of the poverty and plenty around her, the beautiful and the hideous side by
side. She also was made very conscious of her sister’s situation by the kind neighbor
who lived just next door in the same building. Mrs. Cohen looked after the children
while Rosie was at work. The arrangement was perfect. The Cohens were and elderly,
childless couple, who loved and were concerned with the four children who’s parents
were so busy. Each day she would report to Rose the activities of the four children. She
had made herself responsible for their welfare and was accepted as a member of the
family. Gradually Mrs Cohen became the surrogate mother or grandmother to Rose and
Benny’s children. The children relied upon them for a warm welcome after school, and a
willing ear for their days activities. She provided nourishing after school snacks, gave
permission to go skating, or to the movies, decided when a child did not feel well enough
to attend Hebrew School, and assumed all motherly tasks in their mother’s absence. Mr.
Cohen also, was a great favorite with the children. His main attraction was his glass eye.
This he would pop in and out of its socket for the amusement of all of them. It was a real
glass eye, and in no way resembled the other one on the other side of his nose. The
children would handle it, roll it oround on the table, make a game of it, and love its
owner. He could also push out his false teeth with his tongue and make them click
outside his mouth. The performance was unforgettable. Mrs. Cohen was the one who
explained explicitly and carefully to Chaya the facts of life in New York City for Rose
and her family. She detailed the grueling schedule of hard work that Rose and Benny had
in order to maintain the family. Chaya was beginning to understand that life in America
was not all that she had been led to believe. It was urgent that more money come into the
household. When Rose returned from work that night, they sat down and talked about
Chaya’s future. It was decided that after two weeks, during which Chaya was learning a
bit more about her new home, she would get a job, and then she would begin to repay
Rose the money she had laid out, and the shif’s card she had sent, and of course for her
room and board here in America.

The two weeks flew quickly by. Chaya was both frightened and excited about the
prospect of becoming a working girl. When the day came to go job hunting Chaya was
ready before the dawn, dressed and on the street, she was filled with happy anticipation.
Within a short time, Chaya changed her name to Ida, bobbed her hair, bought and made
new clothes, and most urgently, got a job. It was in reverse order. First she got the job,
which was an adventure. After a week or so of settling into her new surroundings, at
6:00 one morning, she ventured out on her own to “find a djob”. She boarded the horse
drawn trolley and headed into the unknown. The trolley was filled with working men.
There were no other women in the car, she just couldn’t understand why she was the only
one. Later she found out that those men were laborers who had to be available for work
long before the usual work day so that they might be hired. Their chances of getting a
days work would possibly be better if they were among the first on line. It was a hectic
unregulated system. If the men who did the hiring liked you, or knew you, you were
hired. If not, you went home empty. It was called “the slave market”. These were
untrained men without a trade, they would take any kind of work to earn their bread.
Chaya was anxious about getting off the trolley car at the right stop. But because she was
able to read Polish, which is written in the same letters as English, she was able to sound
out the name of the streets, and she was able, with the help of her fellow passengers, to
find as she had been told, “where all the shops were”. And she was lucky that day. The
very first shop where she applied, hired her. It was, as they say, “meant to be”. She had
arrived there so early in the morning, that usually the shop would not yet have been open,
and no one would have been there to answer her knock. But, this morning the bosses for
some reason were there early, and they opened the door to the greenie’s hesitant knock.
When Ida discovered that the two young men who owned the shop could speak her
language, she was able to convince them that she would be a good, and reliable worker,
and what she didn’t already know she would learn. Probably her fresh, just off the boat
good looks didn’t hurt either. In those days trimmings were very big. Blouses, dresses,
home decorations, and fabrics were adorned with shirrings, faggotting and embroideries,
open work lace, fringes, little balls and all that sort of fancy work. Each different style in
order to be manufactured needed a special machine, or a head, as it was called. They sat
her down at one of the machines, and although Ida was familiar with sewing on a
machine, she had never decorated anything nor done work in bulk. In the old country all
such decorative work was done by hand and on individual items. Here, she was going to
embroider yards and yards of fabric to be applied to whatever they were designed for.
The two young gentlemen saw how willing she was and how eager for the job, and they
gave her the “djob”. She would stay with them throughout her working career. When
she was paid at the end of the first week’s work they put two dollars more in her pay
envelope than they had agreed upon, and told her it was because they were so pleased
with her work. She was very impressed and extremely proud. “Only in America”. This
was at a time when men were often earning $6 or $8 a week. As was her sister’s
husband. She had lucked out in more than just finding a job. She had found a job in an
industry which was booming. On her way home, she had her hair bobbed in the modern
American fashion. Close to her head with bangs, and spit curls on either cheek. She
thought she looked like an American and she loved it. She, of course did save the long
braid for the woman who had envied her hair, and had offered to pay her for it.

When she got home that evening, after the initial shock of seeing their aunt, who they
called Aunt-Tante, in this new guise, the kids had a great time making fun of her and
teasing her, and loving her. She had brightened their lives, she had brought into their
home the outside world. But her sister was outraged. How could she cut her hair!!
“You look like a street woman!” She felt like a mother to Chaya, and that her sister
would do such an irreversible act, as cutting off the hair which had been growing since
her birth, without consulting with her. It was unimaginable and unacceptable.

The first paycheck went to her sister, Ida had already begun paying her back. Rose
returned to her each week, what we would call an allowance, and which she called
spending money. It was figured out to the penny. How much did Ida need for carfare,
for a drink, or for some unforeseen necessity. By todays standards it would be a pittance,
a little nothing, but for Ida it was enough, she was intent on paying her sister back, and as
it said in the Immigration application, “not becoming a burden on the community”.

Now it was getting cooler, winter was approaching, and it was getting cold enough to
begin thinking of a warm coat for Ida. Rosie knew how to get her money’s worth, and
where. They would go down to Delancy Street, a wonderful place for bargains, and of
course bargaining. After much hunting, and haggling, they found the coat that Rose
declared was “perfect”, black and therefore serviceable, warm, strong “it will last a
lifetime”. Rosie and the sales man struck a bargain over Ida’s objections, and the coat
was theirs. They took it home, and hung it on the coat tree, but Ida refused to wear it or
even to put it on. It hung there unworn, and was a constant thorn in Rosie’s side, until
one day, with Rosie out of the apartment, Ida laid that detested coat out on the dining
room table, and with the large shears, recut it to her idea of “stylish”. She shortened it to
just below the knee from its original ankle length. then she recut the front opening, and
narrowed the fit to conform to her proportions, she found new abuttons and trimmed it to
her liking. Now she loved her new coat. When Rose saw what she had done to that hard
earned coat, she began to faint and cry, and moan about the wasted money. After all, Ida
had cut away half the coat with her new design. They were already living in different
worlds, though in the same house. Never in all the ensuing years did Rose forgive, or
forget Ida’s strongheadedness, and for the rest of their lives, into their old age it was still
a bone of contention. Arguments arose at every family gathering about the coat incident.
Each time they talked about the past it would come up. We all began to look forward to
the battles about the coat, it had become a family tradition. We, of course laughed about
it, and we admitted Rose’s bossiness and wondered at, and admired Ida for her spunk in
standing up to it.
November, 1999