The spring before my mother’s senior year in high school, her mother thought that she was interested in a Catholic boy who was bright and sensitive and later became a priest.
Though Bubbe C was a Communist and Feminist, only nice Jewish boys would do. My mother and family were one of very few Jewish families in Greenpoint Brooklyn. My mom had begun at Girls High and transferred to a commercial high school,as it was The Depression. My grandmother had faith. My mom had an older brother and two younger sisters. One daughter had to find a college bound boy friend and forgoe college. The only one old enough was my mom who was shipped off to some relative in The Catskills.
She didn’t meet my dad that summer. Marion, my mom, met a set of brothers, and some other guys who kept her laughing. She also met a girl who wanted to be, or was, I forget, one of the brother’s girlfriends. She wasn’t enamored with Eleanore who called several times that fall and invited her up to East Harlem.
Her mother insisted that she go to a boys club party at a Settlement House. My grandmother didn’t think that it was nice she declined so many invitations, and she could see the boys who made her laugh.
Marian went and saw Max. She spent the next 59 years enthralled with him. The brothers became her cousins.
This is a very sparse outline because I need a blogging break, though that always remains subject to mood and whim.
I’m going back to Bring it on!, on the 23, and to get myself psyched introduced today’s guest post on health care.
I love the history.
Thanks for the nice story. How many people meet for life at high school anymore?
Pia-
I sure do enjoy your posts. Thanks for the compliment on “Fishin’ with Frank.” Have a good weekend. I’m staying on a boat off Sarasota.
Dave
East Harlem? I wonder what that was like in the past. As with the Settlement House, you make her sound like she was a pilgrim.(you don;t have to answer that:)