Pick any Thanksgiving in my childhood, and chances are we are on our way to Aunt Beryl and Uncle Yale's house for Thanksgiving dinner. Aunt Beryl is my mother's sister. We shared just about every Thanksgiving and Passover with them. Thanksgiving was usually at her house and Passover was at our house. Thanksgiving was reserved for a day to spend with my mother's side of the family. Beryl and Yale spent the Jewish Hight Holy Days at big family gatherings on Yale's side of the family. We dropped by at my paternal Grandmother's house after services on Rosh Hashonah for Kremslach, and I can still remember seders at her apartment when I was very young. But Thanksgiving will always be associated for me with my mother's family.
My Mother had lost her own mother when she was nineteen and Beryl was 11. After that time, she helped to raise Aunt Beryl, and they were still very close as adults. It didn't occur to me at the time that Thanksgiving might have been a little hard for them as young women. They never had the chance to go to Mom's house for Thanksgiving, showing off their new husbands and the children as they arrived, or to get the favorite family recipes from their mother. If they felt any sadness, they never let us know. For us as children, Thanksgiving was a gala family event.
Thanksgiving at Aunt Beryl's house was more than a meal, it was an all day event. Aunt Beryl and Uncle Yale were and are both great cooks, and the dinner was always delicious. We stayed and visited all afternoon, and at supper time, turkey sandwiches and more pie was always served. I don't remember doing much of anything during those hours, other than watching everyone else. My mother and Aunt Beryl talked all afternoon. My young sister Melinda played with Aunt Beryl's daughter Miriam, who was her age. Shortly after my younger brother Jeff came along, Aunt Beryl had her daughter Lisa, so they were natural playmates. After a while, my older brother Andy started tagging along after Uncle Yale, who probably enjoyed the company. They are still close, and Uncle Yale even introduced my brother Andy to his wife Kathy. As for me, I remember spending the time eavesdropping on the conversations my mother was having with Aunt Beryl, and checking on my father napping in the living room.
When I was young, my maternal grandfather, his sister Great Aunt Nettie, and her husband Uncle Henry, often came to Thanksgiving dinner. Every member of the family had a story. We loved them because of their stories, or in spite of them.
Aunt Nettie's story was that she had been a beautiful young woman who put off marriage so that she could care for her ailing mother until her death. During that time, she worked as a school teacher. By the time her mother died, Aunt Nettie was near 40. She married a curmudgeonly old dentist, Uncle Henry. Uncle Henry said little at family gatherings, until it was time to leave. Then, he would rouse himself and say "Well, Nettie". My siblings and I still sometimes say "Well, Nettie" when we feel like its time to leave a family event. My mother thought that Uncle Henry was a miser, that he and Nettie should have lived in a nicer house and that Nettie should have had a chance to travel. Still, I thought Aunt Nettie loved him. I still remember the look of abject grief that she wore at his funeral.
My grandfather's story was more complex. He had been widowed young. He came by our house often in his big green cadillac. He bought us toys and amused us by balancing grapes in his eyes. We rarely went to his apartment. It was inhabited by the mysterious "French Woman". The "French Woman" never came to our house. It was my grandfather himself who referred to her as the "French Woman", my parents never spoke of her at all. My Grandfather would sometimes mention her, or at least mention that he had to go home because he had something to do with the "French Woman". Occasionally, we ran into them on a hot summer day, at the beach. My grandfather would be in his old fashioned bathing suit, with a top like a man's sleeveless undershirt. He'd come over to our beach umbrella and say hello, but the "French Woman" kept her distance. I only remember going to my Grandfather's apartment once, when my mother and grandfather had some kind of adult appointment. The "French Woman" babysat for me for the afternoon. I was 8 or 9. She found a Shirley Temple movie on TV for me to watch, and brought me snacks. She had dark curly hair, and a slight Canadian French accent. I thought she seemed nice enough. I always thought of her as my Grandfather's cleaning woman with whom he happened to have grown close.
My Grandfather died when I was 10, and I remember how angry my mother was that the "French Woman" thought she was entitled to some of his things. It wasn't until years later that my mother told me that she was his mistress. As a widower, my mother said that there were many respectable Jewish widows whom my Grandfather could have married. Instead he took up with the "French Woman". My mother believed that the "French Woman" was an alcoholic who had insinuated herself into my Grandfather's life, and that he was too weak to make her leave. I had a more romanticized view. My view was that my grandfather loved my grandmother so much, that he could never bring himself to remarry. Still, he had needs, and the "French Woman" was able to accept him on those terms, without the benefit of marriage.
In 1959, my grandfather died just before Thanksgiving. My last few words with him were in a telephone call just before he went into the hospital for surgery. He called for my mother, and when I answered the phone, he told me that he would see me on Thanksgiving, and to be sure to save some turkey for him. This one year, Thanksgiving was going to be at our house, and my Uncle Albert from Pennsylvania was coming up with his family. Instead of being our Thanksgiving dinner, the turkey and fixings sustained us all through the funeral period. I remember wondering what we would have done for food if my mother hadn't had all of the Thanksgiving fixings in the house.
I remember that my Uncle Albert came up first, and then his family flew in. I got to go to the airport to pick them up. When they got off the plane, Aunt Dorothy, Uncle Albert's wife, said that our grandfather had been like a fairy tale grandfather. This stuck in my mind, because I thought it was so untrue. I figured that she must have thought that because they lived so far away and rarely saw him. To me, he was a real man. I remembered how he struggled to learn the Torah blessing for my brother's Bar Mitzvah, and how proud he looked on the Bimah. I remembered how he took us to Chanukah parties at Temple Beth Israel, where they served fried chicken but no latkes, and how he pointed out to me, with admiration, the great Rabbi Feldman, who indeed was an internationally recognized scholar. I remembered that he tended to doze off during services, and that he gave my mother her first clothes drier. I felt bad for my cousins who could only remember him as someone from a fairy tale, and not as a real man, "French Woman" and all.
Flashforward:
It is November 23, 2009, the Monday before Thanksgiving. I am a grandmother of four. Over the weekend my husband John and I had an overnight our daughter's 6 month old twins, and I will see them again today. On Sunday morning, when they woke up, we fed them bottles in our bedroom, then all played together in the bed, all four of us smiling and laughing. I spoke to my son Saturday afternoon, and we began making our plans for a Chanukah visit, followed by a Christmas vacation visit, a visit for his children's January birthdays, and an overnight visit with his children, who are almost 6 and 2. I am sure that visit will involve some early morning tickles and giggling as well. I am fortunate that I see them all often.
This Thanksgiving, however, instead of spending the day with my children and grandchildren, I will again be visiting with "my Mother's side of the family". I am looking forward to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of my brother Andy and my sister-in-law, Kathy. Aunt Beryl and Uncle Yale, now 80, will be joining us for dinner. Thankfully, some things never change.
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