Ruth Tenzer Feldman's Blog, page 9

34. Cheerioats and the Sewing Club

There’s not much good I can say for 1943. Mim worried about Paul—we all did. The few letters from him in the Pacific frightened her, and it was worse when two weeks went by and there were no letters. She fought anxiety by throwing herself into volunteer work with the Korematsu case and with the Double V campaign.

An ad for justice

Have you heard about Double V? The blacks—we said “Negroes” then as a sign of respect—started the Double V campaign to remind Americans that we were fighting for vict...

33. Justice for Japanese Americans

That comic book superhero, Wonder Woman, first appeared in 1942, and I’m not surprised. Wonder Woman fought against the forces of evil—which were usually the Nazis. Mim was my personal wonder woman that year. While Paul had enlisted in the Army to fight abroad, Mim battled her forces of evil in California. That’s how she saw it.

It started in February. President Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066 authorized our military commanders to exclude every Japanese and Japanese American from the Pacific...

32. Thank you, Joe DiMaggio

After Rachel and Henry eloped, dare I say life went back to normal? “Normal” then was still budgeting down to the nickel, and wringing the fullest enjoyment out of family life and friendships. Sidney still visited me at the art gallery, even though he was about 15 then, and he and Hans sometimes went out for coffee.

My favorite Monopoly piece, a metal shoe, from the 1935 edition of the game.

Hans was a good sport about sharing our home (my home, actually) with Rachel and Henry. The four of us u...

31. A Handshake and a Postcard

One of Sidney’s old comic books

Rachel called me to announce her rash elopement with her Danish lover, and we three met in my parlor to discuss what to tell Mim and Ephraim. Rachel and Henrik arrived with a bottle of my favorite sherry. A good start! They had gifts for the whole family: another typography book by Edmund Gress for Mim; the latest record by Tommy Dorsey and his orchestra for Ephraim; a set of Marvel Mystery comics for Sidney; and some book for Paul (I forget which), even though...

30. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel

Rachel Jacobowitz had grown up, and I didn’t notice. Frankly, I chose not to notice. Weren’t Mim and I still in our 20s? Surely not in our 40s.

By Thanksgiving of 1939, I was a woman of experience, you might say. Once Mim warned me about Rachel, I made sure that Hans had the benefit of my rather extensive knowledge. Dear boy, he didn’t know what hit him!

As it turned out, Rachel had other men on her mind, or at least she did by the time Hans and I saw her again at Sidney’s bar mitzvah service....

29. War and the Wizards

I’ll get right to it. By the end of September, 1939, Europe was at war. Hitler had invaded Poland. France and England—and several of England’s Commonwealth countries—had declared war on Germany. For the time being, the United States remained officially neutral, but conflict practically overwhelmed my dear Mim.

“The human race hasn’t learned anything since the last war twenty years ago,” she railed at me, while she minced onions. “Not one single thing. Peaceful negotiation is the only decent op...

28. Snuffles and the Doomed Ship

Thankfully Rachel was squared away, because January 1939 was filled with such bad news that I worried how Mim would manage. First off, they declared Amelia Earhart officially dead. Amelia and her copilot were flying over the Pacific in the last leg of an around-the-world journey in 1937. I think Mim gave up hope a few weeks after the disaster, but this announcement made everything sadly final. Then, on Friday the 13th, an enormous wave of bushfires devastated about nearly five million acres i...

27. The Rift over Rachel

I’m no expert on marriage, but the relationship between my best friend and her husband would have made most of us eager to march down the aisle. Except in 1938.

Of course, Europe was falling apart back then, and the United States was struggling. In the first half of ’38, Hitler annexed Austria. German troops marched into the Sudetenland part of Czechoslovakia, and no one came to the defense of that poor country. All that was horrid, but it was the rift over Rachel that stunned me.

Rachel had tu...

26. Let’s Not Dwell on ’36 and ’37

Let’s think about Rachel’s sweet sixteen and not dwell on the Great Depression, especially 1936 and 1937. By then there were so many people suffering. I kept the art gallery open three days a week for the sake of bringing art to the public. I rarely got a sale. One of the four workers at Double-J Printers left for Canada. Ephraim didn’t replace him—there was no need—and I openly rejoiced. Ephraim couldn’t afford to keep three assistants, let alone four. But he was determined to keep jobs for...

25. Rachel’s Sweet Sixteen

I don’t know who started the tradition of girls having sweet sixteen birthday celebrations. Mim and I both had ours at the Portland Hotel in 1912, mine in January and hers in July, just before I left for boarding school. White gloves. Ball gowns. That sort of thing.

Rachel’s was a much more modest affair. The country was deep into hard times by then. Mim and Ephraim didn’t have much money in 1935, when Rachel turned sixteen. Even if they had, Mim would have insisted on giving half of it to the...