"For The Diblet - The Hermans of Old "
by Allen Herman

Recently my nephew Scott's daughter graduated from high school. In September she will head to West Chester University for undergraduate work. Jillian is a beautiful and bright young lady very deserving of the party Scott and his wife Cheryl had for her. While I was at the affair many of the younger members of my family approached me requesting that I write about the family. As I was the "Last of the Mohicans" it was my job, they claimed, to commit the family history to print. Otherwise, I was told, the family tale would be gone for ever.

On the way home from Center City I gave their request a great deal of thought. I argued it in my head both ways from all sides. Did this material belong in The Uptight Suburbanite? I finally decided that it would be both a "good read" and a story with a moral. I became convinced that the unconventional tale had a place in our less-than-conventional publication.

To start, the favorite part of my family was my Mother's sister, my aunt Esther, her husband and his entire family. They were all brilliant and crazy ... excuse me, eccentric. They all started their journey to America at the end of the nineteenth century from Kiev in the Ukraine. My Uncle Sam,Esther's husband, was the most normal. He was the youngest of three brothers. The boys also had a sister, Clara. Each one of these people was, to put it mildly,"a trip."

Sam's oldest brother, Ben, was married to one of the ugliest women I have ever met. When my brother Frank and I went to see "The Wizard of Oz" we both asked my mother if our Aunt Runya was the one with the black pointed hat in the movie! My father referred to her as the "Beast."

Uncle Ben, who was a criminal of high standing on the New York waterfront despised her. (I find it hard to find the correct word to describe her physical "attributes.") Whenever the family got together he would tell any one who would listen that this "creature" he was married to was purchased in Russia and shipped to him by his parents. He moaned often that no one ever asked for his opinion. He claimed that she was purchased at either a close out sale, a going out of business sale or an odds-and-ends clearance. He viewed her as damaged goods the minute he saw her and he never forgave his parents. He viewed my Aunt Runya as the ultimate punishment.

Further, when he had to entertain his "colleagues" he actually rented a woman to fill in as his wife. He would get a suite in a hotel, hire a caterer and let her play hostess. He would even take her to the theater and various social activities that required he not go alone. To the best of my knowledge this woman was strictly for show and not a "Schwarzenegger."

Aunt Runya was just as bad. She walked around asking everyone she met at family gatherings why the Lord above had done such a terrible thing to her ... to marry her to such a nasty man ... a "gangster."  She actually feared for her life and was convinced that he would have her killed. She went so far as to dig holes in her lawn to hide her jewelry. She also told all who would listen that the whole family, including those attending the affair, were all animals, crazies and misfits. When she died some in the family traveled to her home in Florida with shovels. Need I say more?

Sam's other brother, Abe, was even more bizarre. He also did not appreciate the wife his parents purchased for him in Russia. He would also wander about family activities loudly mumbling about his wife. If contests have runner-ups, Bessie came in a very close second to my Aunt Runya. He always referred to her as "Miece America," the woman he was "lucky" enough to be wed to. (In Yiddish the word "miece" means ugly). Often, he would take a look at her, shake his head and look to the heavens.

Abe was not a happy man. His business was more successful than his marriage and he kept himself busy manufacturing vests for three piece suits. The only thing in his personal life that made his life bearable was his two wonderful daughters. They also stayed away from the house. In fact they both split for the West Coast as soon as they were old enough. He loved them, he adored them, he worshipped them. And that is why he stayed.

He often said the minute his second daughter got married and said "I do" he was going to make a U-Turn in the synagogue and say, "I'm gone." Then, he claimed, he would walk out the door and never be seen again. And, true to his word, at his daughter's wedding when he heard his daughter, May, say "I do," he left straightaway. Abe walked back down the aisle, turned to look at the guests and left.  Like Star Trek, he was gone and no one ever beamed him aboard again.

Some twelve years later I did see him again. One day, while I was teaching at the old William Penn High School at 15th and Mount Vernon, I happened to look out the window and ... low and behold ... there was my Uncle Abe sitting in a small factory at a sewing machine making vests. Being the very inhibited person that I am, I opened the window and screamed towards my uncle.

We both rushed down the steps of our individual buildings and hugged in the middle of Mount
After that, he became a frequent visitor to my home. I had to keep his secret and it wasn't until two years passed that he allowed me to tell the family that he had reappeared. My Mom figured it out earlier when she kept spotting my son, Eric, in one beautiful vest after another!

Unfortunately I can't tell you much about my Uncle Sam's sister. Clara married a man who was a radical Communist and was always on the move. At parties and weddings she would constantly complain that she married the one Jewish guy that couldn't earn a living. But he was not only Red and poor, he was very, very good looking. Evidently, and I was too young to understand this, Clara was very happy. "Dave" was "A-One," she claimed, and my mother and other female members of the family often would blush or run away when she began to describe their "at- home gymnastics."

Their son got in bad trouble with some gang in Brooklyn and they actually were forced to pack up in the middle of the night and disappear. Many years later, believe this or not, I had to purchase a small screw driver to repair my glasses in the middle of Eugene, Oregon. I met a man in the Loew's that looked remarkably like my aunt's husband. Again, being a very inhibited person, I stopped the stranger and started talking. His name was Paul and he was, I know this is hard to believe, my long lost gang-evading relative. He was now teaching music at the University. He was thrilled to meet me and agreed to join us for dinner that night. He never showed and I've have never heard from him again.

Now that I've introduced you to some of my mother's family (my father's family was just as colorful), you may wonder why I did so. The reason is simple. Unless you are lucky enough to have family that is still arriving in this great land you will never understand the mindset of the old immigrants who made this nation great. It's a mind- set that is rapidly fading.

People were different. They learned the language and adored the Constitution. They asked the government and non-family members for nothing. We had a big fish bowl in our family and when times got tough or special projects arose in the family, despite the fighting, the battling, the arguments and the insults, everyone kicked in. That was the job of family. Uncle Gabe went to college because the family was proud, thrilled is a better word, that he was to be an MD, and they contributed to his education. Some how or another the family raised the money to send him to medical school.

Today, sad to say, many don't go towards the fish bowl, they go for their keys and their cars. Too many do lunch and nothing more. Some claim all of these "fundings" should be covered by government. If they want to help they put a little money in the can that someone's mother is holding in front of a public building.

It wasn't that way "in the day." When people lost jobs during the depression they lived with family and had family support. It was not the Uncle Sam in red, white and blue who was asked to help out for eighteen months. Family cared about family. All watched out for one another.

My Mom and Dad had my aunt's children living with them for two years when my uncle was out of work. After the War my home became a way station for those who managed to survive the Nazis. People in the family found or created jobs for those in need. Family cared, they contributed and they volunteered. My mother didn't work but she was an incredibly effective volunteer in many, many worthwhile charities.

People did not have to pay a shrink to listen to their problems, they had plenty of listeners at the family table. People were honest ... honest to a fault. We had terms such as bums, tramps, hoodlums, unwed mothers, freeloaders, illegitimate children, jailbirds, divorcees, beggars, schleppers and a rafter of other names that were in vogue. We never heard about the disturbed, the single parent, the chronically unemployed, the transgendered and children in conflict. Words were never created to soften the "ugly."
People used words that were judgmental. They were not meant to be politically correct. No one would have nine children with nine different men, marry none of them and show up at our family gatherings. Nor would a woman who was "fast or loose" get on the radio to tell the world she was a "whore" and proceed to discuss the prominent people she had done a "trick" with. We were lucky ... Jerry Springer hadn't been invented yet. People still had pride and a sense of decency.

Hey, it wasn't perfect ... but it wasn't so bad. Few went to college in Maine and met a person from Chicago to marry and then end up taking a job in New Orleans. You saw your kids and your grandchildren. No one "Skyped" you. Fourteen year olds didn't dress like they were fifty and fifty year olds didn't try to look like they were fourteen. I know this sounds square, but we actually went to a large, crowded, noisy family "circle" every month. And I have to admit that I loved those three-ring circuses.
Stay tuned nephews and nieces. Next I will tell you about my father's side of the family. They were less intellectual and a little more violent. In fact one of your old uncles did time for attempting to throw hand grenades at Arafat when he visited the UN in New York.  But that's another story. Maybe that one will come when we have a West Chester graduation!

Allen Herman
Your opinions are always welcomed.
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