Hurst / Fay Rock-A-Bye-Bye-Baby

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-1-0983-7864-6
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 154 Seiten

This is the story of my 50 year search to find my birthmother. I give the reader all the different tools I used to help me in my search. I was adopted in Los Angeles County in California. When I turned 18 I went to the Superior Court in Los Angeles, in hopes of getting my adoption records. I was informed that my adoption records were sealed. I was told that my birthmother was the only one who could unseal them. After writing to the Department of Social Services, I was informed that my birthmother had never requested the records be unsealed, which meant she was not looking for me, I had to go around the system to find her. It took many years of searching and having one door closed after another, before I began to get answers.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hurst, Sue

Fay, Gail

Leseproben

Chapter 2:
Morrie and Rose My parents, Morrie and Rose, were raised in Chicago, Illinois, and were the children of Jewish immigrants—Dad’s parents came to America from Russia and Lithuania and Mom’s from Russia. Dad was the oldest of four. He had one younger sister and two younger brothers. His dad owned a Kosher wholesale meat distributing company as well as a hotel, both of which did very well. My grandfather provided a lavish lifestyle for his wife and children. They had a maid, a butler, a driver, and a chef. They also owned a cottage on Lake Muskegon in Michigan, where the whole family vacationed each summer. Mom was the youngest of five. She had three brothers and one sister. My grandfather owned a barbershop and my grandmother kept house. In 1925, when my mom was eleven, her father died suddenly, leaving his thirty-eight-year-old widow to support the family on her own. My grandmother had never worked outside the home, but she found a job as a cook in a restaurant. She also cleaned houses. My mom would often tell me how hard life was after her dad died and how her mom struggled to put food on the table. Fortunately, my uncles were soon out of high school and working, so they helped support the family. By 1930, they had also taken in a tenant to make ends meet. Love at First Sight In 1934, my dad and his brother George were working in one of the family’s Kosher meat markets. One day, a middle-aged woman walked in accompanied by a much younger woman. My dad looked up, caught one glimpse of the young lady with brown hair and blue eyes, and was completely smitten. And as the cliché goes, he leaned over to his brother and said, “That’s the girl I’m going to marry!” Mom, around 1932 My mom was that beautiful young woman, and she was terribly shy. After she visited the meat market a few more times, my dad finally asked her to go on a date with him. However, he neglected to tell her that they were going to his cousin’s Bar Mitzvah at the Drake Hotel and that it was a formal affair. My mom had come straight from her job as a social worker, so she was wearing a business suit under her trench coat. All of the other ladies were wearing evening gowns and fur coats. My mom had never seen such opulence. The diamonds were something out of a magazine. She didn’t feel that she fit in with this elite social scene and could sense the cold stares and judgment. My dad was very handsome, and my mom sensed that the eligible women were vying for his attention. He was wearing a tuxedo and had a strong resemblance to, and was often mistaken for, Humphrey Bogart. As the evening progressed, Mom became aware of the social status my father’s family held. When she was introduced to his parents and other family members, she was graceful and elegant as always. She charmed her future in-laws, even though she refused to take off her trench coat. My father asked her to dance, and she felt uncomfortable approaching the dance floor. With his calm demeanor, my dad said she was the most beautiful woman in the room. “With a face like this, who’s looking at your coat?” Though it was a somewhat awkward first date, he didn’t stop pursuing her, and she didn’t push him away. My parents got engaged in December of 1934. My dad’s mom wanted to throw a large, lavish wedding. My dad was her oldest son, after all, and the first son to marry. But my mom didn’t have the money for a wedding dress, let alone a fancy wedding. She couldn’t ask her own family for money because they were struggling to make ends meet. One Friday afternoon in February 1935, my parents were discussing the wedding and my mom’s discomfort when my dad suddenly said, “Well, let’s elope!” Mom looked at him for a few seconds and then said, “Okay. When?” “How about right now!” my dad replied. So, they did! My mom called her best friend and asked if her dad, who was a rabbi, would marry them. My parents raced across town to get to the rabbi’s apartment before sundown, since Shabbat was rapidly approaching. My parents called everyone they could, but it was so last minute not many of them could make it. It truly was a small, intimate ceremony. My mom’s family was unable to make it on such short notice. My dad’s two brothers, his father, and a few friends attended, but they still didn’t have enough men for a minion—a quorum of ten Jewish men required for certain religious obligations. My dad quickly went down to the street to look for someone to complete the minion. He saw a sweet, little old man and asked, “Excuse me sir, could you help me out? I’m trying to get married.” It turned out that the old man was Jewish and knew what a minion was. He agreed and went upstairs with my dad, but he was barely able to walk. My dad was having a panic attack because he didn’t think the man would make it up the stairs before the sun went down. The ceremony was simple and sweet, just like my mom. Her mother-in-law could tell that the girl marrying her son was doing so out of pure love, not because of the money and fanfare. My mom really captured her mother-in-law’s heart that day. Mom was twenty and Dad was twenty-four when they married and moved into a small apartment in downtown Chicago. Their rent was thirty-five dollars a month. They were young and in love and making plans for their future. Dad and Mom with their books around 1937 Health Issues Starting a family is something that my parents wanted to do right away. They tried for many years, unsuccessfully, to get pregnant. Then my parents discovered my mom was suffering from fibroids—noncancerous growths in her uterus that caused heavy bleeding. My dad had to rush her to the hospital one day because she was losing so much blood. She was whisked into an operating room. At one point, the doctor came out to speak with my father. “We need your permission to perform a hysterectomy,” the doctor said. Did the doctor finish his statement with the words “to save her life”? I don’t know. But the urgency was there, and my poor dad had to make a life-changing decision without consulting my mom, the person that decision would affect the most. My dad felt he had no choice. He couldn’t take a chance on losing his wife. When my mom woke up, my dad had to deliver the horrible news that she had a hysterectomy and that she would be unable to have children. My mom was devastated, and the decision put a heavy strain on their marriage. My mother suffered deeply with depression after that surgery. She felt empty and incomplete. It took a while for my mother to emotionally recover, but a few years later, my parents began the adoption process. In 1941, my parents adopted their first child, Cecilia, nicknamed Cele. She was named after my father’s mother. War Years By that point, World War II had already begun, and soon after the United States became involved. My grandfather’s meat distributing business began to suffer because meat was being rationed as a result of the war. My dad decided it was a good time to leave the family meat business and look for work elsewhere. At first, he worked as an apprentice to my uncle (my mom’s sister’s husband), who was a plumber. When plumbing jobs in Chicago became scarce, my dad and uncle traveled to other states—Alabama, South Carolina, Tennessee, Louisiana, Indiana, and West Virginia—in search of work. They were gone for weeks and months at a time, leaving my mom, Cele, my aunt, and my two cousins alone. My Dad would write and send money when he could. He sent one postcard from Leeville, Louisiana, in November 1942. My mom, Cele, aunt, and cousins were living in Terre Haute, Indiana: Dear Rose, Well, baby, we started working this morning—7–10 hours, 162 1/2 hr’s not bad. “Shurman the Plumber.” I never saw so many soldiers in all my life. They got all the women sewed up here. Work is in the camp hospital. It’s Camp Polk (an Army Base). The job is supposed to be till Christmas. I’ve got my fingers crossed that I can only hang on—kinda miss you, can’t you send me a piece of mail? We’re living in a 2x4 farmhouse, no light, no toilet, no nothing—looking for a letter. Postcard from Leeville, Louisiana, November 1942 In April 1943, he sent a postcard from Charleston, West Virginia. The women and children were still in Indiana. Rose and Da Da [he called Cele Da Da for some reason], Just got thru eating dinner & believe me I really packed it away. Today is a big day in my life. I took possession of a private room and bath. For an hour after work I took a bath, shave, washed hair and cut my nails. Well today is pay day eve, that is the best thing about this job (to me). We bought our foreman a bottle of liquor a piece. It was his birthday. Next to his wife he loves liquor or vice versa. I feel the same way. Morrie Postcard from Charleston, West Virginia, April 1943 That was my Dad’s sense of humor. He never drank, so I find this postcard...