PART IV
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
1926–1930
More than anything, Channa, Sunny, and Beryl longed to be Americans. Like thousands of other young Jewish immigrants who fled Europe, they strived to become “Americanized.” They did not want to be associated with the Old Country: their desire to blend in as Americans took precedence over everything else. Sunny and Beryl, who were only seven and two when they first arrived in the United States, had an easier time learning English than Channa did at eleven. But so determined was Channa to master the language, she took special elocution classes at night. She wanted to sound like a natural-born citizen.
“I want an American name,” Channa proclaimed to her English teacher. “From now on, call me Anne.” From that day forward, Channa began permanently using this Americanized version of her name.
Anne’s greatest fear, aside from her claustrophobia, was being identified as a “greenhorn,” a new immigrant who was unfamiliar with American ways. She and her siblings didn’t converse in Yiddish with their new American friends at school, because that was the language they used in Stavishche, where they had suffered a great deal. And Anne certainly didn’t want to be fixed up with a greenhorn, despite her mother’s best efforts. In fact, she almost died of embarrassment the time that her mother set her up on a blind date with the son of one of her new immigrant friends. As a dutiful daughter, she felt obligated to go, but was embarrassed to be seen out with him. She was only interested in American boys.
Her parents were not successful in integrating into American society. Rebecca deliberately chose to socialize with people with whom she could converse with in Yiddish. She befriended and played cards with a group of Jewish ladies from Russia and Ukraine. Rebecca even shopped on an Old World street in Philadelphia, reminiscent of the open marketplace in Stavishche. There, she walked by rows of wooden cages crammed with live chickens. Like her mother before her, she stopped to feel the pulkiesI beneath their feathers, to see if they were plump enough to eat. The kosher butcher would then remove the bird of her choice and take it in the back and slaughter it.
Isaac did not integrate any better than his wife. Every morning on his way to work, he walked alone to shul, where he enjoyed the company of his fellow landslayt. The men prayed together in Hebrew and kibitzed in Yiddish. In business, he learned to communicate with his American customers by using gestures. Like many other Yiddish-speaking immigrants, he playfully coupled any English words or names that he learned with nonsensical ones. The silly rhymes were endless: crazy-schmazy, bird-shmird, ridiculous-smikulus, blood-shmud, Masha-kasha, here-shmere, vodka-schmadka.
In Philadelphia, Isaac’s new job didn’t last. So he opened a little shoe repair shop of his own and worked long hours. Most of his business came to him on weekends, so for the first time in his life, he had to give up observing the Sabbath. For the grandson of a Stavishche rabbi, working on Shabbos, the day of rest, was a huge sacrifice. His morale was not helped by the fact that despite working on the Sabbath, his family barely survived living above the poverty line.
Isaac’s Saturdays were only made brighter by the arrival of his skinny nine-year-old daughter, Sunny, who walked the few blocks to his workplace carrying a pail filled with sandwiches. Sometimes she would surprise him with a small slice of kapchonka, his favorite smoked whitefish, which was salty and bony.II To Sunny, it looked something like haddock, but to Isaac it was a popular Sabbath treat from his boyhood that was fished from the many ponds surrounding Stavishche.
Sunny was content spending Saturdays by her father’s side, often sharing both lunch and dinner with him. She performed menial chores, like sweeping the shoe shop, probably hoping to avoid spending her days with her mother.
Living in America was hard for Rebecca. There was never enough money, and she carried the burden of scrimping and saving from what little she was given to run the household. On Shavuot of 1926, the constant stress of having to stretch a dollar finally caused her to snap. Rebecca was looking forward to baking her holiday specialty—cherry varenikes. While preparing to fill the kreplach-looking dough pockets that were shaped like half-moons, Rebecca discovered that the pound of cherries she had saved up for was half gone. Sunny was hungry and had helped herself to the luscious fruit, causing her mother to explode and run after her. Isaac, who was now thirty pounds lighter than his wife, was forced to intervene.
Channa, now calling herself Anne, had seen enough. Witnessing her mother’s meltdown coupled with the vision of her empty kreplachs abandoned on the kitchen table sealed her decision. As the oldest daughter, she would go to work. Anne had always been tall for her age, and at five feet five inches, she knew that she looked older than thirteen. The young teen saw an ad in the newspaper for a summer position. They needed someone to sew tickets onto clothing using a Singer sewing machine at a men’s clothing factory. Her mother had an old Singer machine, and Anne had seen how it worked, so she applied for the job.
When she got there, their Singer machine was a factory model and was nothing like her mother’s. They handed her long strips of paper with numbers on them to sew onto the garments that came from the same dye lots. The suits were in pieces and piled forty or fifty high. There were stacks of front lapels, back lapels, pockets, sleeves, and pants, and she was expected to sew numbers on each section so that the exact shades would match when they finally pieced the garments together. Anne made lots of errors but was so determined to get it right that a few of her new coworkers took pity on her and showed her what to do. She’d use both hands—one to hold the garment down and put the ticket on, and the other to press and tear it off. She’d then move very quickly on to the next piece.
When Anne turned fourteen, she decided not to return to school. Before leaving, she had to fill out paperwork to prove her age. Her devoted teacher, who already knew the dismal life that she would face as a young factory worker, begged her not to drop out. She told her favorite student that she had so much promise. “Don’t leave school—finish,” she pleaded with her. “You have so much to live for, and you’re still so young.” But Anne was determined. She had learned how to make a dollar, and that was all that mattered.
The law required young dropouts to attend a continuation school every Thursday evening. It was a vocational school at Thirteenth and Spring Garden Streets. There, the teenagers learned personal hygiene and home economics. They were even given some classes on grammar and art.
Anne worked at a number of factories, but always longed for a better job. There was an opening at the Middishade Clothing Company that manufactured men’s suits. The Saturday Evening Post used to run impressive ads for the company’s specialty, Blue Serge Suits. It was a large firm with many departments, and they hired the girl to print all their tickets. Anne eventually became the head of their ticket department.
She soon had friends in every department, including the forelady of the pants division upstairs, who had a lot of pull in the company. She was an attractive blonde divorcee who was having an affair with one of the bosses. Each day over lunch Anne caught an earful of the lurid details of the goings-on behind the scenes. However, what interested her most was the forelady’s advice on how to make herself indispensable to the firm by learning how to manage everything in the company.
Anne took her friend’s words to heart. By the time the Great Depression hit, she had landed a position in the main office as head of the payroll department. From there, the teenager moved on to the shop office where she learned how to operate all the machinery. Soon after, she became an expert on working the dreaded tabulating system. Anne could shoot the cards out so fast that the bosses amused themselves by using her as an example to others how quickly a pair of human hands could move. She’d then sit down at a desk to print out and divide the long sheets of paper and start comparing all the numbers. Staring at those figures day in and day out made her crazy.
In 1930, the Depression took its toll on the once-prosperous Middishade Company. The firm began the year with 120 employees on their payroll and ended it with eight. Anne was one of the eight. They shipped her from place to place within the business: she could run everything. Anne didn’t understand why one of the big bosses, Sonny, always enjoyed needling her so. There was a list of people being laid off, and he called her into his office.
“So and so is going,” he said to her. And he ended it with, “You’re lucky; you’ve got a job.”
She said right back to him, “Look, I’ll always eat. If I can’t work with you, I’ll be a waitress. In fact, I’d like to be a waitress.”
And he answered her, “A waitress—that’s a maid!”
Anne retorted, “I don’t give a damn what it is. I’m going to make a living, and I’m going to eat. You don’t threaten me.”
There were times that the workload was so great that the teenager slept there in the bins. They never paid her overtime, but she was desperate to hold on to the job. Anne’s father earned a dismal income from his shoe shop, and he depended on the couple of dollars that she would contribute each week. Even though Anne later felt that she should have been more generous and given him more, he was so proud of his oldest daughter.
After the layoffs, those who remained were spread across the building. Anne’s desk was downstairs, where she worked under a light most of the time. Behind her was the shipping department. The doors opened constantly while they were shipping orders, and the wind constantly blew on her. As a result, she became ill. The fourteen-year-old menstruated for a month straight.
Anne went from doctor to doctor. Finally, an elderly practitioner was the first doctor to take down a complete history of her life and where she worked.
“Were you out with a man?” he asked. “Maybe you had a miscarriage.”
She said, “I’ve never been with a man.”
The doctor finally concluded that Anne was severely overworked and that her young body needed a rest. “Go to the country for a month and do nothing but relax. It’s the only way that you’ll get better.”
Anne spoke to Mr. Johnson, who was the head of the department, and told him that she was ill and needed to take some time off. She asked, “Is my job secure when I come back?”
He said, “Of course, without a doubt.”
So, she took her doctor’s advice and went away to a friend’s house in New Jersey to recuperate. After a few weeks, she was feeling better and went back to work. Anne didn’t call in advance to tell them that she was coming in and was shocked to find upon her return another girl sitting at her desk.
She went to see Mr. Johnson. “Anne, I don’t know anything. You didn’t call and give me any notice that you wanted to come back to work.” She was then called to the main office. There was a new general officer named Winston. She didn’t know him; he didn’t know her. He said to her, “Are you Anne Caprove?”
“Yes.”
“You worked here?”
She said, “Yes, for years.”
Anne guessed that he knew the story behind her leaving. “You just can’t go off and then come back in and say that you want your job. You should have given us notice. You went away, and we have someone else replacing you.”
Anne said, “So what does that mean—that I don’t have a job?”
He answered, “I can’t promise you anything. We’ll let you know.”
When Anne left, she couldn’t stop crying. She ran the few short blocks to her father’s shoe shop and cried in his arms. Her papa’s soothing embrace was a familiar place of comfort to her. Even during the worst times in Europe, his loving words always gave her the strength to go on. Isaac knew how to exude calmness; whether they were fleeing for their lives or burying baby Fay, he was Anne’s rock. Now, at the age of eighteen and just four years after dropping out of the eighth grade, she suddenly found herself out of a job along with many others who suffered during the Depression. Once again, she sought comfort in his arms.
As always, Isaac’s gentle words reassured her. “Don’t worry, my child,” he told her. “We’ll eat; you’ll eat, too.”
1. I. Pulkies refers here to the drumsticks of chickens, although some use this Yiddish word to describe the legs of chickens. Others use the word to describe a person’s thighs, usually with affection when referring to chubby babies.
2. II. Some refer to kapchonka as a specific type of whitefish, while others say it’s the way in which the fish is prepared.