Two Years Since My Father Died...

Sidney Spiegelman, Z"L, 1920- 2016

It's now two years since my father, Sidney Spiegelman, passed away.

His generation was larger than life.

All of my grandparents made their ways from Eastern Europe to New York when they were young. Both of my parents were born in Brooklyn, New York. So was I, but we moved to Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY when I was an infant.

My father's father came from Nesielsk, Poland. His family had a business there, and within a few years, most of them started businesses in New York, also. My father's mother was born in Rogotshov, Belarus, the second of six daughters. Even though my great-grandfather Brynien had little money, he hired a teacher so his daughters would have an education. All of my father's grandparents eventually moved to New York, so he grew up within two large clans of grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

My father was the second son born, a year and a half after his older brother. They spoke Yiddish until they began school. Around then their younger sister was born. All of them were expected to succeed and get good educations. They all went to college, which was rare for that generation.

My father studied Accounting  in City College and did it as quickly as he could. He wanted to have an academic degree before enlisting in the United States Navy. World War Two had already begun, and he didn't want to be an ordinary soldier.

In order to get the position he wanted, my father also had to hide the weakness in his left eye, which he did. He was trained to use and repair radar on the enormous Navy ships, which was a new technology. They discovered that the radar needed care and repairs to what had been predicted, but his problem solving talents were perfect for the challenges.

After the war, he married my mother, Shirley Shankman, whom he first met before going overseas. No, they hadn't kept in touch while he was serving in the Navy. They took advantage of the Veterans Benefits and moved to Bell Park Gardens when I was a baby. We were living there when my brother and sister were born. My father worked for the New York State Insurance Fund, studied for his CPA certification and began a private practice as an accountant. In 1962, we moved to Great Neck, NY.

My father didn't have hobbies and never watched sports. He was not a spectator. When he had the opportunity he liked to swim. My father liked watching the news and read the New York Times everyday.

Although my father was a proud Jew and called "The Jew" when in the Navy, religious practice didn't appeal to him. He was secular by nature. It was incomprehensible to him that I, his daughter, had become religious. Once he got to see Israel, he was attracted to the dynamic growth and could understand our living here.

A few years before his death, my father lived here in Shiloh with us. At that point my mother was in early stages of dementia and couldn't care for him. We had hoped that she, too, would come to Israel to live. But when she insisted on living near my sister in Arizona, that was set up for both of them. My older son and I took him to join her in Arizona, where they both died. They are buried in New York.

The Science of Hanging Laundry for Quickest Drying

Yes, I know that for many, hanging laundry is an old, primitive chore, like cranking an early automobile to get it started.

Even in Israel there are many homes without clotheslines, because everything is dried in the clothes dryer. I do have one for "emergencies" or when the wash doesn't completely dry before the sun starts to go down and the humidity up. Though sometimes the wash will complete the drying process on folding racks in various rooms of the house.

I'd like you to know that hanging the wash for most efficient drying is, or should be, a science. Maybe a physicist can explain it in scientific terminology. I will do my best to simplify it.

Basically there are about five important factors which you must take into account to efficiently dry your laundry:

• temperature
• humidity
• sunlight
• type and thickness of fabric
• power in the spin of your washing machine

The higher the temperature, the quicker the drying, just like in an electric or gas dryer. Very high temperature may dry the laundry before the wrinkles blow out from the breeze. That's why woven clothes and sheets sometimes become terribly wrinkled when dried in the hot, strong sun. A slightly cooler day, with gentle breezes produces lovely smooth sheets and shirts without needing to iron them.  

Humidity is the measure of moisture in the air. High humidity will keep your wash from drying well. The wash can't get drier than the air around it.

A hot, dry night or shaded clotheslines are best for delicate fabrics or colors that fade in sunlight. Also towels can dry very "rough" when the temperature is high. I, davka, like the rough towels, because drying my skin with them is like having a non-chemical facial. But you should know that the sun not only bleaches some fabrics, it also purifies them. The more direct sun on the laundry, the quicker the drying process. If you hide/block small items with larger ones, the small ones will dry more slowly. I make sure that sheets and large towels are closer to the building, unless I'm using them to protect other items from the strong sun.

Of course the type and thickness of fabric are crucial factors, and that includes how you hang the wash. If you fold or double up fabric, it will take much longer to dry. It's sometimes necessary to rehang items "upside down" for them to dry completely. Get to know your clothing, sheets and towels to know how easily they dry. Woven sheets dry much more quickly than jersey ones. Take that into account when hanging the wash.

Whether you're drying the wash in an electric/gas dryer or outside in the sun, your washing machine will make a big difference in how quickly and easily everything will dry. The spin cycle is of crucial importance. The higher the number the less water remains in the fabric. Of course, there are fabrics that warn about spinning and the dangers of the fabric. Sometimes it can be ignored, but there are clothes that never recover from being spun at 1,000 or even 800. Good luck in your scientific experiments. I do not take responsibility for ruined and damaged clothes etc.

Not everyone has the facilities to dry their laundry outdoors the way I do, but if you can, it can be very enjoyable and suits those who are worried about global warming. You'll also save money. A sun porch can also be setup for laundry drying, as can any room that is heated or gets a lot of direct sunlight. 

Enjoy! I've loved hanging out the wash since I was a little girl in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, New York.

One Year, May His Memory Be A Blessing

Now our family calendar has a new pre-Passover "event" to remember. Last year just a few days before Passover I got the call from my sister in Arizona that our father had just passed away. In a sense it had been expected, but he had always recovered from illness, injury etcetera, so I really thought that he'd pull it off again.

Sidney Spiegelman, 1920-2016

He had outlived my mother and his siblings and the rest of the aunts and uncles of all my first cousins.

My father was the middle of three children, with an older brother and younger sister. He and his siblings were born in Brooklyn, NY to parents who had emigrated from Nasielsk, Poland, and Rogachev, Belarus. He grew up knowing well his grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins. Both sides of his family, with the exception of two maternal aunts, had left Europe well before World War Two.

My father and his siblings all went to college. My father studied to be an accountant, and since the war had already begun in Europe rushed to finish his degree, so he could be an officer in the Navy. He worked with radar on the ships in the Pacific but didn't like to talk about any war experiences. It wasn't until the year he lived with us here and Shiloh and spent time with a neighbor of his generation and similar background, that we heard stories. They, davka, died just a month apart.

After the war, my parents married and my father began working as an accountant for the NY State Insurance Fund. He would audit businesses and didn't have a desk job. That suited him fine, since he worked quickly and managed the quantity of "cases" in less than than week. In his spare time, he began getting private clients and studying for his CPA exams. His aim was to work for himself.  We lived in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, where my younger brother and sister were born, with lots of other young families, at the time.

In the summer of 1962, former neighbors told my parents of a great deal, a small house in Great Neck at a bargain price. They bought it. I was shocked, because I was away in camp at the time and hadn't a clue. Then suddenly, at work my father was to be promoted to a supervisory desk job. This was actually bad news, because he wouldn't have the time and freedom to run his own business. He would have full-time office hours. So, just then, with the expenses of a new home, a couple of years before he had planned and just short of a pension, my father had to leave his government job and really hustle.

He did alright as a CPA, but besides sharing a secretary with another few in a shared office, he didn't form a big company with workers.

I'm not exactly sure when my father sold his practice. After a number of years, as both my parents aged and couldn't take care of themselves, we knew that they'd have to leave their home. Like many, they hated the idea and wouldn't downsize when they were capable of making decisions themselves. Then one time when my mother fell and had to be in rehab for a few weeks, my father ended up with us for almost a year. My mother couldn't take care of herself, certainly not both of them.

Finally, my mother agreed to move to Arizona near my sister, so my sister took care of clearing the house and moving her. My older son and I then took my father to join her. And that's where they spent the rest of their lives together. My sister was nearby, and I visited at least once a year, sometimes more. And my children also visited as much as they could, considering distance and expense.

My mother died almost four years ago, less than three years before my father. They both lived longer than their parents and all siblings.

My children and oldest grandchildren have strong memories of them. And so do my cousins and their children. Basically, that's all we leave in this world, memories.

Sitting Shiva, Showing Home Movies and Other Tips

I'm almost finished sitting shiva for my brother. Just over two hours left. Soon I'll change out of  my shiva "outfit," the same clothes I've been wearing since leaving for his funeral. Except for Shabbat, I've been wearing the very same outer clothes, skirt and two-layer top. The outer shirt was ripped at the funeral in one of the Jewish customs.

When we sit shiva, weeklong Jewish mourning, one is supposed to ignore the usual dressing and grooming care. No hairbrushing or clean clothes. Also no bathing. Yes for sure, I'm looking forward to taking a shower, shampoo and putting on something clean!

The night before my brother's funeral I was at my New York daughter's, and she took out a set of DVDs that my brother had made from our old home movies. We watched a couple of hours worth. She gave me the package, and I took them home. Yesterday I decided to put them on to watch and turned off the sound. The sound was just some musical accompaniment the "film to DVD" place had added. In the 1950's and early sixties, home movies were silent.

So, in addition to the little album my eldest daughter had made before I left Israel for the funeral, I now had moving pictures of my brother and our family life way back when to show those who came to לנחם linachem, comfort me. These family movies were from about 1956-1960, if I'm not mistaken. There are additional DVDs that follow my parents and us well into the early 1980s when we moved to Shiloh.

Here I am riding my bicycle near our last* Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY apartment, 67-62 Springfield Blvd.

I moved the low chair I had been sitting in to a place I could also see the screen, and I'd talk about my brother and the world in which we grew up.

One advantage of showing the home movies over the picture album, which people continued to look at especially since it included photos from his entire life up to a few weeks before my brother died, was because pretty much everyone in the room could see it at once.

Few of those who came had any real idea of what it was like in a place like Bell Park Gardens, which was such an important formative part of our childhood. My brother was ten when we moved to Great Neck. Seeing us and it, in faded color, brought my stories to life far superior to even the most descriptive words.

And for me it was very meaningful and comforting to see my family, parents, siblings, cousins, aunts, uncles, friends and the locations which loved and shaped us all.

*We lived in three different apartments in Bell Park Gardens from December 1949- August 1962.

On My Mother's Yartzeit

As per Jewish custom, I have a 24 hour light burning in her memory.

I have no set custom as to what to do on these memorial days for her. When my husband has them for his parents, he brings herring and maybe schnapps to synagogue in the morning to make a "Lechaim," in their memory. But even though I do pray the morning (and also afternoon) prayers, I do it all quietly alone at home or wherever I happen to be.

I don't really do anything special to commemorate my mother, and I'm still in the first year of mourning for my father, who passed away just a few days before Passover.

In a sense my whole life is a reflection on my parents, for good and for bad. We all are the results of how we are raised and what we make of it.

Even though both of my parents ended up extremely dependent in the period before they died, I still think of them as a generation of giants. There's nothing I can do or accomplish that can compete with the powers they had. We were taught to treat them with awe and respect. And from what I understand, their parent, too treated them that way. They were the "American generation," the first in their families to be born and raised in America. They paved the way. They were also very strong and influential grandparents, in a way I can never be. And in a sense I wouldn't want to be, since I had to stand aside when my parents (and in-laws, too) visited and were with my children.

My mother always encouraged my love for dance, and there was a summer, when I was twenty, when we actually worked together teaching an exercise class for women. Other women in a nearby community had requested that she give a summer class. I had just taken two years of "Dance Movement" lessons with an excellent, innovative instructor, Allan Wayne, in Manhattan, so she told them that she needed me to demonstrate the movements.

Basically, the truth is that I was the teacher. My mother would point to me and tell the women in the class to "follow" what I was doing.

And in many ways, after the original shock of hearing that I was going to live a Torah aka Orthodox Jewish Life and then move to Israel, she became quite supportive. And as the Great Neck Synagogue became more of an Orthodox community, she enthusiastically joined in the various chesed activities like comforting and bringing food to mourners besides running the Sisterhood Gift Shop and more.

My mother loved and participated in all of the arts, was a paid member of lots of museums, a docent in the nearby Nassau County Museum, performed and was stage manager in the Fresh Meadows and later the Great Neck Community Theater, loved dance and shows etc. She also tried her hand at painting. And she absolutely adored her grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

לעילוי נשמתה

שפרה בת אברהם וחיה ריזיה

Finally Found My "Best Friend!"

Less than a year ago, I wrote a blog post, Dancing Memories, in which I mentioned that I had been looking for my childhood "best friend," Margie Gruen who is standing next to me in the photo. I had already found Lisa, who is at the other end of the picture. We have met up and are in touch. I do not remember the other two girls at all. As children we had been inseparable until she had moved away from Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, at the age of eleven. We saw each other a few times after that, but by the age of fourteen we had lost touch completely.

I guess it's one of the aspects of getting older when you feel the need to reconnect to your past, complete the circle, whatever, because apparently Margie had also been looking for me. Yes, she found me to be exact. Thank Gd for the internet and my busy public life. It was just after I had, davka, been to New York, where she lives. So we had to make do with emails and phone calls until last week when we finally got back f2f together for the first time in over half a century!!

We just found ourselves back with the same easy rapport as if we had always been in touch, as if those fifty-odd years had been together. I guess that in some ways we never really separated...

Kiddie City Memories

For many of us who grew up in Northeastern Queens, NY, in the 1950's and early 1960's  Kiddy City amusement park was a favorite place to be. There were all sorts of rides and treats from simple merry go rounds to bumper cars to spinning cups, roller coasters and more frightening rides in which we were strapped in tightly. 

I am not quite sure when it closed down, but every time I pass its location, on the LIRR Northern Line after Bayside going east, I think of all the fun I used to have there.

Ice Skating in Cinema City, Jerusalem, and Memories

I must admit that although ice skating was once a favorite winter pastime for me, and the evening I was in Cinema City, Jerusalem, I was with an old skating buddy, we didn't skate. But I did take a few pictures. I haven't been on skates of any sort for well over twenty years, and I wasn't dressed for skating nor psyched up for the adventure.

The last time I had skates on they were roller skates. I don't remember the exact year, but it was probably around 1990 or just before. That's when I was still the girls Gym Teacher here in Shiloh, and at the summer training session for gym teachers in Israel, we were surprised with a treat. Well, for me it was a treat. I was in the minority about that. They had brought in a skate rental company, and we had a few hours skating in the huge gymnasium.

Well, not everyone could skate. My generation of those raised in Israel rarely had a pair of skates per kid. Many of the gym teachers had never properly skated in their lives. Those raised in the time of the "Tzena," serious poverty and food rationing in the early days of the State of Israel didn't grow up skating the way I had. It was common for a family to have one pair of skates, if any, for all their kids to share. So many grew up scooting on a skate rather than properly skating. Growing up in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, with all the internal sidewalks and paths and when the large parking lots were empty during the days, we had lots of place to safely skate. And in the winter we went to ice skating rinks. There were even times when the "traffic circle" nearby froze over and we could safely ice skate in BPG.

So the funny thing was that although I wasn't a great athlete, nor did I ever during the 13 years I taught, get certified/qualified as a gym teacher, suddenly people were coming over offering me more jobs.

I haven't skated since.

Here are some photos from Ice Skating in Cinema City:

Another "Puzzle Piece" of My Life Found

I don't know if this sort of thing is happening to my peers, but of late, now in "late middle age," I've been rediscovering/reconnecting with old friends and have made contact with relatives I hadn't seen or heard from in more than a half century but I'm now in contact with a branch of relatives I had barely known existed. Internet and facebook are fantastic tools for reuniting.

A few months ago when I had written Dancing Memories... about the dancing school run by a Mrs. Sullivan in her tiny basement, I mentioned that I was looking for the friend who is next to me in the picture. Just a few days ago, my friend Margaret found me!

I woke up to an email from her, and yesterday, before Shabbat, we spoke on the phone, and we must talk more and meet in person, even though the logistics are complicated. What timing; I just returned from the states and had spent over a week in Manhattan. But I shouldn't complain, because at least I found out that she had felt the same. We have never forgotten each other.

And along with others who grew up, or at least spent the best years of our childhoods, in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, New York, we considered it a Garden of Eden for kids. We had a freedom and security that doesn't exist nowadays.

PS Now out of the five of us in that picture, only two are unknown to me, the girl in the middle and the blond next to her. The picture was taken either in spring, 1953 or 1954, when we were four or five years old. If anyone has a clue...

Dancing Memories...

I started to go to dancing school at the age of three. There was a woman, a Mrs. Sullivan, if I remember correctly who had a "dancing school" in her tiny basement. Classes were small, and at the end of each year there was a large recital in the local school, P.S. 46. Bayside, NY.

Each class performed and we had costumes as you can see here. The year of this picture we were "toy soldiers" if I'm not mistaken. From the shoes, it must have been when I was four or five. I know the names of two of the other girls. One is my friend Lisa  who writes about her mother on Alzheimer's - My Mom My Hero. Our parents were close friends for maybe half a century. We were friends and neighbors when we were little and then became nextdoor neighbors as teens and then lost contact until reunited not long ago, when I found her on facebook. The girl next to me is Margaret (Margie) Gruen (at least that was her name when we were kids.) We haven't been in touch for more than fifty years. I have no idea what has happened to her, and I don't remember the other girls at all.

This picture brings back so many memories, especially of how much I have always liked to dance.

Can you guess which little girl is me?

My Newest Granddaughter and My Mother's Gifts

Mother's Day

My mother holding me when I was about a year old in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, New York.

We never celebrated Mother's Day in our house, most probably because my mother's birthday was May 14, which is around Mother's Day, and my parents weren't very big on celebrating even our birthdays.

It's almost two years now since my mother, Shirley Shankman Spiegelman, passed away, and there's already a great-granddaughter of hers named after her. Her middle name is Li-Shir (sing to me,) and she and her parents visited the other day.

I really got a kick watching her play with the same toys my mother had bought my eldest over forty years ago. All my children had played with these classic wooden blocks. All sorts of kids who visited my house have played with them, too. And now so have all the grandchildren, may there be many more, G-d willing.

No doubt that my mother enjoys watching her namesake from Olam Haba, the Next World.

Memories...

Someone I knew from the time I was just a couple of years old has written a book about memory, or the lack of it. She also blogs. Lisa Hirsch was my neighbor in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY and then in Great Neck, NY. Her parents and mine were very close, and I remember the family well.

Lisa and Ruth

Alzheimer's - My Mom My Hero

Her blog and book are about her mother's Alzheimer's and growing lack of memory, coping with it for both of them.

There are so many different types of dementia. And it progress differently in each sufferer. I knew my mother had it and knew that it was getting very bad when she forgot that my son was engaged. The last truly aware thing I heard her say was "beautiful" when looking at a photo of my eldest granddaughter, her eldest great-granddaughter.

So few people who've survived to the ages of Lisa's mother and my father have both physical and mental sharpness and health. Usually at least one, if not both, of those are faulty. How sad.

I'm not good at waiting

I'm in a strange halachik-Jewish Law- status.  According to our LOR*, I can't start the official pre-funeral mourning or onan, because I'm not part of the funeral planning crew for my mother.  That status will start for me once I'm off to the funeral, to which I'm going alone from here.

my parents a few years ago here in Israel

I've never been good at waiting, nor letting other people make my plans, but now I'm in a "just waiting for orders" situation.  Almost everything has fallen on my sister, part of the package she got when she agreed to have our parents move to Arizona, and she is being assisted in New York, where the funeral will be, by my NY daughter and a cousin, who will host the first stage/night of shiva after the burial.

Today our family is spread out all over the world, doing all sorts of things, but we were once your typical New York Jewish family.  Both of my parents were the first generation to be born in America.  They (and I) were born in Brooklyn, New York.  Then we lived in Bayside, NY and after that Great Neck, just over the City Line. 

Now my sister is in Arizona, and I'm in Israel.  Our brother is still on Long Island.  We have cousins and their children much further afield.

Many of the cousins from both sides and some old friends  will be making every effort to be together at my mother's funeral.  That will be a comfort.

*local Orthodox rabbi

I Guess They Don't Have Apple Machines Any More

In the middle ages of the previous century, when I went to school, we could choose between a cooked meal, chicken with mashed potatoes and vegetables, or a "hero sandwich," a very filling tuna one. We could also bring our own food, usually a tuna or peanutbutter and jelly sandwich plus an apple for dessert.

The only food machines gave a choice of apples, red or green Delicious.

When I was in elementary school, I could even walk home for lunch. We lived five minutes away, and our mothers were home waiting for us. I think that we had the same sandwich menu and then rushed back to school. If the weather was nasty, we'd bring sandwiches along and eat, seated every other seat, in the auditorium. In my day, PS 46 was so over-crowded that the "cafeteria" was a classroom, and we were in double-session (either morning or afternoon) until (including) the Second Grade.


Fat kids were rare and obesity was unknown. It was nothing like today. We played outside all the time, biking and roller skating. Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY, was full of little playgrounds, and way back when few cars were in the parking lots during the day. It was heaven.


Nobody had a clue that it has given us better health than any of today's kids can expect.

front stoop garden

Yes, these strawberries are growing on my front stoop. Funny, when we built the house and planned the front door, it didn't occur to me that the entrance would be so typical of those I knew in my childhood. We have a few steps and stoop, just like those I sat and played on in Bell Park Gardens, Bayside, NY. It's just that I don't remember anyone growing strawberries there.