Adolph’s dream of having a professional violinist in the family was crushed in the 1930s, when Sidney left the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Because of his disappointment, Adolph was reluctant to pay or encourage his younger children, such as Frankie to study piano, although Frank’s talent and strong desire more than warranted the investment.
Because I sang at the age of 5 or 6, my mother took me for vocal instruction at the local “Music Conservatory” on Collingwood Avenue. It was suggested I study piano first and voice lessons later when the voice matured. My first piano lessons consisted of scales and when I apparently neglected to practice them, Lena was told that I should come back in a few years. Children who are musical and play by ear as I did are anxious to play songs not scales. Remembering this experience, I worked hard as a teacher to make scales and arpeggios fun.
Adolph taught me how to walk to the piano teacher’s home that was between Bancroft and Monroe streets, close to the Toledo Art Museum…a 60- minute walk each way (we had no automobile). We could have taken the trolley but I resisted because I was afraid that once I was on my own, I wouldn’t know where to get off! Adolph continued take me for 6 months or so that first year. Thereafter I walked alone on Saturdays, and gradually changed to after- school lessons, walking in the dark during the early winter months. It’s hard to understand how life at that time was calm and safe 63 years ago, in spite of the War. I recall playing a game with myself by anticipating the home addresses as I approached each house, but of course eventually I knew them. Finally, when I was in the 4th or 5th grade I rode the trolley…about a 45-minute ride, plus a 20-minute walk, back and forth from home to Collingwood Ave where I caught it. Children didn’t lack for exercise in those days.
At Fulton School, my class was affected by the Great Depression. For 8 years, there were 42 children in my class. We were too few for 2 classes and too large as one. Ironically, none of us found it a problem, as it didn’t seem to affect the quality of the class environment or the students’ effort. Many of the students were very bright. But what made it work in general, I think, was the parents’ pride in their children and the total support they gave to the school and what it stood for, as well as the teachers’ expectations. The early- grade teachers, warm and kind, stand out in my mind. Just a few Junior High teachers possessed the quality of creativity that makes classes memorable. Students unselected for those classes, yet applying themselves, were able to receive a more than adequate education. Class reunions revealed that many Fulton school students were college graduates and became successful in their chosen field of endeavor.
The piano brightened my day and filling me with a sense of self-accomplishment. Deep down, though I was socially insecure, self-conscious, and full of false pride as the teenage years loomed ahead. My siblings tell me that in spite of their talents, they too felt socially inadequate. Looking back we think these mutual feelings were rooted in our economics. Poverty can imbue a stigma that causes one to feel powerless, perhaps less valued by society. In our case, the community respected our parents and their family, but as young people, each of us experienced situations with friends, even relatives, that made us all aware of our economic deficiencies and social status.
1943
(picture: Lena and Adolph, c 1942)
2415 Warren Street--On the move again
The picture with the “for sale” sign in front of the house, competing with my parents, was taken October 1942, Helen’s wedding day. The rented 2626 Fulton Street house that had been our home since the beginning of the decade, one that Frankie and I loved because of its location to the school, our friends, and the quality of the neighborhood, was going to be sold. We were moving back to the older neighborhood, to a 4-apartment complex on Warren, a street parallel and directly west of Putnam. Although the apartment was closer to Fulton school than the Putnam duplex of the 1930s and we would continue attending Fulton school, I felt this move would take me “out of the loop” as regarded my friends.
Lena and Adolph were comfortable with the neighborhood, because the apartment house was across the street from my father’s aunt and uncle, Esther Leah Zukor/Zuker/Zucker Reinstein and husband/first cousin, Max Reinstein, who lived there in the 1930s. They had since moved to New York City at the request of their son, Dr. Charles Rein, a noted dermatologist. Esther Leah’s brother, David Zucker, and wife Beila/Bessie lived on the same side of the street as the apartments to which we moved. We saw them occasionally.
Life at 2415 Warren Street
I recall a few unrelated incidents during our stay in this home from about 1943-1945. The 4 apartments were built in a symmetrical design, 2 on each side, creating an open shaft in the center. During the summer months in the bathroom or close to it, voices from other apartments could be heard in phone conversations or otherwise. I couldn’t help hearing and listening to the twin girls, about age 16 or older, who lived upstairs. Their personalities fascinated me---very upbeat, outgoing, friendly, who sang on the radio.
On the darker side we were awakened one January night with the smell of smoke, “fireworks” from the chimney lit up the dark sky, causing the tenants to run out- doors in our nightwear until the fire department extinguished the flames.
The last is a funny incident that happened to my sister Helen who worked for the Willys Overland automobile factory in Rossford, Ohio. Helen won a “live” 25-pound Thanksgiving turkey wrapped in a large box that she carried home on the one or two buses she rode, holding it best that she could, on her lap. We kept it in the back yard until my parents could find someone who would kill it. Finally they arranged for the Super or manager of an apartment building down the street to do it, but I don’t think we really enjoyed eating the bird that we had come to know that Thanksgiving holiday.
1944—the worst of the War but happy gifts for Lena—
Lena visits Helene and Sid for several weeks w/her new teeth. Everyone brought something (food or small gift) which Helene listed and mama sent thank-you-notes (written by me) when she returned home.
1945
My parents were told that it was necessary I have orthodontia work done. Thanks to Stanford’s generosity of $1,000, I wore dental braces for three years to correct an overbite, a positive physiological and cosmetic change that prevented the necessity for surgery later in life. And soon after, Sidney provided money for Lena to have new teeth made. Dentures made my mother look ten years younger, as can be seen in the two pictures 1942 (age 45) and 1953.
MAY 7 1945 GERMANY SURRENDERS
AUGUST 15 1945 JAPAN SURRENDERS—the atomic bomb is dropped on Hiroshimo and Nagasaki.
--About midnight we were awakened by the voice of a paper boy in the street, shouting at the top of his lungs, Extra, Extra!! " The War Is Over, Japan Surrenders!!" I recall my mother and I running outside as, did our neighbors, crying, shouting, hugging and kissing one another while we unconsciously began walking downtown (pandemonium everywhere)…total strangers, were in the streets dancing, shouting, crying for joy. The feelings of relief and happiness cannot be imagined unless you were there. People didn't know what to do to express their feelings, nor did we understand the consequences of our country having dropped an atomic bomb.
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