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THE BRIDGEWATER-SOMERVILLE CONNECTION
APRIL/MAY 2017
My Grandmother By: Ellyn Mantell I have a story to tell you about my grandmother. Although I was a young mother when she passed away, I didn't know her well. There are several reasons for that, and perhaps, if I was in a better place in my life when she was alive, things would have been different. But I was filled with my own insecurities, and her inability to communicate made it difficult to spend time with her in meaningful ways. I sup- pose her own embarrassment at her inability to speak English was always in the forefront of her mind, but as her grandchild, it felt as a rejection too palpable to ignore. Yet, as I look back, I am touched by her life, since she had experiences that I think about to this day…and I want to share them with you. Gittel was a beautiful young girl of 17 or 18 when she boarded a ship to come to the United States. She was tiny, pale skinned, with long auburn hair. My under- standing was that there was a brother and his family here in New Jersey to wel- come her, as was the practice for immigrants. She spoke not a word of English, Yiddish (the language of the Polish “shtetel” or village) being her native tongue. Gittel met a handsome young man, a carpenter, who stole her heart, and they fell in love on that dangerous crossing. How exciting for her to have someone to treas- ure as she left her home, traveled alone, dealt with very rough seas, rats and their poisonous droppings…I can only assume the trip became tolerable, and perhaps as romantic as young love. Until both my grandmother and her carpenter con- tracted typhus, a very deadly virus. They became comatose, like so many on the ship. And when she awakened from her long sleep, her hair had actually turned white in parts. Her carpenter died, and she felt her life was over! But my Uncle Louie met her at the dock, probably at Ellis Island, and she stayed with him for a short while. Eventually, she was introduced to Max, a much older man, who became my grandfather. Some might say it was an arranged marriage, since Max needed a wife and Gittel, a man to care for her. She didn’t speak English and what could she do without that very important tool? They married shortly after their introduction, and soon, my mother was born. What followed were the births of my two aunts and two uncles...five children in all. According to my mother, there was very little love between my grandparents, with constant fighting over money and my grandfather’s gambling habits; perhaps he was disappointed that she refused to learn English, despite the fact she lived in this country for nearly two decades before he died. His death, during the depres- sion, left my grandmother with five young children, who were so devoted to her that they acted as her translator while they stood in line for butter, bread and milk provided by the government. And they continued to act as her translator when they were in school, at work, and while she worked as a house cleaner. She became so dependent upon all of them she couldn’t actually survive in this no longer “new” country without the translation of one of them outside of the house. Eventually, Grandma moved from child and family to another child and family, until she was no longer able to live without assistance. At that point, her story became quite sad…not able to speak English meant she could not commu- nicate with the other residents or aides when she moved to a facility. Even the ladies who understood Yiddish shunned her, feeling perhaps superior they had mastered the language of our country. One day, the aide dressing my Grandmother put on the wrong shoes, and they were too big. Grandma yelled “nish my shichalas (not my shoes)” over and over again, but the aide had no idea what those words meant. Grandma forcibly placed her walker on the top of the shoes in an effort to point out the problem, but doing so caused her to flip and fall on her face and fracture her hip, as well. Soon there- after, she died in my mother’s arms. I tell you this story because regardless of the language we speak, it is so important to have the ability to express ourselves. Regardless of how my grandmother died, the world in which she lived was so limited by what others imagined she wanted to say. 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