The American Jewish world. [volume], April 07, 1922, Image 1

About The American Jewish world. [volume] (Minneapolis ;) 1915-current

Image provided by: Minnesota Historical Society; Saint Paul, MN

                
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The family, summoned from four
different states in the Union, had as
sembled in the old Cincinnati home
Eric, the youngest son, a flourishing
young writer of scenarios, was has
tening from Hollywood to join them.
When he came on the morrow they
would have the funeral.
It was hard to sit around the old
fashioned dining room table without
mother behind the coffee percolator
even the three grandchildren felt
that, for the aged woman who now
lay sleeping the long sleep in the front
bedroom upstairs had won their love
as she had claimed the affection of
every one whose life she had touched
even remotely in her eighty-odd busy
years. Twelve-year-old Martin re
membered with a lump in his throat
the bicycle she had given him on his
last birthday his sister, Lucy, too
young to remember her grandfather's
death, had slipped into her place be
side him, white and awed at her first
glimpse of the great mystery. Their
pretty cousin, Minnie, called home
from her college in the east, came to
the table red-eyed, with quivering
lips. She had been Mrs. Levine's first
and favorite grandchild in a certain
vague sense her namesake. Her moth
er, Mrs. Sigmund Cohen, confided to
Minnie's bachelor uncle, Ed Levine,
that the child was entirely too sensi
tive and always took everything too
hard. Mrs. Cohen, being a conscien
tious mother of the good old-fashioned
sort, prided herself she knew every
thought that flitted through Min
nie's pretty curly head. She would
have been considerably agitated to
learn that Minnie had spent more than
one sleepless night before she had re
ceived the telegram summoning her
to her grandmother's funeral.
Hannah—none of the Levine children
had ever heard her last name—came
in with old Mrs. Levine's favorite des
sert, her famous floating island, on
a tray. Her hands trembled as she
passed out the little glass dishes.
Belle Martin, the oldest daughter of
the house, looked across the table at
her husband and shivered a little. He
had grown very gray the last few
years like Hannah, so long regarded
a fixture of the Levine household, he
was almost ready to drop out of the
race, go the way of that once active
mother of hers, now resting so quietly
upstairs. She realized suddenly that
Hannah was talking to her and forced
herself to listen.
"Miss Belle," said the gaunt, sharp
faced woman, using the name she
had not learned to lay aside when
Belle had gone to a home of her own,
"Miss Belle, seeing you're the oldest,
I guess you ought to have the letter
your ma had me write for her the
other night. Just after her stroke
before she stopped speaking altogeth
er." She took a folded paper from
her apron pocket and placed it be
side Belle's plate. "When your pa
died ten years ago next spring," she
went on in her passionless monotone,
"I promised her I'd stick by her as
long as I lived. And I done it. She
never treated me like no hired girl
since then. She remembered how I
TT
THE
JEWISH
came to work for her here in this
very house the first year she got mar
ried I've been with her ever since.
She always said these last years she
hoped she'd go first and I could lay
her out she talked about it a lot
lately."
Ed Levine shifted uneasily in his
chair. Death was never a pleasant
thing to contemplate, even in the
midst of his comfortable, well-fed ex
istence tonight, with his mother's
funeral to be discussed, he shrank
from the thought more than ever. "If
T'd known she was feeling bad lately
I could've given up my rooms at the
hotel and come and lived here," he
mumbled, more touched than he liked
to admit by the thought of the frail
old lady clinging to the old servant's
hand as she neared the shadows.
"A grand lady," repeated Hannah.
"She had a lot of patience with me
when I was trying to learn to cook
Jewish ways. I was green in them
days and didn't know much, but she
learned me. She often told me she
had a hard time herself learning to
keep things kcsher in the kitchen, but
your father's mother was so particu
lar, she just had to."
This time it was not only Ed who
stirred uneasily. All of the Levine
children had heard at one time or an
other that their mothe/.i had not been
born a Jewess. Yet before she died,
the carping old grandmother had con
fessed that Mary Levine was as good
a Jewess as she was. Mary Macguire,
the daughter of another faith, had
like Ruth of old accepted the people
and the God of her husband she had
been a Jewish mother in the best
sense of the word, had reared her chil
dren most carefully in the faith of
their father. Even the youngest son,
for whose coming the funeral waited,
even Eric, with all the waywardness
the others liked to attribute to his
artistic temperament, still remem
bered to attend service on the fall
holy days. So it was something of a
shock to be reminded that Mary Le
vine had not always been a Jew.
Minnie leaned forward eagerly. "I
never knew grandma wasn't Jewish,"
she said, her voice sounding curiously
strained in the stillness.
"She became a Jewess when she
married. It didn't make any differ
ence," her Uncle Ed assured her.
"Oh!" Minnie said nothing more,
but a strange look of relief crept over
her white face. Perhaps, she thought,
it wouldn't be so hard to break the
news to the family after all. None
of her uncles and aunts had intermar
ried there was a strong family feel
ing against it. But if George really
were willing to give up his own re
ligion, just as grandma had done, why
should anybody object? Everybody
i
Wmlly Journal of Modern Jewish Life and Labors
VOL. St. Paul and Minneapolis—Friday, April 7,1922 No. 31
Mary Levine—Nee MacGuire
A Story by Elma Ehrlich Levinger
(Copyright* 1922, by Elma Ehrlich Levinger, all rights reserved)
»«»*P"«!f,lfiPf»9^,*^l!PW
know how happy Grandma, and Grand
pa Levine had always been—and
grandma wasn't really a Jewess! A
warm color flushed her cheeks. How
silly she had been to tell George she
wouldn't marry him—that people with
two different religions might make
a dreadful mess of it. She would tell
her parents all about it right after
the funeral and when she went back
to college, she'd send for George and
—the old-fashioned dining room faded
away and Minnie was crossing the
campus with her boyish lover and the
two laughed at time and change and
decay and vowed that not even death
would come between them!
But the dream picture faded away
at her mother's crisp words. "What's
in mother's letter, Belle?"
Old Hannah, already at the door
which led into the kitchen, turned
back, her habitual respect struggling
with her desire to soften the blow she
knew was about to fall upon those
she liked to consider "her family."
She had baked them cookies and con
structed wonderful toys for them
long ago, had helped their mother
nurse them through a dozen illnesses,
had helped to dress the daughters of
the house upon their wedding days.
For a minute it seemed that they
were of her own flesh and blood and
she yearned over them as theij own
mother might have done.
"You're not to think she wasn't
pretty happy most of the time," she
blurted out at last. "Your pa was
always good to her."
"What are you driving at, Han
nah?" Ed's voice had taken on a
sharp edge.
"You'd better read your ma's let
ter out loud," parried Hannah, turn
ing to Belle, who sat white and
stricken, the bit of paper in her hand.
"It—it isn't much," Belle stam
mered. "It just says mother wants
to be buried as a Catholic—from St.
Stephen's Church—and a mass—and
everything they have. She says Han
nah will attend to it for us."
"I promised her I would," affirmed
Hannah from her place in the door
way. "You know I'm a good Catholic
and I know what ought to be done."
"But I don't understand." Ed was
speaking again. "Mother never gave
up being Jewish—she never kept any
of the Catholic customs. Or, maybe,
she did—" with a glance of quick
suspicion for the old servant who
stood before them, her wrinkled hands
working with the crocheted edge of
her apron.
Hannah shook her head. "I think
she wanted to," she considered slow
ly. "But she didn't want to hurt
none of you. She never said nothing
about it to me while your pa was
alive. They was crazy over each
ORLD
iPii^ijilli^j^i^j,^ iy*.
other and I guess she couldn't bear
to bring any trouble on him. He was
•always good to her. But just before
she died shetold me once a girl's
better off if she don't marry out of
her religion. Her people wouldn't
have nothing to do with her after she
got married and she never got on
any too well with the Levines. At
first she always thought they didn't
care for her 'cause she wasn't born
Jewish and her ways were terribly
different, even if she tried to do
everything right for your pa's sake.
It was hard on her—awfully hard."
"But she never spoke a word of
this to any of us." Mrs. Sigmund
Cohen was too horrified at the reve
lation to notice how pale Minnie had
grown as she listened.
"She couldn't worry you neither."
Hannah's quiet voice grew a little
scornful. "She was a grand mother,
used to bearing all your troubles—
she wasn't the one to bother her
children with hers. But it bothered
her—she told me once she felt lonely
sometimes—as if you didn't belong to
her really."
"Did she—?" Ed found it hard to
go on. "Did she send for a priest be
fore she died?"
Hannah shook her head. "I asked
her if. I should get somebody from
St. Stephen's where I always go my
self on Sundays to early Mass, but
she said no. She said wait a little,
but write down about the funeral in
case she got bad quick and couldn't
tell me. And then she got uncon
scious all of a sudden and didn't
know anything more till she died. So
I knew it didn't trouble her not to
have a priest and I didn't know how
yor? children would take it if you
don't want people to know about her
last wishes—if you don't want her to
have a funeral like she planned—well,'
I ain't going to say nothing about it
to anybody," promised Hannah.
"We'll see, we'll see." Belle spoke
with nervous intensity. "And to
think poor mother felt that way all
these years! It's what I've heard her
say so many times—it's safer to mar
ry in your own religion."
"It certainly is," agreed Mrs. Sig
mund Cohen.
Several hours later she woke to
hear a sound of muffled sobbing from
the next room where her daughter
Minnie slept. Minnie, who had shat
tered to bits her dream picture of a
reunion on the campus, of a love that
would always stay beautiful and
young, had determined to say good
bye to George when she returned to
college. But her mother knew
nothing of all this. "Just hear
Minnie crying over her grandma,"
she whispered to her husband. "I
never saw a child with such a good
heart!"
Charles Greco, the famous Boston
architect, was especially invited by
the Boston Society of Architects to
exhibit his greatest work of the past
year. He has responded with a plas
ter cast model of the proposed Jewish
synagogue to be built at Cleveland,
Ohio, within the year.