by Bernard Beck
She began wearing exotic clothing instead of her usual work clothes, and she had a maid serve tea to her customers, who we now referred to as clients, and who were encouraged to make appointments rather than just show up. Visiting Rose’s shop became a total experience as compared with just buying a hat from some other millinery store.
Over the next few years, we continued to upgrade the shop, and the more we spent, the more the business thrived and grew. The salon exuded an aura of exclusivity and personal service. Eventually, as our sales volume increased, we expanded the salon to fill the entire shop, and we moved the workshop to a nearby vacant store where Rose had a team of young apprentices doing most of the sewing.
Although we had received many attractive offers, we resisted the temptation to sell the business or to open additional shops. We had completely redefined the millinery business, and, although many other copy-cat shops did eventually open, they didn’t have Rose, and they didn’t have her personality. Most of our customers considered them poor imitations, and, rather than drain our business, these competing shops only served to enhance our shop’s reputation.
Rose handled the shop, and I handled our finances. Although I had no business management experience to speak of and had never held a professional job, I had learned the value of a buck the hard way, and I turned out to be a pretty astute and wily businessman. Rather than investing the profits from the salon in the rapidly rising stock market, I invested instead in real estate. I figured that Rose and I had worked too hard and too long to earn our money, and I was not about to risk it on any “get rich quick” scheme no matter how “sure” anyone told me it was.
The American economy, at that time, was growing like crazy, and I figured that as the economy improved, and the poor immigrants of the Lower East Side started to make money, they would want to move up the social ladder. Many of them, I figured, would move out of the slums of the Lower East Side and journey across the Brooklyn Bridge to Brooklyn.
So I decided to buy rental property in Brooklyn. I chose the Parkside area because it was near Prospect Park, and it was on the direct subway line from the Lower East Side. I don’t know if it was because I was smart or just plain lucky, but I had gotten in on the Brooklyn housing boom just as it was starting to take off.
As demand for the apartments increased, rental prices increased as well, and because Rose and I lived so conservatively, I was able to use most of the rental income and the money from the store to buy more properties. The Parkside area was developing rapidly, and, within a couple of years, we owned many of the best buildings. Rose and I were on a roll and we never looked back.
__________
We decided to start a family and had originally planned to have four children, but after I saw how my figure had changed with my first pregnancy, I decided not to have any more. Having children had been a wonderful dream in the abstract, but the actual fact of having them went sharply against my new self image.
Our daughter Ruthie was born on a snowy day in February, 1908. After she was born, I went into a steep depression from which I only emerged after I had fully recovered my figure. That’s when I decided that, like Jack and me, Ruthie would be an only child.
As it turned out, that was a good decision because Ruthie was a difficult child, and, as she grew up, she became one of our most complex challenges. If, as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote, “into each life some rain must fall,” Ruthie’s presence in our family might be likened to a monsoon. Nearly from birth it was apparent that she was going to be a dominant force in our lives. She had inherited my creativity, competitive spirit, and aggressive personality, and she had inherited Jack’s single mindedness and rigidity. Her obviously strong personality led to constant contention and, from time to time, outright warfare.
Jack had no “father figure” to draw upon, and when Ruthie was born, he quickly discovered that being a father did not come naturally to him. He didn’t remember his own father, and the substitute “uncles” that his mother had found were rarely around long enough to make a lasting impression. When Ruthie was born, he looked at her dispassionately in the hospital nursery. She was pretty, and he boasted that she was the best looking baby in the nursery. But when it came time for him to hold her, he said that he felt uncomfortable and quickly handed her back. During the time that I was in the hospital, Jack decided that since I was the artsy one, he should be the responsible parent. He felt that I had an artistic temperament, that I would be too emotional, and that he would try to counterbalance that with careful planning. He expected that I would be permissive, and so he intended to be the disciplinarian. Discipline, Jack said, would be his contribution. From the very start, even though I was still the primary breadwinner, the idea of being the “boss” of the household gave him satisfaction.
He had been correct in his expectation that my artistic temperament would be permissive, but he had not anticipated the impact that my father, Ben-Zion, would have.
Strange as it may sound, my father was the only adult in the family who had had a traditional two-parent upbringing, and who had experience raising a child. His parenting style was diametrically opposite to what Jack and I believed. Where we were either permissive or restrictive, my father was warm and inclusive, and he and Ruthie bonded instantly. Ruthie loved him and spent an inordinate amount of time with him. Over the years, their bond and the level of my father’s influence on Ruthie was a constant source of jealousy and irritation to Jack. Whenever possible, Jack tried to compete with my father for Ruthie’s affection, but he simply didn’t have the background or the emotional core to give her the sort of paternal love that came so easily to my father.
After Ruthie’s arrival, we expanded our apartment to include the first floor, which allowed us to have a separate bedroom for Ruthie and another for my father. Both Jack and I, having grown up in a railroad flat, were proud that our daughter would have her own room right from the start.
When Ruthie was old enough, I insisted that we send her to public school rather than a girl’s religious school. I had had a terrible time in religious school and the memories were still painful. I reasoned that it would be better if my father took responsibility for Ruthie’s Jewish education. Jack, who was already having problems competing with my father, reluctantly agreed to this decision.
My father enthusiastically welcomed this opportunity to interact with and influence his granddaughter, and, during most afternoons, he studied with Ruthie in her room after school. He also taught adult classes at the synagogue. In the evenings when he was not teaching a class or working with Ruthie, he read and studied in his bedroom. Other than dinner, and the time he spent with Ruthie, he rarely participated in family affairs.
__________
Mein Liebe Rivka,
Rose had a daughter—a beautiful, perfect girl. They named her Ruth after you. I cried when she was born because she is so beautiful, and because I wish that you had been here to see her.
Jack is a total fool. He does not even have any idea of how to hold a baby. I have to teach them everything. But now I have a reason to be in this family–I will take care of little Ruthie and raise her my way–I will make sure that she grows up to be a proper Jewish girl.
We have moved to a larger apartment, and now I have my own room. This is very good, expecially because I take care of Ruthie so much.
I have been teaching a little, and I study the rest of the time. My life has not been like I had expected, but now that Ruthie is here, I plan to dedicate myself to her upbringing. Even though she is a girl, I will teach her everything that a Jewish boy would learn, and I know that in heaven, you will watch over her.
May God protect and bless you.
__________
Jack and I had been working without a break since we were teenagers, and our dedication was now paying off handsomely. The combined income from my salon and Jack’s real estate investments had skyrocketed, and we were now
very wealthy. There was a war going on in Europe, and the United States, which was exporting non-military supplies to both sides, was benefiting immensely. But then, in 1917, once the government instituted the draft, things changed. For one thing, women entered the workforce in great numbers. You would think that, with the increased employment of women, and with the increased availability of spending money, my business should have been booming, but instead, I sensed that things were starting to change. At first it was just a feeling, but then, as Jack pointed out when he did our year-end calculations, sales had actually declined.
Women were just not buying my very expensive hats like they had been. There had been a tremendous change in fashion, and it had a lot to do with the war. As the boys went over to Europe to fight, more and more women began going to work, and they wanted clothes like shirtwaists and tailored suits that were more appropriate for their new activities. And, even though they had the money, they were dressing less extravagantly because of appearances. Plus, most of the social events during the war had more to do with the war than with elaborate style. There just weren’t the same number of really dressy social events where women would want to wear my hats.
“It all has to do with women joining the workforce, or at least giving the appearance of joining the workforce,” I told Jack. “My hats are just too extravagant.”
“Can’t you make hats that would fit the new fashions?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said, “but I’m not sure.” It wasn’t really my taste, and it was not what I was known for. Besides, a lot of the clothing designers had started making hats that matched their clothing designs. It was a completely different kind of style, and I realized that even if I could make them, my customers probably wouldn’t buy them from me. They would all go to the big name couture houses like Lanvin and Molyneux where they could buy complete outfits, hats and all.
But Jack wouldn’t give up. That was not his style. “Why don’t we start talking to some dress houses?” he asked. “Like they say,” he went on, “‘if you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em.’” He was certain, he said, that I could make cloche hats to match their clothing. They seemed so simple to him compared with what we had been making.
But to tell the truth, we didn’t need the money, and I was so tired—really, really tired. We had been working ten or twelve hours a day since we got married, and God only knows how long before that. We had done really well, and we had made a lot of money, and I told him that we could be very proud of that. But, I also told him, we had nothing to show for it. We never had time for anything, and we were still crammed into that same little apartment across the street from the shop. We had never even taken a vacation, and I never had any time to play with Ruthie. I realized that I hadn’t even read a book in three years.
“Enough,” I said with unexpected passion. “Enough is enough!”
Jack didn’t say anything for a long time. He looked so deflated that he seemed to have shrunk in the last few minutes. He had obviously stopped listening to me, and it was as if he was having a private internal conversation with himself. I hadn’t meant to get so passionate, but we really had been working unreasonably long hours since our marriage, and, though we now were making real money, it had come at a great physical and emotional cost.
“Look,” I said with a sigh. “You’re almost forty, and we’re finally comfortable, and the income from the houses is enough to sustain us. Look at yourself in the mirror; we’re exhausted. I think it’s time for us to cash in and retire.”
I had been hoping that Jack would agree with me, but he stayed painfully silent. Minutes passed and now I was afraid that I had gone too far and was hoping that he would just respond.
“What would we do if we retire?” he finally asked. “What would I do? I have no skills, none at all.”
“We could move uptown to New York like you always wanted. We could get an apartment on Central Park. You could be one of those fancy Jews you always wanted to be.”
“Yes, we could probably afford a really nice apartment,” Jack said glumly, “but I wouldn’t fit in. They are all fancy and educated, and I’m just a snotty kid from the Lower East Side. What would I do there? No one would even talk to me.” Tears welled up in his eyes. “What would I do?”
I put my arms around him. Even without my high heels I still towered over him and had to bend over. We stood there pressed against one another, clinging.
“Look,” Jack finally said, “I’m not an uptown guy, I’m just a kid from the East Side, and here in Brooklyn is where I belong. Maybe someday.”
“Maybe someday what?” I asked pulling back to look at him.
“Maybe someday Ruthie will marry some uptown swell,” Jack said with a smile, “and then I’ll have someone to talk to up there.”
“From your mouth to God’s ears,” I laughed, and Jack laughed too.
“I have an idea, though,” Jack said optimistically. “We could move to the Borough Park neighborhood in Brooklyn. It’s just being developed and no one who lives there has been there for very long, so we would be newcomers just like everyone else. There’s a nice shul there that we could join, and everyone will be on the same social level.”
Jack’s sudden enthusiasm was infectious, and we laughed with relief. It was going to be OK. We made a plan to look at houses in Borough Park and to talk to some developers.
__________
The community of Borough Park, parts of which were still called by the original Dutch name, Blythebourne, had been a Dutch and English dairy farming community until the start of the twentieth-century when developers began carving it up into streets, avenues, and building lots. In the 1920s, when Jack and I started looking for a place to build our home, much of the area was still rural. It was being populated by what the uptown swells called nouveau riche, just like us. The streets and avenues were consecutively numbered in a formal grid. Thirteenth Avenue was the shopping street, the synagogue was on Fourteenth Avenue, and we bought a just-built house on Fifty-Fifth Street, near Fifteenth Avenue, in the most stylish part of town.
The house we chose was in the Victorian style, which was very popular at that time, with a wraparound porch on the first and second levels, and a turret style master bedroom. The first floor had a grand foyer, a parlor, a library, and a formal dining room. The second floor had four grand bedrooms, and there were maids’ rooms on the third floor. I hired a top-notch decorator, and we decorated the house from top to bottom in the most formal and elegant fabrics and furniture I could find.
We sold our store to my largest competitor at a very good price. And then we, Ruthie, Jack, my father, and I moved from our cramped little apartment in Williamsburg to the house of our dreams in Borough Park.
We were young, attractive, and comfortable, and we now lived in the luxurious world of the wealthy. I fit in, very smoothly, to the upper class Jewish women’s social network. Like the rest of the women there, I was a fashionable nouveau riche woman who wielded my wealth, power, beauty, and influence within the growing Jewish community. Jack, however, struggled to acquire a new persona. He wanted his personality to project authentic “American” affluence, but the transition was difficult. He had been a wily, shifty, sharp-eyed child of the slum. As he had matured, and especially after he and I were married, those same characteristics had been repurposed into his being a clever and tough business man. Now he sought to soften the tough aspects of his personality and to reinvent himself as an affluent, charitable, and civic-minded member of the Jewish community—a real American.
__________
In all appearances, I was now a one hundred percent real American. But I didn’t feel like a real American. When Rose had first suggested retirement and when I had agreed that we could afford this new level of luxury, I was sure that I would soon enter the ranks of the true Americans. After all, I spoke American, I dressed American, and I now owned a house like a real American. But as time went on,
even at that elevated level, I became more and more certain that I wasn’t a real American, at least not yet. I felt that there had to be something more, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. It seemed to me to be a kind of unattainable dream; something that would always be just beyond my reach—a dream, rather than a definite reality. I was sure that there had to be something more. But I wasn’t sure what.
My mother had gone back to Europe, and I had completely severed my ties with the Lower East Side immigrant community where I had grown up. I lived a life of cultured affluence, and I was now, I was certain, absolutely liberated from my immigrant history. I was now, I kept telling myself, able to associate and interact with real Americans on whatever level they chose. I expected that now, since my friends and acquaintances were all real Americans, they would accept me as if I was their peer. And, in fact, I was their peer, and they did accept me.
But even though they accepted me, I still didn’t feel authentic. If only, I thought to myself, if only. But I couldn’t finish the sentence because I didn’t know what I was seeking. If only what?
Chapter 5
Although Rose had retired in the full sense of the word, I had only partially retired. I still managed our properties and our investments, which took an hour or two every morning. That left me with six empty hours. I was in my early forties and in good physical shape, and I was at a loss of what to do with all my spare time. Rose had been able to slide into retirement very easily because most of the women in the community had never worked, so they had established routines of leisure and community service activities that she could easily join. But for me, the path was much more difficult. Most of the men in the community went to work every day and played tennis or golf on the weekends. As a result, I had no one to play with during the week, and, having grown up in poverty on the Lower East Side, I had never learned to play tennis or golf, and I felt I was too old to start learning.