A Glimmer of Light at the End of the Tunnel

MORE ROOTS...AND GARDENS!


Family history used to be passed down from older relatives.   We rely on these stories as well as our memories retaining them...something we can no longer take for granted.  Now we have all sorts of websites like Ancestry.com, My Heritage,  DNA offers in our in-box, and, if you're like me, old photos, newspaper clippings and documents.  Some of our forebears stand out more than others depending on the caring and nurturing we received from them.  This leads me to my...

MATERNAL GRANDMOTHER

Fannie Mantel Sperber Zeisler, more easily know as "Little Nana" was the one grandparent with whom I spent the most time.  I could probably devote an entire blog to her because of her nurturing and warm disposition.  She eventually acquired the moniker "Sunny Fanny".

After her husband, Grandpa Leon died suddenly in 1938, she, as the matriarch of five children, now all grown or at least in late teenage years, carried on with her world at 2180 Bronx Park East, in the Pelham Parkway area of the Bronx, not far from the Botanical Gardens and the Bronx Zoo.  There was a delightful park across from her building and we knew if she wasn't home, she was usually shopping or playing her card game "in the park" with her numerous friends.  This is her in the photo below with, obviously, a winning hand.  I think it was Canasta.

She was one of four children born to Joseph Mantel and Bliema Bisgyer in Polish Galicia.  All the children emigrated to the US and raised families.  I believe her father worked on a farm raising hops for beer.  I am not sure of what kind of an education Fannie had but I do know she spoke at least three languages fluently, English, Polish, and Yiddish.  I recall the Yiddish newspapers in her house with their hebraic lettering and her speaking in a foreign language when she didn't want the children to understand.   She spoke in a very delightful manner, mispronouncing words such as "aggravation" which became "agruation".  If she was visiting one of her sons, for instance, she would say "I'm going by Milton..."  She would often care for me when my mother was at work and I had not yet entered school.  She either came up to Mt.Vernon or I would be dropped off in the Bronx.  Our town, at the time, still had some small farms and we would walk to them to see the chickens, buy fresh eggs and vegetables.  There was one nearby on Greendale Ave. which was actually a small lane.
She would stay for dinner but made sure to bring her own food in a little brown paper bag.  We did not observe Jewish dietary laws as she did, being a very liberal Reform family.   One time, however, I saw her have some meat and when my mom served coffee, Fannie looked around to see if anyone was watching and then snuck a little milk into her cup!  If I went to the Bronx, she would take me shopping in her neighborhood where all the purveyors would shout out "Good morning Mrs. Zeisler!".  After my grandfather had died, she remarried Meyer Zeisler in 1944 until 1953 when he passed away.  She would end her errands by taking me to a kosher delicatessen where she would buy me a big frankfurter in a roll, smothered in mustard and sauerkraut.
A nice photo of Meyer Zeisler, my step-grandfather:

"FOOD, GLORIOUS FOOD..."
Fannie loved to feed people, it being her "raison d'être".  I sincerely believe this is how she doled out love.  Her cuisine was old world, passed down to her without recipes.  It was always "a little of this and a little of that".  My favorites were her kreplach (dumplings, wanton, pierogis, ravioli,  or any variation thereof.)  They were doughy, chewy and filled with meat.  If she knew I was coming, she would make a rice pudding that was hardened and cut into small loafs with raisins in it.  She also made great matzo balls that would remain in your stomach for a week.  But, her "piece de resistance" was, indeed, her blintzes!  Cheese, blueberry, apple, whatever.  Served with a dollop of sour cream, these delicacies achieved fame!  She had her own cottage industry, producing the blintzes for her caterer sons who would serve them, a micro-economic business for her.   She made them until she was unable to roll the dough with her hands and fingers.
All was not perfect, however.  When I was in 8th grade, I was confirmed and had a Confirmation party.  Fannie had made a nice chicken salad for the event and brought it to our home where it took place.  I always seemed to have crushes on the prettiest girls in my classes and I gathered up my courage to invite the lovely Sandy Fazzini, the prettiest girl in my class, who sang like an angel.  "I Could Have Danced All Night" was her signature tune.  There I was, sitting with Sandy as she chomped down on something in the chicken salad. "Yuk" said Sandy as she grimaced, removing a band-aid from her mouth, the same one that had slid off Fannie's finger as she was preparing the food!  Yet another love escaped my grasp that day!
The divine Miss Fazzini and me in the 8th grade Christmas play!:

Many years later, Fannie redeemed herself fully, in my eyes.  I had just graduated from college and it was the summer before I started medical school.  I had just gotten engaged to my wife, Suzanne, and it was time for her to meet the matriarch of the family.  Fannie had a funny habit where, if she didn't approve of something, she would make this funny twitch with her nose.  I didn't know what to expect from her meeting my Protestant fiancee.  There had not been any intermarriages in the family before to my knowledge.  I warned Suzanne to keep a good eye on my grandmother's nose as this would be a predictor of things to come.  Fannie had a nice lunch prepared for us and ...so far, no nose action.  I had to excuse myself to go out and put more money in the parking meter, leaving the two women alone.  Upon my arrival, I was delighted to see they had bonded and had already become good friends.  When Fannie discovered that Suzanne was brought up on a farm, my grandmother, herself a farm girl in the old country, had warmed right up to her and they maintained a very nice friendship going forward during Fannie's remaining years.

MEET THE MANTELS:
Fannie was one of four children with her two brothers Jacob and Sam and her red-headed sister Rosa, or as I knew her, Ruth.  Jake had preceded my Grandmother by settling some years earlier in Teaneck, NJ.  Jake, pictured below, was a kind gentleman who, with his wife, Freda, had 2 sons, Maurice and Bernard.  I know little of Bernard and have lost touch with that branch of the family.

Both Jake and Freda were from Galicia, Poland and Jake lived to be 95, Freda to 92.  I remember Maurice's sons, Lewis and David often visiting us as children. They were delightful boys and we got along famously.  David died in Orinda, California in 2006, leaving his wife and 2 daughters, Jill and Page, after a long career in marketing for companies such as Gallo and The Wine Group as well as having his own consulting firm.  Brother Lewis became a physician in aerospace medicine, serving on the USS Ranger during the Viet Nam conflict.  I remember when I was in 9th grade, he heard I wanted to become a doctor and invited me to visit him at Albert Einstein Medical School where he was studying.  He took me into the dissection room and introduced me to his cadaver! This encouraged me to pursue a career in medicine.  He retired from the U.S. Navy in 1990 as Rear Admiral. He presently lives in Mashpee on Cape Cod.  He and his wife Jean have two sons, Scott and Brad.  Pictured below are Lewis and David with my sister, Lois, as children and a photo of Lewis in his Navy blues:

Sister Rosa (or Ruth) was a funny lady who bore a close resemblance to Golda Meir.  When we visited her, she would be sure to have professional wrestling, which she loved, on her little black and white TV.  A seamstress by trade, she was, to me, a rugged individualist with a great sense of humor.  She had three daughters, Janet, Helene, and Sydell.  She was probably the first divorcee I knew.  She had arrived in America at age 11 and her sister, Fannie, was her sponsor upon her arrival at Ellis Island in 1904.  Here's her photo with sister Fannie.  Decide for yourselves whether she looks like the former Prime Minister of Israel.

The third brother, Sam, was not well known to me but I remember his wife, Aunt Dora very fondly.  She was a very sweet, short woman who came to all the family gatherings.  She had two daughters, Beatrice Mantel who never married and Ruth Mantel who was an educator as was her husband, Ben Paskoff who always had a pipe in his mouth.  They were the ones where there was always a "hush" when they were around as they had both been blacklisted for their "Communist leanings".  Ben was a teacher of History at New York's City College and an intellectual.  With the help of the Internet, I did a little historical research myself and found he had been victimized by the infamous Rapp-Coudert Committee, the Joint Legislative Committee to Investigate the Educational System of the State of New York, from 1941-42.  In other words, it was a witch hunt to publicize the Communist party's influence in higher education in NYS.  Because of Ben's "liberal" leanings, he was one of 40 educators at City College to be summarily fired and blacklisted.  I'm not sure if they ever recovered from this or had a family.

As for the BISGYERS,  my grandmother's maternal side, I have no knowledge except that of my mother's cousin, Maurice Bisgyer, the Executive Vice President of B'Nai Brith and active in the Nuremberg trials.  Under his watch, membership grew from 45,000 to 500,000!  He was a friend of Chaim Weizmann, the first President of Israel and was, as a friend of Eddie Jacobson, President Harry Truman's partner in haberdashery in Kansas City, instrumental in getting Truman to recognize the fledgling state.

Above is Maurice (on the far right side) visiting the White House and President John F. Kennedy as well as the book he wrote about the struggle for Jewish survival.

NEXT: THE SPERBER KIDS