A Glimmer of Light at the End of the Tunnel

THE FAMILY ROOTS


The word "root" in its botanical iteration, indicates a support, conveying nourishment to the rest of the plant via numerous branches.  We all have roots, some we know about, others that come as surprises.  A few years ago, I became interested in my own roots.  Amateur as I am, my genealogical skills are gradually bearing some fruit.  I think the impetus for me is to pass this story on to my children and, eventually, their children.  Probably, to read someone else's family history is quite boring but, in each of our families, their are real human stories about love, tragedy, migration, achievements and failures.  Allow me to share...

Maternal Side
     My mother, Beatrice Sperber Mayer, was a first-generation American, raised in The Bronx section of NYC.  Her parents were  Leon, who was from Vienna, and her mother, Fannie, was from Galicia in the old Austro-Hungarian Empire. She grew up in a very warm, loving home with two brothers and two sister who were twins.



This photo shows my mom, Beatrice on the left, next to older brother, Milton and the twins, Helen and Ruth.  I think Ruth is on the right but can't be sure.  Younger brother Seymour had not yet been born when this picture was taken.

She attended Theodore Roosevelt High School followed by courses in Interior Decoration which was to become her lifelong career.  As previously mentioned, she had her share of admirers.  In the afternoon, after her high school courses were over for the day, she worked to make extra money for the family as a stenographer/receptionist in a laundry, the Fox Square Laundry.  The owner's son would come in occasionally, and they would flirt with each other.  I know my mother had a crush on him.  Alas, he went off to college and then to war in the Pacific where he served as a naval Ensign aboard two destroyers, an experience that gave him quite a bit of material to write about in "The Caine Mutiny", "Winds of War", "Aurora Dawn", and many more best-selling novels.  He is 102 today and still writing!  Many years later, in 1985, he wrote "Inside, Outside" about the neighborhood and schools both he and my mom were raised in and, Beatrice, dying from leukemia, read it and wrote to his publisher.  Herman Wouk responded to her with a lovely handwritten memoir of her and her family, their teachers, and their experience of growing up at that time.  I have kept it as a family treasure.
     Her career in Interior Decorating took off and she achieved a wide clientele.  Many of her clients actually became close friends.  She decorated law offices, hotels, country clubs, and many private homes.  Some of her clients were movie stars (Jack Palance), sportswriters (Joe Reichler of NY Yankees fame), and several of the NY Giants football team ( Del Shofner, among them).

     She met my dad, Monroe Mayer, through a friend of his, Joe Harvey who, I believe was dating her.  My dad wooed her with love letters (that I still have) that appealed to my mom's dreams of a "house and a white picket fence".  Monroe won her heart and on May 21, 1937, they were married at The Prospect Mansion, her father's catering establishment.

   

When she died in 1985, the funeral home was packed with hundreds of people and I gave her eulogy.  She had a good sense of humor edged with biting sarcasm, but never in a demeaning manner. When I was a little boy I once asked her who I would marry.  She looked at me and smiled and said: "Sandy, she hasn't been born yet and her mother's dead!!" She would also enter a party or restaurant and say: "They get a nice class of people here!"  Looking out at the crowd at her funeral, I repeated her by saying "There's a nice class of people here!"  She would have liked that.  Below is a photo of Mom and Dad's wedding day.

MY MATERNAL GRANDFATHER
Leon Sperber was, unfortunately, a man I never got to know. He died suddenly in 1938, at work, 6 years before my birth.  The little I know of him was from my mother who worshipped him.  During difficult times, I remember, she would take his photo out of her dresser and "talk" with him which gave her comfort.  He was born in 1882 in Zurawno in Poland, moved to Vienna, and in 1907, left Vienna via Bremen at the age of 25 on the ship SS Main to enter "the golden door".  The photo below is Leon while serving in the army of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

His parents were Hersh and Blume Grossmann Sperber, my maternal great-grandparents of whom I know little as well but I will share their photo with you and keep you posted as I learn more about them from a distant cousin who has been helping me with the family roots.  I discovered cousin Stefanie through having my DNA analyzed and she has been most helpful.  My DNA, by the way is 98% European Jewish (genetic group being German, Belgian, and Dutch).  The other 2% is Iberian and Irish.

He was one of six children and the first to make the move over to America where he first lived with some friends from Vienna, the Loebners, before he could get on his feet.  His first job was as a waiter at Edgett & Wheeler's Harbor Inn on the Boardwalk in Far Rockaway.  By now he had married my maternal grandmother, Fannie Mantel Sperber in 1909 and they lived at 217 Washington Avenue in Queens.  Here is a photo of the newlyweds.

                     

                                Years later:

FORBIDDEN LOVE
Once established, Leon sent back to Vienna for his younger sisters to bring them over to America.  They came sometime after, Mathilde, Esther, and Rosa.  From what I understand Mathilde ran off to California and was never heard from again.  I do not know what became of Rosa, but Esther is another story.  She met and fell in love with an immigrant Italian tailor, Michael Scibelli, who made uniforms for a parochial school.  For an observant, Jewish Viennese family, this was strictly taboo.  They married without any of the Sperber family present, to my knowledge, and she was subsequently disowned from the family.  Shiva was sat for her back in Vienna.  How sad and how things have changed (for the better).  The Sperber family, today, is heavily intermarried, myself included.  The Scibellis are a large Italian family and, unfortunately, I have not been able to establish a bond, apologetic as it were, with them.  Pictured here are my Great Aunt and Uncle, Esther Sperber Scibelli and Michael Scibelli:

 A SAD ENDING
The saddest part of this story is the one sister who remained behind as she had married and had four children.  This was Sophie (or Sochie).  She was a lovely young woman, married to a Chaim Grossmann (yes, he might have been a relative of her mother's!).  Back in Europe in those days, marriage between cousins was not unusual.  They appeared to be a middle class Viennese family who had three sons and a daughter.  One son died at age 2 of Diphtheria.  Another son, Max, had Polio and, at age 28, while swimming in the Danube near his home, drowned. The remaining son, Friederich, apparently committed suicide in anticipation of the actions against the Austrian Jews.  Only the daughter survived the Holocaust, Lillian obtaining a last minute visa in 1939 to emigrate to the United States where she lived until 2006, raising a family.  Her daughter and grandchildren are testimony today to survival from that terrible time.  Sophie and Chaim are pictured below with Max, as well as a photo of Sophie in later years, probably close to the time she and Chaim were transported by the Nazis, to the Izbica Ghetto where they met their cruel death.

Grandpa Leon left the world way too early, having seen his daughter, Bea, married but, unfortunately, never seeing any of his ten grandchildren.  I do not know what became of the Prospect Mansion but both of his sons followed him in the catering trade with their own business, Sovereign Caterers in NYC which was well known for catering many weddings, bar and bat mitzvahs, and other parties, many for famous celebrities all over the Greater New York City Area, Long Island and Westchester.



I will continue next week with the Family Roots with my maternal grandmother, Fannie.   Your feedback to anything is most welcome and I invite you to subscribe if you find this blog to be of interest.