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THE OTHER SIDE OF THE FAMILY...



THE MAYERS

So, now you've heard all about the Sperbers and the Mantels.  They were all, in my mother's generation, children of immigrants.  Sticking to the tenets of the old world, they tried to circle the wagons and maintain their customs, religions, and traditions.  As you've seen, they became part of the great melting pot that we call America.  What would the forebears of my mother have thought if they knew their ancestors were to become Italian-American Catholics, Greek Cypriots, Chasidim, descendants of American Revolution soldiers, South Americans, Scots, German farmers...I could go on and on to highlight the many benefits of assimilation and the mixing of cultures.

When my mother met my father, although both of the same faith, they came from different worlds.  For the most part, my father's side had been in America for several generations. His mother was a Debear and his father, obviously a Mayer.  Before I get into these interesting families, I'd like to talk about my father, Monroe Mayer.

DAD

As I've alluded to in a previous post, Dad and I were not particularly close and had, in my memory, difficulties communicating with each other, each of us mutually at fault. It is not an easy task for me to write about him as I have very conflicted feelings about the way we treated each other.

 He was apparently brought up in a fairly strict family, his mother, Hannah (Helen), coming from a long line of Dutch Jews going back to the 1600's, and his father, Leo, from Alsatian and German Jews.  He was born in New York City on Jan.31, 1912.  He used to love to point out to me that he preceded the SS Titanic disaster by just 4 months!  Dad was the third youngest of four children, his older brother and sister, Florence and Stanley, and his younger brother, Leroy.   Unfortunately, Leroy died at age 7 of Bright's Diseases, a chronic kidney disease of which the name is now historical.  As anyone who has lost a child knows, this loss can wreak havoc on a family and impact the relationship of the parents, either bringing them closer together or driving a wedge in between them.  I do know that when doctors had given up hope on Leroy, my grandparents turned towards Christian Science and they followed this for several years more after his death.  I think Leroy's death also impacted my dad's relationship with his father which, unfortunately, had a trickle down effect on my own relationship with him.

Dad on the right with big brother Stanley and sister Florence

The three Mayer kids with mom, Hannah (Helen)

Compared to my mother's early life, I know little of Dad's.  I do know he was exceedingly bright.  I do have a few photos of his childhood and adolescent years.  My basement contains boxes of family photos and mementos.  Dad originally grew up in the Bronx with his parents eventually moving to Mt. Vernon.

Dad as a boy...

...and as a girl in a school production!

 He graduated in 1928 from Evander Childs High School in the Gun Hill section of the Bronx, a very fine school at that time.  From what I can piece together, he actually attended three universities, at first, wanting to become a physician.  As bright as he was, he would have had no difficulty getting into medical school.  Back then, there were quotas on Jews in many of the finer medical schools, but my Grandfather, being an important politico and New York State official, often helped Jews obtain entry into med schools with his powerful connections.  The fact that Dad didn't take advantage of it was probably the worst decision of his life.  Whether he did it as a protest against his father, I'm not sure, but I do know they didn't get on and, at one point, his father evicted him from their home.  I don't know what precipitated this but I did find a letter from Grandpa to Dad saying "All is forgiven...you may come home"!  My father went to City College of NY, NYU at University Heights, and, finally, Columbia University where he graduated with a degree of Doctor of OPTOMETRY!  Why he opted to follow in his father's footsteps is a mystery to me, but I think my dad was never truly happy throughout his life.  Mind you, my grandfather was not a saint and rumors have always swirled around the family of his infidelities to my grandmother.  He traveled around NY State frequently as well as the entire country on business.  I will get to him later but, apparently, he once requested my dad and his brother Stanley to "take care" of one of my grandfather's paramours who had, unfortunately, gotten pregnant during those ugly pre-Rowe v. Wade days.

Dad, as a teen, wearing knickers!

Columbia University frat photo

Meeting and marrying my mother was probably one of the bright spots of his life...giving him some insight into what a warm, happy family relationship could be.

Mom and Dad on their honeymoon

 Relatively quiet, he was a joiner and a doer.  Only now, many years later, do I truly appreciate and miss him.  He was an athlete, running track in high school and winning medals, he was an excellent golfer and tennis player, and, for years, was one of the finest target archers in the country.  At one point I think he was ranked 8th in the US and, if archery had been an Olympic sport back then, he probably would have been on the team.  He was very active in the PTA when I was growing up, always the treasurer.  I remember he worked closely with the president of our PTA, a woman who always wore hats...who was to go on to fame in the US Congress: Bella Abzug.  Dad's crowning moment was when he received the prized Jenkins Memorial Award from the National PTA.

For a time, Dad wrote mystery stories that he would submit to magazines like "Ellery Queen Mysteries".  I don't know if he ever sold a story but I do know he lent one of his stories out to a "friend".  It was a very clever murder mystery where the murder weapon was a pair of eyeglasses with a poison needle in the earpiece.  What else would an optometrist think of?  He never got it back and about a year later, we were watching a Mystery Theatre on TV and...there was his story.  He had never thought to get a copyright on his work!  Somewhere in the bowels of our basement are his mysteries.

He painted oils, mostly still-lives, and did some wonderful carpentry.  He did some elaborate bookcases as well as some very practical projects.  When we moved from Bedford Avenue to an apartment on Lincoln Avenue, my sister had not yet moved out and there was only one bedroom for Lois and me to share.  Imagine, a tenth grade adolescent boy sharing a room with his older sister!!  No problem.  It was a very generous sized room so Dad built a wall dividing it into two equal sections and even incorporated bookcases and chests of drawers on my side.  We each had our privacy!

 When I was in high school, he was always the stage manager for our school's super productions put on by the parents for the scholarship fund.  My mom would sing in the chorus.  One year, they produced Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Carousel" and Dad came up with a good idea to fabricate "heaven" for the scene where The Starkeeper appears.  The parent who played this role was none other than the famous actor, Ossie Davis, who lived in Mt. Vernon.  Dad set up a ladder and had Mr. Davis climb to the stop of the ladder and Dad had them pour dry ice around the Starkeeper to produce a heavenly picture of clouds...it worked out very well!

Mementos of Dad's life: Top row- Medal from high School Track, Archery medal, Second row- Exchange Club pin, College Fraternity tie clasp, tennis tie pin,  Third row- Archer's tie pin

There are always moments of a person's life that stand out only years later in hindsight and are not appreciated at the time they occurred.  To me, one memory about Dad stands out probably more than any other because it underlines his humanity and, in his own quiet way, his sense of justice and doing what is right.  In 1954, my father joined the Mount Vernon Exchange Club, a new organization to our city and part of the National Exchange Club which calls itself "America's Service Club".   It was primarily a service club like the Lions or Rotary which promoted civic activities beneficial to our community as well as a venue for networking among professionals and business people.  I believe it was all men, not unusual for those days, and all white.  My dad sponsored, for membership, a black minister, the Rev. Calvin Wilcox, who was received warmly and approved for membership.  Within a few weeks, a representative from National came to town from their headquarters in Ohio.  In no uncertain terms, my dad and his colleagues were informed that, if Rev. Wilcox's membership was not rescinded, they would lose their charter.  My dad refused as did the other members...and that was the end of the Exchange Club in Mt. Vernon forever.  Only now in my later years have I thought about that moment and the pride I could have showed.  Life is full of missed opportunities.

After Mom died, his world kind of crumbled.  He was dependent on her to a fault.  He was able to boil water but, otherwise had no culinary skills.  I remember Mom telling us that when she came home from the hematologist and told him she had leukemia, which would eventually be fatal, he asked her how to work the washer and dryer!  In his later years, he withdrew into himself, only a shadow of the younger, outgoing, vigorous man he once was.  There's so much to say about Dad but either time or sadness keeps me from continuing.  He died alone in a senior living facility in Penfield, NY, near Rochester on Valentine's Day, 1988.  The night before, Suzanne and I had gone to visit him to wish him a Happy Valentine's Day and he said he was very unhappy there and wanted to live with us, which he had previously done.  It was not a good experience for us or our children and I told him no.
The next morning, he died and I never got to say goodbye.

NEXT: MAYERS, DEBEARS, FRANKFORTS, AND THE TALL FAMILY TREE.