My Lifelong Childhood

A TALL FAMILY TREE Trees are an interesting horticultural phenomenon.  They have strong roots deep in the ground and their branches are rarely ever straight, curving and taking detours.  They provide much-needed shade and can give back to the earth their beauty, fruit, and nourishment.  Every now and then, a strong wind or lightning bolt will break off a branch or destroy the whole tree.  I think the tree is a wonderful metaphor for life, our own and for those who preceded us. BIG NANA Hannah (Big Nana) as a young girl As previously mentioned, in our family, my maternal grandmother Fannie was always known to me as "Little Nana", so it befell my paternal grandmother, as she was the taller of the two, to acquire the moniker of "Big Nana".  Going to visit just "Nana" would have been very confusing to a child in my situation.  How can I describe this very classy woman?  She prevailed despite heartbreak in her life, both in her marriage as well ...

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...

THE SPERBER KIDS Just to tie up loose ends, after our short detour to Cyprus, I thought I'd finish up my mom's side of the family.  For the linguistically curious, Sperber means sparrow hawk in German.  A number of years ago, the Sperber family had a reunion, one of four, and some nice tee shirts were designed with a sparrow hawk on them.  You've got to be creative when you have a reunion. We even had one on a cruise ship that sailed from New York City to Halifax and back.  There must have been 75 family members!   It was a memorable trip as I had an attack of gout, my one and only.  In Halifax, which has more bars and breweries per capita than anywhere else in the world,  I hobbled around town to the different breweries, imbibing wonderful beers.  I guess in medical school, I missed the lecture on gout...for beer is probably the worse thing to ingest during an attack!  One of my cousin's kids was married to a practitioner of eastern a...

A MYSTERY SOLVED!!! New Discovery: I know in my last blog, I was going to tell you about all the Sperber kids. Something's come up and I will delay that and get back to them shortly.   I had mentioned in my first post that families hold many secrets and human stories, tragedies, and hope.   This holds true as you will see.  If you remember, I had previously mentioned my maternal Grandfather, Leon Sperber, who I never knew as he died in 1938 six years before my birth.  He had brought all his little sisters to America from Vienna after he was established in business.  I had mentioned one of them, my grand-aunt, Mathilde Sperber, who had, to my understanding, run off and was never heard from again.  No one, apparently, had any knowledge of her...but my grandfather did, and it went with him to his grave. MATHILDE! As recently as yesterday, Aug.30th, I received an e-mail from a woman in Nicosia, Cyprus, through  Ancestry.com, to which I subscribe...

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 he...

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, lovi...