A Boy Grows in Brownsville, Brooklyn

My dad, Samuel Weiss lost his fight against COVID-19 on December 27, 2020 at age 97. We would have long discussions on the phone about his childhood and this ramped up during the first months of the pandemic.

My dad was the only one of his siblings born in America. There was a huge age difference between him, Ella, Jack, and Dottie, due to circumstances surrounding my grandfather’s immigration to America. As a result, little Sammy was doted on by his siblings. Ella was really more of a mom to him than an older sister before she got married. A few years ago, I wrote a blog about the grandma I never knew and my dad filled in some additional blanks during our conversations. When he died, I felt grief of course, but also an overwhelming compulsion to connect to and understand his past and what made him the dad I knew. I think this was amplified by the fact that he was the last immediate family connection to the grandparents I never knew, Abraham and Nettie Weiss.

 

The Curious Mystery of My Grandfather Abraham

While we covered a lot of territory, some of my questions will forever remain unanswered. Looking back, perhaps my dad didn’t even know all the answers because his parents didn’t share much. I did confront my dad with evidence that my grandpa had another family somewhere in the NY area based on DNA results from my daughter. In fact, I believe my Aunt Dottie was aware of this, but my dad was in denial until close to the end of his life.

This doesn’t surprise me because my grandfather Abraham emigrated by himself to NYC in 1905 and was separated from Nettie until late 1911. After my Uncle Jack was born in 1912 in Poland, unknown to Abraham, Nettie was pregnant with my Aunt Dottie. He didn’t meet her until 1919 because he was unable to go back to Poland due to the outbreak of WW1. When he returned, he moved the family from their small town of Rutki to Lomza and brought them all over to America in April 1921.

 

Recollections of My First Cousin Renee Davidson

After my dad died, I called my first cousin Renee who lived with her parents – my Aunt Dottie and Uncle Murray right around the block from our grandparents’ house. My dad’s family lived in a two-flat at 661 Osborn Street and Renee and her family lived at 671 Watkins.

Grandpa would come over to their apartment to watch wrestling and cowboy shows. She didn’t remember grandma saying much of anything – she was quite religious and would be sitting in her chair davening (praying) with her siddur (Jewish prayer book). When Renee said hi, grandma, she barely responded. 

 You Can’t Take Brooklyn Out of the Boy

Growing up in Brooklyn had a lifelong impact on my dad, from his early days as a Jewish mama’s boy to visiting NYC every year for a psychiatric conference, during which he revisited his favorite NYC restaurants, shops, and museums. Although he lived in Chicago for 75 years including medical school at the University of Illinois, he was always a New Yorker at heart and visited more than once a year if he had time.

When my dad was a baby, my grandmother received word that her dad had died back in Poland. Nettie fell into a depression, her milk dried up, my dad stopped nursing, and she never fully recovered emotionally. As a result, my dad was an extremely finicky eater as a kid. It wasn’t until he went into psychoanalysis as part of his professional training that he recovered from this issue.

A Lifelong Passion for Chocolate Candy

My grandmother would pick him up at school every day and bring him a miniature Hershey bar. He claims that sparked his lifelong passion for chocolate. He would go to the corner candy store and buy two little broken chocolate candy bars because they were two for a penny instead of one penny each and they were poor. His mother would buy him Charlotte Russes – little cakes with whipped cream and a cherry on top that were displayed in glass containers.

My grandfather owned a grocery store very briefly – this was kiddy corner to Joe Bloom’s Candy Shop, which opened after my dad had already moved away – now site of the Osborn Playground. But his primary occupation was a factory worker at Howard Clothes.

 

Old-Country Superstitions

My grandma was incredibly superstitious, bringing old wives’ tales from the old country to America. When my dad was 7 or 8, he fell ill and the doctors weren’t sure what was wrong with him. He missed half a year of school. My grandmother went to the local Kabbalist who worked as a shoe cobbler during the day. Many people were waiting at his house to get treated.

The Kabbalist performed all sorts of incantations and told my grandma to light candles when she got home. He said the dripped wax in the morning would reveal what was wrong with my dad and he would be healed. When my dad asked his mom to see the wax, she had already reformed it back into a ball so he never saw the shape. Of course, nothing was revealed and he was still ill.

My grandma thought Christians were wicked because the Poles and Russians back in the old country were antisemitic. Since my dad was close to his mom, he spit three times every time he passed by a church. Thankfully he grew out of this habit by the time he was drafted into the Army!

The Coney Island Boardwalk

My grandma would leave my young dad on the boardwalk at Coney Island for hours when she went to the bathhouses. Cook’s Baths (formerly Cox’s Baths) operated until 1973 and there were many others including Silver Baths, Washington Baths, Eureka Baths, etc.

One time as a 6-year-old, he got so tired of waiting, he went into the steam baths and saw a gaggle of naked women, none of whom were attractive. When I asked if he had nightmares or trauma stemming from this, he said no. Funny, as I still have indelible and unpleasant memories of fat, naked bubbas in the  locker room when I went to JCC summer day camp at age 5. In any case, my dad loved the charming 1953 movie, Little Fugitive, perhaps because he identified with the young boy who ran away to Coney Island.

Teenage Years and the Osborn Street Camera Club

When they were teenagers, my dad, Bernie Rothzeid, and Shep (I think his first name was also Samuel, but I don’t know his last name) formed a camera club. My dad showed a true talent for photography and took many photos of family and friends. This continued throughout his adult life and he had both a darkroom and makeshift photo studio in the basement of our Lincolnwood home. 

 

Bernie went to Cooper Union and became a highly successful architect, remaining close friends with my dad until his death. Sadly, Shep lost touch with his childhood friends and committed suicide in his early 40s, I believe.

I think my dad went to Yeshiva Rabbi Chaim when he was young. He attended Lew Wallace Junior High (originally P.S. 66) on Watkins Street, with a large building that stretched across the entire block to Osborn Street. Then he went to Thomas Jefferson High School on the border of East New York and Brownsville. Surprisingly, his report cards revealed that he wasn’t a straight-A student.

 

Potpourri Recollections

• My dad was an avid fan of the Brooklyn Dodgers and attended games at Ebbets Field.
• Both Renee and my dad recounted going to movies at the Loew’s Pitkin Theatre at 1501 Pitkin Avenue in Brooklyn. My dad told me a story about taking a not fully potty-trained Renee with when she was a toddler and she peed on him during the movie.
• My dad loved recounting a story about spending 10 cents to see a feature film, only to be disappointed that a singer was appearing first. He left disgruntled, only to find out later the singer was the then unknown, but up and coming Frank Sinatra! He would have been 19 at this point and not a child since Frank began his solo career before movie screenings on December 30, 1942.
• My dad, Bernie, and Shep would dig little holes in the dirt in vacant lots and cook potatoes.
• My dad recalled going with his mom to the Belmont Avenue pushcart market in Brownsville.
• Stick ball and hit the penny were popular activities in Brownsville for boys with little money.
• My dad had to give up his bedroom and sleep in the dining room on a cot when wayward relatives were taken in by his parents – one of them lived with them after being released from a psychiatric hospital.
• I found this ticket for the1940 Leonardo da Vinci exhibit at the New York Museum of Science and Industry at Rockefeller Center. My dad frequently took the train into Manhattan by himself and was 16-years-old at the time of this exhibit.