Three generations. This is not the first time in my life when three generations of women lived together. When I was growing up on Avenue K in Brooklyn, NY, my maternal grandmother, Freida (called Fanny) Halpern-Waltzer lived with us. At the time, I didn’t realize what a privilege that was. I knew it made my family different from other families because mostly everyone else had a mother and father and siblings but no grandparent living with them. I didn’t fully appreciate the benefits I was getting like my grandma’s ancestral, delectable cooking- the mouthwatering knishes, perogies, rugglach and other flavorful treats she would create with those large but soft aged hands of hers. Those hands told her history.
I can still picture Fanny Waltzer’s hands. I had a fascination with those hands.
They were large, but gentle; strong, but soft; old, but new. New- everytime I touched them- the velvety texture, the silky soft and loose wrinkled skin, revealing a snapshot of her past. Cooking hands, crocheting hands, comforting hands. They smelled of aromas from her baking and cooking, of sweetness and knowledge, of goodness and courage. I used to love to touch those hands. I used to marvel at her long fingers that still held crochet needles and would expertly create a doily made from simple beige colored cotton yarn. I still have a doily of hers sitting under a vase on my dresser in my bedroom, my mother has one under a lamp on her nightstand. They are reminders of Fanny’s biography, roots from where all of the women in our family came from.
There are many lovely stories of Fanny, ones told over and over again and occasionally, new ones that are told by my mother who sometimes surprises me with an account I have never heard before. The one thing that remains constant in these stories is her beauty. That beauty reaped rewards. The first time was when she was a child, playing in the mountains of what we believed was Austria; although because the Jewish people were forced to move around so much and the borders changed, we cannot be sure. She lived near a convent and caught the attention of the nuns who would watch her play. Her hair was a dazzling shade of auburn and it highlighted her pretty face. The nuns taught my grandma to crochet with flowers and showed her how to create wreaths to adorn her hair. Knowing my great grandma, Esther, was poor and had many other children, the nuns came to her one day and asked if they could have Fanny to raise and take care of. Esther’s response was I do not give my children away.
The other time Fanny’s beauty caught someone’s attention was when my grandfather, Morris, saw her. She was working for his uncle as a housekeeper. It was love at first sight and after that, gave my grandfather reason to keep visiting his uncle to see the red-haired Freida; it was he who named her Fanny and lovingly called her Fanny-coo. It is said that he visited so often and stayed so late that he would fall asleep on his way home in his horse and buggy. Fortunately, the horse knew the trip so well that he would bring him safely back. Morris intended to marry Fanny; however, he wanted to go to America first and get settled in order to give her a better life in the promised land. And so, he left promising her he would send for her as soon as he was able.
Fanny waited for her beloved Morris to make good on his pledge, and waited and waited. Finally, she found a way to go to the promised land on her own. She was 22 years old. She did not know how to read or write, but still, she left her home, her job as a housekeeper and Esther. When she had recounted that life-changing event she would speak about hugging and kissing her mother goodbye with the sinking feeling that she would never see her again. She did send for her eventually when she could afford a ticket, although, her fear did come true; Esther died of pneumonia before she could join her children in America.
Fanny arrived on the ship, the Kroonland on August 25, 1903. I found her passenger record on the Ellis Island website. It was difficult to locate her because she gave her first name as Fanny, the name given to her by Morris, rather than her actual name of Freida. There were 1814 other passengers on that ship. I cannot even begin to imagine the courage that my grandmother could’ve had at that age to travel away from everything she knew to a life unknown, knowing she would never return or possibly see her mother again. She had told my mother that she was disappointed in America when she arrived. She had expected the golden land, as many referred to it; however, living in the lower east side in tenements was anything but golden. In the seventies, my mother took her to see the show Fiddler on the Roof, thinking it would bring back treasured memories but Fanny was unimpressed with the show. I lived that, she had said, it wasn’t anything beautiful, it was difficult; I don’t need to be reminded. The golden promise was that my determined grandmother reunited with my grandfather and they married and raised eight children- six sons and two daughters. They continued to be a loving couple and my grandfather always spoke about his Fanny-coo’s beauty saying men in barber shops would come out to the street mid-shave to watch her pass by.
Fanny Halpern-Waltzer never forgot her roots and her empathy for people less fortunate turned into acts of kindness that I will treasure always through the stories that continue to be her legacy. The stories of how she fed the hobos in Scranton, Pennsylvania, who would come off the freight trains starving. The story of how during the depression, a man knocked on the door of her home in Brooklyn and said he hadn’t eaten for days. He wanted to do some odd jobs around the house to work for his meal. Fanny insisted on feeding him first, telling him he needed strength to work.
And when I remember my grandmother’s hands, their softness will always remind me of her kindness and their strength will remind me of the pride she felt in who she was. There are stories that speak that legacy as well. The story of when her oldest son, Ruby, was a little boy and my grandmother overheard another boy call him a dirty Jew. The words turned into a physical fight and my grandmother encouraged Ruby to fight back, which he did. Eventually, Ruby became best friends with the boy, who grew up and went to Europe to become a priest. When he returned, Fanny was the first one he blessed.
I can only imagine what a wonderful woman Fanny was who touched someone’s life so, that he would bestow his first blessing upon her. That is probably why I remember her hands the most when I think of her. Because what are we if we don’t touch each other’s lives? What are we if we don’t have the stories that make us who we are? What are we if we are not part of a generation that thrives in its rich history and gives us a link to our past, present and future?
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