Year 1904
Lena gave birth to another boy in 1904. His birth was celebrated in a quiet manner on Passover eve. They named him Moses [Mosher] Joshua in the hope that he might grow to emulate the character after whom he was named. They moved across the street into a larger store building, formerly occupied by a billiard parlor. David had it partitioned so that there were living rooms in the rear and the family moved in. David installed a Hertz acetylene lighting plant, the first in the town.
In August, while David sat in the store about six feet from the front door, a tremendous blasting wind slammed the front door, smashing the plate glass into splinters . It was about a 70-mile-an-hour wind. The gale swooped down from the northwest, tearing down one span and twisting the spans on each side of the St. Paul High Bridge and lifting the roof from the four-story building at the corner of Fourth and Jackson streets in St. Paul. It also smashed plate glass windows at the corner of Seventh and Wabasha streets and damaged many other buildings. David had to replace the front door plate glass at a cost of eight dollars.
Within two years David had achieved sufficient success to move across the street to a larger building — but as was the case for so many immigrants, the family lived at the back of the store. An acetylene lighting plant was a pre-electric lighting system that could be installed in a private home. The combination of calcium carbide (produced by heating up coke and lime) and water produced a gas that was then ignited to produce light — similar to a gas-fueled camping lantern. Note: the Hertz company that manufactured the plant was no relation to our Hertz relatives!
I assume the move to the larger shop is the point at which David expands from simple tailoring to the clothing and dry-goods store that he maintains until his death.
Late in October, when David was sound asleep and tired from a hard Saturday’s work, there was a heavy pounding at the door. David stepped out in his nightgown to ascertain the cause of the pounding. And behold: there stood a mob in front of the door. Two men were leading a cow by a halter and yelling, “You won this cow on tonight’s raffle!”
This is really funny, because he sets up the incident as if it is a pogrom about to start, and then it becomes comic with the cow!
David pulled on his clothes and the gang then demanded that he set up drinks [at the saloon]. For these he paid three dollars at the bar. They had an awful time with the cow, as they were not equipped with a barn wherein to keep it, and to feed it would cost more than the milk was worth. So they gave her away to [Lena’s] sister Yette Shallet in Minneapolis.
The only means of transportation between South St. Paul and the city of St. Paul, outside the horse and buggy, was an accommodation train on the Chicago Great Western road, a service given every other hour . The train was known as the “Dinky.” For a 10-ride ticket the price was 50 cents and a single fare was seven cents. For its conductor the train had an old and cranky sourpuss of a man named Bryant.
This is terrific. How frequent was it for urbanites in Minneapolis in 1903 or so to keep a cow? The balance between feeding the cow and using the milk... fascinating.
David procured the services of a Hebrew teacher to give lessons to Albert, five lessons per week. As he was going to public school until 3 p.m., it was too much for him to go to cheder (Hebrew school) on the streetcar to the St. Paul Hebrew school and to come home late of evenings. One day the teacher, who was an ordained kosher man , told David that the conductor always refused to sell him a 10-ride ticket and demanded seven cents as a single fare. David couldn’t imagine that such a thing was possible, so he decided to find out the truth.
The next Thursday David went with the teacher to the city on the same train, each sitting opposite the other. When the conductor came David gave him a 50-cent coin and the conductor handed him a 10-ride ticket and punched out one fare. When the teacher handed him one dollar and asked for a 10-ride ticket, the conductor ignored his request and handed him back 93 cents. When David asked him, “Why don’t you sell him a 10-ride ticket instead of charging seven cents,” the conductor replied, “That is my business and none of yours!” in a very gruff way. Evidently he felt offended. David said, “I’ll make it my business to find out about it.”
Why just Albert? If David is so in favor of women being educated, then why not for Belle too? This is a big theme in the Jewish Women’s History literature: women are castigated if they are “fanatics” and not modern, but then not given a good Jewish education.
Is this about discrimination because the Hebrew teacher looks like an old fashioned Jew?
Having reached St. Paul, David went up to the Chicago and Great Western head office in the Metropolitan Theater Building on Sixth Street and asked to see the general passenger agent. He inquired of him whether his road had licensed their conduct to rob the passengers outright and he told the agent the story about the teacher and his experience. The next Thursday Conductor Bryant was found dead, having committed suicide by hanging. The South St. Paul depot agent, Gus Francis, met David every day and looked crossly at him and would not event recognize nor speak to him. Evidently he imagined that David had hastened the conductor’s death by his complaint against him. There had been, however, several previous complaints against him.
Here David’s forthrightness is used for good, although it ends tragically. He does not dwell on his role in the man’s death but one wonders if it gave him pause.
Belle and Abe
In 1904 David’s oldest daughter, Belle, entered Humboldt High School in St. Paul, taking the Dinky to the city daily. Belle’s closest girlfriend was Anna Read who was clerking in the Post Office at that time. She often used to run in through the back, catching a morsel on the way, for she liked Lena’s cooking.
Miss Graves, the elocution teacher of Humboldt High School, took a fancy to Belle. After a tryout Belle was made a member of the debating team, which was to work for two years in preparation for the finals to be held at the State University campus. At last Humboldt won the championship cup for the year of 1906. Belle became the lioness and Miss Graves’ pet. She was feted to the limit. About that time, Abe M. Calmenson was working as a typist at the Friend, Crosby & Co. Live Stock Commission Company.
Abe’s parents were religiously inclined and they asked Lena if she would be willing to give Abe dinners. She agreed to do so as soon as she should move into her new home, which was then being built.David had decided to build a real home for his family. It was a seven-room house with a spacious room in the attic for a maid. It had a full basement piped for gas and electricity. The main floor was finished in golden birch. The dining room was red burlap with golden oak panels and a three-inch fancy molding around the room for bric-a-brac display. Lena made a nice Home Sweet Home embroidery piece, framed it and hung it over the doorway. Belle painted two small oil paintings framed in gilt frames that added to the dining room declaration. Lena fitted up Belle’s front room upstairs with a nice bird-eye maple bedroom set that was very costly.
Here again the partial boarding, only this time it’s for kosher reasons.
Wow, here we see the first economic success of the entire text! How much would such a house have cost? And he is supporting all this with a tailoring/dressmaking shop?
David felt proud of his new home, especially when he woke up mornings with the sun’s rays shining in his face. Although nearby there was the locomotives’ exhaust and the clanking of train bells and rattling of freight cars that did not bother him in the least. He felt good to hear the outside voices of the farmers bringing in their livestock, leading their critters tied to their wagons and sometimes going behind to lash with their whips to make them hurry. It was a busy street, but David enjoyed it.
Abe Calmenson now became a star boarder in the home. Naturally two young people such as Abe and Belle became chummy, and their friendship developed into a young courtship. Although Belle possessed discretion due to her temper and her mind, something seemed to vibrate within her. Abe asked her to marry him, but she said, “No, no. Not until you provide better means to live on than you earn as a mere typist.
“You better take up a course in law at a night school and become an attorney. We can wait. We have plenty of time,” Belle told him with firmness. Belle was not what might be called a beauty by the street standard, but she had a vivacity of face and manners, an alert humor that substituted well for beauty. She was not overly tall. The merry brightness of her gay eyes and the sensitive expression of her young unpainted lips and the mocking lilt of her low voice set her above the gauge of prettiness.
Abe was a youth whose hero was Spinoza rather than Don Juan. Belle was rather reserved in her ways. They talked for long hours in the evenings, mainly of vague high thoughts, forgetting the Universe. Belle spoke sweetly of practical utility and personal interest. Their meetings were very tender but at the same time characterized by a certain reserve.… Lena got a notion in her head that Belle should be a pianist. They bought a $300 Kimball piano and engaged Miss Sommen as a teacher to give Belle lessons. But Belle’s mind was on elocution and she had no taste for music. She did not care to practice.
Belle always moved in good company. Harry and Molly Weiler were her closest friends and so were the Calmenson girls. Lena was always glad to keep open house for her friends. Belle was visibly of pure and noble love in its prime. There was a passionate vitality in her face, a brilliancy of feature and full flame of youth, and abundant health, which radiated from her with electric flashes. Hers were really inviting eyes.
This description of David’s house is the most powerful example of his pride over his accomplishments. His new house even had room for a maid which is such a dramatic change from his lonely impoverished first two decades in the new country! Now he can dispense with his acetylene lighting plant and benefit from the luxury of piped-in gas and electricity. There was even a dining room, a clear sign of bourgeois success. David had good reason to feel proud of his new home. It had taken him more than twenty years and six difficult relocations from state to state before he could feel this pride, and we can share his excitement over his accomplishment. He doesn’t complain about the rural nature of his small-town life he even can find enjoyment in the animals and their human bosses. He is the provider for his family, the generator of the money to build a fine home, and the inspiration to his children. Here we see David’s emphasis on success being passed to his daughter who applies it not to her own career but to that of her fiance. Belle was not going to marry a mere typist; she wanted an attorney for a husband. She certainly possessed that special something that “seemed to vibrate within her” as motivation for greater accomplishment for her family reminiscent of David’s notion of an inner spirit that would motivate one to higher achievements.
Whenever Belle appears in the Diary, David’s tone shifts to one of pride, admiration, and even tenderness. Belle seems to be David’s ideal: prudent yet reserved, intelligent yet not over reaching. There is a striking contrast between the way she is presented versus Helen or Lena. Interestingly, or perhaps ironically, Belle was never able to have children.
Love this. Spinoza! Means he was not very romantic.
David adores Belle, she has passion and self-control. This is so funny, the Jewish woman is ambitious and sets demands on the guy. Wonderful how he describes her... shows so much love and sensitivity that he never seems to have lavished on Al or Helen. We do have to wonder whether Lena compensated for his very uneven parenting.
A piano was always an important sign of the family social position. Of course [it was] the women in the household who had to learn how to play it.
“Good company”: the importance of social connections for the next generation. Did the Blumenfelds live in an all-Jewish social world? “Keep open house”: very nice. Kind of a salon atmosphere for the ordinary people.
The family lives behind the shop — a sign of poverty; as families got richer the family moved out. This has huge implications for their status, and also for whether or not the wife worked in the store.