Year 1920
On January 2nd, a bitter cold and frosty day, David met Mr. Mark and Albert at the Ryan Hotel to talk matters over. Later David went with Albert, introducing him to Finches’ credit man, St. Paul Rubber Company, Gordon and Ferguson, and to several other wholesale houses, then to Dunn and Bradstreet’s, informing them of the new formed partnership under the firm name Blumenfeld and Sons. Three days later, David paid $5,000 to the Hamm Brewing Company, purchase money on the store building.
This is the meeting I would most want to have witnessed. After all the harsh judgments and negativity towards Al, David has agreed to go into partnership with his son. How did the chasm between them get bridged? How could they possibly work together, and would their enterprise be at all successful? Perhaps David’s torrent of disdain had dissipated, or merely suppressed.
Growing up in St. Paul, the store seemed to me like a sleepy sinecure for the family, a decent source of income but never growing or modernizing. In a poignant way Al’s management of the store allowed David to pursue his writing over the course of the last forty years of his long life, and so there was value added in that respect.
Sadly, in the 1960s the entire street in downtown South St. Paul was demolished for an urban renewal dream that never materialized. The family was paid something for the value of the building, probably less in the dollars of those days than what David had paid for it some fifty years earlier, but enough to support my grandmother Ruth to the end of her very long life. No empire was ever created, no enlargement of the family enterprise beyond the one simple store, lost to urban renewal.
So what do we make of Al’s business venture with David? David had ascended from the lowly status of an uneducated, impoverished immigrant to the owner of a locally prosperous business, enjoying a respected status in his adopted hometown, and while he was achieving all of that he was busy writing his novels, his poetry, and this Diary. Al started with every possible opportunity, with the capital assistance of his father and his in-laws, and without any of the challenges of immigration or relocation. Yet, he failed to achieve anything matching David’s accomplishments; the store was doing no better at the end than when he joined the business, and he accumulated little wealth along the way. He seemed forever burdened by the resonating condemnation of his father, disappointed in his lack of success and yet unable to move beyond the world of local commerce that had been established by David.
So I wonder, am I bonding with David and unfairly adopting his unkind stance of judgment of my grandfather Al, or am I merely seeing with in a clear light the truth of his story? What are the lessons to be learned from reading David’s story of his “quest for success,” and perhaps of greatest importance, what would David have thought of me, and my own searches and ambitions ?
February 7th was a very crisp morning, 10 below zero. David received a telephone call from sister Freda that Mother Leah was suffering from a bad hemorrhage from her nose. David went to see her. She was resting but very weak from loss of blood. Coming home from Minneapolis David went to see Ben-Zion, and found him sleeping. David waited a full hour. When he woke up, Ben-Zion felt despondent and cried with tears in his dim eyes. David consoled him, told him not to take things so to heart as he would soon be better. He laid his head down on the pillow and fell asleep.
When Ben-Zion woke up he felt that he was resting in some timeless reality with his failing body. The sense of immobility deepened until at last, after a lifetime of space speculation he attained the inarticulated certitude of animal fate. He thought he lived many years and his hours must be nigh run out. Yet evidently there was yet sand running in his hour-glass. No one might tell. Perhaps it would be a good bit longer before the stillness would overtake him.
No sooner had David got home than a telephone called him to come to Ben-Zion’s bedside as he was very weak. By the time David reached his bedside he found that he had expired peacefully.
This passage about his father is clearly imagined by David since he was not present and reminds me of the interior monologue and character-building he uses in his novels.
In the meantime, Lena received a call from Freda that Leah was suffering from a repeated hemorrhage. [David’s other] sister Jennie came to see her in Freda’s home, with whom Leah was living, though Freda had not been in her sister’s house for several years.
Leah was thinking now that she did come to the opportunity to talk to her proud daughter. She said, “Yes, Jennie, I am growing old.” Then she remained silent for a moment. Leah told herself without premonition, “Tomorrow, the next day, I will be old. The afternoon is long but the night is still longer. Sleep seems to have deserted me.”
When she looked at Jennie who sat before her in a crushed and depressed mood, she exclaimed, “My daughter: what ails you?”
Jennie told her mother that her only boy had become entangled in the meshes of the law. She said she thought it was nothing but prejudice and spite work from her jealous neighbors. And her only daughter Celia, who married so unhappily, was forced to sue for a divorce, which added to her misery.
We see here that the family animosity extends between the surviving sisters now.
[Leah] answered: “My daughter! The fallacy of your ambition to climb socially through lavish and costly entertainments will not get you into the 400 class, for you lack intellectual refinement. Thy friends have your number. They sneer at you behind your back, scoffing at your absurdity. Tragic problems entered my life when fate dealt cruelty with your father, when everything seemed to turn against him in his efforts to provide a comfortable living for his family. I sometimes wondered as to how he withstood so long without getting despondent.
“One father and mother will take care of ten children, be it ever so hard, giving food, clothing them, educating them and comforting them in their sickness, nursing them back to their health and trying to maintain peace, love, and dignity among them. However, there is not always likely to be the contentment and congeniality among them as it is among the better-fed and well-to-do classes and families.
“But God forbid if parents are unable to lay aside something for a rainy old age, when sickness is bound to set in and one faculty after another begins to fail them and they are unable to take care of themselves. It is rather painful to say that ten children will not willingly take care of their own parents. It stands to reason that the old generation is behind in their way of thinking and acting and a lifelong habit has become their second nature and it is hard and painful to change.
“With all my strength I cared for you, my children, one and all alike without any exception, for if you stay away from your children they soon grow away from you. Today you are in a glorious land. You are enjoying the Lord’s bounty with the best of everything at your command. Why be so heartless to your poorer relatives? My days are drawing to a close. They are limited under my present condition in which I am forced to endure. But one thing is sure I will tell you, my daughter. When a person grows old and feels that they must soon lay down their tools of toil and respond to nature’s call, their [final] wish is to see all of their children for whom they slaved and suffered at their bedside. But sometimes the bitter way turns out to be the best way! I promise thee, as thou liveth a selfish life and alone, so willst thou die alone. It is nature’s law of give and take that automatically rewards for every act.
“The naked truth is always embarrassing, not only among polite society but also to the familiar intercourse with your own children,” Leah finished.
But the few words from her mother made Jennie’s blood rush into her face. She looked at the door with sharp scorn, a passionate scorn that was real and very fiery. She caught her breath. Some sensitive touch gave place to something deeper.
But money has power to heal many wounds and Jennie remained cold to her kiss, and heartless in her deportment beyond [her mother’s] tolerance.
On February 8th, Ben-Zion’s funeral arrangements were completed by the courtesy of Mr. Harry Silverman, President of Temple Aaron. Rabbi Kleinman officiated. Ben-Zion was laid in the first grave in the Temple of Aaron cemetery. In the evening, all South St. Paul Jewry came to gather at David’s home.
Yes, Ben-Zion lived four score and eight years. A life of hard labor, struggle and sorrow. He is through with his earthly adventures. His life that once smiled is now stilled. All jealously, disputes, and rivalry for power is at an end now. May his soul rest in peace.
“400 class” — that is, high society. Jennie has evidently scorned her parents, and perhaps siblings, who apparently are less well off, or at least less ambitious than her.
Here’s that archaic language again; it almost seems like Leah’s quoting Scripture.
Curious section. David seems to be expressing admiration, on some level, for his mother’s strong, censorious dying words. On the other hand, to what extent are they her words, and to what extent are they David’s?
Just as life is only lent to us, David thought, for a few years, but is not inherited in us, so the good which is in us is not our own. It is difficult to think of oneself in this detached spirit. It only needs a little self-knowledge, a little intuition and perception of the ideal. A little sincere religion. There is even much sweetness in this conception that we are nothing of ourselves and that yet it is granted us to summon each other to life and joy and holiness.
The next day, a cold storm was brewing; the wind descended with a vengeance and sounded like distant thunder mingling with the ravings of the tortured. Trees whose branches were tormented by the gale screamed in the fields. Windows clattered and doors swished and seemed to teeter in the tempest. Sister Freda called up, saying Leah was very sick. A few days later, David received a telephone call that so he had another bad hemorrhage spell and a relapse.
“Sincere religion”: Does he mean Judaism?
Or just generic religion?
A week later, David received a special delivery letter from brother Joseph in Wakefield, Nebraska , saying that he was stranded and suffering from a toothache and, having lost his wallet, was asking for $40. David wired this amount to him.
In late March, Lena was again very sick. David felt very uncomfortable as people looked at him. He muttered, “The bad has to be taken with the good. There are extreme instances and then implications are often misleading. God knows I hold no brief for anyone nor anybody.”
Lena had one weakness. She believed all the claims advertised on the radio, and every circular that she received through the mail. As a result her medicine cabinet was full of samples. She thought they were good because some quack doctor said so. But, David thought, he must not be too much surprised at her doings, for at that age women are often a bit feebleminded on that score. Even the most sacred emotion then has a certain theatrical quality.
So Joseph recuperated from his wartime illness and then took off again! Was he just wandering?
“Hold no brief” — that is, “I don’t oppose anyone.” He may well want to believe that, but the following paragraphs, and many throughout the Diary, belie it. Here he seems to resent Lena because her “weakness” — not just in health but in credulity — reflects on him.
“At that age”: Lena at this point is only 55, two years younger than David — or myself today.
It was useless, David thought. The cords in his throat were a quivering mass. There was a high tension in the atmosphere. David sat down, beating a tattoo with his fingers on the table. His eyes stared on the floor where the shadow of the electric light fell and said to himself, “How peculiar the laws of nature are.” At first he felt existence very interesting. The novelty of it fascinated him. He felt an emptiness. He was eager for new sensations, but soon it began to bore him. Its futility, its purposelessness. But all this is just nonsense after all, he thought, and dismissed the subject. He began to philosophize. There was nothing to be said. He shifted one foot over the other. Watching the light glare, his poor brain, he thought, sputtered feebly and impotently in his own defense.
The primitive aggressive impulse of man awakens at the moment he begins to be born in his mother’s womb. He begins to poke, to hit, to kick, and to strive, to want to be free. This tiny baby within writhes and squirms when it is hungry. The whole body of the little being is convulsed with impatience. No matter how helpless with anger, no matter how inarticulate. Already the primitive aggressive impulse is seen, and from the moment of its birth, man carries within himself an ever-growing load of explosive drive and destructive impulse. Soon he learns to hate. This feeling of hatred comes quite spontaneously and is but an emotional reaction, a signal that a wave of aggression is rising above the level of invincibility.
I love the irony here: David takes middle-aged women to task for being “theatrical,” and then starts the next paragraph by describing the “quivering mass” of his vocal cords!
Again David meditates on “laws” — immutable and to be obeyed but at the same time capricious and overwhelming. He considers himself a victim, and this is only occasionally mitigated by his seeing many others as victims too, not that he excuses them.
Existence has novelty, this is a middle aged guy??
Well, David’s early life was far from monotonous. Now he’s long and firmly settled into his career and his innate sense of wonder at the beauties, dangers, and vagaries of the world is atrophying!
Sometime I’d like to become, David mused, a wise man like King Solomon, who arrived at “Vanity of Vanities .” But of course likewise the price of wisdom is above rubies. So in the end, David said too, by all means let’s become wise if we can and here I am . If you decide to get but are unable to attain, for no matter how peace-loving the characteristics man may develop as a full-grown man, he is born with a bundle of aggressive impulses which [have] to be harnessed and restricted. If he is ever to become tolerant, that is, of his fellow man. And this, it seems to him, is the reason of the impulse function of man as any creature to busy himself with this and that detail, to work, to breathe, to feed, to reproduce his kind, live a little and die, leaving behind the evidence of his ceaseless efforts and industry.
The grammar begins to implode here but he seems to be saying his life of hard work — including writing, I guess — is to harness his aggressive impulses toward positive ends.
When David came to America as a young man ignorant of the world and its ways, with youthful passion he fell for the fair maiden. Not knowing her, above all not knowing her narrow, fanatical upbringing. Not knowing any of her relatives, their natures and characteristics. Especially of her three brothers, two of whom were working at the bakery trade in Chicago and who were crude and coarse morally. Few are the young men who can resist sex appeal, and by the thousands they are led to the matrimonial altars to take their vows, “To love, to cherish, and to protect until death do us part,” without first finding out and learning of the young woman’s family tree.
The laws of nature invariably run true to form – that the children of most unions inherit the characteristics of the mother’s brothers. And here David felt unhappy over the separation of his own parents, which was due mainly to economic conditions. David felt pained. It was no prideful matter for him before the few friends who knew him. He didn’t want to have people point at him, as he felt that a disgrace hard to endure.
“Fanatical” means religious, I think. But is religion what they mainly fight about?
I think we should read this as a critique of the decline of arranged marriages.
So, not to get too psychiatric about it, but again he alludes to his impetuous and apparently lust-driven courtship, similar to Al’s. Somehow the hostility he feels toward so many others seems to be an aspect of his own shame and inadequacy. He’s ashamed of his parents’ separating, for starters. But it seems odd that he fears that his children have inherited the Laser men’s perceived moral faults because of Al’s and Helen’s impulsive marriages. That reflects badly on him, but his inclusion of himself in the hereditary issue is much obscured!
A Letter From Berl the Zameter
One warm August afternoon while David was sitting at his desk wiping the perspiration from his forehead and complaining of the heat of the day, the mail carrier handed to him a large square envelope with a Palestinian postmark. He opened the strange letter impatiently and was stunned to receive a letter with an enclosed Hebraic New Year card from his long-forgotten friend and boyhood pal, Berl the Zameter, of whom he had not heard since he saw him in 1893 at the Chicago World’s Fair of 32 years before.
In his long letter Berl stated that the World War had brought a sad fate upon him. He had lost two sons, the older a civil engineer with the Allenby Camel Corps, who fell at Jabveh; and the second son an electrical engineer who died at Mizpah, near Jerusalem. Added to this was the loss of his entire fortune in the great Salonica (now Thessaloniki) fire, and to cap the climax of his catastrophes, his youngest son, who was his assistant superintendent in the factory, had dared to enter the burning factory to try to save some of the priceless designs from the drafting room. The building collapsed and pinned him down. A beam struck him dead under the debris. Berl himself lost the sight of his left eye in the same fire.
Interesting arithmetical error, 1893 being only 27 years earlier. Was David revising this 1920 passage in 1925?
This is fascinating, the sons could have been in the Zion Mule Corps, a Jewish section of the British Army, or possibly regular soldiers in the British army.
After Berl had regained his composure he tried to save some parts of the machinery from the ruins and left for Jerusalem with the hope of recouping his lost fortune in his old age, as his vigor had not forsaken him. He invited David to visit him in the Land of Israel, which holds out great promises for freedom from anti-Semitism and hopes for a revival of the old forms of political independence in the future.
David was exceedingly elated over the letter from his friend. He was grieved over his misfortune, sending him a letter of condolence and expressing the hope that he might some day visit him in the Holy Land.
The two old guys from Lithuania are the supporters of Zionism.
Alas, David never made it, although Belle and her husband eventually did.
Poor Leah died just eight months after Ben-Zion was laid to rest. Her funeral was on Hoshanah Rabbah, 1920. She was laid to rest in the Minneapolis O.B.A. cemetery [Order Beruth Abraham Cemetery, now known as the Minneapolis Jewish Cemetery] in compliance with her wishes not to lay her near her husband, a superstition she entertained during her lifetime.
She didn’t need any time to prepare. Her whole life was a preparation to meet her maker. She had made her white shroud from pure linen with her own hands.
Yes! Death is a terrifying thing, a wound that inflicts on the tender hearts of the survivors such pain that they bury their animosity, hardships and calamities of life. All ambitions, pride, and vanity are forgiven.
The memories of my mother are a relief to me in recalling the melancholy time, the years of my youth that were wasted and [ill] conducted. …The very thought of that [memory of her], the fullest, richest and happiest in life, has always been powerful to me. May her soul rest in peace.
What did he do wrong in his youth?
And here this Diary comes to a crashing halt. I can’t help but wonder whether at this point David turned to writing novels since the story arc of his parents’ lives had come to an end and he didn’t see his own life as being worthy of continuing the saga.
Do we understand why David has relented, or hasn’t he?