Page 151 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Marriage and departure

cool, so I was wearing an overcoat and walked with my hands in the
pockets. Surprisingly, she complained of being cold, and put her hand
in my overcoat pocket; I wrapped it in the palm of my hand. Both
hearts were beating then in unison. Words were unnecessary. We
walked in silence, but two hands were locked in love, locked for
forty-three years until that hand, chiseled like marble, dropped out of
my hand when life was extinguished in its owner.
When one is young and in love, one cannot describe—as do the
poets and romanticists—the feelings one goes through at a moment
like that. It is really a great moment when love is pure and true; like a
soldier who would make the supreme sacrifice for his country, one
who is in love, first love, would do the same thing for his girl. This is
something which is in all beings. I have seen it in birds, who will fight
to the death for their mates, and other animals do the same. In later
years, when I went back east to work in the quartermaster’s office in
the First World War, I stopped over in Olean, and visited Fannie’s
aunt. I had a laugh on her.
After that event I decided to ask her parents for her hand in
marriage; as the saying goes, “you cannot hide love, smoke, or age.”
We did not have an engagement, but once her parents consented,
Fannie told everyone we were engaged. I also decided to marry
within a few months and go with my future wife to Los Angeles,
California. To Fannie, going to California was a honeymoon; but she
was young and not well-versed in money matters—and the five
hundred dollars I had in the bank looked like five thousand in those
days. Her mother and father did not like the idea of my taking her so
far away in a strange country, without any prospect of making a
living, but Fannie had confidence and faith in me. It was brave of her
to venture out to such a destination, leaving her family, and going
among strangers with me. She was not dominated by me; to the
contrary, she was more than an equal, leading and encouraging me in
many a distress.
The mother of the girl was glad to see her married, as all mothers
are. To get rid of one daughter, when you have two more on hand, is
not so hard for parents, and Esther Cohen was like other Jewish
women in easily judging a nice quiet young man and trusting him.
Not so her father, who was a simple Jew, orthodox in religion but
147