Page 186 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

The First World War and after

universe—as we can grasp it—is imperfect, constantly in motion,
changing ad infinitum throughout the trillions of years since its
inception.
We moved into the house in August 1926, and a few weeks later
we had a housewarming. We had the furniture from the house on
Twenty-first Street, which was not very much, as I was able to move
all our belongings on my own truck. Later on we bought a little more,
until we had a comfortable home. One can have a dwelling stuffed
with furniture of different periods and models, walls plastered with
pin-ups or pin-downs, and shelves filled to the ceiling with bric-a-
brac, but one finds comfort when his mind is pleased by a good
book, in the understanding shared by an intelligent couple, and in the
greatest pleasure: children who are intelligent, educated, modest, and
good. Our two daughters were growing up in this house. They made
fine grades in school, and Hilda soon graduated high school and
entered the university. I worked hard, but I enjoyed paying for their
education, their new books.
Someone said that a house without books is like a body without a
soul; I would say, without a brain. I attribute my daughters’ education
and fine intelligence to the poor furniture and many shelves of books,
good books that I accumulated in the house. Fannie had a fine ear
and eye, and when she heard the girls practice their music or their
English lessons, they could not get by with a wrong note or wrong
sentence without being corrected. Fannie could become furious when
hearing the same mistake repeated in a piece of music. I had to bawl
her out when she pinched Hilda’s arm while playing the violin. Hilda
burst into tears, Fannie insisted that she keep on playing, and I began
to thunder and condemn music altogether.
It was an ideal I cherished, to have my children brought up in the
Jewish spirit and have a knowledge of our cultural inheritance—
which could only be appreciated in the original Hebrew language. I
tried to instill Hebrew in my children, teaching them myself and
paying the price for private lessons; but, although they accumulated
enough for the foundation of learning a language, it did not turn out
how I had hoped. The surroundings, the sparse lessons, and
strenuous work in the public schools to make good grades overcame
all my efforts, and just a faint memory was left to them of the
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