Page 38 - WhyAsInY

Why (as in yaverbaum)
•••
As I have said, my mother, Justine, was the daughter of Fanny Flexer and Harry Caplan, both of whom died before my mother reached twenty. Fanny died of a coronary in 1928, when my mother (who was born on April 27, 1916) was only twelve; Harry, who was an accomplished pro- fessional portrait photographer and a teacher of chemistry and mathematics, died less than seven years later. Mom grew up with her sisters in Crown Heights, Brooklyn. She graduated from Erasmus Hall High School and thereafter commuted by subway to Hunter College in Manhattan, from which she graduated with a B.A. in home economics.
Of my mother’s grandparents I know absolutely nothing. That’s right, absolutely nothing. I’m pretty sure, however, that neither they nor those who came before them had anything to do with the Mayflower Compact, the War between the States or, to the best of my knowledge, the assassination of President McKinley in Buffalo. The fact is, my mother never spoke about her non-immediate family’s history and, had one of the Caplan clan come over on the Mayflower, I’m pretty sure that that fact would have merited constant repetition, not just as a matter of pride but also, as with most other stories that Mom told me, as an object lesson (in the case of the Mayflower, for example, “and that’s why you should never go close to or, God forbid, lean over the rail”). All that hav- ing been said, judging from her religious practices (such as they were), her politics, her strong belief in education, the pride with which she would be sure to tell me that a particular scientist, TV or movie star, writer, or even baseball player was Jewish (Al Rosen! Hank Greenberg!! Sandy Koufax!!!), the dishes that she cooked, and the company that she kept, among numerous other things, it seemed clear that her family was of Eastern European origin. (My cousin Avis believes that my maternal great-grandparents came from someplace in Russia but is not sure; appar- ently, both Fanny and Harry Caplan were born in the United States.)
Just why my mother never spoke of her grandparents or those who preceded them is not clear to me. It’s hard to believe that she knew nothing, but it’s also true that, because her grandparents had died before she was born and she hardly knew her own parents, she might never
• 20 •