You Can't Imagine This Life. Diaries and Letters of a Southern-Jewish Grande Dame, Josephine Joel Heyman, 1901-1993
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Louisiana State University LSU Digital Commons LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses Graduate School 1999 You Can't Imagine This Life. Diaries and Letters of a Southern-Jewish Grande Dame, Josephine Joel Heyman, 1901-1993. Cynthia Betty Levy Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses Recommended Citation Levy, Cynthia Betty, "You Can't Imagine This Life. Diaries and Letters of a Southern-Jewish Grande Dame, Josephine Joel Heyman, 1901-1993." (1999). LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses. 6920. https://digitalcommons.lsu.edu/gradschool_disstheses/6920 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate School at LSU Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in LSU Historical Dissertations and Theses by an authorized administrator of LSU Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 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A Dissertation Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy m The Department of English by Cynthia Betty Levy B.A., University of North Carolina, 1973 M.F.A., Louisiana State University, 1990 May 1999 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. U M I Number: 9926421 Copyright 1999 by Levy, Cynthia Betty All rights reserved. UMI Microform 9926421 Copyright 1999, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. © Copyright 1999 Cynthia Betty Levy All rights reserved ii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. This project is dedicated to the memory of Dr. Josephine Roberts, because she made it possible. iii Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Acknowledgments I would like to thank the countless people who helped me in this endeavor. First, I would like to thank my professors at Lousiana State University and my colleagues at Southern University. Special gratitude goes to my adviser, Dr. Panthea Reid, and committee members Dr. Peggy Prenshaw, Dr. John Lowe, and Dr. Rosan Jordan, and my office-mate Tom Morgan for their time and experience. I owe them a great deal. I am especially grateful for the support and understanding of my husband, Terry Howey, and son, B J., parents, aunts and uncles, siblings, in-laws, and other relatives and friends. I thank my neighbors — Carolyn Autry for home cooked meals, Susan Leonards for sanctuary, and Mrs. Duncan for prayers. I appreciate the Baton Rouge and New Orleans Jewish community members who encouraged me, particularly Rabbis Weinstein, Jacob, Caplan, and Blackman. I want to remember the many people in Atlanta who generously shared their thoughts with me. Family and friends of Mrs. Josephine Joel Heyman gave me so much important information, especially Elinor Heyman Wittenstein and Arthur Heyman and their families. A special appreciation goes to Sandy Berman of the Ida Pearle and Joseph Cuba Community Archives for her intelligent comments and invaluable assistance. Thank you to the National Endowment of the Humanities for support for this project. Thank you to the Lousiana State University GRADS Travel Fund for support for this project. Although numerous Southern and Southem-Jewish women were generous with their resources, special thanks go to Mona Lisa Saloy, Barbara Hart Dukoff, Janice Rubin, Ann Streiffer, Brenda Macon, Charlotte Smith, Jackie Tucker, Beth Michel, and Bettie Mae Redler. iv Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Although I am not able to name everyone who helped me, I am deeply grateful to each who did. Now I hope readers will enjoy visiting Mrs. Josephine Menko Joel Heyman. v Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Preface I, of all things, was red haired and bom Jewish. I don't know why, it just happened. I couldn’t find the Temple in Atlanta, Georgia. Each time I drove up and down Peachtree Street, back and forth, and turned around, I passed a huge, white, plantation style United States Post Office with a row of fat white columns lit up by floodlights like the giant Christmas trees proudly displayed at Southern mansions during the festive season. I was visiting Atlanta while working on a manuscript about Jewish women in the Southern part of the United States, and I wanted to attend the Friday night Shabbat service, but the service had started at eight o’clock, and by now it was practically nine. Once more I glanced down at the address written on my manila file folder on the front seat of my car. The address appeared to be the Peachtree Post Office. I steered the car up the drive toward the apparent Post Office, only to find that it was the Temple, an old, established Reform synagogue. Typical of Reform Jewish life in the South, the Temple blended into the Southern landscape. Once I’d figured out the Temple was the Temple, I was able to attend the Oneg Shabbat, the reception after the Shabbat service. I introduced myself to the assistant rabbi, a woman who said, "Let me introduce you to Mrs. Heyman. I’m sure you'll want to interview her." Thus began my acquaintance with Mrs. Josephine Heyman in 1989. At eighty-eight years old Mrs. Heyman's small boned, blue-eyed face was surrounded by soft white curls deeply hued in red. She plunged into involved, funny family stories about observing both Hanukkah and Christmas, and she promised to repeat them later into my tape recorder at an interview. On Monday morning at the Jewish Community Archives in the Atlanta Jewish Federation building, archivist Sandra Berman pointed to a cardboard box of recently donated adolescent diaries and young adult letters from Mrs. Heyman, bom in 1901. Her personal documents painted the portrait of a quintessential Reform Jewish Atlanta female in vi Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the early part of the century. These honest and sincere records of her daily life, times, and struggles, although not tragic, reminded me of the wonderful spirit, character, honesty, strength, love, goodness, happiness, and beauty reflected in Anne Frank's diary. A few days later I visited Josephine Heyman in her one bedroom apartment in an exclusive Atlanta retirement high-rise. We sat in her small living room, adorned with the same classical aesthetic sense possessed by the stereotypical upper-class and upper middle- class white Christian Southerner, as evidenced by the demurely covered, stuffed couch and chair, the chiming grandfather clock, and the lamps with frilled shades. On top of tables and the bureau were the silver tea set, the cut glass brandy decanter and small brandy glasses, the red and white mints in the crystal bowl, and the box of chocolate truffles. Over in the comer against the wall on her shelves of glass, amidst other small memorabilia, the Hebrew word, SHALOM, delicately sculpted within a Jewish menorah, somehow fit right in with the rest of the decor. I was in a genteel Southern environment, but I was in a Jewish home. At first I thought that Mrs. Heyman epitomized the stereotype one might have of a Southern-Jewish belle. After all, most of her life she was well taken care of materially, and during the most difficult times she had