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Patricia Erens

THIS IS WHERE I CAME IN by Patricia Brett Erens

Chicago 2014 For my children, my grandchildren and whoever follows this is where i came in 5

Preface

I am not sure why other people write a memoir, but in my case I wanted to document my life so that I could pass on some history about myself and other members of our family. Many of these stories and anecdotes have now become family legends. But others will be new. A full family genealogy is provided in the Appendix for those who are interested. The celebrated news reporter, Barbara Walters, claimed that the best time to release an autobiography is in your 70s, so my timing is right. Although I begin with my earliest memory and progress chronologically, this is not an autobiography that seeks to objectively and dispassionately cover every aspect of my life. Rather it is a memoir in the French sense meaning memory or reminiscence. As readers will discover, I frequently jump back and forth in time when I want to make connections between the past and later events and the reason for these jumps is associative and emotional. What appears on the following pages are the important events as I remember them and the people who played a significant part in my life. Most importantly I have tried to reconstruct my feelings at the time about what happened. Obviously everything derives from my perspective with all its limitations. I may be mistaken about some of what I have recorded and may have forgotten to include many things. I have tried to be as honest about myself as possible and to be truthful about others as well. Hopefully I will not create any ill will. Surely some readers will disagree with my interpretations. Another motivating factor for taking on this project is as a way of summing up: what kind of life have I lived, what did I accomplish, what did it all mean? What might I have done differently and what regrets do I now have? In looking at the arc of my life I was surprised to discover that I am almost exactly the same person I was as a young child. I do think I remember reading that about age three 6 our personalities are set. I believe I am the same curious, enthusiastic, somewhat rebellious person I was when I was quite young. Which is not to say I have not learned anything over the last 75 years. Happily I can report that I have few regrets. Of the many dreams I had, I have accomplished most of them. I believe that I have lived an active and fully engaged life. There were several academic degrees, many scholarly books, lots of organizational work, and a great deal of world travel. But the meaningful aspect of my life is my family - my two children, Pamela and Bradley, and my five grandchildren, Jacki, Abraham, Hannah, Sam and Willy - and my dear friends, who have supported and nurtured me for so long, especially Shom Klaff, who I have known for over fifty years. A few more thanks. I am deeply indebted to Dr. Edward Goldfarb who took over where Harold Balikov left off, helping me go backward so I could move forward, helping me discover new insights that gave me options for living a fuller, happier life. And to Sigalit Zetouni and Amy Doubet-Devitt, my two intrepid book designers who stayed with me for the long haul, never complaining about the endless changes and never allowing me to compromise for other than the most beautiful book ever. I began working on this memoir in 2001 and many things have changed since then. I have lost some dear friends, most importantly Ophira ben Arieh, whose intelligence, humor and independence I always admired. Also, as I finish writing, Bradley and Lisa Erens are sadly in the progress of divorce. In closing, I would like to thank Pamela Erens for the time she took from her own writing to copyedit my manuscript. This book would not have been the same without her input. this is where i came in 7

From the Beginning

Here is the story of my life as best I remember it. How truthful should I be; how truthful can I be? What is the story I want to tell? It seems to me that my life divides into three equal parts. First there is my childhood and growing up which took about 22 years. This ends with my marriage, although I’m not so sure how grown up I really was when that took place. Next came the middle years, children and advanced degrees. This ends 24 years later in divorce. And the last quarter covers my years as a single woman. Being single does not mean that I was alone, however. There were several men in my life after Jay, but more about that later. What is my first memory? I recall being in a hotel room at some seaside resort. It was probably Wildwood, a beach in New Jersey that my parents went to every summer in the 1940s. I was probably about three. I seem to picture myself running away from my mother, round and round the beds. She evidently wanted to put some alcohol (or whatever they used at that time) on a mosquito bite and I was trying to avoid the sting. Round and round I went. I am sure she eventually caught me. Odd that such a trivial event would stick in my mind after all these years. However, to a certain degree it is illustrative of the rest of my life or at least my relationship with my mother. She was always trying to perform some task on me which usually hurt, but, of course, was for my own good. To be fair, that is the role of a good mother. On the other hand, I was always thwarting her, running the other way. I always felt trapped by her, as I was in that little hotel room. And in the end, she always caught me, until I was old enough to leave home. But little did I understand that I never really got away from her. Wherever I went, I took her along inside. There are probably four events that have defined my life and the most profound was, not surprisingly, the earliest, which occurred when I was one month shy of three. To avoid suspense, I will name the other three, although I will write about them later where they most properly belong: number two has to be my marriage to 8

Jay that not only brought me to Chicago, a city I dearly love, but also helped create Pamela and Bradley, the heart of my heart and the bone of my bones. I cannot imagine any two more wonderful human beings. They have not only been there for me without question, but they have grown into responsible, mature adults, who have created families of their own and are leading meaningful lives. And to give credit to where credit is due, Jay provided me with a wonderful lifestyle during our twenty years together and was in part responsible for providing with the means to continue that lifestyle (with some other help) for the rest of my life. The third event was my psychoanalysis with Harold Balikov, a kind and compassionate man and a terrific analyst. I credit him with saving my life or the emotional part of my life, helping me finally grow into a self-confident woman who was able to find inner peace, although the full extent of that peace was not evident until many years later. The fourth event was my choice to pursue a doctorate in the new discipline of film studies at Northwestern University which eventually led to a career as a university professor that took me all over the world. It not only brought me a small degree of recognition and needed income in the latter half of my life, but it became a vital part of my physical and mental well-being, organizing my weeks, stimulating my intellectual curiosity and putting me in touch with young people and new ideas. Despite the many pleasures my life has provided, there is no place I would rather be than in the classroom. And finally, it is hard to sum up my life without including my friend Shom, who is not simply a best friend, but something between a sister and a lover. By now I understand that there are all kinds of love and certainly there is a place for a love between two people of the same sex that is not homosexual. I don’t remember when Shom and I began checking in with each other every night to share the day’s events and to process whatever was on our minds, but it has been decades and I can’t imagine that I could have gotten through my life without her. Pity the poor souls that don’t have a friend like that. So to begin at the beginning or rather at two years, 11 months. While most every other event in my life has been a positive, the initial event was traumatic. It has sadly marked almost every relationship in my life and left its impression on my emotional life. The details are as follows. Our family had just moved into 1606 Nicholson Street and my mother was eight or so months pregnant. When it was time for her to go into the hospital to deliver my brother Monroe, my parents decided on an overnight day care center somewhere on Georgia Avenue near Silver Springs. At that time, women stayed in “lying in” for up to two weeks or more. So sometime around the end of April, I was taken to a place I had never seen, where I didn’t know a single person and where I was separated from both my this is where i came in 9 parents. I don’t remember anything about this place, but I have some symptoms which have helped me to reconstruct a few things. The strongest sensation is that when I am cold, I become anxious. Some people love cold, crisp weather, but not me. I am guessing that this child care center was cold or at least not the 72 degrees that my mother used to heat our house. This is logical as most institutions would be concerned about the cost of heating. Or it might be wrong as the end of April in Washington would normally be mild, but it is a guess. Obviously I would have cried and begged to go home, but that did not happen. Years later my mother said my father came every day to visit, but clearly he did not take me home. I asked why they did not send me to my grandparents. Her answer was that she did not want to bother them. It is true that my mother’s mother was always sick and her father was Orthodox, but my father’s mother was very youthful and could easily have handled me. I think my parents thought of themselves as modern and they were doing the modern thing. In later years when I voiced my objection to that decision, my mother replied that it was very clean. Cleanliness, of course, had high priority in my mother’s thinking. What actually happened there I do not know. I suppose we ate and played and went to sleep. I can only imagine how scared I was and I do know it produced a lifelong fear of abandonment, especially by those who I was most attached to. I would like to say it made me strong and self-reliant, but I don’t think that is true. It did make me supersensitive to any signal that I was not pleasing a loved one, for, as a three year old, I probably concluded I must have been sent to this place as a punishment for something I did wrong. For why else would I have been there? Whatever was explained about a coming baby did not seem to penetrate. But as the days went on (and I do not know for sure whether I was there for one week or one month), it must have seemed endless. I am sure I felt that my parents were never planning to take me home. Sadness and fear eventually turned into anger and rage, especially when I finally did go home. And not only was there a new baby to knock me out of my spot as the only child and the center of my parents’ attention, but I came home with chicken pox and measles and therefore had to be isolated in my room. As best I can fathom, I used whatever weapons I had to get back at my parents. Of course, I didn’t have much of an arsenal at age three, but I could withhold affection and that is what I did. I would not let anyone, especially my mother, hold or hug me. I’m sure I didn’t figure out that that deprived me of affection as well and I never really grew out of this manner with my mother. And even with others, I am not big on hugs and kisses and holding. For another child, the return home might have ended in big tears and hugs and kisses, but this was not how my experience played out. 10

Perhaps all this could have been healed, but there were later dismissals and exiles, particularly summer camp, that reinforced the three year old experience. And most sadly, it affected my relationship with the men later in life. Any hesitation on the part of a lover, any criticism or separation, was always taken by me as a prelude to total abandonment. And the pain was sometimes excruciating, sometimes leading to depression. Balikov hypothesized that I had had a childhood depression. I didn’t even know that children could be depressed, but now having read a lot more on the subject, it is quite likely that that did occur. For the boyfriends who came and went, it ultimately didn’t matter that much; just part of the dating game. But it severely affected my relationship with Jay. There were many problems in the marriage so I don’t want to conclude that this three year old drama doomed my marriage, but it played a part. Another experience from childhood, actually I would say infancy, was feeding time. I don’t remember this, but my mother assured me that it happened. I was never a good eater, probably because I was always petite and didn’t require a lot of food. In the 1930s when everything about childcare was dictated out of a book by experts, mothers felt it was important for children to eat a certain amount. Nowadays the children determine how much they eat and just about everything else. Well, evidentially I wasn’t eating enough to satisfy the experts and my mother was upset and worried. And nothing she did seemed to convince me to open my mouth (I was already an early rebel), so she held my nose, thus forcing me to open my mouth, whereupon she shoveled in the food. No comment on that technique. It was said that my middle name Fae (coming from the Yiddish faygele, which means little bird) was quite appropriate as I “ate like a bird.” It also turned out when I grew older that I was missing both of my adult eye teeth. According to my dentist, this was nature’s way of compensating for the fact that I had a very small mouth. One more fact from these years, I was a neatnik from early on. My mother always said that my socks were lined up like soldiers. I suspect this gave me some sense of control when, as a child, I felt I had so little. Just before I was three, we moved into 1606 Nicholson Street which was in the third alphabet going up 16th Street away from the White House. Streets were arranged first by one syllable, followed by two syllable names and finally by three syllables. Nicholson had three syllables and thus it was almost at the end of 16th Street leading into Maryland. As you entered the house there was a dining room on the right, a living room on the left and a staircase straight ahead. Behind that was a tiny den and the kitchen was in the back. All the rooms were pretty small by today’s standards, but I didn’t know that at the time. Many years later (2004), I bought a house at 107 East this is where i came in 11

Sycamore Street in Three Oaks, Michigan. I fell in love with it at first sight (for many good reasons). It took me awhile to realize that the reason it seemed so comfortable and familiar was because the staircase was right in front as you entered the front door, just like at Nicholson Street. And, of course, I planted a dogwood tree and boxwood bushes creating another homage to my home in Washington, D.C. Upstairs were the bedrooms. First my brother’s, then mine and then my parents. I had a room in the front of the house that looked out over the trees on Nicholson Street. This was quite lovely. My brother and I shared a bathroom at the end of the hall and my parents had their own. My parents slept in twin beds which was quite common at the time. The furniture was pseudo French and was given to them by my mother’s father, I think. The outstanding piece was a tall bureau where my father kept his important papers. My mother also had a makeup table with a mirror. On the glass top she kept a fancy comb and brush set with a long yellow tassel. I still have these. The house was second from the corner and there was an alley that separated our house from the house next door. It was on a quiet street in a good neighborhood and it terminated at the end of the block with a small cliff. Both the alley and the cliff are important. The house next door was brick like ours (this was very common in Washington), but it was much larger and it belonged to the embassies of Washington, D.C. Each year one family moved out and another moved in. It gave the neighborhood an international flavor, although I don’t think my mother saw it that way. In her mind certain countries were to be admired; others not. Some of the families had children which was always a great treat. However, when the Italians moved in, I was not allowed to play with the children because they reeked of garlic, a spice that my mother deemed very low class. As I was growing up my brother and I became aware that there was a black family living in a shack at the bottom of the cliff at the end of the block. This was probably in the 1940s, quite a while before the D.C. schools were integrated and no doubt this family would have been referred to as Negro. I needn’t explain that the residents were not very happy about having a black family so nearby. However, we were told that no one could make them move because they had a piece of paper signed by Abraham Lincoln that gave them the right to the land. I suppose it must have been true, because the residents never succeeded in getting them out. I think they had children as well and although I don’t recall that I was ever brave enough to go down the cliff, I do think I wondered about them a lot. Living on Nicholson Street was not a lot of fun. My mother had succeeded in moving us here, which was considered an upscale neighborhood, but there were few children to play with. The man across the street was a judge and he had a big 12 white dog that I was afraid of. I continue to be afraid of dogs to this day. The couple across the street on the corner had a mansion. It was very impressive. They were old and I was afraid of the wife. I never saw the inside of either of these houses. My earliest school memory was the last day of kindergarten. We all came in costume and put on a performance. I was dressed in a tutu and walked on a chalk line like a tightrope dancer. However, the day was ruined because my underpants fell down. I was miserable and embarrassed. But it was not sufficient to kill my love for school or to squelch my natural curiosity. I’m sure I became a teacher just so I could stay in school. In fact, when I graduated from grammar school, I gave the class speech. I can’t remember what I said, but I do remember the sheer blue dress which was very grown up and feminine. I attended Brightwood Elementary School which was walking distance from my house. In those days, I walked home for lunch. There were a few children who had working mothers and they brought lunch boxes and stayed at school. I felt sorry for them. I especially felt bad for the children who were given meatloaf for lunch. I thought that it smelled terrible and was disgusting. My lunches were almost the same every day for the first twelve years of my life. After that I ate in the school cafeteria at Paul Junior High. Lunch consisted of sour cream and cottage cheese (which oddly I still eat) or cream cheese and sliced olives on raisin bread. This was served on our red Formica kitchen table which was the fashion of the day. I remember it now as pretty ugly, although 1950s furniture is back in fashion. As was the custom of the times, my mother made breakfast and served my father. Once in awhile we had something different and fun to eat. My mother loved pomegranates and we had one each season. They were difficult to eat and you had to work hard sucking to get any satisfaction. Likewise, she loved crab claws. Again, it was a lot of work for very little food. Two other brief memories from grammar school. The whole class went to the bathroom together at mid-morning and mid-afternoon. We would line up and this was one of the times it was good to be short as I was always first in line. In fifth or sixth grade I used to go to the lower grades to read books to them. My favorite book was Madeline. In a house in Paris all covered with vines Lived 12 little girls in two straight lines In two straight lines they broke their bread and brushed Their teeth and went to bed The youngest one was Madeline. I naturally bought this book for Pamela when she was little and my mother purchased an original sketch by Bemelmans from the book. It now hangs in Hannah’s room, Pamela’s daughter. this is where i came in 13

By the time I was 10, I was allowed to walk home with my friends. We often played hopscotch on the sidewalk. Once, I took off my white cardigan with the red and blue trim and hung it on a stair railing while I jumped the spaces. When I came home my mother noticed I didn’t have the matching sweater. I ran back to fetch it as I knew exactly where it was. Unfortunately, it had rained and the cardigan was soaking wet and ruined. My mother was very, very angry as she always was when I lost or damaged anything. My mother was very frightening when I was young and even later. Although I fought with her, I was always afraid not to please her. When I did something she didn’t like, I received the silent treatment. She just didn’t talk to me, and it felt like she had withdrawn her love. This was pretty scary, so in the end, I corrected my bad behavior or apologized, anything to end the silence. In later years Jay did the same thing. Were they in league? How did I find two people who pulled the same stunt? Sometimes she was angry enough to slap me. She explained this was because she was poor when she was my age and if something was lost or damaged it was a tragic event and could not be replaced. But we were not poor and so I could never really understand why she was so mad. Another early experience I remember was more important than just our family. This was the death of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Like many Jewish families in America at that time, my parents revered FDR. He died on April 12, 1945; I would have been seven. I don’t remember too much about that day except that when you picked up the telephone, you couldn’t get a dial tone because so many people were trying to call at the same time. Like other things in those days, the health of the president had not been talked about in the press, so most people did not realize how sick he was and his death came as a great shock. Childhood and politics also played into another experience that centers on the Japanese surrender. I was at summer camp and we were all in the dining hall on August 15, 1945. The radio was on and everyone was waiting for the final announcement. Suddenly I had to go to the bathroom, but I didn’t want to leave the building to go to the outhouse. But after a point I couldn’t hold it any longer and so I left. When I was sitting on the toilet, I heard screams from the dining hall, so I knew I had missed the great event. I went to several summer camps beginning at the age of five. The first camp was called Wahelo. All the camps had Indian names and Jewish campers. There were eight little girls in the bunk and the counselors were all older women dressed in white nurses’ uniforms. I don’t remember very much except that I cried a lot and hoped my parents would come and take me home. That never happened and so I vowed at age of five never to cry again. And I held to this decision for many, many years. 14

After two years at Wahelo, I went to Camp Akiba in the Pocahano Mountains of Pennsylvania. This was a rather expensive camp (mother always believed in the best); we had uniforms and every morning there was an announcement on the P.A. system that told us what to wear for the day. At line up at the flagpole I always thought it was very beautiful to see all the girls dressed in the same yellow shirts and navy blue shorts. The camp was owned by a Philadelphia family. It was somewhat religious, at least by my experiences. Before and after we ate, we said a prayer and then sang Hebrew songs. I liked the songs, although I never understood what the Hebrew meant. There were two other girls from Washington and three from Paterson, New Jersey. We became a group. My best friend was one of the girls from New Jersey. I looked up to her and although we were friends, I suspect I liked her better than she liked me. I wasn’t very fond of camp. For one thing, I wasn’t good at sports and when they picked teams, I was always the one left standing alone. Maybe that never really happened and is just a bad joke, but it could have been true. However, what was true was the degree I acted out in order to either gain attention or simply to rebel. One way was to stop eating or at least eat as little as possible. Naturally that concerned the counselors and camp owners and so I was sent to the dining room an hour ahead of the other campers. Imagine how important I must have felt to have a counselor assigned just to me to watch me push around the mashed potatoes on my plate and build little mountains of white fluff. I also was an instigator. One season I helped make our counselor miserable enough to quit. I don’t remember all the details, but I do remember a group of us cutting out name tapes from our bunk’s camp clothes so that when they came back from the laundry no one would know whose was whose. Camp was always a problem for me even before I became a rebel. I seem to always have been fearful. On one camp trip, the whole bunk had walked to the local general store and was on the road going back. It was hot and everyone was tired. One of the counselors flagged down a man with an empty automobile. The campers piled in, but because my mother had warned me about getting in a car with a stranger, I refused and so one unhappy counselor had to walk me back herself. One other camp memory. There were usually one or two visiting days for parents. No matter what, my parents always arrived last. This was not surprising as my father was a very slow driver and I can still hear my mother saying, “Ben, drive a little faster.” When my parents finally arrived, my mom said they were hot and felt dirty and wanted to go to their motel before they visited. I was disappointed. But beyond that, I remember wondering, “What does it mean to feel dirty?” this is where i came in 15

Overall, I didn’t like being away from home. Although my mother and I had our problems, I still preferred home to being at camp. Later when I asked her why I had to go, she said, “I have worked very hard all year being a mother and now I need a rest.” That did not endear me to camp or to her. At home I had my whole world, especially in my own room, my private world. I had two beautiful beds pushed together to look like a king size bed, covered with a pink quilted bedspread. There were also some soda fountain chairs spray painted white with pink seat pads that came from my father’s drug store after he closed the soda fountain. And on the walls there was a mural with ballet dancers that my mother had hired someone to hand paint. At camp I shared a room with seven other girls and only had a plain wooden cubbyhole. The shower room was always cold and a lot of the camp activities were dirty and not much fun. Even at home, I didn’t like being outside. I couldn’t figure out what you were supposed to do outside, especially as there weren’t any children to play with. But my mother would send me out to the backyard and within minutes I would be back inside, preferring to do my arts and crafts. I didn’t read much as a child. And I didn’t really like dolls. Finally, my mother started to lock the screen door so I couldn’t get in. A few more things from childhood. One I don’t remember very well, but was told about. I had my tonsils taken out when I was about three. That was something popular at the time. The doctors don’t believe in this anymore. I don’t know what I was told before going in; probably that it wouldn’t hurt, which was a lie. My throat was sore for days, but I was rewarded with all the ice cream I could eat. Another practice from the 1940s was x-raying children’s feet in a wooden machine with a green light. At the shoe store, we all loved to put our feet in the machine and see our bones. It was only many years later that we learned how dangerous that was. Right before kindergarten or possibly first grade, a new family moved to our neighborhood. They were the Singers and their son, Herbie, was just my age. We did all kinds of things that children do, but I remember certain incidents in particular because they got us in trouble. We decided to make plaster of paris casts, which were popular at that time. The casts came out fine, but we worked on his mother’s antique table, which wasn’t so fine. Nothing happened to me, but I think Herbie came in for some punishment. Herbie also had a pair of electric scissors. He decided to try them out on me. At that time I wore four braids – two in front on the side of a center part and two running down my back ending with a ribbon bow. My mother did these each morning with great care. I stood in front of her while she did the braiding. I didn’t like that too much, but as with many things in my childhood, my mother had the final word. 16

One morning when she began to brush out my hair, the hair came out in big bunches and one whole braid ended up in her hand. She let out a scream and her pain was visceral. She whisked me off to the barber shop and I ended up with bangs to cover the bald spot in the front of my head. When I started school I was also missing a few front teeth, and so I was a sorry sight indeed. Again, I think Herbie took the brunt of the punishment. The Singers stayed in the neighborhood for a few years, but then moved to a more expensive location. Mr. Singer owned a laundry and I remember hearing that Mrs. Singer had the sheets changed every night instead of once a week like we did. The laundry was co-owned by a family named Fratkin and years later Monie (the family nickname for my brother, Monroe) married Ilene, one of the Fratkin daughters. While I am on the subject of punishment, mine would always be to stand in the corner or go to my room. Being the child I was, I always let my mother know how much I liked being in the corner. And as far as going to my room, that was my world. What else did I do as a child? I played jump rope, jacks and pickup sticks. I was good at the two latter games. I also had a rubber band ball that my mother made for me. You start with a piece of foil and then just keep adding rubber bands. It bounces very high and I was very proud of it. In the summer we caught fireflies in bottles. We also sat on the stoop before the days of air conditioning or we would take a half hour drive out to the country to buy ice cream at a local dairy. I loved the hot humid weather because it made my hair thick and curly. My hair was coal black, unusual for most Caucasians. My brother had a bicycle, but I don’t think I rode one. I was always too afraid of falling or hurting my legs. Jay taught me to ride after we were married, but I was always a very tentative bike rider. A big part of my early life was ballet school. I started at Marianne Venable on Connecticut Ave at age five. That is where I learned to tell my right and left foot or at least standing at the barre facing west. Even today I need to face west to be sure which is my left and which is my right. Ballet was fun, but I didn’t take it very seriously. I preferred to be in the back of the room talking and I was often struck on the legs with the bamboo stick that Miss Venable carried around. Most often I was put in the front line because I was one of the shortest girls in the class. This was true at school as well where we lined up by height to go or out for recess. At Miss Venable’s, the mothers all waited in the reception room for the class to end. Sometimes they knitted leg warmers for their daughters. When we had a recital, we wore fabulous tutus that were made to order. In addition to ballet, I was sent to drama school to be sure my elocution was boarding school perfect. I remember being in a children’s play and reciting a poem, “I have a pain in my sawdust; that’s the matter with me; something is wrong with this is where i came in 17 my little insides and I’m just as sick as can be.” Imagine remembering those lines after so many years. Sometimes I visited my father’s pharmacy. I don’t remember the first store that he owned with his brother, Uncle Karl, on Kalarama Road, but I do remember Tipton and Myers at 14th and Rhode Island Avenue, which he purchased from the original owners. This seemed like a special place with its long food counter and the shelves of prescription bottles. But the magical space was the prescription room itself which is where he ground the medicine on a marble counter. I still have the brass mortar and pestle that he used. Below this space on the stairs was a bathroom. It always smelled bad, so I tried to avoid it. And all the way at the bottom of the stairs was the store room. I was allowed to go there once in a while when my father unpacked boxes. I would just sit on the boxes and watch. The store was in a very good neighborhood when it opened – near some of the embassies. However, over the years the area declined and it actually became dangerous. One of the most famous family stories took place at the start of the war. It was early Sunday morning, December 7, 1941. My father opened up as usual. A call came in very early from the Japanese Embassy for a huge order of sandwiches and coffee. It was the biggest order my father had ever received. He hurriedly got everything packed and sent the delivery boy off on his bike. Then my father turned on the radio and prepared for the day. The first thing he heard was FDR’s announcement that the Japanese had just bombed Pearl Harbor and that we were at war (A Day of Infamy). Then my father understood why the Japanese needed so much food; they were celebrating. He wanted to call back the order, but it was too late. A few days later he received a letter from the War Department informing him that if the Japanese government owed him any money, he was to come to a certain hotel at a certain day and he would be paid. When he arrived, the Japanese were all sequestered inside a room and were handing U. S. dollars across the threshold to various merchants. After they had paid their debts, they asked about other merchandise, especially cameras and boxes of Whitman chocolate. My father went back the next day with bags of merchandise which he sold. It was a land office week for Tipton and Myers. In the 1940s being a pharmacist was quite prestigious; customers called my father “Dr. Brett.” He was a notary and, evidently in the old days, could marry couples. He knew how to sober up the drunks with tomato juice. He also took off-track bets for the horse races. We never knew until much later how destructive that was to become. My father was always extending credit to people who could not pay. This annoyed my mother who was the practical one; other people thought of my father as “Good Sam,” from a popular movie of the day, and I admired him greatly. 18

Growing up in my home was a little different than the homes of my friends. My father worked every other night and so my mother was alone a good deal of the time. She would read (she loved books) or knit and on many evenings (afternoons too), she would play cards, especially canasta. Later it was bridge, and somewhere in there was mah jongg, which became popular in the 1940s. I remember coming home and loving the sound of the tiles, although the cigarette smoke really bothered me. In high school I also played mah jongg with a couple of friends and again when I lived in Hong Kong in the 1990s. There I learned Chinese mah jongg. It requires less thinking, but is much faster-paced and involves gambling for high stakes. All through grammar school, I came home to Nicholson Street and told my mother everything that had happened to me. As I was always interested in pleasing her, I tried to embellish the events to make them interesting. I think that’s where I learned to tell a good story; in fact, my mother once said that I could even make going to the mailbox to mail a letter into an exciting adventure. In later years I used storytelling in my teaching. There is nothing as wonderful as holding an audience of students spellbound with a good anecdote; it is every bit as much a performance as a Broadway show. The daily ritual of my childhood has also led to my pleasure in sharing the daily residue (as Freud puts it) with a friend at the end of a day. Most often this is with my friend, Shom. Like all children, I was drawn to the danger and excitement of stealing. I set my sights on a pair of rhinestone earrings, which I took from a display at the 5 and 10 Cent Store. But later, I felt so guilty that I decided to put them back. I was terrified that I would be caught returning the merchandise! On the nights my father was home, we had a family dinner in the dining room which was cooked and served by our black maid, Mildred. She wasn’t a fancy maid, but my mother did have her dress in a simple uniform. My mother sat at the end of the table and when she needed something she would ring a bell. Then Mildred would come through the swinging door. For a time after my marriage some of Jay’s friends still talked about coming to dinner at the Brett’s and the crystal dinner bell. I assume their mothers didn’t ring bells. And while I am talking about Mildred, I remember riding downtown on the bus with her. Usually the colored people (as they were called at the time) rode in the back of the bus. However, when Mildred rode with me, she was allowed to sit in the front of the bus because I was white. The schools, of course, were segregated until Brown vs the Board of Education. And when my mother came home from Chicago in the 1940s and told us that white children went to school with colored children, I remember trying to visualize what that was like and found it impossible. My mother ran a tight ship. When either Monie or I we did something bad (or something she didn’t like), she would always say, “Wait until daddy gets home,” this is where i came in 19 but that was never much of a threat. My father was gentle and scholarly. I always thought he should have been a scholar monk instead of a businessman. Although he made a good living and we lived nicely as a middle class family, I don’t think he had real business sense. He was more interested in music and collecting Chinese porcelain and other intellectual pursuits. I strongly identified with my father and so it is not surprising that I too became a collector and in fact collected Chinese porcelains among other things. During my marriage, because Jay did not feel that spending on art was worthwhile (and oh how wrong he was), I used to save small amounts which I took from the grocery bill to buy art and sneak the pieces into the house just as my father had done. When I no longer had to buy art surreptitiously, it was not nearly as much fun. My father worked hard and it took a toll on his body. He had bad feet from standing at the counter for long hours. Then he developed diabetes. To me he seemed old for his age. But from photographs I knew he had once been tall and thin, an Abraham Lincoln look alike. But for most of the years I knew him, he carried around a lot of weight and always looked tired. There were many mysteries about my father which I never uncovered. When I was still a child, on the Sundays that my father did not work, he took me to the zoo or sometimes to look at trains. I remember once, while my mother was home sleeping, we were at the zoo and they were broadcasting a radio quiz. I guessed the correct answer to “What animal does not make any sounds?” The answer was “giraffe,” and I won a prize. My mother, on the other hand, was lucky enough to possess excellent health which she retained until her mid-eighties when she began to fail. She had a lot of energy, stayed up late at night and slept late in the mornings. We all knew not to wake her early. I never thought much about her looks when I was growing up, but looking at the photographs now, I see that she was quite pretty, even elegant. She loved fashion and always dressed with style and good taste. She believed that even if you can’t buy everything you want, whatever you do buy should be “the best.” I think it was fair to say she had ambitions to “move up” in the world, while my father didn’t particularly care about that. Perhaps this was because he was American born from a solidly middle class German Jewish family and she was foreign born to Eastern European immigrants. Coming from a poor family, she learned about the lives of those she deemed superior from magazines and the movies. I was told that my name, Patricia, was taken from a fiction story she was reading in a magazine around the time of my birth. She observed what upper class women wore, how they furnished their homes and even studied their mannerisms. When she had enough money to buy things, she always chose wisely. She adored the movies which she felt was a guidebook for 20 becoming American. Perhaps this love for film was passed on to me in my mother’s milk (although I am pretty sure she did not nurse. She always wanted to be modern and nursing was not in fashion in the late 1930s). But it was not just material possessions and popular entertainment that interested her. After she met my father, he introduced her to opera and classical music. All her life music gave her great pleasure, especially opera. She was obviously very smart. She graduated high school at 16 and then went to teacher’s college or what was called normal school. But she didn’t like teaching because she was hardly older than the students and thus could not control them in the classroom. So she went to work for the government. I remember she had perfect penmanship (a result of the education system of that era) and was left-handed. She stopped working in the government when I was born, but returned after my father died and achieved a stellar record as a secretary. She met my father, a young pharmacist when she was in her twenties. By the standards of the day, “she married up.” Although things did not turn out quite the way she may have dreamed, she did enjoy a good life for many years. And even though the marriage suffered many trials, in her later years she only remembered the good things. Apart from my parents, the most important relative during my early years was my Aunt Regina, my father’s sister. She was everything my mother was not and everything I longed for and needed, a chance to escape from my mother’s tight ship with all its rules and regulations. My aunt was tall and skinny and not very attractive. She had been brought up in a German Jewish home and possessed both culture and a certain amount of self-confidence. But unlike many other German Jews who were very conservative, she was a free spirit and did things in her own manner. Visiting my aunt’s house was a special treat. She didn’t care about how the house looked and she always planned things that were fun for children. I was the first niece. It was several years before she adopted a daughter of her own, Ernestine, named after her husband Ernest, another German Jew. One of the things we did together was to paint wooden clothes hangers and we worked right on a living room carpet which would have been unthinkable in my house. We also had “cafeteria dinners” which meant that she put the food in large bowls on the kitchen counter top and then we slid a tray along the counter and helped ourselves to whatever we wanted. I always ate very well when I visited Aunt Regina which annoyed my mother because she believed Regina was a terrible cook and burnt all the food. When I got married Regina gave me a handwritten cookbook which contained her various recipes and advice and taught me a lot (which is very little) about cooking. I think we both shared the opinion that there are many better things to do with your time. this is where i came in 21

One of my favorite entries in her cookbook was the advice never to serve rolls because you either forget to put them in the oven or you forget to take them out. Everything that Regina did annoyed my mother. What really enraged her was Regina’s habit of rearranging furniture in “our” living room, unasked. My mother had paid an interior decorator (very upper class) to arrange the room and certainly did not believe that Regina could do it better. In later years, their relationship changed. When my mother had her troubles, Regina was one of the few people who was on hand to really help. All in all, Regina saved my spiritual soul. The other relative that I dearly loved was my grandmother Henrietta, my father’s mother. Her husband Moses had died when I was about three or four so I don’t remember him. I’m told he was very Prussian and didn’t treat her very well. Her house was very European with wardrobes, chandeliers in the bedrooms, down comforters on the beds and antimacassars (doilies) on the arms of the chairs. She continued to live on Shepherd Street until she moved in with Regina. She was very short, less than 5’ 2’’ (my height and the height of my mother). She was very energetic and walked very fast. When she became hard of hearing it was impossible to catch her on the street. Until the very end of her life, she lived alone. Even into her eighties she talked about the volunteer work she did at the Old Age Home. As the apple does not fall far from the tree, she, like her daughter Regina, heard her own drummer. She came from Germany (first Schweinfurt and then Frankfurt) to marry her first cousin, Moses. Both were Reform Jews before coming to America. When she died she wanted to be cremated not buried. I don’t remember now if the family carried out her wishes. I do remember that when I came to play all the toys were in a silver tin box. Each grandchild played with the same toys. Often we would bake. She had a big open kitchen with a table in the middle of the room, a predecessor to kitchen islands. I especially loved the German fruit pies that didn’t have a top crust. My favorite was the one with thin plum slices standing in neat rows on the top. Once we went for a walk and grandma spied a church where there was a wedding in process. She took me inside and it was quite thrilling. Of course my mother was upset that I had been in a Christian building. Despite her ecumenical attitude, grandmother was a proud Reform Jew. She was a Reform Jew in Germany and so did not come to America and lose her religion. She still observed the holidays and it was in her house that we usually celebrated Passover. I have no idea who did the cooking, but I do remember everyone being crowded around the table in the dining room. After the meal, the men went to the front room and the women cleaned up. 22

I vaguely remember being at my maternal grandparents for Passover and that the Orthodox service went on for hours. To amuse ourselves, the children played under the table. However, I don’t know if this really happened or that it was just a story. Despite my mother’s response to my going into a church, she loved Christmas — the music, the decorations, the gifts. On Christmas morning, the tiny den on the first floor was filled with packages that she had spend months purchasing and wrapping. Monie and I were breathless until our parents woke up and we could tear into the presents. But far more meaningful was the one night when my mother was finishing the dishes. The radio was playing Christmas carols and there was snow falling outside the kitchen window. She turned off the light and lifted me up over the sink so I could see the snow. Her arms were wrapped tightly around my waist. It must have felt very special, warm and secure because I remember it to this day. It is too bad that our relationship was so fraught with fighting and bad feelings. Her brand of tough love and what I took to be not caring made me pull away. In the end, we both lost out. The other relative I remember was my Aunt Marcia. She was married to Dad’s older brother Karl, with whom he started in business. Everyone loved Aunt Marcia. She was gentle and sweet. Unhappily she developed cancer. No one spoke the word. It was only talked about in a whisper. I remember the last time I saw her everyone seemed to know the end was near and there was such sadness, especially as they had a young child, my cousin Ann Rae. Marcia was older than my Uncle Karl which was considered a shanda at that time. Little did I know that my mother was also older than my father (by one year). She kept it a complete secret and I didn’t find out until her funeral, when I was driving to the cemetery with my Aunt Shirley. I also learned that her birth name was Naomi and she had changed it to Nettie at some point because she believed it sounded more American. Aunt Shirley, who also changed her name, from Sarah, was considered the black sheep of the family because she had divorced her husband Jack who was a big drinker and gambler and everything else. She had to go to work to raise her three children. My mother always felt superior to her, not just in terms of money, but also because Shirley was so “old world”. She had no desire to be up-to-date fashion- wise or to adopt American customs. She was my mother’s older sister and had been born in Poland. Mostly she continued her mother’s traditions, including many superstitions. But Shirley had the last laugh. She lived to be over 100 years and lived to see grandchildren and great grandchildren. Hard work and waiting for buses gave her good health. this is where i came in 23

We hardly ever saw the rest of the relatives on my mother’s side. She didn’t think much of them, although she did admire her older brother Hy and liked Aunt Gertie, her younger brother Murphy’s wife. Hy was a good businessman and my mother invested in some land deals because of him. Over the years that investment netted her a good sum of money. She was a smart business woman and after my father died, she managed her own investments. When my son Bradley was in high school, he told me that if he ever had any money, he would let “grandma” take care of it. I should take a moment and mention my maternal grandparents. My grandmother Belle was always sick in bed so I never really knew her. I am not sure what was wrong. My grandfather Max was a tall, handsome man with a full head of snow white hair. They lived in an apartment on Calvert Street. It seemed old fashioned, but not in an appealing way like my grandmother Henrietta’s house. This apartment seemed dark and had a peculiar smell, probably from the cooking. I remember they kept the telephone under a quilted cover like a tea cozy. I suspect they felt that a modern gadget like a telephone should not be openly displayed. There were never any toys to play with. My mother admired her father and always wanted his attention and affection. Being a middle child and the second girl, she didn’t get too much of either. But she modeled herself on him. Max liked good clothes. He had been a tailor in the old country and so he knew materials. He had style when he dressed. The story goes that he was involved in radical (read Communist) politics in Vilna. Vilna is now part of Lithuania; then it was part of Poland. He was forced to flee the country to avoid arrest. Somehow he found his way to Washington, D.C. After a year he brought his wife and three children to America. My mother was about one year old when they came. After a time in America he moved away from politics and became religious, Orthodox in fact. My mother remembered going to an experimental school where they sang “The Marseillaise” every morning. Then one day, she was yanked out of that school and put in a religious school which was not to her liking. When the family first came to America they moved into a poor Jewish neighborhood in SW Washington. I think they had relatives there named Chait. That was my grandfather’s name as well, but when he came through Ellis Island the immigration officials couldn’t pronounce it, so he took my grandmother’s maiden name, Norman. It doesn’t sound very Jewish to me, but that is the story I heard. My mother remembers how cold the house was when she got up in the mornings. She also remembers having to wear hand-me-down clothes. She determined early she would have a better life and so when it came time to go to high school, she lied and gave the home address of an aunt so that she could go to a high school with a better reputation. Her love of learning started early and followed her throughout her life. 24

And now back to me. To finish off the early years up until the end of the war. I remember nighttimes in bed. Sometimes one of mother’s friends would come in and say a good night prayer with me. Now I lay me down to sleep I pray the Lord my soul to keep If I should die before I wake I pray the Lord my soul to take. Nobody seemed to mind that it was a Christian prayer. I always slept with the covers over my butt, even when it was hot. I was afraid if my backside was exposed, someone would give me an injection. I don’t know where that idea came from, but children did receive injections in the buttocks and they did hurt. I suspect there was more to my fear, however. I also slept with the covers over my head after I saw Walt Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. It must have been on the 2nd release in the early 1940s; perhaps it was later. The evil stepmother was very scary and I thought if I covered my head, nobody could see me because I couldn’t see them. I think I did this for at least two or three years. I also listened to the radio at night this way. Radio was very popular in the 1940s and I listened to programs every Saturday morning with my friends. We had a regular lineup. First came the fairy tales on “Let’s Pretend,” then there were “Stella Dallas” and “Grand Central Station”, modern melodramas. And somewhere in there was Judy Canova, an ethnic comedy; although this may have been in the evening. My mother always dressed me beautifully. She sent to Hollywood to buy clothes that actresses like Margaret O’Brien had worn in a film. I recently donated two outfits to Columbia College’s fashion collection in my mother’s name. One was a red and white check dress; the other was a thin pink blouse with a pale blue jumper. Years later when few people knew who Cindy Sherman was, I bought a Sherman photograph because she was wearing a red and white check dress, just like the one I had as a child. It was a terrific investment, netting me 120 times the $1,000 I paid originally (which seemed a great sum in 1981). I will deal further with the Cindy Sherman photograph later. I learned early about what it meant to be Jewish and later about what it meant to be gay. During the war there were only a few Jewish kids at Brightwood Elementary School. I remember that at Christmas when we sang Christmas carols at assembly; the Jewish children held their lips together when it came to the word Jesus Christ. And on the playground, there was one girl, Jennette, who knew all about the war and what was happening in Europe. I guess her parents told her more than my parents told me. Maybe they were more political and knew more. this is where i came in 25

She told us that in Europe they were tying Jews in big piles like logs and setting them afire. Of all the horrible things done during the Holocaust, this was one thing the Nazis never thought to do. But it was scary. All of Jeannette’s stories were told in a whisper, which made it all the more gripping. To this day, I am fixated on the Holocaust. Perhaps this is the reason that the word “Jew” catches my eye more than the word “sex.” We did lose some of my family in the Holocaust. Fortunately one family was saved. The Frankenbergers were a well-to-do family in Frankfurt who owned a fancy bakery cafe. When Hitler came to power, Isaac and Freida sent their only child, Marianne, to Washington to live with my grandmother, Isaac’s sister. Marianne at the time was about 15. My mother, a young married woman, became her mentor and confidante. When Marianne arrived at Union Station, everyone yelled at her in English. Family lore is that she said, “Why are you yelling? It won’t make me understand you any better.” I should have interviewed Marianna about her years in Germany. But by the time I began writing this memoir, it was too late. I don’t know whether she would have talked to me. Evidently she didn’t talk about it to her own children and was angry enough never to set foot on German soil again. Her parents, Isaac and Freida, were the most lovely, gentle people. By the time they left Germany in 1938, it was desperate times and they were lucky to get out. They came here with little but the clothes on their backs. They settled in New Haven with the rest of the Frankenbergers. I remember our family sending packages of clothes to them. Isaac took a job as a cook at Yale University. He stayed in that job for the rest of his life and I am told he never complained about what he had left behind. He seems to have been a favorite of the Yale students. The war finally came to an end and life settled back to normal. Our family was not much affected beyond saving meat fat in tin cans and taking them to the grocery store. We did not have any fathers or brothers or uncles abroad. With the end of the war, flashy consumer products began to flood the market. This is when we probably acquired our first electric washer and dryer and vacuum cleaner. But the most exciting new purchase was the turquoise and white Studebaker that my father bought for my mother. It was a new car design, low and sleek with fins, and people joked that you couldn’t tell the front from the back. It was mysteriously parked in front of our house for several days. Then my father revealed it was a surprise gift for my mother. So we became a two car family. I will end my childhood memories with my grade school graduation. I was the class valedictorian and I think this must have been the first time I realized I 26 was bright. My intelligence made many things possible throughout my life and knowledge was the source of a great deal of pleasure. Next I attended Paul Junior High School. This was a difficult time when many of us were trying to figure out who we were and where we fit in. Boys were not quite a major preoccupation, but being in the right group of girls seemed to mean everything. On the one hand, I seemed to be in the popular group, although I never felt very secure there and I was certainly a follower rather than a leader. On the other hand, I knew I was different in part because I came from a home where culture was important and also because something inside of me told me that all this adolescent stuff about nail polish and the latest trends was silly and I knew there were more important things in life. At Paul Junior High School all the Jewish girls pledged ABG, a sorority club of sorts. We all worried that we wouldn’t get in, but 50 of us did; one didn’t. She hung out with boys and that did not sit well with the girls who ran ABG, so she was not asked to join. I remember being horrified about this and feeling sorry for her, but I did not have the moral courage to reach out and be her friend, which made me feel bad about myself. And if she had depended on boys before this event, she now sought them out as her only allies. The rumors were that she “slept around,” but what did we really know? To this day, I dislike the idea of excluding this or that person from a group. As in the earlier years I attended ballet school. My classes increased from one day a week two or more. This affected my after-school life and I could not do all the activities that my friends did. This became even more accentuated in high school when I went to ballet school every day. By that time, I was attending the Washington School of Ballet which was on the other side of Rock Creek Park. I took a bus and my mother picked me up afterwards. This was the primary training school for boys and girls hoping to make a career out of dance. Getting into a ballet company like American Ballet Theatre or New York City Ballet Company was everyone’s dream, but some graduates went on to Broadway like Shirley MacLaine who was discovered by one of Alfred Hitchcock’s talent scouts when she substituted for the lead dancer in “Pajama Game.” She ended up starring in Hitchcock’s The Trouble with Harry. Her rise to stardom was like a Hollywood movie itself. The school was run by Lisa Gardiner, who had danced with Anna Pavlova, and her partner Mary Day. At first we were all afraid of both women, but as we grew up we realized that Miss Gardiner was actually a grand lady, although until the end, everyone regarded Mary Day as a witch. I don’t know if anyone really knew what their relationship truly was. If they were gay, no one talked about it in those days. Miss Gardiner was older by a good 15-20 years and died after I moved to Chicago. Mary Day lived into the 21st century and turned the school into a this is where i came in 27 successful dance academy like the Bolshoi School where students both live and study ballet. She also formed a professional dance company in Washington, but that was after I left. I knew early on that I had only limited talent. I did not have the strong bone structure that dancers need and I tired easily. When the teacher wasn’t looking I put my arm down at the barre because it felt heavy and hurt. I did not have high extension, nor did I have a natural arch in my feet. I never learned how to spot when I was turning. But my mother was determined that I become a ballerina. The one thing I was good at was batterie (beating your legs together) and when I was in New York studying the summer I was twelve, Madame Swoboda told me not to keep doing them. As I didn’t listen, I ended up with somewhat large thighs, but maybe that was also genetic. When the students first entered the ballet studio, everyone stood in front of the mirror and primped, doing whatever movement that they did best. I, of course, did beats. Once Miss Gardiner came in and sarcastically said to me, “Who do you see in the mirror? Margot Fonteyn? “ It was, of course, an insult, but to me it was at least recognition. For those of us with lesser talent, it was a compliment even to be noticed. The ballet training came from the Russian tradition of sarcastic put downs and thwacks from a bamboo cane. This lasted at least until the 1970s when I studied with Stone and Camryn in Chicago and for all I know, still continues. As I mentioned above, I seemed to live in two worlds and didn’t fit comfortably in either. I spent most of my afternoons at ballet school, but knew I wasn’t really good enough to make the grade and I longed to be with my friends with whom I never totally felt a kinship. Although my mother had ambitions for me, I think she must have known that I was not going to have a career. But ballet school was very fashionable at the time for girls of a certain means and for her represented all the “cultural” things she did not do as a child. Still she was serious enough about it to leave my father home alone the summer when I studied at the Ballet Theatre School in New York. Years later I enrolled Pamela in ballet school. Perhaps I thought she would accomplish what I didn’t. She had a perfect dancer’s body and when she was about nine was selected to be one of the children under Mother Goose’s wide dress in the Chicago holiday performance of “The Nutcracker”. The fact that she was small also helped. However, she did not last long. One afternoon after rehearsal she announced that she was quitting because the teacher had made a boy cry for no good reason and she did not want to be part of a production in which people were treated that way. I was very proud of her sense of social justice. Every Christmas, The Washington School of Ballet launched a production of “Hansel and Gretel” with music by Haydn. The performance took place at 28

Constitution Hall with the Washington Symphony Orchestra. I was never good enough to have a solo. Rather I was one of the many dawn fairies. There were lines of us, starting with those in grey tunics, then pink, followed by rose and finally yellow. I managed to advance from grey to pink by the time I gave up attending classes. However, during the summer of 1950, my mother and I moved to New York so I could study ballet. Our first residence was the Arts Club on the East River, but my mother was not pleased with the bohemian accommodations and soon moved us to the Barbizon Hotel for Women. I took class in the mornings, had a lunch break, and did another class in the afternoon. I remember it was very hot, and after each morning class we would put our heads under the water faucet. Even so, Mme. Swoboda always wore a sweater. After class there was the treat of going to the Automat where we put money into coin slots and took out the food that was showcased behind glass compartments. We also took free lemon and sugar and made our own lemonade. The Automat was certainly more fun than a normal restaurant. I struggled to keep up with the other students; everyone else was so much better. The one class I loved was character class where we did Hungarian dances and learned to play the castanets. This part of the ballet training dated back to the Czarist era when students attended the state-owned ballet schools. I found that here I could succeed because the dances required flair perhaps more than rigorous technique. Later, when I realized I was not going to be a ballerina, I began to focus on flamenco dancing. Somehow I found a gypsy teacher in Washington and began classes. There was no explanation of how to do the steps or play the castinets; you just jumped in and followed. We began with Sevillanas, a dance for couples, which is done all over the world. A one point I was good enough to dance with the group at the Spanish Embassy in Washington. Having coal black hair, I could easily pass for Spanish. During these years I went to every ballet company that came to Washington. The performances were held at Constitution Hall, the home of the D.A.R., before they built an alternative venue at Watergate. Once when I was about twelve, President Truman came to the ballet when I was there. He sat in the open box that was always saved for him. I took my program and asked him to sign it, which he did. This was before the days of high security. About this time I went to my first opera. It was “Rigoletto” with Roberta Peters, Richard Tucker, and Leonard Warren – a first-rate cast. The Metropolitan Opera Company came to Washington a few times a year and my parents never missed a performance. For “Rigoletto” my mother took me out of school for the this is where i came in 29 day, which only made it more special. Before the big day, she played the music on LPs and gave me the libretto, so I was well prepared for what I was going to see and hear. It was glorious and I have been an opera fan ever since. I even joined the Roberta Peters fan club. It was run by her mother who lived in Brooklyn or the Bronx. I received an autographed picture and other things. I think I was very proud that like, Richard Tucker, she was Jewish. In addition to opera, my parents loved symphonic music and theater. It seems to me that Grieg’s “Piano Concerto” and Rachmaninoff’s “Second Piano Concerto”, as well as Beethoven’s “The Appassionata”, were played on the phonograph all day long. The two recorded plays that my father loved were “John Brown’s Body” and “Don Juan in Hell.” Mom preferred opera. One day I announced to my mother that I wanted a recording of a particular aria. However, I didn’t know what the aria was called. She took me to a record store and I tried to sing the melody. It turned out to be “Caro Nome” from “Rigoletto.” The memory of being very small and wanting to be taken seriously, while the men in the store made fun of me, left a lasting impression. I asked Pamela to turn that experience into a short story, which she did. Afterwards I wrote my own version as well. As long as we are on cultural matters, I should mention that from very early on, our family visited the National Gallery of Art. Locals called it The Mellon because the Mellon family had donated the money. We did this on many Sundays. By the time I took an art history class at the University of Pennsylvania I knew a good deal about art and had a nice collection of large reproductions. I can still remember my college art history textbook, even which images were on the left- hand pages and which on the right. I suppose that choosing a career in film was a good match for my visual memory. When I was older I attended the Sunday afternoon concerts in the museum garden. The guards were very knowledgeable in those days and later, when I began cutting high school, I used to walk around the galleries and the guards would point out what had been donated by Duveen or an affluent collector. The guards seemed more up on the donors than the artists. Movies were a big part of my life from early on. I went almost every Saturday. At one point we took a street car to the theater. Later streetcars disappeared. A movie would start downtown at a theater like the Capitol which also had stage shows. I saw Debbie Reynolds and her partner Carleton Carpenter perform there when they were just starting out. The movie would then travel uptown. I would see it at the Tivoli. If I liked it, I would go again the next Saturday to the Sheridan and if I still wanted to see it again, I would end up at the Silver in Silver Springs, Md. Movies cost 25 cents and I spent my whole allowance for admission. Sometimes one of my parents dropped me off. 30

Oddly enough in those days we didn’t bother to come in at the beginning of a film. Movies played all day long and we entered whenever we got there. The program included the coming attractions, a cartoon or two, a short, a newsreel and sometimes a double feature. It didn’t seem to matter in what order we watched the different parts. Once we paid our admission, we were entitled to stay as long as we wished. So sometimes we came in the middle and at some point in the program, someone would say, “I think this is where we came in” and we all would get up and leave. At the theater I saw all my friends. We came about noon time and stayed until five o’clock. We bought popcorn and candy. Sometimes the boys pulled our pigtails and threw things. It was a great way to spend the afternoon. I remember two serials. One was “Superman.” I recall an episode where Superman saved a woman in a car on a swaying bridge. He just picked up the whole car and took her to safety. The other one was based on the legend of King Arthur. I can still see the arm of the Lady of the Lake rising out of the water holding the sword Excaliber. At the end Arthur throws the sword back into the lake and an arm rises up again to catch it. Surely this was magic. I don’t remember “Flash Gordon,” but then maybe I wasn’t interested in science fiction serials. There were certain films that I loved, especially musicals, but I saw everything. And for the next week I would imitate what I had seen on the screen. I remember covering my head with a blanket to pretend I was an Indian princess like Mitzi Gaynor. Two films had special meaning for me. One was “Viva Zapata” with Marlon Brando. This was memorable because I never saw the ending. In the middle of the show, my mother came to fetch me. One of the students in the Washington Ballet School performance of “Rackety Packety” was sick and they needed me to fill in, so off I went to put on my ballet shoes. It was years before I found out how the movie ended. The other film was “The Red Shoes” starring Moira Shearer from the Sadler’s Wells Company in England. We were all in love with Moira Shearer. She had red hair and danced like a dream, not like the phony dancers who starred in Hollywood movies. I probably saw “The Red Shoes” ten times. My friends and I came with our lunches in brown bags and stayed for three shows. When I went to film school many years later, “The Red Shoes” and “Viva Zapata” were imbedded in my psyche. It is interesting to note that both films are still respected today. In addition to “The Red Shoes,” there were a few other films that I remember. One was “Home Sweet Homicide,” about a adolescent girl detective named Nancy Drew, based on the book series that I loved. The film starred Peggy Ann Gardiner. I admired Nancy for her intelligence and independence and her desire to do exciting things beyond what girls usually did. this is where i came in 31

Then there was “The Secret Garden”, starring Margaret O’Brien. In this film, based on a popular Victorian novel, the girl is probably about ten or twelve. She comes to live in a large, dark mansion where she meets a spoiled, young boy who is both an invalid and very unhappy. Through her courage and inventiveness she brings him back to health and restores her distant uncle to happiness as well. She is the heroine indeed. But the part of the film that was most memorable is the garden. The film was made in black and white, but after the young girl works to have the garden restored to its original beauty, the garden turns to color. It seemed magical at the time. Then there was “The Seventh Veil” which is about a young girl who goes to live with a guardian when her parents die. In a sense it mirrors the family in The Secret Garden. The guardian was played by James Mason, my favorite actor. He was an odd favorite for a young girl. He was not handsome or fun. Rather he was a dignified Brit and a little forbidding. He was also intelligent and privately troubled. I’m sure this is the kind of man I have continued to pursue throughout my life. In the film the orphan studies piano and Mason is her demanding teacher. She rebels and goes off to study at a music school and eventually falls in love with a more appropriate man her own age. Later she becomes a concert pianist and finally realizes she has loved James Mason all along. It was terribly romantic. There is one scene that stood out for me above the others. This is when Mason takes a ruler and hits her over the knuckles. I can’t remember if the issue had to do with piano playing or their personal relationship or both, but I so strongly identified with the character that my hand hurt as well as hers. Of course, there is also the opening scene where the girl-turned woman, played by the elegant Ann Todd, runs out of the hospital and throws herself into the Thames. This is followed by scenes of psychoanalysis. I was fascinated by the idea of going back into your past and learning things about yourself and others. I suspect this might have been my first exposure to a process I would learn lots more about in later years. Finally, there was “Leave Her to Heaven”. I don’t know how I got to see such an adult film, but in those days there were not film ratings and my parents didn’t censor what I went to see. “Leave Her to Heaven” was a film about a troubled woman played by Jeanne Tierney. In the film she loves her father and wants him all to herself. When he dies she marries a man, played by Cornell Wilde, who looks just like her father. Again she wants him all to herself and alienates everyone close to him. She even throws herself down the stairs to abort her unborn child because she feels it might come between her and her husband. This was high melodrama. In the end she dies. So what did I get out of the film and why has it stayed in memory all these years? I suspect I identified with the heroine in wanting my father all to myself. I always felt that my father was the good guy and that he was being 32 bossed around by my mother who didn’t appreciate him. Now I know how much more complex it was. I think all these remote patriarchal figures must have also reminded me of my own father. And it hasn’t gone unnoticed that it is the young heroine who saves him. One of the big events in our family was our trip to Miami, Florida. I believe I was about 12. This was the first time my brother and I had ever been on an airplane. I remember the feeling of being in Florida. It was warm and there was a lovely smell in the air. I remember that in the dime store I bought orange blossom perfume that came in little wax bottles. We stayed at a hotel with other friends of my mother’s. The fathers didn’t go on this trip. The hotel, The Royal Palms, was still there in the late 1990s, although it is now a retirement home. It was not one of the fancy hotels like the Flontenbleu, which we visited to try out the Nascherie. We also went to Collins Road for bagels and lox. The most memorable event was again an incident with my mother. We all wore elasticized tank tops that came in bright striped colors. We must have been out on one of the screened in dining rooms when she decided to show her friends how nicely I was developing. She pulled down my top to show off my tiny breasts. I was mortified and ran away. I’m not sure to this day that she understood what she did wrong. In her mind, she and I were one and my body somehow belonged to her. Meantime, my friends and I were becoming interested in boys. I was probably about 14. On the days I didn’t go to ballet school, I usually went to play at the house of my best friend, Sandy Posner. She lived near Georgia Avenue where there were lots of children. However, her neighborhood was not quite as upscale as mine. Sandy was more interested in lipstick and boys than I was. I sometimes did her homework, which was easy for me, both to win her friendship and to give her more time to do things with me. Sometimes we had sleepovers. At a certain age we began to practice kissing so when the time came we would know what we were doing. I think Sandy also taught me how to shave my legs, although I may have learned this at camp. Camp was where a lot of non-academic learning took place. I began to menstruate at 12 which was about the age my friends began. When I told my mother, she slapped me. This took me by surprise and I felt that I had done something bad. I was upset for a long time. Later she explained that it was a Jewish custom, but I don’t think she explained that to me at the time. I don’t know if the slap was supposed to mean good luck or to ward off all the evil spirits. I remember hearing that my maternal grandmother would never make pickles when she was menstruating. I wonder if she also went to a mikva. When my friends and I were 13, many parents felt it was time that we began to interact with the opposite sex and this was done through dance lessons. We met this is where i came in 33 every Friday night in someone’s basement and learned how to do the slow step and the “Cha cha cha” from a blond haired man named Groggy. I remember I had a favorite partner named Rueben, who I thought of as a boyfriend. I also remember that we wore white gloves so we didn’t have to touch the boy’s sweaty hands — or was this years later when Pamela took dance lessons at the Casino Club? I continued to go to summer camp although I disliked it. After Camp Akiba, I went to Camp Saginaw which was not so rigid or religious. I didn’t like being there, except on rainy days when I could stay on my bed and read comic books or when I was involved in the camp musicals. I did rebellious things and acted sullen. I got together a small group of girls and led them in being mean to our counselors. I snuck over to the boy’s side once or twice and never got caught. I guess this is called “acting out.” Perhaps I thought if I behaved badly enough, I would be sent home, but a camper had to be really bad before the camp would send her home and refund the money. I also had one of my first boyfriends at summer camp. I’m not sure what that meant; probably holding hands. There was also possibly a more complex reason I didn’t like summer camp. By the time I was seven, I somehow had learned about the concentration camps, maybe from Jeanette. I do know that when we left for camp from Union Station, I immediately tore off my name tag because I didn’t want to be identified. I guess I may have heard that Jews were loaded onto train cars and taken to “camps.” Even today, I am not too fond of name tags, although I understand their usefulness. There were other things to worry about in the 1940s. Polio was the disease that everyone most feared. This was especially true when FDR became president as he had suffered from polio as a young man. I remember that we were no longer allowed to blow bubbles with our bubble gum because it was thought that the bubbles picked up germs in the air. And then I had my own scary things – the basement. It was a big open space. The center portion was refinished. We sometimes played down there; my father paid his bills on the big table. Later I took my boyfriends down there and we made out on the couch. Outside the refinished room were the utility spaces with wash tubs, a dryer, later a freezer and a maid’s bathroom. I was afraid to use this bathroom because of the unspecified fears that came along with prejudice at that time. These attitudes have been well recounted in a recent novel entitled The Help. The basement also had a funny smell from dampness which I found very unpleasant. My mother used an open dehumidifier, with white calcium chloride crystals that pulled the water out of the air. Sometimes my mother would send me down there at night to get something like her black boots. I would count to myself to ward off anything evil or maybe just to calm myself and wasn’t okay until I ascended back to the first floor. 34

But there were happy dreamy summer experiences as well. Often I would lie on the sofa on the back screen porch and read. I wasn’t much of a reader during Junior High School, but if it had something to do with ballet, I read it. I remember reading the life story of Tamara Karsavina. It was called Theatre Street and was about being in the Imperial Ballet School. I also read about Nijinski. But my favorite book was about Sergei Diagaliev (later one on Lord Duveen). When I was a little older, I snuck into Carter Baron Amphitheater, which was quite close to our house. It was during the day and no one was there. I went up onto the stage and did a few ballet steps. It was marvelous pretending I was performing in front of a huge crowd. Fortunately I didn’t get caught. It was about this time (age 16) that my mother told me were going to New York, but this time not for ballet lessons. She had decided that I needed a nose job and she had selected, according to her, one of the great surgeons of the world to do it. Somehow she found Dr. Gustave Aufricht, the Austrian doctor who had practically invented rhinoplasty. Having a nose job was very popular among Jewish families at this time, but every other girl I knew had gone to a local surgeon. That was not good enough for my mother. We went to see Dr. Aufricht in December during Christmas break. He was very tall and spoke with a thick Viennese accent. He was always followed around by an entourage of young men. He was intimidating to say the least. He explained that he would be straightening the nose by removing a small bump; fortunately it did not need shortening. However, he also intended to pull back some skin under my chin so that the nose and chin were in proportion. There was no discussion that I remember; his word was as if spoken by God. We were in New York for two weeks. The surgery was performed at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat (ironically the same hospital I would go to again more than 50 years later for a face lift) and then recovery time was spent at the New York Barbizon Hotel for Women. My guess is that I did not see this experience as a gift or an improvement, but as another way in which my mother took control over my body. I don’t know if I protested or whether I would have succeeded if I had, but I was as intimidated by her as by Dr. Aufricht. As my mother and I were spending two solid weeks together, day and night, she had the opportunity to supervise my eating. And not surprisingly, I came back to Washington not only with a new, still swollen nose, but also a good deal thinner. Maintaining weight for all members of the family was a big issue, but mother was especially hard on me. I do know that after the swelling went down, I was very pleased with my new looks. And to her credit, I have always felt since then that I was attractive or at least cute. I don’t think I thought of myself as beautiful, and I knew I had to count this is where i came in 35 on my intelligence and enthusiasm in life, not my looks. But I have learned over the years that looks do matter and I am sure I have benefitted a lot from my mother’s meddling. I might also add, for what it is worth, that with my new nose and the name Patricia, I was often taken as Gentile, although I don’t think that was anything that I actively sought. In the summers our family went to the Chesapeake Bay area, which for me was another world. We stayed with some family friends. We walked bare feet and swung in the hammock. This is where I fell in love for the first time. His name was Stanley Cohen; he was 18, I was 15. But I managed to get him to take me out a few times. When I did go with him and his older friends, I wore one of my mother’s dresses and used a cigarette holder, which I thought was very sophisticated. At the end of ninth grade I entered Coolidge High School. the weekly routine was pretty much the same as before – school, ballet school, Sunday school, friends. The leader of my social group was Esther Sandler. She was truly outstanding; she did well academically, was friendly to everyone and was liked by the boys, although I think she mostly had one boyfriend. There was none of the meanness among us girls that I see in teenage films today. We used to go to Esther’s house after school, do our homework, have a snack and talk. It was a feather in our cap to be invited to her house. I was usually there, but I knew I was not one of her best friends. It was at this time that I received a princess telephone. Most of my girlfriends had their own phones and we spent hours talking to one another and later to boys. I also remember in those days we had party lines, so you had to check that no one was on the phone before you made a call. On the other hand you could secretly listen to other peoples’ conversations. About this time Greta Schwartz moved into our neighborhood. More than anyone in those years, Greta changed my life. Her house was right behind mine. Greta was different from the other Jewish girls at school. She bleached her hair blond and the boys sensed immediately that she was sexual. She was quite wild and willing to do things the other girls wouldn’t do. She especially liked the Italian boys with their hair slicked back into duck tails. I was totally afraid of them. I doubt that Greta would have been my friend if I had not lived so close by. Her father drove us to school in the morning and so I saw her every day. She was one year older. But I think she sensed how much I admired her. She seemed so confident, while I felt so insecure. We often hung out after school and did things like eat ice cream and other sweets. Both of us put on weight. This upset my mother a lot because she had been heavy as an adolescent and being heavy made her unhappy. Thus she was determined that I wouldn’t suffer the same fate. Her philosophy, if you are hungry, “take a glass of water”. 36

To make sure my weight remained low, mother purchased a doctor’s scale, the type with weights and a calibrated grid across the top. 110 was to be my ideal weight, at 112 there was a yellow line, a warning, and at 114 there was a red mark, which was danger. I never let my weight go up to 115. I was too afraid to find out what might happen. To this day I can still hear the clank of the metal bar as it finds its balance. Evidently my mother’s method worked because I have remained thin throughout my life. Greta might have been promiscuous, but she was very bright. She just kept it hidden. I suspect she was unhappy in those years. I’m not sure why; perhaps it was her relationship with her parents. Anyway, she married right after high school (and later divorced) and then had an emotional breakdown. I’ve heard she is now married to an older man and lives in Florida. We had several adventures. As expected, Greta was the leader and I was her loyal follower. Greta used to take the family car and go driving. I often agreed to go with her. Once we got into an accident. She was not quite 16 and didn’t have a license. We had to go to court. I can’t remember what happened, but I do recall the accident. I was in the passenger seat and those were the days before seat belts. I saw the car coming from the right and realized it was not going to stop. It seemed to all happen in slow motion and it felt like such a long time before the car actually hit. Fortunately everyone was going slowly and no one was hurt. The other adventure was more dramatic. Greta often took me along when she went out with boys. Partly I was her excuse to her parents, partly I was game, and partly I think she liked me and was offering me some lessons in life. I was flattered to be asked. I suspect the boys were not happy to have me trailing along as I was not going to “put out,” the current terminology of the day. When we stopped at a drive-in, another car with two boys drove up beside us. The guys in the next car rolled down their window and asked our drivers if they were willing to exchange us for a case of beer. They settled on the deal and Greta and I changed cars. I was very nervous. But in the end I sat in the front seat with the unhappy driver who had gotten me, while Greta made out with a boy in the back. Another big part of growing up was Norbeck Country Club. This was mostly for middle class Jewish families. The richer Jewish Washingtonians belonged to Wilmot. Nonetheless, Norbeck was where most of my high school friends belonged. The girls paraded around in bathing suits hoping to attract the attention of the boys. I don’t know what the boys were thinking. We smoked a little in those days. I didn’t like it much, but it did make me look “cool.” I smoked until I went to Europe right after college. I did go back to smoking in later life for short periods of time when my emotional life was in chaos. I am guessing this constituted some kind of oral compensation. this is where i came in 37

The thing I remember most at Norbeck, is that I envied the boys and girls who could jump off the high dive. I was not only fearful of heights, I also didn’t like putting my head in the water. Needless to say, I wasn’t much of a swimmer. However, I was determined to accomplish a jump, at least once. One day I climbed to the top, walked out to the end of the board, didn’t look down and jumped. After I jumped I allowed myself to think about what I had done, but then it was too late. I was already on the way toward the water and so my time of fear was short. This became a model for how I approached life afterward. Decide what you want to do, repress whatever feelings you have long enough to do it and then you can worry. It helps you get things done. This kind of will-power is one of my strengths and has served me well over the years. There were lots of things on my mind in these years. One was the question of God. I had begun my religious training at a small Orthodox synagogue close to our house. I was there only one year, but I grew to like it, or at least the melodies that the men sang. I remember the bima in the middle. After the one year, my mother moved me to a Reform congregation called Washington Hebrew. The change made sense as my grandparents, who were Reform Jews, had been members. It was across the Rock Creek Park so she had to drive or car pool. My brother had a bar mitzvah there and I attended the school until my confirmation. The rabbi at Washington Hebrew at that time was Rabbi Gerstenfeld. He had been educated in England, or at least he sounded as if he had been. He had a sonorous voice that was very authoritative and he was an imposing man. When we reached the higher grades we met on Saturday mornings instead of Sundays. Sometimes I skipped class and stayed on the public bus until it reached F Street where the Capitol theater was. I would see an early morning movie and then hightail it back to Sabbath school before they took attendance. I never got caught. Many years later, when I was invited to give a Sunday morning lecture at Washington Hebrew to a congregation of close to 500 people, on the subject of Jews and film, I told this story, saying it proved that going to the movies had had a more lasting impact on my life than my religious education and that I would not have been addressing them that morning without my abiding love for film. One of the things that bothered me was the question of whether God existed or not. There were a few bright students in our confirmation class; but most were not especially interested in this issue. I asked a lot of questions and was considered a troublemaker, but I really did want to know. Unfortunately no one provided any answers that were meaningful to me, so I decided to go directly to the source. I opened my window one night and looked up to where I believed God to be. I said, “If you exist, send me a sign.” He never answered and so I stopped believing in God right at that moment. And I remained loyal to my decision. Even when my 38 fiance, Jerry Galler, died many years later and despite my profound grief, I did not turn to God for solace. I figured, I hadn’t praised or prayed to Him before; it would be wrong to ask favors now. Another thing I thought about was intelligence. I admired it greatly. I always wondered where I stood in the lineup. I remember in junior high school how fascinated I was with history and the past. I remember reading about Philip of Macedon and his son Alexander. I also read Gods, Graves and Scholars about the great archeological finds. I remember thinking I want to know everything. I even attempted reading right through the entire set of World Books which I had on a bookshelf in my bedroom, although I only got through A and B. I’m not sure where my respect for learning and intelligence came from, but it stayed with me throughout my life. Certainly my father was knowledgeable and one way to get his attention was to talk about things intellectual. Often he would pose a question at the dinner table and then we would all run for the Encyclopedia Britannica to check the answer. The question I remember best was whether Saint Paul was crucified right side up or upside down. It turned out to be the latter. My mother also loved learning. But wherever it came from, it certainly played a part in my choice of Jay as a husband. He was the brightest man I had ever met, third in his class at Harvard Law School. I also thought he was cute with his little pug nose just like his father’s. This choice assured me that I would have bright children, something I dearly wanted. Apart from my adolescent trip to Florida, which was unique, as a family we often drove to NY each fall. We would go to museums and a Broadway show or two, have a few wonderful meals at places like the Stage Deli and Lindy’s for New York style cheese cake. And then my mother would take me shopping for clothes. The two shows I remember were “South Pacific” with Mary Martin and Ezio Pinza and “Charlie’s Aunt” with Ray Bolger. When I married and came to Chicago, I still thought in terms of going to New York for fall clothes. When I suggested this to Jay, he was stunned. This was definitely not part of his world. There is no question that the major pains in my childhood and later were issues with my mother. They went in so many directions. I feared her, but of course I also loved her. I wanted to get away from her, but also was so unhappy at camp. One year when I was a teen, I decided to make her an embroidered handkerchief. I hid in the telephone booth at Norbeck working on my gift. When I did give it to her, she scoffed because handmade in her mind was worthless. Only expensive gifts from stores counted. I was very, very hurt. Sometimes when we are older we understand our parents, but on many things I believe she was just wrong. I understand why she felt the way she did about gifts because she was once poor, but I still feel she was smart enough to have grown beyond this in her adult life. this is where i came in 39

My mother’s attitude about money and gifts affected two other incidents in my early years. The first was when I was 12. I had returned home from my first shopping trip alone — a bus ride downtown to Hecht’s. I had purchased with money she gave me, a wonderful, sleeveless cotton dress with a matching sweater and belt. It had a floral pattern and the sweater was trimmed in the same material. I tried it on for my mother, who complimented me on my good taste. I was extremely proud. Then she looked at the price tag and practically threw it back at me. She told me I had to return it because, it was a schmata (a rag) and she would not have her daughter wearing such cheap clothing. I was appalled and angry. She had liked the dress when she didn’t know what it cost. However, once she knew the price, her opinion changed. I never quite forgave her for that. I even remember the exact price to this day. It was $12.00. The other incident happened when I was in high school. I had been going steady with Irv Berman. For one of my birthday’s he bought me a charm bracelet with heart charms. Each heart had a tiny stone; together they spelled out “I love you.” It was beautiful and I loved it. But my mother deemed it worthless because the stones were so small. Irv was a poor boy whose mother was a widow. He worked to help pay the bills, which was unusual in our social group. He had given the bracelet to me with love and I cherished it. I could never accept my mother’s attitude and values. About this time I began going to the beauty shop; I was probably fifteen. Most girls my age washed and set their own hair on rollers or in pin curls, but I never learned to do that. Mother was very concerned with how I looked and that often became the cause of our arguments. I remember one time when we were all going out to dinner, I put on a sweater and she asked me to change it. I couldn’t understand why. Her answer was that I looked like “a peasant”. That seemed about the worst thing one could say about someone. Women had their nails done at this time and my mother’s nails were long and red. I too had my nails polished at the beauty shop; my favorite color was Revlon’s “Cherries in the Snow.” My Aunt Regina painted her nails as well, but as she didn’t follow fashion, her nails were black. I thought this was terrific. In the 50s. we wore shirtwaist dresses out of new drip dry material with a fabric belt or maybe even a waist cincher. For the evening, if we went to a dance, we had a sweetheart top shaped like the top half of a Valentine and later when we had breasts we wore a Merry Widow. To this day I love the lacey Merry Widows. Now they would probably call them a bustier; it is corseted to the waist and pushes up the breasts giving the wearer a lot of cleavage. And, of course, best of all, were the crinolines which went under our skirts and made them very, very full. I suspect they were made of some nylon material with a whalebone stay and they were light in weight so we could roll them up. For travel, you put them in a stocking. 40

For school we usually wore skirts and cashmere sweater sets. That meant that you had a short-sleeved sweater and a cardigan to match. I had several and many girls had dozens. We also wore a short strand of pearls around our necks. I had pierced ears; the piercing had been done by a doctor. Some of the girls went to jewelry stores for the piercing, but my mother wouldn’t hear of that. I wanted pierced ears because of the girls at ballet school. My high school friends did not have pierced ears. We also wore white buck shoes which we worked hard to keep clean. Sometimes on a weekend we wore pedal pushers. Pants were just coming into fashion for girls. By the time I was in high school my friends and I had begun to date and have boyfriends. Mostly we went out in groups. I had dates, but no one that I was really happy about until I met Irving Berman. He was three years older and was already at the University of Maryland. He lived with his mother in an apartment not far from our house. It was unusual to live in an apartment; everyone I knew lived in a house. But his father had died and his mother worked and they didn’t have too much money. But he did have a car like most of the boys I knew. Irv was medium height and gentle. He admired me and we became a couple from the time I was about 16 until I went off to college, although we were beginning to move away from one another even before that. I had my first sexual experiences with Irv, which was really lucky, because we really cared about one another. However, given the time period, we never went “all the way.” What we did was called “petting.” Before Irv I mainly went out in mixed groups to parties and dances. The fraternities and sororities had dances. We would pile into a car and the girls would sit on the boys’ laps. We all learned how to put our arms on the divider between the front and the back seat so that our weight wouldn’t end up on the boy’s knees. I did have one-on-one dates in high school before Irv. One was with Jonathan Hahn, who came from a wealthy family. He took me to see The Redskins play baseball. He also bought me a gardenia corsage ,which I thought was a little strange for a baseball game. The girls were accustomed to getting corsages for dances, but a baseball game was unique. Gardenias were much in vogue. Often they came on a wristband and we wore them as we danced. I kept all of these in a scrapbook. I pressed the flowers and then wrote up a description of the evening. I threw the scrapbook out when I became engaged to Jay because I didn’t think it was appropriate to remember other men. Now I wish I had kept it. But I do have my photo albums from those years. I was less interested in ballet school than in my younger years, but I continued to go. I knew I was not going to be a professional ballet dancer; my goal was college even though most of the girls who graduated from my high school married right away and ended their schooling. But one thing I did discover in my later years at this is where i came in 41 ballet school was the existence of gay sexuality. I became aware that the male dancers liked each other and not females, and so I was ahead of my public school friends on this score. About this time I read The Picture of Dorian Gray. It was in my parents’ library in a beautiful leather-bound edition. There was Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam as well. I don’t know what I made of Dorian Gray; I certainly did not pick up on the homosexuality or the hashish, but it did seem very fascinating and foreign. I’ve read so much about child abuse and sexual abuse, but I cannot remember that anything like that ever happened to me. I do remember that a second or third cousin who was older tried to touch me when I was about twelve, but he didn’t get very far because I became scared and pulled away. His name was Martin. However, I do remember three separate incidents when I saw a nude male and how upset I felt after each incident. The youngest was when I slept over at my Aunt Regina’s. This was after they adopted Ernestine. My Uncle Ernest came in at night to check on us and he wasn’t wearing pajamas. I found this shocking even though I was young. Ernest was thin and I think I remember seeing a thin penis to go with the body. The second was at summer camp when I walked into a boy’s bunk and the counselor didn’t have any clothes on. I didn’t really see anything because I ran out right away. The last incident was the most upsetting. I walked into my parents’ room when I was at some age of adolescence and accidentally saw my father undressed. His body seemed very ugly to me – heavy and droopy, especially the scrotum which seemed to just hang down sadly. But almost everything about my father seemed old and sad. At about 15 I began to prepare for my driver’s test. Some of us took professional driving lessons, but Irv said he would teach me. The car I practiced on had the old manual system with three gears – first, second and third. Learning to shift gears was difficult, but I finally got the hang of it. However, when I went for the test, we had to parallel park on a hill and the car kept stalling when I put it in reverse. I wasn’t timing it correctly and accelerating fast enough. Because of the parallel parking I failed three times in a row and the rules were that you could only take the test four times. The last time I decided to use a car with an automatic shift and I passed. It also turned out that the motor vehicles department lost my records, so it looked as if I had passed the first time round. Science and math were not my strong subjects in high school. So when we had experiments to do, especially with a Bunsen burner, I would just ask my father what would happen if you combined such and such substances and then fill in the correct answer. I also didn’t like gym or home economics. In junior high we had to take cooking and sewing. In cooking we had partners and I always let my partner do 42 the cooking and I did the clean up. I never understood the relevance of what we made, especially jello. We did this by boiling bones and skimming off the marrow. I won’t say what it tasted like. Like my mathmatical deficiencies, I have always been a bad speller. I even took an adult course in an effort to try to improve this. I learned that I did not always hear the words correctly and therefore I spelled what I thought I heard. That is very interesting, but it didn't seem to help much. Fortunately today there is Spell Check. As for math, I think I am “numerically impaired.” Perhaps this is a result of growing up in the 1940s when girls were not expected to be good at math. But even today, I have rarely produced a school syllabus that has correct dates. Somehow I just don't see numbers. In high school gym class, the girls had a field hockey unit. When the puck landed in the center of the field, all the girls rushed in with their sticks flying. I ran the other way. I was always afraid of getting hit, especially on the legs, which would affect my dancing. When it came time for swimming, the Jewish girls all brought doctor’s excuses (about forty percent of my classmates were Jewish). Mostly we didn’t want to swim because it ruined our hair. But also the pool area smelled dank and full of chlorine and there was never enough time to dry off and run to the next class. I believe I took archery instead. A few years later in college I had to take phys ed. I signed up for modern dance, which I disliked because the movements were not as beautiful as in ballet and you had to dance barefoot, which I hated. But I also took an exercise class. I remember the teacher giving us a exercise to strengthen our backs and upper arms; she said we would need this when we were married and had to carry home heavy bags of groceries. I determined right then and there that I would never carry home heavy bags of groceries. And in fact when I was married I always called in my orders and had the groceries delivered. In my junior year of high school I took a job as the camp dance counselor. It was nice finally being a counselor rather than on the camper side. That summer I met Bob Greenbaum, who was from Malvern, Long Island. He was something like Holden Caufield in Catcher in the Rye, which had not been published yet. He was funny and sarcastic and didn’t seem like most of the other boys I knew. We became boyfriend and girlfriend even though I was supposed to be going with Irv. I continued to see Bob during my senior year when he was a freshman at the University of Pennsylvania and I think that played a part in my decision to apply there for college. Our relationship soon turned into a nice friendship and I went on to other guys. In high school I had one particular English teacher who inspired me. I can’t recall her name right now. Supposedly each of us has a person like this in her past, often a teacher. She was grey-haired, petite, smart, a little wry, and she didn’t take this is where i came in 43 things too seriously. She figured out I was a bright student who didn’t need to be in English class and so she enlisted me as Editor-in-Chief of the yearbook, a job she probably inherited and didn’t want to do. It was perfect for me. I could skip class and I had my own office where I supervised the editorial staff. I was able to use my creativity and organizational skills and I gained a lot of prestige in the bargain. Perhaps this was one step towards both becoming a teacher like her and a writer. But in the main, high school was a bore. I often read novels behind the text I was supposed to be concentrating on. I also took on a new name - Aurora Dawn - and insisted that everyone call me that. I even signed my school papers that way and was embarrassed at my fiftieth high school reunion that some of my class mates still called me Aurora. I guess I thought the name was romantic or perhaps I just wanted to be different or perhaps I wanted a new identity and a life that was more exciting than the one I was living. A more serious form of acting out was my truancy. I soon learned how to forge my mother’s signature on a doctor’s excuse and began cutting school. Sometimes I went off with Irv who was waiting around the corner in his car. Sometimes I went to the National Gallery of Art. I felt I was learning more there than in school. Once when I skipped school and was in my rec room playing cards with Irv and some of his college friends, the phone rang. It turned out to be the school. When they asked for my mother, I said that she was still sleeping and did not like to be disturbed before 11:00, which was true. They then asked who I was and I thought to myself la jeux son fait. I was told to report to the truancy office at school on Friday. However, it snowed and school was cancelled (this being Washington, D.C.in the 1950s) and I had to wait until Monday to find out my fate. I need to digress here to explain that in the years before JFK’s Presidency, Washington had very little snow removal equipment as they had very little snowfall. As children we rose early when it looked like snow and excitedly turned on the radio in hopes that school would be cancelled. And if the snow came later in the day, the powers that be would not only close the schools, but shut down the federal buildings as well. The truancy officer was a large, burly man and he was tough. He barked at me and said quite plainly that if I had ever thought about getting into honor society, I could just forget that. I was sufficiently intimidated never to cut school again and was very surprised at the end of my junior year to discover I had been nominated for the honor society. I suspect the truancy officer forgot about me the minute I walked out the door as he no doubt had more hardened kids to deal with. By my junior year of high it was time to think about college. I had my heart set on going out of town and hopefully to a first rate women’s school. I learned about Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr when I visited Penn. My parents and I visited the two 44 schools and I fell in love with them both. Penn was to be my back up school, so when the representative visited Coolidge High School, I did not go down to meet him. I was so sure I would not be going there. It was therefore shocking when I didn’t get into any of the three colleges I applied to. I understand now that my test scores were probably not high enough for Swarthmore and Bryn Mawr although I had done well in high school. But not getting into Penn was hard to believe. It was humiliating and the sting was painful. Since I had at least made the waiting list for Penn, we all piled into a car and drove to Philadelphia to see what could be done. Their records indicated that I had not made an effort to see the school rep when he came to Coolidge and they perceived that as a lack of interest. In the end they found a place for me. The only drawback was that as I was admitted so late, I ended up in a tiny room at the back of the dorm and I didn’t have a roommate. I was very excited about going away and a little nervous too. I felt a little more secure because I had Bob Greenbaum. He was probably a sophomore or a junior by then. I came up with the idea of “getting pinned.” I felt that would avoid all the problems of meeting boys and dating. Little did I know that that was going to work against me. I loved my courses and all the new subjects I was learning, especially the history of English literature. I remember knitting in class, a pair of argyle socks for Bob. The professor said that it didn’t bother him as he had taught during the war when all the female students were knitting for the boys overseas. I was also taken by anthropology and the work of Margaret Mead and economics and the book we used called The Worldly Philosophers. It seemed that each week the professor defended a different economist (first Adam Smith, then Veblen, finally Keynes, whom I liked best because he had married a ballerina). I never learned what the professor really believed. And then there was art history. We had a huge text book with illustrations on every page that covered art from ancient times to Mies van der Rohe. I knew all the works from the National Gallery and used to argue with my New York classmates as to whether the National Gallery or The Met was the greater museum. I loved studying in the college library. It was modeled on a train station, although I think the design goes back to ancient Rome. There were open stacks in those days, which meant you could go into rows and rows of book lined shelves. It was said that they did a count each day and discovered that more people went in than came out. That was, of course, a joke. Budgeting my time was difficult. I was one of the few students who didn’t stay up late. In fact, I was sometimes the only student at breakfast. The mornings were my best time (and still are) so that was when I prepared for exams. I was too afraid to leave things to the last minute. this is where i came in 45

I lived on Samson Street next to the law school in a converted convent. There were fifty girls in this dorm. The larger one across the street had 150 residents. All told, there were only 200 out of state women. This was before Eero Saarinen built the new dorm. Boys were allowed only in the downstairs lounge, never in our rooms. This was way before co-ed dorm. Unlike all the other Ivy League schools at that time, Penn was co-ed and in fact it was during my freshman year that Wharton, Penn’s business school, admitted their first female students. I remember a girl in my dorm coming back from class in tears because she said the professor tried to make her life miserable. I was practically a walking advertisement for Penn. I loved Philly and everything about the school. I joined in the campaign to elect Adlai Stevenson president and in November canvassed to get out the vote. I also danced in a college production of “Brigadoon.” I remember feeling embarrassed that my partner could not pick me up. I had gained quite a bit of weight now that I was away from my mother. But there were other reasons as well as the year turned out to be more difficult than I had expected. I pledged a sorority like all the other Jewish girls. There were several to choose from, but I only wanted one, SDT. This was the sorority that Ludie, a friend of mine from one of the Reform Jewish youth groups belonged to. She was a year older and I had visited her several times in Philadelphia. I was so sure of this that when I got bids from the other sororities, I turned them down. On election day, the sororities made their final choices. I came back from canvassing and it seemed that all the girls were jumping for joy having received their bids. I didn’t get the SDT bid I was expecting and I didn’t know why. Finally I went into a phone booth and called Ludie who told me I didn’t make it. In the last round, I was eliminated. I couldn’t believe it. I asked why she hadn’t helped out and she said she was not at that meeting. To this day I feel she betrayed our friendship, perhaps out of jealousy. I had a boyfriend and she didn’t and I think it was that simple. The pain was excruciating. I felt totally isolated. I went into a deep depression and came close to going home. I had heard stories of girls even committing suicide when they were rejected. But somehow I pulled through; despite the excruciating pain I threw myself into my studies. I became friendly with some of the girls from a competing sorority who asked me why I had rejected them. They said they would have been happy to have had me as one of their sorority sisters. And I even managed to make friends with some of the girls from SDT. They claimed that the fact that I was pinned (going steady and wearing his fraternity pin) 46 to Bob Greenbaum meant that I would not be good for the mixers with the fraternities. So that little pin helped do me in. The girls encouraged me to try again the next year, which I might have done had I had stayed at Penn. I became unpinned later in the year. Also some of the girls who at first pledged sororities decided that they didn’t want a sorority after all and so I didn’t feel so alone. I learned several things from this experience. Number one, I learned never to put all my eggs in one basket. Number two, I learned that I had inner strength and resiliency that could pull me through difficult periods. I didn’t realize then that much of the pain was the reactivation of my three year old trauma. My friend Ellie Poler didn’t get into any sorority either and she didn’t much care. Towards the end of the academic year. I started dating other boys at school. I remember those lonely Sunday nights when everyone waited for the phone to ring and for someone to ask you out for the next Saturday night. At the end of my freshman year I went to Philadelphia for a wedding of one of my dorm friends. While there I met an attractive friend of the groom, David Handel. David was short and a little paunchy, but he was also dapper and dark skinned, which appealed to me. He was strictly a Brooks Brothers man. We started dating and I began to visit him at his home in Hampstead, New York on Long Island. He was quite well off by my standards. His father had developed an accounting firm in Manhattan and he and his brother, who was married, worked with their father. They were also observant Jews, which was something new for me. They all stayed home on Friday night and Saturday and listened to the Met opera broadcasts. They had a Sabbath shamas who turned the lights and burners on. In all other ways they were modern New Yorkers and David told me later that after his father made so much money, he became superstitious and thought that if he gave up the Orthodox rituals, they would lose their fortune. Anyway, they traveled and did their army services and managed to remain observant. I was quite stuck on David, but eventually he lost interest in me and stopped inviting me to visit. I was heartbroken and as this was my first big romantic loss, it took a long while for me to get over him. In later life I found that I was attracted to a lot of David look-alikes. There was Eric Portier, a banker in Geneva, and even Jay. All relatively short, olive-skinned and partial to Brooks Brothers suits. I still love a man in a suit. An interesting experience related to the Handels was my visit to a mikva. David’s sister-in-law went every month and I thought, if I ever married David, I would have to go too. Probably of equal importance was the chance to experience something new. So I took myself off to Amsterdam Avenue and said that I was about to be married to an Orthodox man, which would explain why I didn’t know any of the rituals. It was an experience indeed. this is where i came in 47

First I was assigned to a small room with a bathtub. Here I not only washed my body, but a woman came in to clip my fingernails short. Then she took a comb and combed the hair on my head and the pubic hair, three times each. Now I was ready to go into the ritual swimming pool. Here I stood with water up to my waist and read the Hebrew on the tile wall (with a little help). Then I dunked so that water covered my head — three times, of course. And then I was cleansed. The mikva had a fully equipped beauty salon so you could dry your hair afterwards. And then I emerged back onto Amsterdam Avenue and the 20th century, thinking it was an interesting experience and definitely not for me. During my first year of college, my father had a total mental breakdown. He had been gambling heavily and eventually losing, as most often happens. He may have started gambling because pharmacies in that era were places where people could place off track betting. Or it may have been to satisfy my mother’s desire for a better lifestyle. I don’t really think it was motivated by either though. More likely my father felt inadequate in some way and thinking that he could make the “big hit” was a fantasy of empowerment. Daddy was hospitalized and medicated. When I visited, he was often in a medicated state and would use obscene words; this shocked me as it was nothing like the father I knew. However, I have been told that this is not uncommon when people are medicated and in fact when Jay’s father had open heart surgery with Dr. Debakey in Texas (one of Debakey’s earliest patients), my mother-in-law, Annette, was told that might happen and it did. He was obviously depressed. The hospital also administered shock treatment, which was a common practice in the 1950s. During the summer after my first year at Penn Dad would come home from his treatments like a vegetable and just stare into space. At night he would yell out in his sleep. It was terrible. I don’t know how my mother continued to sleep in the same bedroom. I only knew that I was determined to get out of the house. Prior to this breakdown, he had had a previous experience of mental turmoil. It was one year into his marriage; that would have been approximately 1933. I gather he was very depressed and couldn’t work or function normally. I was told he went to New York for a year to go through psychoanalysis with a disciple of Freud (pretty progressive of him, I would say) and lived in a hotel room. Mom went back to live with her parents. Of course, no one talked about it as it would have been a great humiliation. At the end of the year he returned, supposedly cured, and he and my mother began to think about having children. I asked my mother what she knew about his treatment and she said that at that time psychoanalysts didn’t share information; 48 they don’t today either. She thought that in part my father’s troubles were due to his tyrannical, unloving Germanic father. Monroe and I have always believed that Dad was a latent homosexual or bisexual. Mother implied that their sex life was not very satisfying and Monroe observed that when he worked for our father at Tipton & Myers, Dad drove around the city at all hours of night, stopping at late night diners. Was he “cruising”? We will never know. When it became apparent just how much of the family money my father had gambled away, I learned I could not return to Penn. I was sad, but that was that. I enrolled in George Washington University, a city school, and I lived at home. There were a few other girls who had also transferred home so I did have some nice friends, but it wasn’t the same. I’m sure I received an equal education, but I was no longer getting the full-fledged college experience. When I began classes at GW, mother took this as an opportunity to gain the university education that she had never had. I certainly admired her desire for learning, but I wasn't so keen that she enrolled in many of my classes. I suppose I felt this was another example of her trying to lead my life. During my sophomore year, I became engaged to Steve Levy. Steve was a medical student at George Washington University. I am not sure how we met, but I was taken with him right away. He was not so sure. We started dating when I was still at Penn and when I came home we became a couple. By the end of the summer we were engaged and I had a beautiful diamond ring on my left hand. By then, however, I too was no longer sure about this relationship. Steve was a warm and loving man, the apple of his parents’ eyes; he was their only son and he made them proud. When he graduated medical school, he was first in his class. But somehow I must have felt that we were not well suited. He was serious and earnest and not interested in rocking the boat, while I wanted to live life to the fullest. Right after the engagement, I went off to NYU for a summer session and when I returned I broke the engagement. Perhaps I was not ready for marriage - in any case, I felt quite free. But according to my mother, Steve continued to call her for a year in hopes that she could convince me to change my mind. Looking back I note that I have always admired high intelligence and find this very appealing in the opposite sex. Every so often, of course, I wonder “What if?” It is hard to answer that question. Steve became a successful doctor in Paolo Alto and had I married him I would have had a comfortable, conventional life and probably would have been quite happy. But then there would be no Pamela and Bradley and the five grandchildren. Nor would I have been a world traveler and had the exciting life I eventually lived. this is where i came in 49

While at GW, I decided to pledge a sorority to make up for my mistake the year before, but once I was accepted and had proven my social worth I promptly dropped out. As money was an issue I planned to graduate college in three years, which I accomplished by taking a music class at American University and several courses at NYU over the summer. Attending NYU was a major cultural and life experience. I met my first lesbian women, who frightened and fascinated me. I bought some hippy clothes - mostly leather sandals and a few loose-fitting dresses. I hung out in Washington Square and watched the men play checkers. But most importantly, I went to uptown art galleries and attended theater. Instead of trying to figure out what was the best show, I took the newspaper and went to see everything, starting from A and going down the alphabet. Under “U” there was a play in the Village called “Ulysses in Nightown” based on a chapter from the James Joyce novel. The play starred a man with an odd name — Zero Mostel. I had never heard of him, in part because he had been blacklisted after he refused to testify during the HUAC hearings. It was 1958 and he was beginning to appear again. It was an astounding performance and I can still remember Mostel as Leopold Bloom as he moved his large body around the stage shrieking and crying. At the end of the summer my mother came to New York to collect me. She instructed me to get rid of my hippy clothes (although I still have one dress in my closet to this day) and we went directly to Saks Fifth Avenue and Bonwit Teller to redress me for fall. During my bachelor years before marriage, I dated some of the clerks at the Supreme Court. I remember one of them took me to see “West Side Story” by a young Leonard Bernstein and Stephen Sondheim. We were wowed. It was so new and fresh and up to date. It played at Constitution Hall as the Watergate complex had not been built yet. At the end of my senior year at GW, I took my first trip to Europe. It was to be the first of many. I went with a group of college friends and it was a whirlwind view of Europe on a low budget. I can’t say I was thrilled. It was my first time away from home for so long and I found myself often uncomfortable with the accommodations. I didn’t like bargaining for purchases. However, I was excited to see so many things that I had previously only read about, such as the cathedrals in France, the canals in Venice and certain great works of art in Florence, Rome, Paris, and London. In addition, there was a once- in- a- lifetime experience - rowing on an underground lake in a salt mine. The ceiling was only inches above my head and I could imagine the full weight of the mountain above me. It was eerie and unsettling. 50

I was very impressed with the palaces in Vienna, especially as they had not been destroyed in the wars. I looked carefully at the formal dining room tables set with sterling, crystal and fine china so that I would know how to do the same thing when I had my own home, even if my table would probably not seat 60 people. I discovered that the Hapsburgs followed the Spanish table tradition and so the flatware was turned back side up thus showing off the family crest. I was very distressed that my travel companions often picked up strange men. One night when we were in a bar, they paired off and I was left alone to find my way back to the hotel through the dark, narrow alleyways of Venice. On one occasion I asked a friend, why she would be going out with a policeman when back home she would not have done so. Her answer was simply “that’s why,” meaning in Europe she did not have to adhere to middle class social conventions. I did meet a few men, one of whom was an economics student in Rotterdam, whose name I was given before I left the U. S. Another was a young banker in Geneva. At the end of the trip I went to Glasgow to stay with some relatives with whom I was related on my mother’s side. They were very hospitable, but the city was very grim. When I returned home, I began teaching at a junior high school in Southeast Washington. The student body was primarily black, with a few white students. It was the white students who caused the trouble. I had one seemingly lovely girl who never gave me a problem. However, on a trip to the Smithsonian Museum, she went missing. It turned out that she was schizophrenic and obviously placid because she was often in a different world. I felt very guilty that I had not picked this up myself. this is where i came in 51

Life in a Bathtub

I met Jay on a blind date in the summer of 1959. He had been given my name by one of the exiting clerks at the Supreme Court. Since none of them had wanted to take me home as their wife, my name was being passed down to the next class. Actually Jay was given two names – Gloria Gottlieb and Patricia Brett. He thought he was getting a non-Jewish girl in choosing me. He had been told that all the nice Jewish girls were locked up behind the walls of the local country clubs. Our first date was at a cocktail lounge at the Mayflower Hotel. We talked or mostly I talked. I liked him right away. He was sun-tanned and had big, deep dark eyes. He was obviously intelligent as he had graduated from Harvard Law School and won a coveted clerkship. I found out later that he also liked me and called his good friend Bob Robin shortly after our first date to say he had met someone special, although he said “she talks a lot.” We began dating. He called every two weeks. I couldn’t figure out why he only called every two weeks. Later I learned that he didn’t want me to think he was too interested. He did not have much experience in dating, but I didn’t know that then. We saw each other the whole of 1959 and 1960. I met his friends, went to parties with him, and we started a sexual relationship. I don’t remember too much about that year except that I gradually began to feel I was ready for marriage, while, Jay was less sure. One of the highlights of that year was the connection to the Supreme Court. Jay was clerking for Justice Harlan, a man he greatly admired. I gather that Harlan had been a hotshot New York lawyer in his younger days and a conservative. But once he joined the Supreme Court, he tended to uphold more liberal views. Harlan often had us to his home in Georgetown. He was an elegant man and his lifestyle seemed to reflect his WASP background or so it seemed to me. 52

The most memorable event was my brief meeting with Justice Felix Frankfurter. He was quite old by then. I believe he was only the third Jew to serve on the Court. Jay took me to see him and introduced me as his new fiancee. Frankfurter, upon learning that I was from Chicago, said, “There have been some great women in Chicago (no doubt referring to Jane Addams and Harriet Monroe), I hope you follow in their footsteps.” I always remembered that and have tried to contribute something to Chicago’s great cultural life. When the spring was coming to an end and Jay’s departure for Chicago was imminent, the decision about marriage came to a head. Jay went back to Chicago without making a firm commitment. I was devastated. I felt abandoned. He did write during that period, but evidently his words didn’t get through to me. Years later I looked at those letters and was surprised to find that they were actually quite loving. Finally my mother called him and told him to get off the fence – make a decision one way or the other. He decided on marriage, but I always felt that my mother had forced him into a decision he didn’t want to make. And so he returned to Washington. But before everything was settled, he wanted to be sure he was doing the right thing. So we marched off to a woman psychiatrist. I don’t know where he found her, but she was a kindly, older woman who, after talking with both of us, gave us her blessing and said, “marry her.” And so the plans began. There was not much time before fall when the new school semester began so we decided to be married in Rabbi Gerstenfeld’s study with only a few family members. Then we had a reception at Washington Hebrew Congregation. There are only a few pictures of this event, as the photographer, my Uncle Ernest, forgot to take the lens cap off the camera. It was humorous as he was German and generally so punctilious. I did not have a real wedding dress. Instead, my mother and I picked out a lovely cream brocaded dress at Garfinckle’s and I bought shoes to match. This was very practical as I could then wear the dress and shoes again after the wedding. We were moving into the 1960s and many of us felt that fancy weddings were passé. It seemed silly to me to be a “bride for a day” and then go back to everyday reality. It always surprised me that in the 1980s and later, women felt just the opposite. They liked the fantasy and felt that the point was to be a “bride for a day” because you presumably would never do so again. I still have my wedding dress, along with those of my paternal grandmother and great-grandmother. Then it was off to the mid-West. Jay actually apologized for taking me off the east coast to the provincial mid-west. Chicago was not the vibrant city it is today. But I was very excited about the move and my new life. I was happy to leave Washington and especially to get away from my parents – my mother who was so controlling and my father who was sick and cried out during the night in his sleep. this is where i came in 53

I wanted to become another person and so I decided that I would no longer be Patti. Instead I would become Patricia and so it has been. Except for a brief premarital visit with Jay’s parents, I had never been to Chicago, but I loved it right from the start. Washington was familiar and too insular for me. Everybody knew everybody’s business. No one knew me here and I could reinvent myself. In addition, Chicago was big and industrial, just as in the Carl Sandburg poem: “the city of big shoulders.” The first year there I used to drive around the city after teaching ended at 3:00, just to get lost. We always had Friday night dinners at Jay’s parents’ house in Glencoe and I would explore the city on my way up there. I liked Jay’s parents, especially his mother. She had never had a daughter and so she welcomed me with open arms. Jay’s father, Miller, was different. He was a short (5’ 2”) man with a cherub face and a pug nose. He had left school at eighth grade to support his parents and two sisters. He was a tough compact man who had worked his way up into the middle class and claimed to have known Al Capone’s brother. We never knew if this was true or not, as he always had many stories. Emotionally he was childish and needed to be constantly attended to. His great love was Jay, the apple of his eye. He always talked about him to his customers at his jewelry store and took every opportunity to see him in court. Jay was accomplishing all the things that he had only dreamed of. For many years Miller and I had an unverbalized stand-off in which I let it be known that I was the wife and I came first. He may have wanted Jay to himself, but he recognized that he could not impose his wishes on me like he did with other family members. The Erens’ house was lovely and much more impressive than my home on Nicholson Street. Little did I realize that Jay’s parents were slowly sinking into bankruptcy, in large measure because of Miller. Although he was a first class salesman, he did not know how to run a business. Miller had built up a large clientele in his jewelry shop, first in the Maller’s building, later at 29 East Madison Street. Miller always gave his customers a good price. He knew how to keep men’s secrets when they were buying pieces for women who were not their wives, but he carried too much stock and eventually the business collapsed. Fortunately, Annette, who had a much better head for finances, worked along with him and eventually they were able to pay off their debts and get back on their feet. On my one prenuptial visit, the Erens gave me a diamond bracelet. They were always very generous and we never left a Friday night meal without loads of groceries and toilet paper. Interestingly, Pamela’s in-laws (the Ratners) later were the same way. The Erenses knew how to buy things wholesale, something no one did in Washington. Paying full price was always frowned on by them. Miller claimed that there wasn’t 54 anything that he could not get wholesale. When I asked about postage stamps, he grinned and said he knew someone who stole them. That was Miller. There was a famous family story about Miller and Al Capone’s brother. Miller came into his jewelry store one Monday morning to find that he had been robbed over the weekend. He immediately picked up a phone and called Capone’s brother. Supposedly Capone said, “Oh Miller; we didn’t know it was your store. We’re so sorry. Go to the 10th floor on Friday and look under the staircase and you will find all your stuff.” Miller claimed that he did so and everything was returned. I admired Annette greatly. She was the strength of the family. Although she had gone only through high school, it was clear she was smart and she is probably the parent from whom Jay inherited his intelligence. She also was practical and knew how to do things like fix the electrical outlets in the house and pave the driveway. At the same time, she played the piano. I immediately adopted her as my surrogate mother and mentor. She also played mother to Miller. As he aged his insecurities became worse. When he couldn’t have his way, he would have a tantrum. Once he picked up a butcher knife and threatened to kill himself. This is how he got his way. He always had to prove he mattered. When we went out to dinner in the early years, he would always tip the maitre d big time. Sometimes he even put dollar bills in his jacket pocket instead of a handkerchief and handed them out to the restaurant staff as we moved along. He showed his power by sending back the food. Even if I said the steak was done properly, it always went back. I hated going out to dinner with him. It was so annoying; and to Jay, it was embarrassing. I suspect that is why Jay was always so reticent in public and never made a fuss. Jay and I moved into a wonderful new building at 900 Lake Shore. It was glass and steel and designed by Mies van der Rhoe. Nothing like that existed in Washington. I had studied architecture at Penn in my art history survey, and I felt as if I was living in a piece of art. It was so exciting. Our first purchase was a baby grand Steinway piano. It was Jay’s and he took it with him when we separated. The second purchase was an oil painting of the steel mills in Gary, Indiana. These items represented our separate spheres of interest. The painting cost $300 and Jay was appalled at the price. Unlike so much of the art that I bought that appreciated over the years, this painting, by a local artist, did not. But I still feel it is very powerful. Pamela and Jonathan now have it in their home. Our apartment was on the 16th floor. We had floor-to-ceiling glass windows and could see the Loop (downtown Chicago). Of course, other people could see us too from right across the street as we didn’t have any drapes in the living room. Annette had a decorator friend take me to the Merchandise Mart to buy furniture for the apartment, again wholesale. I knew exactly what I wanted. From this is where i came in 55 the time I was 12 my taste was formed and with few exceptions; I have seldom looked back and regretted a purchase. In fact, years later, when I redecorated my apartment on Commonwealth Avenue because the fabric pieces were becoming shabby, I just reordered the same decor again. Jay was not much involved in the choices I made. It was women’s work. It also set a pattern in our lives; I took care of the home and children and he went to work. We spent a week in Waupaca, Wisconsin, for our honeymoon.. Waupaca was a trial run for marriage. I tried cooking for the first time. We bought a chicken at the local grocery and I put it in the oven. Soon it was smoking. No one told me that there was a bag inside with all the innards and so it had cooked too. We had a cabin and a rowboat on the lake. I spent a good deal of time sitting in the row boat reading Leon Uris’ Exodus. By then I was a big reader, catching up with all the books I never read as a child. Little did I know what part Israel would later play in my life. Then it was back to Chicago and work. The first month or so of marriage was quite a shock, although I was still starry- eyed. In fact, in the evenings when Jay and I were in the apartment, I felt there was no sense in answering the telephone because everything I cared about was already inside. Very romantic. On the other hand, something was wrong. I can’t remember now precisely what it was, but I did think of returning home, which was something no one did and would have been a real defeat. Furthermore, I didn’t want to be home. I dealt with it by chopping off my hair. I don’t know what that was supposed to accomplish. I guess I was angry and in typical female fashion, I took it out on my own body. I remember reading that when Mia Farrow cut her hair very short, she too was angry with her new husband, Frank Sinatra. I have pictures of me in my new haircut. This was the one and only time I had such short hair. The cut looked like the heroine in “Last Year at Marianbad”, an art film directed by Alain Resnais. I went around with one arm draped across my body like the star of that movie. I can only guess at what was wrong. Some of it was simply the adjustment to living intimately with someone else. I also think that I did not find Jay as loving as I had expected. Nevertheless, it was fun to have a apartment all our own; it seemed very grown- up. I was never one to cook or do housework. However, I did learn to make a few things like casseroles – very big in the 60s. I remember one recipe. You put raw hamburger meat at the bottom of a casserole dish and then covered it with one can of tomato sauce, one can of corn kernels and one can of something else; then you started all over again with the hamburger. I was very proud of this dish and served it to my mother on her first visit to Chicago. I only found out a year later that she was incensed that I had served her such a cheap meal. 56

Another story about my early days of housekeeping. Evidently Annette, who had a key to our apartment, came over to drop something off. She saw a pile of broken dishes in the sink and assumed we had had a fight. I think that the dishes somehow fell out of the cabinet above the sink and we hadn’t yet cleared them away. There is one more important story from this period. I would come home from teaching and prepare dinner. For a short while in our married life, Jay came home to eat. Once when I was standing at the sink washing dishes, I handed Jay a dish towel. He asked, “What’s this for?” I replied that it was to dry the dishes. He said, “I’m not going to dry dishes,” and I replied, “Then I’m not going to wash them.” And that’s how we came to hire our first maid, Dede, a wonderful, maternal woman who had worked for Annette from the time she was in her early twenties. She came for one half hour each day to make the bed and clean up the kitchen. And I have never been without help since. Once Jay and I were settled in Chicago in 1960, he took a job with William Pennish. Mel Gray was also there, having graduated from Harvard Law one year earlier. Neither of them had much respect for Pennish and I am not sure what they got out of the experience. Within one year Mel had taken over his father’s family business in construction and Jay had decided to strike out on his own. I remember his first office, which had two rooms and a small reception area. He hired someone as an associate, but I don’t think that lasted very long. Going off on one’s own as a lawyer was a gutsy thing to do even in 1961, but Jay was confident and his reputation preceded him. Furthermore, his father dedicated himself to finding business for him. He received referrals from older lawyers and somehow the whole thing worked. In fact, by December of 1960 he had made more money than we had budgeted and we took our first post-honeymoon vacation to Puerto Rico. The trip was magical for me. I had never been to a warm weather climate in the middle of winter. To step off the airplane and be hit with a blast of hot air was unbelievable. I was anxious to do and see everything right away. Jay was less interested in hitting all the sites. It was my first indication that Jay and I would not travel well together. The magic further dissipated when I developed hives. The doctor said it was probably from the linen and the soap that they used in the hotel. However I still loved the experience, especially discovering new fruits like mango and papaya. To earn some extra money, Jay took a teaching job at Northwestern University Law School. The course was on Restitution law. After his first lecture in the amphitheater, a little nervous, he turned around to leave, no doubt wanting to escape before the students. There were two doors on the stage; he opened the one he thought was the exit, and entered a closet. this is where i came in 57

Typical of Jay, he just stayed there, unwilling to own up to his mistake. After sufficient time had passed, he came out, hoping to find an empty classroom. However, the students knew he was in the closet and had waited around for him to emerge. It must have been embarrassing. Regardless, he did share his faux pas with me. And now a story about me. Given my hectic schedule of high school teaching, I did not pay a lot of attention to housekeeping. This is surprising as later I became a fanatic neatnik. When we had company, I often just threw the unwashed pots and pans into the the oven to get them out of sight. Having done this, I forgot and turned on the oven. When I smelled the awful scent of burning rubber, I knew what had happened. I decided to replace the rubber handle I had melted, which turned out to be a lot harder than I thought. The place to purchase anything in those days was Marshall Field’s. In the first years of my marriage the green Marshall Field trucks were ubiquitous all over the city. The idea was why shlep when you can have it delivered. So I called the store operator and began, “I have a pot ...,” and was immediately transferred to kitchen wares. It took several tries before I managed to reach the department that handled replacement parts. My first teaching job in Chicago was at Lake View High School which I found through some connection that Miller had at the Chicago Board of Education. I was there only a few months, mostly supervising study hall, when I was laid off. Last to be hired first to be fired. Then I did some substitute teaching. This was an eye- opener. I worked in all grades K-12. Kindergarten was the hardest. I couldn’t keep the children quiet or make them do anything. The teacher next door had to come in and help. I remember her saying, “Now we all have to pretend to be fairies and tip toe as quietly as we can.” Miraculously this seemed to work. I literally almost died in that classroom. It was time for recess and I sent the kindergartners into the cloakroom behind the garage-like door to find their coats. I then stuck my head into the room to make sure all the children were out. While I was checking, one of the children released the rope holding up the door and it came crashing down on the back of my neck. Fortunately it didn’t sever my spinal cord, but it did hurt like hell. No more subbing in elementary school for me. The other frightening experience was subbing in a junior high in a black neighborhood. It was a cooking class (right up my alley). The students had evidently started to bake something the day before, but had not put it in the oven. As I couldn’t find any baking pans, I asked one of the girls to go to the cafeteria to borrow a pan. She refused to go. It turned out that girls were not allowed in the hallways by themselves. They had to go in pairs to prevent rape. I was also 58 instructed that I should go for my car 15 minutes before the end of the school day, which I did. So, no more dangerous neighborhoods either. The first winter in Chicago was a shock. Washington winters are fairly mild; we didn't even wear hats. But in Chicago I needed a really heavy coat, hats, lined knee-high boots and even then, I was chilled. But Pamela and Bradley were true Chicagoans. When they were school age, they braved the cold. I had an agreement that if the temperature dropped below minus 10%, I would drive them to school. Otherwise, they took the public bus. Fortunately, by January I was assigned to a wonderful high school, Carl Schurz on the near northwest side. The building had been designed by the prominent architect, Dwight Perkins. The neighborhood was mostly German and very stable. Many parents of my students had been born in this neighborhood and had also attended Schurz. Even better, I was assigned an honors freshman English class. Usually the new teachers were given remedial classes and English composition, but at Schurz there were a group of dedicated women who took on those responsibilities themselves. My class consisted of 14 and 15-year-olds with I Q’s in the 140s and higher. I know because I checked. One girl, Elizabeth Freund (I still remember her name), had an I. Q. of 170. My students were amazing. I was simultaneously taking course work for my M. A. in English at the University of Chicago and sometimes took readings right from my classroom to theirs. It was a dream job and probably helped stimulate my life-long interest in teaching. The other inspiration came when Judge Julius Miner died. It was announced on the radio and the commentator said they couldn’t find his wife for a statement because she was teaching a class at the University of Chicago. I thought to myself, wow! A woman professor at the University of Chicago. From that day, that was my goal. And I accomplished it too. The University of Chicago was my dream. I didn’t know that much about it until I came to Chicago, but it was a place I came to admire. The campus looks like those of Oxford and Cambridge, which I had seen on my trip to Europe. And the whole university is devoted to learning – no football team, no sororities, just academics. Everyone who goes there has to do her or his best. I had never thought highly of either the University of Pennsylvania or George Washington University, although both have since become good schools. I had never felt truly challenged in those settings. I started part-time at U of C in the summer of 1961, working for an M.A. in English literature. I felt truly privileged. U of C’s English department was devoted to New Criticism, at this time, and also to the Socratic method. It was very scary to be in class with such bright students. The first course I took was an introduction to critical methods and it was this is where i came in 59 taught by Napier Wilt, an old timer. One had to be prepared and one was called on whether you volunteered or not – just like at Harvard Law School. At Chicago, we were reading a poem by T. S. Eliot and Mr. Wilt (professors were addressed as Mr. as it was assumed everyone had a Ph.D.) asked what a certain line meant. He wasn’t pleased with the first response and called on several more students. Finally, he gave his own interpretation. One brave student asked how he knew that that was what the poem meant; Wilt responded he knew for sure because that was what Eliot had told him. I remained a part-time student for two years and then when I became pregnant, I took the last year off from high school teaching and finished up my M. A. The program in English was the highlight of my intellectual life, even more challenging than the doctoral program at Northwestern. I felt I was with the best of the best and I had to match up. When I finally received my M. A. I was hugely pregnant and very proud. Pregnancy for me was pure delight. I was excited about having a baby, although I hardly knew what that meant as I had never taken care of a child, nor even held an infant. But we were ready, we thought; we had settled into living together, made friends, and Jay’s career was on track. I became pregnant right away, almost without trying. I had been fitted for a diaphragm before the wedding and the first month of not using it did the trick. I was a mildly sick in the mornings, but that went away quickly. I felt terrific. I even continued to take my ballet lessons at Stone-Camryn until they asked me not to come; they were afraid I might fall. Actually, when I was quite pregnant, I agreed to go back to Schurz to do the choreography for the student production of “Oklahoma.” I had choreographed “Brigadoon” the year before and even taught some of the football players how to dance. During one rehearsal one of the boys slammed into me and I fell. Everyone froze, but the fetus was holding tight and nothing happened. I loved that I had an excuse for anything I didn’t want to do and a shelf to rest my arms on. In many ways I was extremely confidant in those years. I decided on Mel Cohen for my obstetrician. He mostly took cases of infertility, hardly my problem, but as several of my friends had used him, I went there as well. Cohen kept patients waiting for hours, which was not my thing. I was important and had important things to do, so when I became tired of waiting, I just left. By the fifth month they managed to see me in a reasonable amount of time. They were worried because I had not ever seen the doctor. As with everything else, I had to be different in my pregnancy. Partly it was me; partly it was the temperament of the 1960s. I had read about a doctor in South Africa who delivered women in a birth suits. These looked like space outfits, which 60 allowed women to control the air pressure in the suit. This lowered their pain when they went into labor. The main problem was that when it was time to give birth, doctors had to remove the women from the suits. I mentioned the method to Cohen. He would have none of it and said if I wanted to deliver in that fashion, I should go to South Africa or find another doctor. So that was the end of that. Dr. Cohen offered me the option of an epidural anesthesia. This would allow me to be awake without having pain. I was afraid of a spinal injection because I had heard sometimes things went wrong and women were paralyzed for life. The most common procedure in those days was a hypodermic and schapolomine. The hypodermic knocked women out enough to make them drowsy, but not totally out, as they still needed to push. The schapolomine made them later forget the pain. Somehow this offended me; if I was going to suffer pain, I didn’t want to forget it. So I chose the epidural. For some reason I thought we were going to have a boy. We had even picked out a boy’s name – Bradley. My due date came and went and still no baby. I was almost three weeks late, big and uncomfortable, and wanting the whole thing to be over, but pregnancy is one event you can’t rush. You just have to bear it until the bitter end. One afternoon in August I went to see David Lean’s “Lawrence of Arabia”. It was a long film with many scenes on camelback in the dessert. I remember feeling as if I was riding one of those camels. Finally, Cohen decided to induce me. So on a Tuesday I went to Michael Reese Hospital to have my water broken. I remember hearing women screaming and thinking I’ll just forget the whole thing and go home. In those days men were not allowed in the delivery rooms, although, they could be with their wives in the labor rooms. I remember Jay saying that it was a good day because he didn’t have much work. I think that was supposed to be a joke. Fortunately my labor was short; four hours. Dr. Cohen sat with me the whole time. As he was no longer taking new maternity patients, I was to be one of his last deliveries. Jay read to me from Herman Hesse’s Siddartha, a very popular book in the 1960s. Finally the baby was ready to emerge. An anesthesiologist was there to administer the epidural; this was an expensive way to deliver a baby because he had to stay for the whole delivery and so not too many women opted for this method. When they turned me over to begin, lo and behold, there was scar tissue over the caudal fissure from a pilonidal cyst that was removed when I was in college. So no epidural. What to do? By this point I was in pain and so I opted for the spinal, much as I had not wanted it. Fortunately there were no consequences, but I had to admit that I couldn’t see what good it did. I felt numb from the knees down and that didn’t do a thing for the pain I was feeling. this is where i came in 61

But happily the baby was born without complications. The first words I spoke to Jay after the delivery were, “Bradley is a girl.” But nobody was disappointed. We couldn’t have been happier with this perfect little bundle. Miller had a pocket full of coins and called everyone he knew or had ever known to tell them the news. My mother came to my room and immediately unwrapped our Pamela and counted all her fingers and toes. I was taken aback at this bit of superstition, especially as she was so modern in almost every other way. It never dawned upon me that Pamela would not be other than perfect. I decided to breastfeed, something that was only beginning to come into fashion. It went pretty well, at least I don’t remember having any trouble until I started teaching part time at the University of Illinois on Navy Pier. Then I tried using a pump, but my milk began to dry up. I suspect I nursed for about four months. I remember thinking that it did not make sense to me to sterilize bottles by boiling them when the dishwasher ran so hot. So I didn’t. I put the bottles through the washer, took the milk out of the fridge, ran it under hot water to take the chill off and that was what Pamela drank. It is amazing to me that at that age I had so much confidence to go against the inherited wisdom and the doctors. Today most women, the best-educated women in history, seem so easily intimidated and are always buying books to see what the authorities have to say. I have to admit that I was a little scared about taking care of a new baby. She was so tiny and not at all like the rubber doll I had practiced on in the pre-natal course. I had a wonderful baby nurse named Hanna. She was Swedish and several of my friends had used her. She came into the apartment and just took over. She showed me everything I needed to know – how to change a diaper, how to burp the baby, how to bathe the baby. She also cooked our meals – Swedish meatballs were her favorite. She liked to call Pamela “Miss America.” At the end of the first week she took her first day off. I was left in the apartment on my own. I was terrified I would drop Pamela or do something wrong. I called Jay, but that, of course, was no help. I did manage to survive and little by little I grew in confidence and expertise. It struck me, however, how much my life had changed and how little Jay’s life had changed. We had moved from 900 Lake Shore Drive to another Mies building going up on Lakeview Avenue. Again we had a wonderful view of the lake. This time we had three bedrooms. We chose the east bedroom for ours and make the larger room into a den. Pamela had the small bedroom. And the piano followed. Careerwise, business kept increasing. Jay was busy and happy about the turn of events. He stopped coming home for dinner sometime in the first few years of his solo practice and increasingly turned into a workaholic. This produced a 62 wonderful income and made Jay feel productive. There were only a few things that interested him other than work. For relaxation he would play the piano – classic and popular. He did become interested in photography. His photographs were excellent. He had a good camera and a good eye. When we lived at Commonwealth he turned the laundry room into a temporary dark room. For many years the photographs that he took of the children hung in my dressing area, mounted on boxes. They are now in my storage locker. Jay also went bike riding on the weekends. Sometimes he took the children; sometimes he rode alone, all the way up to Evanston along the lake. But he did work every day except for Sunday and every evening up to ten, midnight or even later, except Friday and Saturday nights. And he was most happy doing that. The other things were just a break. His stamina was amazing and I do envy him that. Not only did Jay work long hours, but reaching him on the telephone was nigh impossible. Still, I always found a way. Then I was careful to say what I had to say in as few words as possible. Jay had trained me well. I would begin with, “I have two things to say,” say them and hang up. This unfortunately carried over into my social telephoning. Although my women friends made fun of me (or perhaps even felt I was rude), I learned later that the husbands appreciated the lack of chatter. One of the first memories from the infancy years was the day that Kennedy was shot, November 22, 1963; Pamela would have been three months old. I was having lunch with Michelle Gordon at Carson, Pirie, Scott when the announcement came over the P. A. system at about noon time that the President had been shot, but that he was recovering in the hospital. Of course, that was not correct. Everyone was in shock. Anyone my age knows exactly where he or she was on that day, as the trauma was intense. I remember my first thought, which was that I had to get right home to Pamela. I don’t know how one thing related to the other, but we all felt very vulnerable and I thought I must get home to protect her. I also remember thinking how perfect Pamela was — such soft skin and no blemishes. She smelled wonderful. At night I always felt that my ear grew longer and went all the way down the hall like Plastic Man’s so I could hear her breathing in her crib or crying. Little by little life returned to a normal routine. I was fortunate enough to have some help after Hanna left. Dede. was able to come in several days a week so I could do errands or otherwise get out. One of the first things I did was to join the docent program at the Art Institute. I had gone through the training when I was pregnant, but they would not allow me to lead children’s groups with an extended belly. The docent program was a new endeavor to train women to be museum guides for schoolchildren. It was composed of women who were from the Junior League this is where i came in 63 and others who were not. The Junior Leaguers knew who was whom; the Jewish women did not. I won a place among the 30 women because Miller had Mrs. Wanzer (from the Wanzer Dairy Company) as a customer. She was on the women’s board and she voted me in. It was one of the most exciting and stimulating experiences of my early married life and by far the best volunteer work I ever did. Being a docent was like going back to college. We had long reading assignments and attended lectures by all the curators. Then we had to pass rigorous tests. It was in this program that I made some of my early Chicago friends, friends who would last a lifetime, especially Sondra Eisenberg and Marlene Baumgarten. I also got to know many of the Junior Leaguers and had my first experience with “old money”. The women were wonderful, bright and funny, but they never followed fashion, and I found they often owned priceless antiques that were badly in need of repair. They wore hand-me-downs and clothes that were years out of date. That was old money. I did have one day all to myself, which was Thursday. Dede came all day that day. Every Thursday I went to Marshall Fields. I often came home with a new pair of shoes and always with a new art book or two from Kroch’s and Brentano’s. In the days before children, Jay and I often had friends over in the evening. In those years cheese, crackers and wine sufficed. Later we had dinner parties. Miller and Annette came to every event we hosted. I was always a little self-conscious about this as the in-laws of our other friends never seemed to be at their parties. But our friends took this in stride and even found Miller’s non-stop comments about his brilliant son, Jay, somewhat endearing. Annette, on the other hand, was always delightful and I felt so lucky to have her as a mother-in-law. During the early years of our marriage Jay and I made many friends. At the beginning these were people Jay knew. First there were Merle Platt and her new husband Michael. Merle had known Jay since high school at New Trier. Merle was an original. She was way ahead of her time in terms of language and sex. She swore like a man and this made me uncomfortable. She claims to have had one date with Jay and to have drunk him under the table. I believe it. She had blond hair and seemed more Gentile than Jewish. This was in part because she had grown up on the North Shore where there were few Jews and those who were there all wanted to fit in. Next were Sue Gray and Mel. Jay had met Mel at Harvard Law School when he rented Mel’s apartment in Cambridge. This would not only lead to a friendship but would also affect Jay’s legal career. Sue was just like the proverbial girl next door – fresh and pretty. For many years she never seemed to age, but then she would jump to another age plateau. At the time of this writing, she is still attractive. Then there were the couples we met as young marrieds. There were the Gordon twins, Larry and Jerry, who were married to Margie and Michelle. Michelle was 64 from Paris. Little did I know then that Larry would return to be a major part of my life in later years. There were the Jacobs – Barbara and Mel. I’m not sure exactly how any of us met. The Jacobs ended up living in Glencoe and always had wonderful taste in everything. The Jarolims came in when we formed the Lincoln Park Opera Guild, a support group for the Lyric Opera. They were both from Czechoslovakia. Eva was drop dead beautiful and the image of Elizabeth Taylor. Carl was a bit older. He was an ob/gyn. The marriage was arranged, and although they argued like no couple I had ever met, it lasted until Eva’s death in 2006. Eva received an allowance to run the household. This seemed very European and old-fashioned to me. Jay and I had a joint bank account and we both wrote checks as we needed money. However, we did keep close track of our finances. Jay had an accounting ledger with a heavy black cover. Each day I was required to enter into the ledger all the money I had spent – cash as well as checks. At the end of the month, I added up the columns so we could see how much we had spent in each category (e.g. dry cleaning, food, etc.). At the end of the year, I totaled the columns and then we reviewed our expenditures. It always seemed we spent too much overall, but that in each category we had been reasonable. So we closed the book and started again the next year. Ten years later I had had enough, so on December 31, 1970, I wrote, “Happy New Year’s and I’m not doing this anymore”. There were also the Blums, Lee and Mel. In the mid-sixties, Jay and I shared a box at the symphony (box U) with the Blums and the Dessers, who were also our neighbors, until there was a property dispute and then the Blums left the box. I held on to my two seats all through the divorce, giving them up only in 2000 because the seats became too expensive. Finally there were Shom and Herb Klaff. I met Shom at Carl Schurz High School. Her given name is Shulamit, which I think is beautiful, but she prefers Shom. We were two of the few Jews there. Shom knew all of the people I have mentioned above and we probably would have met even if we had not taught together. I felt comfortable with Shom right from the beginning, but it took many years for us to build the special friendship that I eventually had with her. We all saw each other in various combinations. We also went away together for short trips to places such as The Abbey in Wisconsin. We celebrated our children’s birthdays and we had adult parties of our own. I liked to come up with creative ideas for these. When we were at 900 Lake Shore Drive I had a folk dancing party. I hired a teacher to show us the steps. I had been to the JCC for folk dancing and thought my friends would enjoy doing it as a group. In 1963 after Jay and I came back from our first trip to London we decided to celebrate the swinging life by having a Mod Party. I had a dress that had belonged this is where i came in 65 to my mother and I turned it into a mini shirt. I bought dozens of incense sticks and we lit them to imitate pot. The Pioneer Press, a neighborhood paper, covered the party and so I have wonderful pictures of the whole group. Later, when I was at 2400 Lakeview I held a Renaissance party. I hired a group of recorder players to play medieval madrigals and served mulled wine. Within 18 months of Pamela’s birth, I was pregnant again. This time Bradley turned out to be a boy. During the pregnancy I was also teaching Humanities 101 at the University of Chicago. This consisted of art, music and literature. I ran one of the T. A. sections. I was fine for art and literature; however, music concerned me as I knew far less than some of my musical freshmen. We covered “Wozzeck”. We also read The Iliad and The Orestia. I remember that one of the students had already published in the New Yorker, so I felt I had to be at the top of my game. Somewhere in these years I found time to audit several courses in Japanese culture taught mostly by a lovely Eurasian man, Edwin McClellan. I think I had a crush on him. I took everything on Japan that was offered in English — history and literature. Eventually Professor McClellan went to Yale and years later Pamela had him for a course. I had a passion for things Japanese and this was a wonderful opportunity to learn more. Bradley’s delivery was different from Pamela’s. Following Pamela’s birth I stayed at Meyer House, the private lying-in section at Michael Reese Hospital, for one week. There we new mothers lazed around drinking milk shakes. But after Bradley’s birth, I wanted to be back home as soon as possible. Cohen was no longer delivering babies and so I went to his associate, Hankin at Northwestern Hospital. I delivered on Thanksgiving Day and when I told Hankin that I wanted to go home on Saturday he was none too happy. But I did. And the following week I was back in class without a tummy. No one said a word. I was determined to act like a man. No time off. When I think on this now, I believe I was just trying to prove a point. But we were the generation of women who were fighting to show there were no differences between men and women. This time I did not nurse. By the time Bradley was born, I had already potty trained Pamela. It is much easier with a girl, I learned. I was also beginning to teach her to read even though she was only about 24 months old. Early learning was in vogue. This interested me. I had large white cards with red letters. Children learned to recognize words rather than sound them out. Pamela was very good at this and before long she was actually reading simple sentences. At four we recorded her reading The Five Chinese Brothers. To some degree this may have established her lifelong love of books and reading which later turned her toward a career in writing. 66

Potty training Bradley was a different story. He was having accidents in his pants and I took him to our pediatrician, Dr. Sherman. Sherman checked Bradley and gave me a “prescription” - for finger paints. His point was that Bradley was trying so hard to please me, he was trying not to go at all, and eventually his control failed and he ended up making a mess. So we set up the finger paints and learned to be messy, both mother and son. But I’m not sure it really took. Although Bradley eventually learned proper toilet habits, he is a very neat child just like his mom. About this time we learned that Pamela had a heart murmur. We had it tested and were assured it was not life threatening, but it did scare us at first. Besides friends I have already described, there was another group that was important to me in the early years. These were women who had all gone to the University of Michigan together. They were all now bored housewives at home with children. So they formed a book group and I was lucky enough to be included, although I had not gone to Michigan. The group did not have a leader, but each month one of the women led the discussion. I remember how much time I put into my turn. I led the group on D. H. Lawrence’s The Rainbow. I made many lifelong friends here. I stayed in the group until I went back to school to work on my Ph. D. About this time our Lake View apartment was becoming too claustrophobic and filled with too many toys, Jay and I began to search for a real home. I loved the old vintage apartments from the 1920s and fortunately we found a breathtaking duplex penthouse at 2920 North Commonwealth Avenue. It was just the place to raise a family. The owner was selling the units as condominiums, a new concept, and we bought in. The tenants in the building resented us because they thought we raised the price level. We paid $60,000 for approximately 3,500 square feet and then spent another $60,000 on renovations. The apartment was in bad disrepair, but we were able to restore it to its original beauty. We laid slate in the entry way and polished the mammoth baronial fireplace. We had to put in all new windows as the ones there had newspaper stuffed in the frames to keep the Chicago wind out. We tightened up the Gothic windows in the living room which had a 20' ceiling and a bronze chandelier that had been left by the previous tenant. When I sold the apartment, I also left the lighting fixture for where else could you use it. The living room had seven layers of paint and varnish over beautiful oak paneling. I had it totally stripped and sealed to show off the natural grain. My favorite room was the dining room with its white stucco carved ceiling and window seat. The study in the front of the apartment had French doors leading out to a terrace which we closed off for fear the children would go out there. We put in a large glass bay window over-looking Lincoln Park. this is where i came in 67

The back of the apartment was a shambles. There was a butler's pantry with a zinc sink that I pulled out, much to my later regret, and an out-dated kitchen. We created a breakfast room and redid the kitchen with beautiful white, ceramic tiles with vegetable designs. Finally there were two little maids' rooms from the days when families have two live-in servants. We used one for the air conditioning equipment and the other eventually became my office, although Juanita used it first when she slept in. Upstairs were more wonderful features. First there was the second floor landing with a balcony over-looking the living room. There were actually two, but I closed off the one from Pamela's room, fearful she might fall. There were linen closets and a humongous storage closet that was always full, no matter how much I seemed to give away. The children each had their own room and shared a bathroom, which was always cold. The apartment had radiators rather than central heating. The other gem was the master bathroom that was covered from floor to ceiling with 1920s mottled green ceramic tile. It also had a very large bathtub tucked inside a Moorish arch that I became attached to and in which I spent many, many hours. I hung a mirror on one wall facing the medicine cabinet mirror, so there were endless reflections which created deep space like the scene in Citizen Kane. To decorate this magnificent palace, we hired a team of young designers, Mahoney and Wozniak, who not only outfitted us elegantly, but also designed some of the furniture. From start to finish, it took two years and a lot of aggravation. Many things had to be done over and furniture often came in wrong. And, of course, the costs kept going up, but Jay was good about this and I am sure very proud of final result. It is too bad that we did not find the happiness here that should have accompanied this wonderful place. By the late sixties, Jay and I began to feel the need to get out of the city. We discussed moving to the suburbs as many of our friends had, but Jay’s long working hours did not make that choice appealing. I did not want to be in a house alone at night. Going to Michigan for the summer was not quite in vogue. Another option was to rent a house on the North Shore for the summer, which some city dwellers did. The first house was on Ridge Road in Highland Park and belonged to one of the local tennis pros. I hired a summer girl from Eau Claire, Wisconsin, named Sarah. It was a wonderful summer. The house was charming. Sarah was a true farm girl who knew lots of things that I did not and was not afraid of hard work. We cleaned the house, cooked, picked berries and just generally had fun. Sarah was someone to share my thoughts with as Jay was seldom around. She especially took to Bradley, the baby. We stayed in touch for many years after that and even went 68 up to Wisconsin to visit her. She knitted Christmas stockings for the children. No one after her had the same maturity and good nature. While Jay was out biking that summer he saw a For Sale sign for two acres in Highland Park, almost at the Lake Forest border. Before we knew it, we were on the way to building our own summer place place at 2676 Ridge Road. Highland Park added a whole new level to our lives. For one, it added variety and gave us a nice place to escape. More importantly it gave the children an outdoor experience other than Lincoln Park. Here there was a big lawn and woods, although neither child ever went into the woods because it was thick and buggy and intruders ended up with scratches. Although the children were only about four and six when we built the house, they were already city kids and liked to play indoors. In the end, we sent them to summer camp so they would have activities and other playmates. As Ridge Road was a new area at the edge of River Forest and Bannockburn, with only a few lots, there weren’t many children in the neighborhood. We were the first member of my group of friends to have a second house, although there were some families who rented on the North Shore every summer. In one way, I was pleased. It gave me a chance to do things I normally didn’t do – berry picking, making jam, buying old American antiques and making butter. In another way, I was uncomfortable about this luxury. I solved the problem by constantly inviting friends and having parties, which sometimes proved to be tiring. But I will say that all of our friends helped us to enjoy the house. We often invited people to come and swim on Sundays with their children. I always had a high school student as a life guard. Even the baby sitters had to have their Red Cross training just in case. Years later Jerry Galler (more on him later) told me that he broke his nose in our pool. He dived off the board and didn’t realize that the pool was not as deep as he thought. I also learned from Ruthie Kahn that at about 5:00 p.m., Jay would come out and announce that everyone had to leave by 6:00 p.m. because he had to work. I don’t remember that happening, but I can believe it. She thought it was odd, if not rude, but in a way, I can see Jay’s point of view. Having a swimming pool was living high and I was aware of it. During the week I never used it. I was not a good swimmer and I didn’t like getting wet. The water always felt cold. On the weekends when we did not have guests, I sat at the side of the pool and read while Jay worked. Sometimes he floated on a raft (he tanned easily and always looked bronzed). The children, of course, made the most use of it and enjoyed the water. In addition to the pool, we had a tennis court. All of us played tennis, although no one was very good. We had lessons and a ball machine and it was a fun thing to do. The children loved the fall when Jay ran the leave blower and this is where i came in 69 they could play in the piles of dried leaves. The first summer I played tournament tennis I unknowingly became dehydrated. This resulted in a kidney stone. One morning I woke up with severe pain and Jay had to drive me into to St. Joseph Hospital. From our Chicago apartment it was just across the street. From Highland Park the trip was thirty miles and agonizing. When we reached the emergency room I was hoping for a painkiller, but they would not medicate me until my doctor arrived. He was making rounds and did not turn up in the ER for one hour. By the time he arrived I had already decided that I would no longer continue as his patient. It took a week for the stone to pass, but fortunately I did not need surgery. I used some of my yoga meditation, although I doubt that chanting accomplished very much. A related and somewhat embarrassing incident happened during the same summer. I seemed to be feeling odd pains in my vaginal area. It wasn’t severe enough to go to the doctor, so I began poking around on my own. I found that I had inadvertently forgotten to remove my diaphragm. However, the pain persisted so I did some more exploring. To my astonishment. I found a second diaphragm. I can only conclude that I seriously did not want to have a third child. During most of the years I was raising children, I was lucky enough to have a wonderful housekeeper, Juanita Kendrick, who not only tended to the apartment and cooked the meals (never my interest or strength), but who was also a wise and loving influence on the children. When they were older, she accompanied them to music lessons and was always available to deal with any problems when I was not there. Sadly she passed away in 2012. She was over 95 and still possessed a wonderful attitude towards life. One of the best parties Jay and I had was on our tenth anniversary. As I never had a real wedding with a white dress and the whole thing, I decided to have a second wedding. I bought a lovely short, white lace cotton dress from Becky Basoulis. Becky began her career making dresses from old lace table cloths and this had that look. It was to be a hippy wedding as the anniversary came in 1970 right in the middle of the counterculture revolution. Michael Platt was chosen to act as the unofficial rabbi. He was always very funny, so it was perfect. Jay wore a Nehru shirt, very popular at the time because of the Indian influence. We both wore flower garlands and stood under a large umbrella while Michael officiated. It was a warm sunny day in August and we all had a great time. It is too bad that renewing our vows did not renew our marriage. Oddly there are no pictures of this event. The house in Highland Park was designed by Tony Grunsfeld who followed Mies van der Rhoe in his approach to architecture. He designed it as a glass box with sliding doors. To some degree, Commonweath was my project and the 70 apartment reflected my taste for modern furniture with a few antique pieces for accent. Highland Park was more Jay’s project. The house was constructed in modulars to keep the cost down. In the end I believe we paid $60,000 for the land and $60,000 for the house, but I may be mixing it up with the apartment which was the same. In fact, we were the first couple to buy into the building which was currently a rental and the tenants were angry because they felt we were raising the bar on the price. When I sold the apartment in 1997, I received $700,000 although I felt it was worth a great deal more. At that time the wisdom was that nobody would pay a million dollars north of North Ave. That changed almost immediately after I moved and Lincoln Park became hot. In 2007, the apartment went for $2,100,000 although admittedly the most recent owner had put a good deal of money into it. The Highland Park house had a long driveway off of Ridge Road as our property was actually behind another house. The people on the north side had German Shepherds who barked when anyone walked up the drive and frightened the children, me included. In many ways I loved the casual lifestyle of being in Highland Park. But in other ways it was a burden. We arrived Friday night and I spent Saturday morning cleaning. At that stage of my life I couldn’t just let things go. I had one day to enjoy myself and then on Sunday I started cleaning up to go home. I tried bringing a maid at first, but that didn’t work out. As the years went by the children had their city friends and activities so we didn’t use it much during the fall and spring. The first year I took the children out of school in May and we moved north, but I was told I could not do that again. I also walked into Sunset Grocery store barefoot and wearing a bathing suit. I was politely told to leave and put on some shoes. At the beginning of our life in Highland Park we were all having fun. As the years went by and the marriage declined, it affected my feelings for the house. I remember one Thanksgiving when Jay went to Phoenix or Las Vegas to work with Dick Levy, his law partner, and I was alone with the children in the house, I felt lonely and very angry. Eventually the house went to Jay in the divorce. It made sense. I received the apartment where I lived until 1997 – 35 years all in all. When Jay married Patrice she didn’t like the house or she wanted something of her own that was not marked by me. They tore the house down and hired Carol Phelan to design a new structure. Sadly in the process they destroyed a wonderful Grunsfeld house. They never lived there and eventually sold it. During the early years of my marriage I spent every Thursday in the Loop. I entered Field’s when it opened at 9 am and spend almost all day there. I visited the this is where i came in 71 linen department where I learned how to fold towels nicely with the folded edge out so that I could have beautiful linen closets and looked at the china and all the new kitchen gadgets. But I was mostly interested in shoes. I bought clothes and toys for the children, I had lunch in one of the restaurants, I checked out the antiques and the antique jewelry. I even went to the post office and the gift wrapping counter to watch how the women did the wrapping so that I too could do up a nice present. These were the days when Fields was one of the leading stores in the country. Over the years it declined, was sold and eventually in the 2000s disappeared altogether. Now it is Macy’s. Only the Frango mints remain. When I wrote my book, Masterpieces: Famous Chicagoans and Their Paintings, I covered some of the early history of the store and the fact that it had begun as an idea by Potter Palmer, who built the Palmer House. At the end of each Thursday, I would go for my ballet lesson at Stone-Camryn. I took the adult class that had both professionals and nonprofessionals like me. Accomplishing the technically precise positions of ballet became increasingly hard as I aged, but I stayed in class for many years and then gave it up for gymnastics, tennis, and finally Pilates. After ballet, Jay and I met for dinner. For many years we went to the old Berghoff, which had great food for reasonable prices, wonderful German bread and beer, and old waiters who really knew their business. It was like a big German beer hall. In later years we switched to the Italian Village. First we ate in the basement; later in the upstairs room. But the perks of having more money did not translate into happiness. After dinner Jay went back to the office and I went home to relieve Dede or some other babysitter By the time I was thirty, life had settled down to a predicable routine. As a young mother, my days were spent mostly with the children. I preferred playing indoors or going to museums to sitting on a park bench with the other mothers. First, I didn’t like being outdoors and second, I found the other mothers boring. The rest of my day was spent on errands with the exception of grocery shopping; I usually called in my orders. This not only saved my time, but also resulted in lower bills. No impulse buying. Besides my Thursdays in the Loop, I played tennis and had my hair done once a week. I didn’t like walking around the house with rollers, or worse yet, sleeping with them. I tried bridge, but didn’t like it. In fact, I tried a lot of things – painting, ceramics, macramé, needlepoint. I am sure there were other activities, too. I even started piano lessons so I could play duets with Jay. I wasn’t especially good at any of these endeavors (I never mastered centering the clay) and none of them held my interest for long. The most stimulating thing I did other than school was the docent program at the Art Institute. 72

At a certain point I joined the board of the American Jewish Committee. AJC was mostly composed of lawyers who took a low-key, but effective approach to combating anti-Semitism by working behind the scenes. It probably reflected a certain German-Jewish mentality, which fit with my own approach to Judaism. I liked being one of the youngest members of the board and one of the few women. All of this, of course, was before I went back to school. We didn’t socialize during the week. All social engagements and outings such as the opera and the symphony were confined to Saturday evening, the one night that Jay didn’t work. I am very proud to say that we became symphony subscribers around 1962/63 and I have remained a subscriber ever since. The first season our tickets cost $42.00 for ten concerts. We were in row B on the main floor. We had to crane out necks up to see the players. Gradually we moved back in the hall and later had a box. At the time that we were still in row B I donated money for a restricted gift to the symphony for a back rail on the conductor’s platform. Partly it was to protect the conductor, but also to protect me from having the conductor in my lap if he inadvertently stepped back too far. That is how the platform got its rail. We did very little business-related socializing, although I resented the little we did do. I now feel I was wrong on that matter, but I was growing increasingly unhappy and angry at Jay so I was not inclined to do anything for his benefit. Actually it would have been for our benefit, but I did not see it that way. While we were still at 2400 Lake View, my father died. He was sixty and Pamela was four. I decided to take her with me to Washington for the funeral. It seemed to me a good opportunity to introduce the subject of death. My father was old - or so it seemed at the time - and no one would be crying or carrying on. I don’t remember much about the occasion, but when Pamela was older she shared with me how it had affected her. When the casket was lowered into the ground, it frightened her and she felt she might be buried in the same way. She had nightmares for a long time afterwards. So what I thought was a good thing turned out not to be. It was about this time in the late 1960s that I began to spend a lot of time in the bathtub, which is why this section has that title. Partially it was a way to find some alone time away from the children, but later it became an escape from Jay and the whole world. I would take a few books into the bathroom and fill the tub with hot water. I sometimes stayed in there for an hour or two feeling soothed by the heated water and engrossed in my reading. As the children grew older, I increasingly felt overwhelmed by their needs. I am sure I was too young and immature and would have done better if I had had more of a life before I had children, although other women seemed more centered. I wanted to go and “do” and especially to be in school. I became tense whenever the children called “Mother!” and began to tune out. I guess that’s called “selective hearing.” this is where i came in 73

I wanted to stay in my own head in my own world. When they were older, they would make fun of me with comments like “Earth to mother.” I was thrilled years later to see Pamela as a young mother respond to her children so readily and interrupt whatever she was doing to answer Hannah or Abraham or to get down on the floor and play with them. I always felt the need to finish what I was doing first. All of this is leading up to how I began psychoanalysis. The year was 1968 and I was thirty. I had become increasingly bored and restless. I could not find anything that would sustain my interest. I also felt the children were undisciplined and I did not have the means to exert control or deal with them in a positive way. I was worried that I was failing as a mother. In addition, my sexual urges seemed to be rising to the fore, but not in relation to Jay and I was concerned I would do something I would regret and which did not fit with my moral beliefs. I was exhibiting phobic behavior, although I did not know that word at the time – constantly cleaning and unable to leave the apartment until everything was in order. Life seemed very difficult and I felt as if I was living under water. I did not think I was depressed, although my speech had lost its affective quality and I was not the old me with sparkling enthusiasm. I was not, however, deeply depressed. That, paradoxically, came after I started analysis. I asked Merle Platt for a recommendation, as I knew she had had therapy. She recommended a child analyst named Harold Balikov for an evaluation. I liked him immediately. He seemed warm, mild mannered and empathetic. We talked and he asked me what I wanted. I answered, “To be the Buddha.” I think to me that meant to be calm and centered like the sitting Buddha. Now all these years later, Harold is gone, but I think I have in the main achieved my goal. Harold said that although most of his patients were children, he always saw a few adults and happily had an opening. He became my one and only therapist for many years; I never saw anyone else until after he died. I horsed around some before committing, but finally I was ready, although scared. Jay was dead set against it and when I announced that I was going into treatment, he slammed his fist on a glass table top and broke the glass. He announced “No wife of mine is going into psychoanalysis.” However, as much as he called the shots in the marriage and as intimidated as I was by him, I went ahead anyway. In 1968 psychoanalysis was at its height of popularity in America. Anyone in my social group who had any education and money did it. That is not to say we were all there to be fashionable, but almost all of us had some neurotic symptoms. Mostly it was the women who probably had less ego and had more time. But many of the men were also analyzed. The typical treatment ran about four years, five days a week. I only went four days a week; I am not sure why. 74

The first year was mostly devoted to learning how to free associate and how to understand my dreams. This is the period when the patient develops a transference to the analyst. I did develop a transference, but I never fell in love with Harold. I always respected him and felt he was a wonderful person. I was thirty and Balikov must have been about forty-five, but he looked even older than that, so I saw him as a father figure – a wise man. And I always wanted to please him and to be the best or favorite patient. That is all part of the transference. The first thing on the agenda was the children. I soon learned that I was letting them run wild because I was afraid to say “no” for fear they wouldn’t love me, especially Pamela. Bradley was still pretty little and our summer girl Sarah had taken him in hand. Little by little the children’s behavior improved, due to my increased ability to set limits. Furthermore, Balikov taught me Winnecott’s dictum. No one needs to be a perfect mother. You only need to be a “good enough mother.” This not only changed how I felt about my parenting, but has also served as my mantra on many other things. I only need to be a “good enough student,” a “good enough teacher.,” etc. The second thing we worked on was my self-image and the phobias. I had a sense of myself as being empty or hollow, perhaps like T. S. Eliot’s “The Hollow Men.” I suspected that there was no real me and the outer image was all there was. Over the months and years that followed, I slowly felt that my insides were filling up. By the time I terminated with mutual consent four years later, I had grown in self-esteem and was ready to begin a new life, which was graduate school. I dropped out of the U of C English doctoral program and began to prepare for the Ph. D. in film studies at Northwestern. Film was a new field and sounded very exciting. It brought together all my interests and gave my life some focus. And given all my childhood hours at the movie theater, it felt like it was my destiny. Other than psychoanalysis and then schooling, my life at this time was mostly devoted to the children. I began early music training for both. As Jay was such a musically precocious child, I assumed this talent would be inherited. So down to the Chicago School of Music we went. The children started in a rhythm class and an early system of ear training. Then they graduated to piano lessons. Pamela took to it pretty well and became competent. Bradley hated it and never practiced. Later I hired a woman to come to the house to teach Bradley. He always managed to amuse her and somehow the lesson was over-looked. In between his lessons he would bang on the piano as his protest against practicing; it was very annoying. We finally paid him to quit. Bradley did not take to Sunday school any better than piano lessons. I discovered that after I dropped him off at Temple Emanuel, he signed in and spent the rest of the morning at the 7-11. I suspect this attitude runs in the family as I did this is where i came in 75 something similar when I was his age and years later his children also objected to going to Sunday school. It is too bad the Jewish education system has not found a way to better engage the young. To compensate for the poor Jewish education, I began my own Sunday School for two. I hired a lovely grad student from the University of Chicago to come every Friday to tutor the children. We agreed on a syllabus — the Golden Years in Spain, the Sweat Shop poets and Martin Buber. Fred added what he chose, although I cautioned him not to discuss the Holocaust as I would deal with that when I felt they were ready. All went well for the first year, however at Purim the second year I heard Pamela talking about how Haman wanted to kill the Jews like Hitler. I was very upset that Fred had gone against my wishes, but as he said to me, “I suspect you will never feel they are ready as it is so problematic for you.” He was right, of course, and in talking more to Pamela, I realized that in her child’s mind, Hitler was as long ago as Haman. On the other hand, Bradley was not a rebellious child. Years later I asked him if he had ever had any “wild parties” when Dad and I were out-of-town and he replied, “Why should I let my friends trash our apartment. Better to let them destroy someone else’s home.” Good thinking. My philosophy was to expose the children to as many pursuits as possible. Even if they did not excel, they could discover what they liked and come back to it at another time in life. Thus the children took tennis lessons and ceramics, and Bradley played ice hockey. It was a big deal to get him dressed in all the gear and he did not seem to like it too much, although later he said he did. Pamela spent some time in gymnastic classes. We often went to museums. I also liked to have foreign visitors at our home for dinner to expose the children to other cultures. I was also concerned about their moral growth and hopeful that they would grow up to be good people who would help others and who would understand how privileged they were. For both Pamela and Bradley we “adopted” a foreign child through the Foster Parents’ Association. This meant that we sent money each year to support the child and probably the family. We also sent care packages with toys and necessities at certain times of the year and wrote letters once a month. The first “adopted” child was Dimitra from Greece. I still have a photo of her. She was a lovely dark haired, dark eyed girl of about five. I wrote each month and put down what Pamela wanted to say. Dimitra’s mother wrote us back or dictated it and it was translated into English. We talked about Dimitra a lot when Pamela was young. The second “adopted” child was a young boy from South America. This did not work as well as his mother did not write and we did not have much contact other than sending money. 76

We liked to go to the Field Museum where the children could follow a self- guided tour and win small prizes if they answered all the questions correctly. But most frequently we went to the library. The children received recognition when they finished a certain number of books. We did this a lot in Highland Park. Pamela was a big reader; Bradley much less so. He had a ton of excess energy and so he needed to be outside and on play equipment. At one point I contemplated buying a park district jungle gym to put in his room at Commonwealth because he was so wild when he came home from school. I discovered the cause. When I visited Bradley’s class at Montessori on Ogden Avenue, the children were doing activities such as cutting vegetables with a real knife, setting the table, shaking objects to distinguish different sounds inside. The children were very intense and there was little interaction. They moved around very quietly. This probably took a great deal of self control for little kids and so he had to let it all out when he came home. I am only guessing. I still believe in the Montessori system even though it was originally developed in Italy for disadvantaged children. I think it gave my children a good start in life and a positive attitude toward learning. They were both self disciplined and primed for school, but maybe they would have been that way anyway given their parents, the atmosphere in our home, and their DNA. As for the differences between the children, it turned up early. We had a toy, a painted wooden basket, that contained wooden shapes such as squares, circles and triangles. The point was to fit each shape into the corresponding hole. Pamela struggled with it until she mastered the exercise. Bradley, having less patience and a lot of creativity (or the deviousness to break the rules although he was probably too young to even know there were rules), just picked up the lid and threw the pieces in, thus achieving the goal. It always made me laugh. Another example of this attitude was when our family arrived at Highland Park and neither Jay nor I had the keys. While we were arguing over whose fault it was, Bradley just walked up to the door and pushed and, lo and behold, it opened. I’m not sure Brad held on to this manner of problem solving. I do know in later years and in college, he definitely played by the book, especially at Yale where he was one of the only students who did all the suggested reading, and I doubt it was from love of the subject matter. When it came time to switch Pamela to Chicago Latin School, Justice Harlan wrote a letter of recommendation for us, although he had never met her (and what can you really say about a three year old?). It did the trick and she was admitted. (at a time when there was a quota for Jewish students). By the time Bradley entered Latin three years later (because of his November birthday and his sex, we were advised to hold him back a year, which we did) his class had many Jewish children. this is where i came in 77

Both of the children were academically gifted. As they moved into middle and upper school and received grades, they often ended up first in their class. Sometimes the honor went to Jill Gofen or maybe Nancy Cohodes or Robert Sobel, instead. I always worried that Pam would be a hard act to follow and I am sure she was, but I don’t think Bradley ever felt the pressure. I never remember telling either child to do home work or helping them with it. However, when Bradley was in his last years of high school, he began to feel the stress of being at the top. There is only one way to go and that is down. He may also have felt that if he lost his first- place status, it would affect his identity. Like all mothers I made mistakes. I taught both children that they only needed to say “thank you” when they really meant it. I guess I resented all the times in my childhood that I said polite things when I knew they were not genuine. And so the children followed my instructions and stopped saying “thank you.” My mother, who was a stickler for etiquette, then stopped sending them gifts and they quickly learned the value of saying “thank you.” Perhaps this was a more effective message than direct instruction. I had always loved film and so I began to take courses at the University of Chicago extension in film history and at Columbia College in production. Somewhere along the line I thought, why doesn’t Chicago have a film center like the one at MoMA. When I proposed this to the Dean at the School of the Art Institute, I was hoping to start and develop such a resource. However, he had a friend, Camille Cook, who was already running a film society and he turned to her and she ran with the idea. The School agreed to support it and it officially began in 1972 with screenings in Fullerton Hall. I was devastated; someone had stolen my idea. However, I am proud to say, that I did what I have always done, that is, to come up with a good alternative. The alternative was to go to graduate school and earn a degree in film and nothing could have served me better. I not only gained a thorough knowledge of film history, but having the doctorate enabled me to have a long teaching career that has taken me all over the world, allowed me to be with young people, and earned me a good deal of prestige. I didn’t know it then, but this was the best choice for me. But before I launched into schooling again, I wanted to go out of social circulation with a bang. As I knew I would not have time for much of a social life once I began a doctoral program, I planned one last marvelous event, which I refer to as the “Russian party.” I wanted it to be glorious in every way. I had always been fascinated with Czarist Russia and the lives of Nicholas and Alexandra. I had lots of books about them and the period, including other royalty like the Hapsburgs. This interest went all the way back to high school when I read 78 fictionalized versions of history – the Napoleonic era for instance. I think I read a book on each of Napoleon’s consuls. I wanted the party to be as authentic as possible. I figured I could do the research on the social etiquette, but I knew the food was beyond me. So I went to Louis Szathmary, a Hungarian chef who owned the Bakery Restaurant. He loved the idea and took up the task of producing food that might have been consumed at a typical Russian court dinner. This started with the zakuska table —which is a series of hors d’oeuvres presented on a covered silver serving cart. This was followed by almost a dozen courses. Each course had a different wine. And most spectacular of all was the fact that all guests had their own waiter who stood behind the chair and only served them. Louis told me at the outset that I could have a very nice dinner for about twenty-four people or I could have a magnificent dinner for twelve. I opted for the latter so I had to be very selective about who I invited. The invitations went out handwritten in French, as the Russian court only spoke French. Of course the affair was formal and I had a long silk dress made in blue with a white empire top. I wore a sash across my chest with some sort of fake medals. We all joined into the spirit. As the guests arrived each was announced at the doorway. I had musicians who played Russian melodies on an accordion. At the end of the evening we threw the glass wine goblets into the fireplace. My mother thought we should have used plastic, but of course the point was to be decadent. We sat down to dine at about 10:00 and the guests left at about 2 a.m. Everything was as spectacular as I had hoped, although Jay rather gasped at the bill. I remember feeling very dry afterwards and learned for the first time that too much wine was a diuretic. I never managed this level of feast again, although there was one party I had planned and never was able to give. I wanted to give a ball, a true ball like the 18th and 19th century ones I had read about or seen in Hollywood films such as Nicholas and Alexandra and The Leopard. Early in my marriage when we were friendly with the Blums, Lee and I discussed doing an event like this. I had discovered that the Lake Forest Academy, once the home of J. Ogden Armour, a meat-packing magnate, still had a ballroom. I wanted to hire some players from the Chicago Symphony, but they turned me down. I planned to hire a dance master to teach everyone how to do the Alexandria, something straight out of War and Peace. It is a formal dance with a line of men facing a line of women and it was done at the Czar’s court. But the ball never came about. In September 1972, I was ready to begin my Ph.D. program in film studies at Northwestern University. Pamela had just turned nine and Brad was seven. I had heard about the program from Sue Galler. Northwestern was not as prestigious as this is where i came in 79

U of C in my mind, but it was exciting to be in this new field of film. I was concerned about the workload and how I would take care of the children and the house while in school. The children were in school all day by then and I did have full-time help, but it still seemed like a lot to be in classes and drive to Evanston four days a week. I contemplated doing the program on a part-time basis, but I decided being part-time was not fully participating in the program. I figured I could always drop back if the workload was too heavy. That almost happened at the end of the first trimester. We were vacationing at the Acapulco Hilton. I was sitting at the pool with my books and feeling completely overwhelmed about how much there was to know and how many books I needed to read and how many films I hadn’t seen. I decided to drop out. But then I thought to myself, I can stay in and do a passable job. Maybe I won’t be at the top of the class, but I will still get a degree and be doing something I loved. So I stayed. This was one example of how Winnicott’s notion of a good enough mother came to serve me. Although I certainly loved being in school more than anything else I could think of, it did take me away from the life I had been living. I could no longer be a docent at the Art Institute nor on the board of the AJC. Social life was now only on the weekends and even then, I had papers to write. The hardest part was probably the children. I turned the maid’s room in our apartment into an office and I worked there when I was writing my thesis (it took almost ten years). When the kids came home from school, they knocked on the door and could tell me one thing they did at school. Not two (was I really that strict?). Then the door was shut until dinner time. Juanita was there to take care of their needs. I knew that if I wasn’t very self-disciplined, the work would never be finished and any interruptions, especially ongoing ones, would break my concentration. I discovered that if I emerged from the office for a cup of coffee or whatever, that made me fair game for the children who had lots of questions and probably just wanted my attention. So in a funny way, the office became a prison. I tried to convince the children that even though they could see me, I wasn’t really there. However, I don’t think this strategy was ever a successful tactic. I was thirty-four when I started graduate school. I was actually denied entrance the first time I applied. The refusal, according to the school, was based on the fact that I did not have enough years to give back to the profession. This was applicable to women students only; evidently men had more time. I appealed the decision based on my grades at U of C and the decision was overturned. It helped that I knew Jack Ellis who was head of the film department. All those rules, like the quotas pertaining to Jews in the earlier part of the century, were later abandoned. 80

I was somewhat worried about how my classmates would perceive me, a thirty-four year old woman who came to school in a Mercedes. I tried to park away from the school. The classes were held in an old quonset hut that had been built during the War. The classrooms smelled from the pot that the students smoked. It was all kind of shabby, but I loved it because it was associated in my mind with art and the counter-culture. As it turned out I was accepted perfectly well by the other students, who were mostly in their 20s. I worked on a number of student films, which helped the bonding. I tried to be a good sport and fit in. I wore jeans and kept my other life in low profile. The one time I had trouble was when we were shooting a film and they passed around a Pepsi bottle for refreshment. I had to repress my desire to wipe it before I took a sip. But I survived. I had more trouble when we were shooting a film project on the shores of Lake Michigan in dead winter. I was freezing and my fingers were numb. I wanted to quit, but of course I didn’t. The professors were a varied group. My advisor and mentor was Stuart Kaminsky. He had just graduated from the program the year before, the first year of the program’s existence. But he was steeped in film knowledge. I wanted to imitate him because he was not so caught up in the theory and arcane language like some of the other professors. He used to go off to play basketball at noontime. He invited the male grad students; I, as a female, was never asked to join. But Stuart and I had a good relationship nonetheless. His expertise was in genre films and popular culture and in showing how these were worthy of study along with the so-called masterpieces of cinema. He insisted that we analyze films rather than judge them and that all films were worthy of study. This approach seemed counter intuitive at the beginning, but, of course, now is fundamental to the discipline. Next there was Peter Wollen, who was probably only in his late twenties at the time, but who intimidated all of us. He had gone to Oxford and written an important book on the new theory of semiotics. His classes were always scrupulously prepared. Later I discovered he was as afraid of us as we were of him because he had never taught before and he did not have a graduate degree. I was awed by the complexity of film studies which included not only the history and technique of filmmaking, but also psychoanalysis, Marxism, and other areas of contemporary thought. I didn’t realize until much later that with this first film class with Peter I had hit the top. From him I learned the latest theories of semiotics, deconstruction, feminism, and all the other “isms.” This put me in a good place to shine in this field Then there was Paddy Whannel. He came from Ireland and had helped establish film education in England. He was a warm, loving man who drank too much and eventually killed himself with liquor. His approach to film studies was to focus on this is where i came in 81 the masterpieces which cast light on what it is to be human. His great loves were Renoir and Ozu. As I get older, I have followed his lead. I now believe that film has a lot to teach us about life and humanity. After the first year I spent most of my time writing my dissertation. I took two trimesters of film production, which I did not like. Nothing ever came out the way I envisioned it in my head. However, it was important as it helped me understand film technique on a new level. The rest of my graduate career was mostly doing research and writing. At the end of the first year I was the first graduate student to be asked to teach. I was of course very flattered. We all had done T.A.ing, but this was a course all my own. Because I was older, I felt I garnered a lot of respect that the other graduate students didn’t. At that time in history there were no videos and we only watched film on 35 mm or 16 mm prints. I had a 16 mm projector and often took one or two films home every night. I felt I had a lot of catching up to do. Pamela and Bradley often watched along with me. In fact, Pamela’s adolescent memories even turned up in a short story she wrote many years later about watching Jules and Jim. Bradley was especially intrigued by Charlie Chaplin. He would sit with me in the darkened living room and never laugh. But when it was over, he would say, “Show it again.” I often wondered what appealed to him. Somewhere at the end of my first year I received a phone call from Gene Siskel, who was the film critic for the Chicago Tribune. He had attended a film festival in Washington, D. C., that featured films directed by women – a novel event at that time. He wanted to do something like this in Chicago and was sure the Tribune would sponsor it. He asked if I would organize it. I had met Gene at local film events and Jay’s parents knew his family. I told him I was in grad school and really didn’t have the time, but would serve as co-chair if he could find another person. And that is how I met Ruby Rich, who had an influence on my future thinking and academic career. Ruby, the assistant director of The Film Center, was a feminist in every way – not just in her thoughts about equality, but also in her lifestyle. No make up, no shaving under the arms. She was one of the nicest people I ever knew – the salt of the earth. At this time she was involved with a man named Gunner, but a few years later opted for a different sexual orientation. We set about forming a committee. Among the women who became involved were Virginia Wexman who later taught film at U of I, and Julia Lesage, another academic. These women became lifelong friends of mine. Our work resulted in Films by Women/Chicago ‘74, which took two years to organize and which was a huge success. We showed over 22 features from all over the world dating back to 82 the silent era and dozens of shorts. It drew the largest crowd the Film Center had ever had had to that point. As Gene later wrote about the first meeting of the committee, “I tried to lead the discussion and was lucky to escape with my chauvinism in one piece”. I too was learning fast, especially about consensus. Although it is a time consuming way of making decisions, and few groups actually use it today, we were very idealistic back then as feminism was emerging into the culture. Meanwhile at home, the children were growing up. In 1976, a local television producer named Diane Bloomgarden decided to develop a news program on WTTW with children as anchor people and critics. Pamela was thirteen. There were auditions and Pamela won a spot as the movie critic. I’m not sure how or why that happened, but she must have felt some connection to my work. The show was called Bubblegum Digest. It was great fun seeing her on television. Sadly there no longer exist any tapes. The review of hers I remember best was “The Bad News Bears”. The only records of the program that still exist are a few kinnys, which are video tapes filmed off the TV screen when the program aired. I have tried to track down some of these, but so far, no luck. After Bubblegum Digest, Pamela published a book she had written four years before at age ten. It was called Flight From Freedom: A Slave Girl’s Escape. The 70 page novella, which came out in 1978, concerned a young slave on a Southern plantation who finds her way north on the underground railroad. It was published by Shameless Hussy, a feminist press that I found that had a section of books written by and for children. Her teachers were impressed, but my mother queried me as to why Pamela would want to write about a slave, implying that I was somehow oppressing her. Bradley, pursued sports as well as academics. He was a good athlete. He did long- distance running and I think his team went to the state finals. He also played baseball. But the great fun for me was hearing his hollers and yells when he was watching a game on TV, especially if his team was winning. He still reacts in exactly the same way. All along Jay dreamed of building his own firm. Most people thought it couldn’t be done, but little by little he moved in that direction. Mel Gray had a good friend named Dick Levy. From time to time they got together to talk about going into partnership. Dick was ready to jump right in, but Jay was cautious and held back. Throughout their partnership together these personality differences remained. They were a good team and I feel personally responsible for pushing Jay to take the plunge. Dick was the “outside” man with contacts to banks and Jay was the “inside” man who wrote most of the documents and whose Supreme Court clerkship lent extra prestige to the partnership. I have heard all kinds of stories over the years this is where i came in 83 that questioned Dick’s integrity (and that some of his clients were involved in shady deals), but I have no way of knowing what was true and what was false. I only know that Jay’s professional ethics were always beyond question. Over a fifteen year period the firm grew to about thirty men. It was envy of many lawyers in Chicago. It was a boutique firm which hired only the best lawyers and paid them big starting salaries. However, as the profits increased, neither Dick nor Jay were willing to share enough of it with the other partners. Grumbling began and some men left. Before the end came in 1985, the firm had taken a big space at 30 North LaSalle and hired the firm of Booth and Nagel to do the interior. The offices were beautiful with a gem of a small conference room in the front. However, by this time I hardly ever went down to the office. The year that Pamela turned sixteen, we had a foreign student come to live with us. Her name was Abigail Sekimitsu. Pamela had met her at Orme Ranch, a horseback riding summer camp in Arizona. When I visited Japan in 1978, I met Abi’s parents in Kobe. They were preparing to send her to boarding school in England and she didn’t want to go. She had heard the school was very strict. I suggested that she come and live with us and attend Latin School. The suggestion was taken up and Abi arrived in the fall of 1979. However, by this time Pamela had decided to go to boarding school herself. She was accepted at Exeter Phillips Academy. She said at the time that she had been at Latin her whole life and was anxious for a change and a possible better social life (meaning boys), but it came out later that another reason was that she wanted to separate herself from the tensions in the house. Her absence made Abi’s arrival a little awkward. But we worked it out. Abi slept in Pamela’s room, although not in her bed. That was too much for Pam so we set up another bed in the same room for Abi. She attended Latin as planned and became close friends with Brad, who was two grades below her. Abi was quite beautiful and had a very fashionable wardrobe. Her English was perfect and she was the new kid on the block, so she made lots of friends, especially among the boys. She would have been fifteen that year. Although I am sure the other students liked her, she herself was not so confident about fitting in – something very essential in Japanese culture and equally important in America during adolescence. When she had been here only one month, I received a call from the police station on Chicago Ave saying they were holding my daughter. As I knew Pamela was in New England, I wasn’t sure what was going on. Abi picked up the phone sobbing. She had been arrested at Field’s for shoplifting. The police were puzzled because she had almost $100 in her wallet. It turns out that she met up with some girls in her class who were taking jeans into 84 the dressing rooms, cutting out the white plastic tags that beep, and leaving the store with the clothes. The girls asked her what she wanted, and although she knew it was wrong, she wanted to feel part of the group. She was the last one to leave the fitting room and because she was scared, she looked around nervously, which alerted the guards. They handcuffed her and put her into a paddy wagon and then called me. I was furious they would treat a young girl, especially a foreigner, that way, but they said they thought she might run. In the end she was not booked because she was underage and Fields did not press charges. However, I made her pay back the money out of her allowance and write to her mother about what she had done. That became Abi’s first lesson on how to think for yourself – American values vs Japanese values. A digression. The other run-in I had with the police during the children’s childhood was when Brad was twelve. I received a phone call from the Waveland police station to come get Bradley and Robert Sobel. They had been jumped in Lincoln Park and their bikes had been stolen, although the police had caught the culprits immediately. When I got there I asked how old the boys who had jumped them were. I was told the thieves weren’t boys, but two older girls. So goes life in the city. Abi’s parents had money and so her parents paid for everything, except food and board, for which I would not accept reimbursement. She became part of our family and vacationed with us on ski trips and elsewhere. She did a little Japanese cooking just for fun. I made her read the great Japanese novels like The Tale of Genji, which she had never read because she had attended The American School in Japan. Obviously Pamela became a little jealous even though she was the one who chose to go away. She did not want to think she was being replaced. This came up at Thanksgiving when Pamela came home for the first time. At midday Abi asked to talk to me in private. This was always done on the two green chairs in my bedroom. She said that Pam was now home and that she was my real daughter (Abi called me Aunt Patricia). She was so smart and Abi feared that I would no longer care about her. I assured her that yes, Pamela was my real daughter, and yes, she was smart, but there was room in my heart for her too. Then that evening Pamela came asking for a private one on one. We sat on the green chairs and she said that she was worried because Abi was now the only girl in the house and she was so beautiful and she had such great clothes. I told her that there was no way anyone could replace her and told her about my conversation with Abi. She was sworn to secrecy, of course. So fortunately no damage was done and it was good that both girls could share their feelings. It was about this time that Pamela came to me with a special request. She wanted a diaphragm, which she explained she was not intending to use, but wanted “just in case.” I am not sure how another mother would have reacted, as Pamela this is where i came in 85 was only sixteen, but I thought that I would much rather that she be prepared and protected and I would just have to trust her good judgment about sex. Her second request is that she wanted to see a female gynecologist. Although now such a request would not be unusual, in the late 1970s, there really weren’t many female doctors. But I found an older woman gynecologist and off we went. The doctor’s waiting room looked like a beauty salon with white wrought-iron furniture, which did not look very professional. When the nurse called “Erens,” I jumped up and was immediately told that I was not the patient, and Pamela was whisked away. After a period of anxious waiting, I was invited into the examining room. The doctor had her gray hair piled on top of her head with a few large bobby pins. The room had dark wooden cabinets, not the white Formica that I was used to, and I wondered how sanitary any of this was. But she and Pamela, who was sitting nude on the examining table, were laughing like old girlfriends. I had expected the doctor to take a sober approach to the matter and to lecture Pamela about being too young for sex, but obviously this was not her approach. Before she left the room, she told Pamela, “Now remember, this is not Russian roulette; you have to use the diaphragm every time. You are only safe as a woman on the moon with no men.” This whole experience was very emotional for me; I saw it as a “rite of passage” for Pam. In later years when I brought up the visit, she had only vague memories of it. For her it was much more a matter-of-fact event, but I am sure it set a good tone for things to come. Before I received my Ph.D. I had the opportunity to write several film books. I jumped on those projects because I felt that if I did I would have several publications by the time I finished my thesis, which would put me ahead of all the other newly minted Ph. D.’s. I had boundless energy then. In those days we typed out the manuscript and used carbons. When we had to do a corrections, it was very tedious. I had already published a book in the late 1960s on the great Chicago art collectors whose collections formed the foundation of the Art Institute. I did the research at the Ryerson Library. The writing of that book had been motivated by the good questions the school students asked when they came for docent tours and also by my curiosity about my great adopted city. The book, called Masterpieces: Famous Chicagoans and Their Paintings, published in 1979, included the Potter Palmers, Mrs. Buckingham, the Deerings, Ryerson, and Frederic Clay Bartlett. Not all the patrons had wealth. Most relied on their own taste, although they sometimes sought opinions from experts. All concentrated on one artistic school or period except for Bartlett, who started with Impressionism and then sold all of it to buy modern art. I grew fond of each collector, especially Kate Buckingham, who was a spinster and quite her own person. Through my research I learned a lot about Chicago history – 86 the World Columbian Exposition of 1893, the origins of Marshall Field’s and the Palmer House, the Great Chicago Fire, the reversal of Chicago River, the development of the lakefront and the Gold Coast, the Chicago landmarks such as Buckingham Fountain and some of the statues in the park. It was a great experience. The first film-related book was The Films of Shirley MacLaine, published by A. S. Barnes and Company, published in 1978. I figured that because I had gone to ballet school with Shirley, I would have an edge in gaining an interview, but I was wrong. She was writing her own book about her life (and previous lives), so she was not willing to share with me. I received a polite “no, thank you.” The next book was a reference book on Akira Kurosawa, his life and his films, which I completed in 1979. I had always wanted to do my dissertation on a Japanese director, probably Mizoguchi, but could not master the language. So here was my opportunity to work on a great Japanese artist and to spend time with the films. The book had to reference both English and Japanese works about his films. I hired a researcher in Japan to help with the Japanese material. The next book came out of my experiences organizing Films by Women/Chicago ‘74.The anthology was to be the first collection of articles on the history of women’s filmmaking and the new field of feminist film theory. The title was Sexual Stratagems: The World of Women and Film. In the end it was unfortunately not the first book on the subject because my publisher took so long bringing it out, but it did make its mark in the field nonetheless. The anthology included a complete filmography of all works directed by women from 1895 – 1984. Every country and style was included. One of the highlights of my graduate school years was the opportunity to be on a film set with none other than Sydney Pollack and Robert Redford. I had written Universal Studios to see if Pollack was open to doing an interview. I sent him several published articles I had written on his work, especially Jeremiah Johnson. A call came in and his secretary said he would love to do an interview if I were willing to come to New York where he was filming, “Six Days of the Condor” with Robert Redford. At first I thought, I will spend this money, get there and he won’t know who I am. But then I decided to take a chance. And so I booked myself into The Plaza Hotel. In those days there was a special tier of rooms with single beds that only cost $42.00. Once there I received a phone call from his office, inviting me to come to the overnight shoot in Hoboken. They would send a car. And when I reached the set, there, right next to Pollack, was a director’s chair with my name on it. I was even told that I could have 15 minutes with Redford during a break. This was astounding to me as Pauline Kael, the great New Yorker reviewer, had complained that Redford did not make himself available to critics for interviews. this is where i came in 87

During a break in the filming, I was led to Redford’s dressing room. My first impression was “He really is short” and my second impression was, “He isn’t as handsome as his photos.” But he was very generous and serious. It turned out he had also read my academic pieces and wanted to discuss them with me. He extended my allotted fifteen minutes and I came away with some good material and even a little food. Over the next week, I met with Pollack every afternoon for an hour in a house on the upper East Side that he had rented. I was then able to write an excellent piece on his work which I published in Film Comment. This was my only brush with fame. I never sought out celebrities, although many of my colleagues did. I came away with a lot of respect for both Pollack and Redford, who both turned out to be genuine human beings. I was not surprised down the line that Redford created The Sundance Film Festival and gave so much of himself to the support of young and independent filmmakers. When Pollack died in 2011, I was asked by WBEZ radio to speak about his career on public radio and was able to share my sense of the man. In June 1981, I finally received my degree (nine years after I had begun) on a rainy commencement ceremony which Jay attended even though we were now separated. It turned into a heated argument over the division of assets and Jay threatened never to talk to me again. He was good-to-his-word and we didn’t speak again until Hannah’s baby naming in 1999, eighteen years later. I had always planned to publish my dissertation, which was on the representation of Jews in American cinema. After graduation I found a publisher and set about making revisions. I decided to do this before I began full-time teaching at Rosary College, where I had been offered a full-time position. The dissertation was very long, as I included every Hollywood film that had any Jewish character or mention of Judaism. This was to be the first full study of the subject and I wanted it to be complete. As with the book on women’s filmmaking, someone beat me to the punch. But again, my book became well known and regarded and as my mentor Stuart told me, “We don’t just need one book on John Ford; there should be many books.” As Stuart anticipated, there is now a small cottage industry of books on Jews and film. My book called The Jew in American Cinema came out in 1984 and I am proud to say that it helped usher in the study of ethnicity in film generally. It took ten years to complete and was a ground-breaking work. I spent weeks at the Library of Congress and at the University of Wisconsin, Madison,, screening old films. There I looked at 35 mm prints on a steenbeck. I could watch 3-5 films a day if I used the fast forward lever. Now they have removed the fast forward as it was damaging the prints. Being at the Library of Congress always made me feel like a sleuth and a scholar. I felt I was creating new knowledge. And of course I stayed with my mother, who, God bless her, helped with the research and 88 photocopying. I discovered reviews of some of the earliest films (1900-1920) from old film magazines. These were turning yellow and probably have long since disintegrated. I also found reviews for films that no longer existed from a card catalogue of entries written by the Women’s League of Decency. This was a Catholic watchdog group who wanted to make sure that good Catholics and others were not exposed to too much sex and violence. Ironically they became some of the country’s first film archivists. My research in Madison resulted in the purchase of a kitten who we named Cleo for Cleopatra. She was adorable in the window of the pet shop, but she grew into a prima donna and I knew to stay away from her. We later coupled her with a cat named Marc for Marc Anthony. They had a litter and the children were able to see how Cleo picked up each new born and carried it in her mouth from her private birthing place behind the air conditioning equipment out into the open. When Pamela went off to college Cleo would stand at the top of the stairs so I couldn’t pass. She knew I was afraid of her. Finally I shipped her off to New Haven, but it turned out Pam was not allowed to keep her, so back she came. At that point, we found a new home for both of the cats. The final book of my career apart from a monograph on teaching adolescents about the Holocaust was Issues in Feminist Film Criticism, the only one that is still in print. It came out in 1990. I have been receiving royalties ever since and in many ways it is the standard textbook in the field. In part this is because it is very good and in part because the field peaked at about this time and not much new theory has been added. In order to put together this collection I took a sabbatical from Rosary. I read everything and then did my selection. I queried my colleagues about what should be included and wrote the introductions. I couldn’t repeat the definitive filmographies because in the ten years since Sexual Stratagems, women had just produced too many works. All was set to go with Indiana University Press, which had published The Jew in American Cinema, when I received feedback from my friend and colleague Julia Lesage. Everyone who had looked at the manuscript said “terrific.” Julia said it was lacking on several levels and if I went ahead with publication, I would get roundly criticized. What to do? My sabbatical was almost at an end and then it was back to full time teaching. At first I was going to ignore Julia, but then I realized she had read the book more carefully than anyone else and not just rubber stamped it. So I spent my last month of sabbatical doing more research and major rewrites. In the end I was very pleased and it paid off although I hardly slept for that month. Travel during my married life was mostly to resorts. Jay wasn’t interested in what I call travel (seeing the world), but more in getting away to someplace warm this is where i came in 89 in the winter where he could still work. However, there were some exceptions - a big tour of Mexico and then several trips to Europe. Six months after Pamela was born, Hanna flew her to Washington and stayed with my parents. We went to Mexico City, Cuernavaca and Oaxaca. In Mexico City we visited Nancy Sorsby, my NYU roommate who also went to Penn, and her husband Elkan, who was in construction. While there we saw the Aztec pyramids and as always I read about the sites. In all our travels we dined nicely. We drove to Cuernavaca and then on to Acapulco. In Oaxaca we visited archeological sites. In one they drop you into a narrow chamber and I must admit to feeling panicky and claustrophobic. For the first and last time in my life I became fearful of flying, but as I had to get back home and to Pamela, I had to overcome this with mind over matter. And I did. Our trip to Vienna took place in the late 1960s. It was no longer the embodiment of the fin de’siecle that I had read about in the lives of the Hapsburgs, but it still had its coffeehouses and charm. The museums in particular were great. I had my mind set on buying a work by Egon Schiele, whom I had recently discovered in a book I purchased from Kroch’s and Brentano’s. I visited the bookstore’s art section every Thursday and bought the latest works which was how I continued my art education. Schiele appealed to me because of his sensual images of women and the bold colors and lines. My neighbor, Bud Holland, who was an art dealer, told me a gallery to try in Vienna. They did not have a Schiele, but they offered us a blue line drawing of a young boy by Gustuv Klimt. The cost was $900, which seemed very steep at that time. When I came home I wrote them to find out more about the provenance of the drawing and by that time it was already sold. I don’t think that Jay would have allowed me to spend that kind of money and it was not what I wanted. I didn’t think Klimt compared with Schiele. I found him too decorative. However, in the last few years the Neue Gallerie in New York has made him highly sought after. I am more partial to his works now, but still prefer the hard realism of Schiele. This is the first of many works that I wish I had bought. However, once I actually did buy what I wanted - a large color photograph by Cindy Sherman, which people refer to as centerfolds - and made the opposite mistake; I sold too soon. It is now referred to within the family as “the Cindy Sherman incident.” As mentioned earlier, I bought it for $1,000.00 in 1982 and when it was going at auction for $160,000 in 2003, I thought about selling. However, I was hesitant as I still believed in her talent and felt it could go higher. But when I learned that the color photography of the early 1980s was not stable and was going to fade, I feared I could end up with a worthless piece of paper. So I sold it to Metro Pictures for $120,000 which allowed me to buy an oil painting by Alex Katz which was not 90 going to fade. I thought I was the smartest woman alive until eight months later another Cindy Sherman centerfold went at auction for $500,000. I was shell-shocked and spent the whole summer kicking myself for listening to experts and not using my own judgment. Since then another in the series has sold for $3, 800,000. But after awhile I got used to the fact that Sherman photographs would keep going up and I could not continue to beat myself up every time there was an auction. However, I never managed to totally forget my miscalculation. I do love my Katz painting. Recently I learned that the 1980s photographs will probably not fade until the beginning of the 22nd century and that buyers today simply don’t care. Foolish me, I forgot to ask the crucial question, “When are they going to fade?” Coming back to travelling: following Vienna, Jay and I went to Berlin, which was one of the most interesting cities at the time because of the Berlin Wall. We were able to cross over to East Berlin on a bus which was carefully searched at the border. We were required to surrender our passports, which made me very uncomfortable. The border guards, according to information we were told, were Saxons, who were the same men who served as guards in the concentration camps, which didn’t make me feel any better. East Berlin was very dismal. It was 1967 and in addition to the Soviet style architecture there was still evidence of World War II damage. But we were able to see the great museums such as the Pergamon which was on the East side and to view the glories of the ancient world, particularly the Ishtar Gate from Babylon. Years later I actually visited Pergamon. I remember seeing menorahs in the windows of some of the antique shops. My first reaction was that I needed to go in and save them as they no doubt had been confiscated from Jewish victims. I learned later that actually they were of recent manufacture and were a code to signal tourists that Jews were welcome. Most of the trips after that were either in Arizona or Mexico. For several years during spring school vacations we visited the Phoenix- Scottsdale area. We stayed at John Gardiner’s Tennis Ranch and took tennis lessons. I used these trips to buy graphics, Acoma pots, Hopi dolls, Indian baskets and fossils. I visited the Goldwater Museum to learn more about SW Indian culture. During the winters we made trips to ski resorts. We went to Aspen, Steamboat Springs, and Stowe. None of us were very good at any of these sports; perhaps Jay excelled in tennis. I was too scared to go down the mountain in the proper way and so I used the snow plow position which is hard on one’s thighs, but gives you control. My whole body used to ache and that is when I had my first massages. In the 1970s for two or three years running we went to the Tres Vidas, a private resort in an area close to Acapulco. Each family had its own casita and pool. Jay could do his work and the children were very protected. Many Chicagoans came this is where i came in 91 to this place. I was in film school during one of these visits and practiced filmmaking by making a super-8 home movie using the children and other kids. It now exists on video. Before the Mexican vacations, Jay and went to London without the children. We stayed at Brown’s Hotel, a big improvement over my student lodgings, which had been a walk up with dirty sheets. But even here I was disappointed; the room was small and not nearly as nice as my bedroom at home. We had high tea, which is famous at Brown’s, but I was not impressed. London was very safe in this era and Jay walked through the parks at night. I think we also took in an avant-garde performance by Sally Potter at a public swimming pool. This was recommended by my professor Peter Wollen. I am not sure either of us understood what we were seeing. For years when we went skiing, Aspen was my favorite. The town had great restaurants, especially the one that served pioneer food and sourdough bread. I bought a sourdough starter and made my own bread for a long time. I also bought a wonderful ski outfit and felt quite chic, but by the last trip, I was walking around with skis, but never getting on the sloops. What killed my interest was going to Vermont during the wintertime. It was freezing cold, not like spring skiing in Aspen, and the snow was ice, not powder. We finally gave up on skiing altogether. The episode with skiing reminds me of my grammar school experience with the Girl Scouts. I was anxious to join so that I could wear the uniform when all the other girls wore theirs. My mother bought me the dress and then later the belt, the shoes, the socks and the purse, and when I had everything I quit. But I could still dress up on meeting days. The last trip that Jay and I took to Europe alone was to London and Spain in 1974. We drove from city to city, which was nice. We visited Madrid and actually had a lot of fun going to the tabernas at night to watch flamenco dancing. I even booked a private lesson with a flamenco instructor and a guitarist. He was intent upon teaching me a certain routine, which was giving me trouble. I couldn’t get the precise rhythm he wanted and I was becoming frustrated. Jay could hear the difference because he was musical, but I had to struggle a long time before the teacher was satisfied. We stayed up so late every night that we ended up sleeping late in the mornings and at noon the museums closed, so we didn’t see an awful lot. As on all the other trips, we stayed at the best hotels. Then on to Seville, Granada and Cordoba. In Granada we had wonderful guide, who really helped me understand the beauty of Islamic art. She said the reflections in the water represented the fact that our world is just an illusion. After that, I wanted to explore more and later went to Morocco and Turkey looking for the same experience, but nothing ever equaled the Alhambra. The Spanish say, “See the Alhambra and die.” 92

In 1976, we took the children to London on their first trip overseas. Bradley was probably too young for this and constantly complained that his feet hurt. I was probably over-zealous in marching them through the British Museum to see the Sumerian ram from Ur of Chaldea. But even the Changing of the Guard did not make much of an impression. Over the years we tried different places and different kinds of vacations, almost always at Christmas time. One year (1976) we went to La Samana in St. Martin. This was a low-key, but expensive resort. Almost everyone seemed older and it was formal to the degree that Bradley could not go into the dining room alone. The most memorable part of that trip was a visit to the Mini Club. We put in an order for appetizers which did not arrive for 90 minutes. After waiting another 90 minutes for the entre, we left without paying and went across the street for a pizza. The name Mini Club became a running joke in our family for bad service. The next year we decided to do something less formal and booked into Club Med at Manzanillo, Mexico. This was where the film “10” was filmed. I was a little skeptical, however, it was billed as an all inclusive family resort and it was. Of all the vacations, I think this suited us best. We all could do whatever we wanted; the children tried all kinds of new activities, Jay worked and I read. We came together for meals. Brad discovered he could eat without his parents and so he went to pre-breakfast for those people who were up early, then breakfast, then post- breakfast for those people who overslept and then on to lunch and dinner. One would have thought I never fed my children. One event I remember with great humor, although Jay would not have agreed. Coming back from the Caribbean, I was so unhappy about always marking my occupation on the re-entry form as “housewife” or “mother” that I decided to write down “revolutionary.” I guess I was taken by all the movies I had watched in film school or by radical friends who had supported the Cuban revolution and Che. The security forces at O’Hare did not see this as funny and I was pulled out of line, Jay and the children as well. We were taken to a small room and questioned until it was determined that we were not threats to the United States of America. But it was made plain that I was never to do that again. As I wanted to travel more and wanted to expose the children to the rest of the world, Jay and I decided to trade off choices. For my first choice in 1978, I chose the Galapagos Islands. We spent the week on a tanker with no hot water and bad food. But we had lectures on Darwin and the evolution of the species. There were only twelve passengers all in all. Once there, we had to follow strict rules to stay on the path. We saw marvelous sights – mother birds chewing food and then putting it in their baby’s mouths, iguanas raising their heads to the sun, Equatorial penguins, huge Galapagos turtles, and we were able to swim with the sea lions. this is where i came in 93

After the islands we went up to Quito. It was Christmas eve and the first night of Chanukah. I wanted the children to see how other cultures celebrated Jewish holidays and found that the JCC was having a Chanukah party. There was no synagogue in Quito. The local children were dressed up like Purim and when we were eating I said, “Isn’t it interesting how the Equadorian Jews celebrate Chanukah,” at which point Pamela asked, “But why are they speaking Hebrew?” A good question. When I inquired, I was told that these were not Equadorians, but rather Israelis sent by the government to aid in building a dam. The Equadorians had celebrated Chanukah the week before because they couldn’t stand the Israelis. It’s like the old joke about two Jews on an island, each with his own synagogue. Jay’s choice for the next Christmas was Hawaii. We went to another fancy resort in Mauna Kea. I believe that Mary Tyler Moore was there with her husband or boyfriend. We saw the volcanoes and did the usual things. It was getting towards the end of our marriage and I for one was not very happy. Whether the children sensed this is hard for me to say. The last family trip was in December, 1980. It was pretty glum. We took a cruise on the Royal Viking through the Caribbean. Jay and I were not getting along and we were cooped up in a small cabin. The kids were pretty much on their own. Pamela has her own version of this trip in a story she wrote much later. This just about covers the family trips. There were obviously trips to Washington and New York and also many places I went to on my own. I have already referred to meeting Abi’s parents in Kobe. This was part of a visit to Japan sponsored by USIA (formerly connected to the CIA). The purpose of these visits was to spread American culture to foreign countries. I planned to take ten short American documentaries made by women to Japan and discuss the rise of feminism in the U. S. The government spent a good deal of time investigating me to be sure I had the proper attitude towards America; after all, I would be representing our country abroad. Once I was deemed politically acceptable, the project was funded and the work began on sub-titling all the films into Japanese. Of all the trips I have made during my lifetime, this was perhaps the most special in terms of the people I met and the treatment I received. The five-week trip (three for lecturing and two for traveling on my own) began in Tokyo. I stayed at The Okura, one of the best hotels there. Whenever I wanted to go anywhere, I just picked up a telephone and called the U. S. Embassy and they sent a car. There were several handlers to see that I was well taken care of. I learned how to grab five-minute catnaps in a limo. The major event in Tokyo was a program at the Asahi Shunbun Hall. The “Asahi Shunbun” was the leading newspaper of Japan. The hall held 1,000 people and I assumed would be filled by anyone interested in my topic. But that was not 94 so. The organizers had invited 1,000 people to fill the seats and they knew exactly who would be there. I was nervous, of course. So, when I made my comments on the films, I must have talked a little faster than during the rehearsal. In Japan, everything is very organized and as they had planned for me to speak for one hour and as I had finished up in only 56 minutes, everyone just sat in silence for four minutes while we got back on schedule. The questions were slow in coming and I was worried that we would have another period of awkward silence, but that soon changed. Evidently it is impolite to jump in with a question as that would imply you had not sufficiently thought about it. But people were fascinated by the idea of women’s equality and had lots to say. It seemed clear to me that my subject was considered very exotic and that they equated feminism with American values and did not feel it applied to them. This carried over to the next day when I was interviewed by a group of female journalists. They seemed very sharp and professional. But when men entered the room and they switched from English to Japanese, their voices seemed to go up a full octave and they clearly appeared deferential to the men. I also appeared on national television and as Japan had only a few stations at that time, everyone throughout the country seems to have seen me. Weeks later when I was visiting a Buddhist temple, one of the monks acknowledged that he had watched me on TV. I noticed when I saw a rebroadcast of the program that I had begun to bow like everyone else in Japan. I lectured in Osaka and Hokkaido, the northern most island. After my presentation, they honored me by having a dinner with the most important people in the community. Of course, I was the only woman. Clearly, Japan had a ways to go. At the end of my obligation, I set out to see the rest of the country. As I did not speak Japanese, I was given pieces of paper that had the names of cities and where to get off the train. I would show it to someone on the train to be sure I was at the right destination. I stayed in railroad station hotels, so I didn’t have to worry about finding a room and then the proprietors would help me plan my city tour. I can’t believe I was so brave as to travel alone for two weeks and not know the language. There were days when I didn’t speak to anyone. But somehow I managed to eat, sleep, see the major sites, including Meiji Mura Park (a replica of a 19th century city), a village that produced wonderful ceramics, pachinko parlors and the memorials at Nagasaki. But the true treasures of Japan are in Kyoto where I spent almost one week. Here were the oldest temples, the perfectly cared-for Japanese gardens, some with ancient moss, the serene, sand-raked gardens, and charming ryokans (Japanese style inns). this is where i came in 95

During World War II, the American government decided not to bomb Kyoto even though Japan was the enemy because the buildings were irreplaceable. Here one slept on the floor and was given a hard pillow. I had the names of a few contacts and discovered that there were feminists in Japan, although most were American expats. The following year, 1979, I applied to repeat the same trip in Israel. However, Japan was a once-in-a-lifetime experience. In Israel, no one picked me up to go anywhere and, in fact, when I showed the films on a kibbutz, I had to carry my own projector. But as on the visit the year before, I met many, many interesting people and had wonderful experiences and learned so much about the rest of the world. This visit also led to my going to Israel for a trimester the next year and teaching at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. While I was in Israel teaching, Bradley went to tennis camp in Florida and Pamela spent part of the summer in Avignon, living with a French family. Neither were positive experiences. Bradley was grouped together with boys from New York who were much more sophisticated than he was and he had trouble relating to them. Pamela’s difficulties derived from differing cultural expectations and a family who were not very warm and accepting. In addition, Bradley was homesick, a feeling that plagued both of the children throughout their childhood. I always felt I did something really good in that the children were so attached to home or something really bad. Bradley decided to come back to Chicago. Pamela struggled and “toughed it out,” which was her way of handling things. I should mention that I visited Israel several times during these years. The first trip in 1976 was with a small group which provided an adult version of The Experiment in International Living. We toured the country from top to bottom and our guide was Uri Weinberg. He became a lifelong friend. On a later visit I attended his son’s bar mitzvah. It was my first experience sitting behind the mechitza. I went back in 1977 and spent time in the Sinai Desert with a group of German students before the Sinai was given to Egypt. On this trip, I first went to Jordan to see Petra. I was a little nervous about being a young Jewish woman alone in an Arab country, but I managed to keep up my pluck. For Israelis, seeing Petra was a dream as they were not allowed to cross the border. Some did and were shot in hostile territory. There were even Hebrew songs of visiting the “pink rocks.” It was an amazing place. One entered through a long tunnel on a mule and at the end, suddenly there is light and enormous pink buildings carved out of the cliffs by the Nabataeans, centuries ago. It reminded me of the opening of a Hollywood epic. Afterwards, I crossed into Israel over the Allenby Bridge. One could go from Jordan to Israel, but not the other way around. All of this was highly romantic. Likewise, the time in the desert. We travelled for four days in an old army truck. The students sang the whole time. The big event of the day was eating. At night, 96 they used the headlights of the truck for illumination to cook the meals. We slept in the wadis, which are dried river beds. It becomes very cold at night and one evening we had to double up together in one sleeping bag to stay warm. The most surprising part of this experience for me was the sense of time in the desert. The first day we drove around and there was little to see but bedouin huts and lots of sand. I was totally bored and didn’t know how I would survive three more days. But each day I could feel my civilized, urban demeanor falling away, and by the last day, you could have sat me on a rock and I could have happily stared at the sand for twelve hours. The change in my sense of time was a revelation to me. An anecdote on the less serious side. I believe it was in 1979. I arrived at Lod Airport with my vibrator. When the security guard went through my luggage (Israel was the first country to recognize the importance of airport security), he decided to have some fun. Holding up the phallic object with the battery running, he asked me what it was. I don’t know what I answered, but I was hugely embarrassed and never travelled with a vibrator again. Despite these wonderful experiences, I suspect that all this travel reflected my restlessness, especially in the marriage. I read that the Jewish Museum in New York City was searching for a scholar to oversee their new film archive; I applied and was offered the job. When I suggested to Jay that I could commute, he said quite pointedly that if I took the position, our marriage was over. I turned it down (with some regret), but the end of the marriage was in sight. The archive was later moved to Brandeis University. The end came after four years of difficult negotiations. Also, evidently without Jay’s knowledge, Dick had made plans to jump to Kirkland, Ellis to head up their bankruptcy group. This must have been a blow for Jay, especially coming the same week as our final settlement. This brought to an end two major aspects in Jay’s life. Many people felt that Dick had not acted honorably. I don’t know. Years later Dick told me that for the four years we were negotiating a divorce, Jay was not focused on the practice. I cannot fully believe this, although I know Jay was very angry at me and perhaps this did distract him. Or perhaps this was just Dick’s excuse. After Jay left the apartment, there was a great sense of relief. But that didn’t last long. The apartment seemed so quiet, an awful quiet. I was working to finish my dissertation and we continued to see a marriage counselor, but the decision was already made. This marriage was about to end. If we hadn’t worked it out after the first separation, this was not going to work either. Soon after the separation, I took Pamela on a vacation to Morocco. First we did a group tour to Marrakesh and Fez and then she and I went to Club Med on our own. Before we left, I hired a taxi to take us to the one active synagogue in this is where i came in 97

Marrakesh. It was a small, white stucco building. The men sat inside and prayed and the women gathered around a small window and tried to follow the service. Afterwards, we all celebrated an Oneg Shabbat. The next day we had a car and driver to take us to Club Med at the edge of the Sahara. As we were leaving the city the driver asked me how I had liked the service the night before. The question unsettled me as I had heard there was a good deal of anti-Semitism in Morocco. So thinking fast, I said, “I think it is so interesting to see how they pray.” I don’t know how convincing I was, but I hoped he would think of me as a “accidental tourist.” Within a month of the separation, the loneliness set in and I was ready to do something about it. I called up Jerry Galler and asked, “How do you meet men in Chicago?” I had always found Jerry easy to talk to and as he was a divorced man, I assumed he knew the social scene in Chicago. He answered, “What are you doing on Tuesday?” And that is how our relationship began. There was no moving back after our first dinner. He winked at me and I was a goner. I believe this date was on Tuesday, June 30, 1981. He died 6 years later and the funeral was on June, 30, 1987 – 6 years to the day. The second date was on July 4th. We went to the yacht club with his sailing partner. I remember they asked me to keep my shoes on under the table. I was quite the free spirit at that time. The third date was the following Tuesday; we went to see a modern version of the Robinson Crusoe story at a small community theater. By then I was totally smitten and it was not surprising that on the next date he stayed over. We went to see Judy Collins at Ravinia and when she sang the song from “Cats,” Jerry took my hand and it was a done deal. I was wearing my white lace dress by Becky Basoulis that I had worn for the mock wedding Jay and I had in Highland Park in 1980. For better or worse, I can often remember what I was wearing for an important occasion. The next morning I was up bright and early for my video production class. I told Jerry he should stay and help himself to breakfast, but he decided to take off as well. Although he was quite an adventurer as it turned out, he wasn’t use to a Holly Golightly girlfriend who didn’t always follow convention, at least not yet. The rest of the dates fade from memory, but once our relationship began, Jerry was the center of my life. Things never lost their sparkle. Jerry was the generous loving man I desperately needed. He always believed that “too much of a good thing is just right.” He was fun and supportive – a family man, a charitable man, in short, a mensch. And that was his goal in life. He used to discuss this with Rabbi Herman Schalmann. He always tried to do the right thing (like supporting the young women associates at the law firm); often he would ask Schalmann, “why is it so hard to be a mensch?” and Schalmann would reply, “If it were easy, then everyone could be a mensch.” 98

At first Pamela did not respond favorably to Jerry. Perhaps it was too soon after the separation or perhaps it was just that he was a new man in our lives. But it was not long before he won her over too. I believe it was a big stuffed animal on her birthday or maybe she sensed the same warmth that appealed to me. These were tough years. Jay and I were trying to work out a divorce agreement. At first it was cordial. I had hired Howard Krane, the head of the tax department at Kirkland, Ellis, to represent me (after all, I would need a big gun to deal with Jay), but basically we were trying to sort things out ourselves. Jay had come up with the idea that he would retain ownership of the apartment, which was in his name (something I never questioned) and that he would give me whatever I needed to live on each month. It sounded just like our marriage and at first I thought it was fine. When I mentioned it to my mother, she was adamantly opposed to such an arrangement. She advised me that I needed a real settlement and that the apartment should be given to me. I suppose I was concerned about managing my own money and even feared I would lose it. I had practically no knowledge of finance. I had never read our tax return and I didn’t even know how much Jay earned. My mother, in contrast, was the one who handled the money in her marriage. She cautioned me about trying to resolve things on our own, pointing out that Jay was a skilled negotiator and I was naïve to say the least. So this ended our peaceful negotiations. For the next 3½ years we communicated (or not) through lawyers (I ended up with five) or through a mediator, which failed totally. It was certainly the longest divorce among my social peers. There were depositions, court orders, court hearings, etc. I was always a little tense and dreadfully concerned about my financial future. In the end I feel it was a fair settlement. The main thing from my point of view was to get it behind me so I could go on with my life. However, it did serve to give Jerry and me four years to get to know each other without any pressure about marriage. The only sad part was that after a certain point, my lawyers urged me not to do any big travel as it would have counted against me in the divorce. We did have a few trips, however. The first one was to New York. We stayed at The Plaza, my favorite hotel. We saw his cousin Roberta Galler, who was to become a big influence in our family. When I came back from this trip, I realized I still had the hotel key. I decided to keep it as a memento of the trip and it became the inspiration for my key collection that eventually grew in size to 165 pieces and became part of the permanent collection at the Loyola Museum of Art. Once I became interested in keys, I remembered that I had dated a man named Ronnie Deitch in Washington, D.C. He had a lock and key collection that numbered in the 1,000s. He taught me how to break open a gym lock and showed me some locks from the Middle Ages that were truly metal masterpieces. this is where i came in 99

I discovered to my surprise that Bud Holland, my next door neighbor, had some lovely Roman keys. I began buying them and eventually ended up with his whole collection. Then he began looking for pieces or small collections in Europe. I could not afford the locks, but the keys were lovely. Some of them are like small sculptures. Jerry and I went to Hilton Head for a short vacation. But the two biggest trips were to Club Med in Ixtapa, Mexico, where his children joined us, and Haiti. We visited Haiti in 1983. It was quite exotic, but was an extremely poor country. Jerry had been there once before when his niece, Donna, was studying voodoo and he remembered it fondly. We stayed at the resort where Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton often came and where Graham Greene wrote some of his novels. When we were there, however, no one famous was in sight. It was hard to enjoy the culture with so much poverty everywhere and to make matters even worse, there were frequent car searches due to political unrest. Theoretically we could have traveled after the divorce in May, 1985, but I decided to go to San Francisco State University for a semester as a visiting professor. Like my trimester in Israel in 1979, I wanted some additional intellectual stimulation that I wasn’t getting from Rosary College. Happily I saw Jerry every three weeks; either he came to California or I came home. And I spoke to him every day. Just hearing his voice always filled me with comfort. We did have one lovely weekend driving down the coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles. We stopped at Carmel and saw a wonderful aquarium and fell in love with the sand dabs. The fish are born with two eyes, one on each side of their body. Later they live at the bottom of the ocean where their coloring matches the sand which provides camouflage. At this point, one eye migrates to the other side, so that both eyes face up. I wanted to bring some home, but they have to be kept in salt water. Then on to Esalen looking over the Pacific Ocean. This is where all the New Age stuff began and the people there looked like they never left the 60s. Jerry had been there in the 1970s for group therapy, which probably ended in a group love-in. I had a massage in one of the caves overlooking the water. The male masseuse was in the nude, supposedly to put me on an equal footing. All this was a little much for me. Then we stopped at La Ventana, a lovely resort on the way and finally at Santa Barbara, another counterculture spot. The University attracts mostly female students who major in women’s studies. I think it was at this point that I found out that I had been granted tenure by Rosary College. I was of course happy and relieved because many years before I was told, “Scratch a Catholic; find an anti-Semite.” Clearly this was not the case at Rosary. 100

Finally we arrived at The Beverly Wilshire. Of course, Jerry was unhappy with the first room they gave us and so we were upgraded at no extra charge. He had this routine down pat. I don’t remember much else. But it was lovely and we had the freedom now to enjoy it as I was already divorced. When I returned to Chicago after living in San Francisco, Jerry and I decided to move in together. It was either his apartment or mine and mine was larger. Also, Jerry had less stuff to move. Living together proved much more difficult than I had imagined. For the previous five years, I had stayed at his apartment on Tuesday, Thursday and the weekend. I had my own bathroom and closet and it all was so easy. We each had time together and time apart and it seemed ideal. However, we decided to take the plunge. This still did not include marriage, but I guess I thought it was a step in the right direction. However, no sooner than we had made these plans, Bradley, who was in his last year at Yale, decided to take off a semester and move back home because he did not want to graduate early (he had too many credits). Jerry was not so happy that our new romantic nest would include my son. But before we could turn around, Leslie decided that she would leave American University and do her last semester long distance. And she decided to move in with us rather than live with her mother and step-father. At least this evened things out. For me, however, it was a nightmare. Suddenly we were a family and we needed dinner for four people every night. Somebody would have to do the cooking and for sure it was not going to be me. So I hit upon the plan that every fourth night, one of the four of us would take charge of the meal. Leslie usually made a casserole. Jerry and Brad broiled and I took the four of us out to dinner. Somehow it all worked and before long, we were more or less all comfortably installed in Commonwealth. And so began our adventure. Jerry actually had the words L’aventura printed on the checks of our joint account. The joint account covered the apartment expenses, maid, travel, etc. We each covered our own clothes (no man really wants to know the cost of women’s clothing) and money that we gave our children. It worked very well and for the first time since the court put me on a budget in 1982, I was really free of financial worries. But as my narrative will show, my financial stability has gone up and down several times over my lifetime. An unexpected benefit for Bradley was that very often in the evenings, I would be wrapped up in work, Leslie would be out, and the two males would end up in the front study watching television. This provided Bradley with something he had very little of during his growing years – the companionship an older male. Jerry being Jerry would engage Brad in conversation and they discussed things like the law, his future or whatever. I believe this had a lasting effect on Brad and I am eternally grateful to Jerry for those evenings. this is where i came in 101

By spring semester, both children had moved out, but by then Jerry was showing signs of sickness and so the days were numbered. During our time together, I tried to sail and Jerry learned tennis. I took sailing lessons at Belmont Harbor. I learned to tie knots and “come about” but was not very enamored by the whole enterprise. Furthermore, I got seasick whenever I was out on the lake. I tried everything – elastic bands and watching the horizon, but nothing really worked. Smells bothered me the most and I definitely could not go below. On the other hand, Jerry became a decent tennis player. We went to Sarasota, FL, once or twice a year where he had a condo on Long Boat Key. They were nice trips, but from the surviving photographs it looks like my head was always in a book. Eventually Jerry sold his interest in the boat and we spent the summer weekends in Woodstock, IL, where he had a wooden cabin and a 40 acre farm. Again, I was mostly inside reading, while Jerry walked the land – his land. I guess it is a guy thing. Likewise, he enjoyed moving walls and improving the property. We entertained a lot and had a big social life. Before Jerry came into my life, I liked entertaining, but it was always fraught with some tension. Jay would come home at the last minute and I was always tense. My energy level has never been high and by the end of the evening, I was exhausted. Fortunately we had enough money to pay someone to help and to clean up and I usually went to bed as soon as the last guest left. I remember images from childhood of my mother washing and drying all of the dishes which evidently went on until 2 a. m. I was just not up to that. Once Jerry and I entertained together, he was a big help and I learned to do it with ease, although I still required the paid help at the end. The six years with Jerry were mainly consumed with getting a divorce and beginning a new life. Teaching went on apace as did publishing. I learned to deal with Jerry’s large, demonstrative family. At first, I was overwhelmed by his relatives who grabbed me and hugged regardless of my hesitancy. Eventually I relinquished my Eastern reserve (or was it my dislike of being touched) and grew fond of big hugs. When I first met Jerry I was coming out of a unhappy period in my life. I was depressed a good deal of the time and I often withdrew into myself. I found it hard at first to be with someone else for a long period without needing to be alone. Jerry did not really understand these feelings, but he gave me the time and space I needed and he never judged. Slowly over time, I no longer needed to isolate myself. My mother was very fond of Jerry. He engaged her in conversation which Jay had never done and even suggested a surprise birthday party for her. Beyond that, he actually improved our communication. I called home once a week on Sundays from the time I moved to Chicago until her death. Usually I narrated what I had done during the week and she commented. Jerry would listen to these conversations 102 which usually were punctuated with comments like “Don’t tell me what to do,” “I’ll do what I want,” and the like. Being a good observer of people and psychologically astute, he said to me at one point, “why do you tell her things that you know will upset her?” I had to think about that. At first I thought, well, it was just a hold-over from childhood when I would come home from school and tell her everything that happened to me during the day. Of course, I resented it, but it never dawned on me to lie. But as he pointed out, I was no longer a child and I did not have to tell her everything. It became clear that I was probably well aware of what would upset her and was doing that on purpose, a way of saying, “Well now I am beyond your reach and can do as I like.” But Jerry was right. The game was getting frayed around the edges. And so I began censoring what I said and in those instances where she made a suggestion (which in the old days really meant a command), I would laugh and agree and say, “What a good idea.” And then, of course, I would do as I liked. It was so easy I almost felt guilty. And as she became older, it became easier and easier. In fact, the idea of upsetting her now that she was so fragile seemed nasty and inappropriate. My mother who once seemed all-powerful now seemed small and vulnerable. There was no longer any glee in winning an argument. My life with Jerry seemed idyllic. I had everything that I had ever wanted, a warm, loving man who was not only good to me but also to my children. A man who always wanted to make life easier, happier, more comfortable. A man who had intelligence and culture and who was willing to go anywhere, try new things. He loved people and we entertained a lot. He was wise in terms of life and understood a lot about people. And he followed my career so we could always talk about things. He was seldom in a bad mood and perhaps most importantly, he made me laugh. And I know that he understood how much I loved him and how much I was there for him. It never entered my head that this could all come to an end, but it did. Our final trip together was to Jamaica in December 1986. Getting off the plane in Chicago there was no jetway. I had on only a thin summer dress, and Jerry gave me his sweater. Shortly after that he came down with a terrible cold. I felt quite guilty. One night six months later, he had trouble breathing and we drove down to Northwestern Hospital. He didn’t seem much concerned even though they put him on an inhalator. Over the weekend things turned worse and he was taken to Emergency. He stayed there while they tried to treat his pneumonia, but nothing they gave him seemed to work and by mid-week he was in a coma. He never regained consciousness. He died on June 28th and the funeral was on June 30th. It all happened so fast, I was not prepared, and for those outside the family it came this is where i came in 103 as a real shock. During the long week in the hospital Bradley was at home and it was he whom I relied on. To take my mind off the reality of what was happening, Brad and I went bowling. I was so wrought up, I just threw the ball down the alley and earned the highest score I ever achieved. Although Jerry and I had a marriage license and were planning to be married sometime in the fall, when the end came, I was not a blood relation and so I had little say over what happened. However, the children and I did plan the funeral together, pick out the coffin and the headstone and the shiva was held at Commonwealth. I grieved all summer, alternately feeling sad, angry, and sorry for myself. I knew that if I tried to repress my feelings they would return to haunt me at a later time. Each month brought on a new emotion. One month I went out and bought a very expensive Dior dress that didn’t fit me and which I never wore. Another month I went to Rosehill Cemetery and buried Jerry’s glasses in the dirt near his gravestone so he could see what I was doing. Another month I threw a fishbowl against a wall. Mostly I cried and talked to Jerry, hoping that he could hear what I said. 104

Flying Solo

At the end of summer, when teaching resumed, I began to think about my life and what I might do that would not have been possible if Jerry had lived and I was married. I felt that I needed to leave Chicago to somehow put myself together and create a new life. I began by taking a sabbatical from teaching. The time was spent learning to use a computer and more importantly, finishing work on a new book which became Issues in Feminist Film Criticism. This was the book that would promote me to full professor, a goal I had always aspired to. I learned all over again that producing an anthology was as difficult and time consuming as writing a book on my own. Not only did I need to read everything in the field, but then I had to choose which pieces to include and obtain permissions. And, of course, there were also the introductions, bibliographies, glossary, indexing and cover design. Having completed another book, it was time to think about myself. Fifty seemed about the right time to start preserving what physical attributes I still had left. Encouraged by my mother who always believed in looking your best, I decided on a face lift. I chose Dr. Tardy, whom many of my friends had used. I wanted to looked “rested” but not “done.” Mom came in for the surgery which fortunately was right across the street from Commonwealth at St. Joseph Hospital. What I remember most was the pain behind my ears (where they pinned the skin) and the cold compresses for the eyes. But as Tardy explained to me, once you did the lower lids, you never had to do them again, which proved to be true. I was pleased with the results and figured it would last at least another ten years. It was about this time that Shai Weinberg, the son of my Israeli friend, Uri, came to live with me for a few months. He was trying to perfect his English skills so that he could apply for an MBA program in the States. It was wonderful to have this is where i came in 105 him in the apartment and often I would return early from a date so he and I could talk. He was such a bright and mature young man of 28. Before Shai I had had a succession of students living with me after Jerry died as I did not want to be alone. First came a grad student from South America, then a Fulbright photographer from Glasgow and finally some American students. Each was an interesting addition to our household, but after Shai, I no longer wanted to share my space with strangers. I was ready for something totally different, especially as Bradley was now away at college. My plan of action was to become the Director of Foreign Studies for the Rosary London Program. This provided several pleasures – a chance to live abroad and travel while being paid, a break from teaching, some time away from Chicago. The two semesters I spent in London were wonderful – full of new learning, adventure and meaningful experiences with the students. The first group included approximately 30 young men and women. They were earnest and studious, wanting to make the most of everything. The second group of about 20 was there to play. Fortunately I had seen so much the first year, it didn’t matter. The students lived in British homes and came to class every day at the Quaker Center. Each wrote a research paper and had a local tutor. In addition, they were required to visit 100 sights in London and to enter a report in their journal. I graded the journals and the final exam, so I had to be on top of all this as well. On the weekends we took a coach to places like York, Bath, Canterbury, Winchester, Chichester, Durham, the Isle of Wright, Coventry, and Stonehenge. We took a 10-day trip to Edinburgh staying at B & Bs along the way. Obviously I came to know the students quite well and they saw me at my best and worst. By the end of the semester, there was not a nook or cranny in the British Isles that we did not visit. It was one of the best semester abroad programs available. Developed by the nuns in the 1920s, I even think that they beat out Smith College as the first U. S. school to send their students to Europe. Most colleges just let their students loose in Europe, but Rosary, being originally a Catholic women’s college, took a more maternal approach. In fact, I was the first non-nun to head the program. Having the students in homes rather than dorms was a major headache. The Brits felt our students were spoiled and used too many paper products. Our students felt the Brits were aloof and didn’t sufficiently heat their houses. There were other problems as well, but it surely was a good cultural experience for these students whose previous travel was usually little more than going into Chicago to see the Christmas windows. I had my own problems with the Brits. Everything was so formal. Phone calls didn’t count as a proper means of doing business. If I booked a tour on the phone, I had to follow it up with a letter. It also turned out that I didn’t count for much 106 either, first as a woman and second as an American. I began signing my letters P. B. Erens, instead of Patricia, and I found that was more effective. I now understand why all those early British female film critics used their initials instead of their names. After doing things the British way and acting agreeable, in the main because I felt I was a guest in their country, I finally came to the point that I was no longer going to say “yes” to everything. The showdown occurred while we were on a tour in Oxford. We had seen all the standard sights and I thought it might be nice for the students to see a dorm room. I mentioned it to our guide and he seemed shocked. His immediate answer was “No,” something I was growing tired of hearing. I asked why and received the standard reply, “It isn’t done.” But instead of caving in, I said, “Well, let’s go for coffee and figure out a way that it can be done.” He glared at me with real hatred, but I had the upper hand as I was the employer, and in the end, I won out. I soon discovered that England runs on tradition even if it is not efficient or practical. I found attitudes in Britain different in many other ways. When I was visiting Hampton Court there was a salad available for lunch, but I didn’t want the fries or what they call chips. I was told politely that there could be no substitutions. I found this rigidity very annoying. I never became used to it, but after a while, I learned some defensive tactics. In a cafeteria line at the National Gallery, I asked if I could have cottage cheese instead of potato salad. I knew the answer before it came, “No Madam.” “Well then I said, “Can I have cole slaw?” Again, the same response. I kept this going knowing full well that her answer would never change. The line behind me was growing and I wanted to see how long I could continue this contremps. But at no point did she smile or lose her temper. Finally I gave up and took the potato salad. I discovered a new appreciation of choice. Sitting in the offices of The Jewish Museum one morning before a board meeting, I was amused to hear the lunch requests coming in. One wanted corned beef with mustard on the side; the next wanted extra pickles; and so it went. In the U.K., finances proved to be a major headache. It seemed I was at the bank almost every other day. I was responsible for paying all the bills and for giving students a weekly allowance for transport and other things. As was to be expected, I could never get the sums to come out right. Finally I assigned this task to one of the students and made him my Exchequer. Doing a final accounting at the end of the semester was a nightmare. In addition to the academics, we went to museums, art galleries, lectures, concerts, plays, musicals and the ballet. Much of this was totally new for the students. Mostly I accompanied them and I always made them dress up. There were this is where i came in 107 complaints that the British didn’t dress up to go to the theater and my reply was, “But we do.” This was the era of “Les Miserable”. Over the next two years I think I saw it three times. I lived at the spare Quaker Center for one month and it became a challenge to see how little I could survive on. It was while I was living at the Center (June 1989) that the events in Tiananmen Square occurred. We all watched the television as events escalated. The residents were absorbed by all of this, but I have to admit that at the time I did not know that much about mainland China nor the seriousness of what was happening. Little did I know that this area of the world would play such an important part in my life only five years later. After the Quaker Center I moved to a house on the Regent’s Canal in Islington, a section of London in the process of changing from a working class neighborhood to one favored by artists, architects, actors, and many gays. Each morning I took the tube to work. After awhile I felt like a real Londoner. On Sundays we all went to church. The students were mostly unenthused, but I became very drawn to the service and especially fond of cathedrals. I think Durham, with its Romanesque style, was my favorite. I made many friends in London and after a point even began to entertain. For the first school break I went to the silent film festival in Pordenone, Italy. After years of complaining about men ogling and making comments, I found it very disconcerting in England not to be looked at. Thus it was a pleasure to see the older Italian men flirting with the older, sometimes buxom, Italian women. As I found it tiresome to see silent films all day, I went with my colleague Bill Luhr to Venice – a one-hour train ride. We rode gondolas and vaporettos, saw the Guggenheim and Fortuny museums, the Jewish ghetto, synagogues and some churches. A wonderful day. When I took the train back to Venice at the end of the week, there was a thick fog and I could not find a taxi to take me to the airport. In desperation I asked an older Italian man in a very small car if he would drive me and offered to pay him whatever he wanted. I am sure he could barely see out of his window and who knows how good his eyesight was to begin with. I was convinced that I was going to die. But somehow we arrived and he would not take any money. But no planes were flying and we were bused to Trieste. The name alone sent shivers down my spine – Trieste, the city of James Joyce and all those World War II spy films. I was so excited just to be there, although we never left the airport. I spent most of my time going from office to office to find someone with a VAT stamp so I could obtain a refund for the Armani coat I had bought in Venice. No one knew what I was talking about; however, being persistent I finally found the stamp myself and I did in fact receive a refund months later. 108

The second year in London was quite different. The group was smaller and more fun. They were in and out of cathedrals and ready for a pub in no time flat. One ugly but telling incident took place in Berkeley’s Bank, my neighborhood bank. I had left some money there during the six months I was in Chicago. When I came back to deposit $1,000, they informed me the account had been closed for insufficient funds. I did not realize they were deducting a fee each month and sending it to my London address. So I said, “no matter, here is a check to reopen the account.” But they said that could not be done. I then spoke to the bank manager, who told me the same thing. When I insisted, he said to me in front of all the other clients, “But madam, you have soured our relationship.” I couldn’t believe it. Eventually in England, money doesn’t talk and the customer is not always right. I felt outraged and wanted to insist he take my money, but I knew in the end I would not win. So I took my wounded pride across the street to Lloyd’s of London, who were happy to have my $1,000s. I had learned something since the year before. This year I upgraded my residence and took a small flat on Pont Street in Kensington. From my bedroom window, I could see Harrods. I loved Harrods and ate myself through the bread section in their food hall. My three-flat had an old fashioned glass elevator like ones you see in French movies. I was required by my landlord to have my linens washed and ironed. The whole arrangement was quite classy. The apartment even had a working fireplace. During spring break I took the advice of my last year’s students and went to Greece, specifically Mykonos. It was wonderful – all whitewashed and charming. I stayed at a hotel a short bus ride from town. I concluded that this was the way to live. Rent a house, write all day, knock off at 5:00, go into town and eat and drink. I was determined to come back some day and do just that. Mykonos closes for the winter because of the weather and this was just about the end of the season. At first my bus to town left every 15 minutes, but after a few days a chalk board informed riders that they would now leave only every 30 minutes. Then it was once an hour and finally it was whenever the bus was full enough and the driver felt like driving. Such was life in Greece. There were only a few guests at my hotel. One was a German man, probably in his 30s or 40s. We hung out together and he was good company. One day he suggested we go to the nude beach. I agreed, but was concerned that my students might be there and it would be highly inappropriate for me to be seen in such a state of undress. But when we arrived, I surveyed the entire beach and seeing no one, I took off my top. It was only many months later in Chicago that one of my favorite students, a tall strapping red-headed Irish male, admitted to me that he and two other students were actually on the beach that day, but made a pact not to tell the others. this is where i came in 109

I also learned when I flew home with another student a few weeks later, that several of them were on drugs most of the time. I thought I was so cool – more up to date than the nuns, but I had not seen everything. Nor the romances going on right in front of my eyes. I guess the Rosary students weren’t so naïve after all. But for sure, they came back a great deal more culturally sophisticated than when they left. The most memorable experience in London was the memorial service for Michael Powell, the great British film director. I had met Michael when I had an N. E. H. grant to study the films he made with Eric Pressberger. We met at One Fifth Avenue in New York. He was totally charming in his tweed English suit. He admitted to me that “one woman is fascinating and endless and many women is almost unthinkable.” And this from a man in his mid-eighties. I gather he was quite a womanizer in his day. He was now married to Thelma Schoonmaker. When Michael died, I was in London. She remembered me and kindly invited me to the service at the church on Piccadilly. Martin Scorsese came in from Paris to deliver the eulogy. Everyone in the film industry was there and I was even included in the luncheon at the National Film Theater afterwards. It was here I met Leo Marks, who was the author of “Peeping Tom”, the film that destroyed Michael’s career. I pursued Leo until he agreed to give me an interview. He was quite remote and strange and I then understood how such a lovely man like Michael could have made such a perverse film like “Peeping Tom”. As it turned out, Leo didn’t reveal too much and preferred to tell me about his involvement in helping to break the Nazi code. He held me spellbound for the whole evening. To sum up the London experience I think I liked stretching myself intellectually and meeting the challenges of living abroad. I was ready for more adventure. After London I did some major traveling. One trip was a lecture gig to a wonderful weekend retreat where I led a discussion on Jewish films for a Reform Temple in San Francisco. I took my mother with me for her 80th birthday. We visited San Francisco first and stayed on Union Square. I remember seeing her standing across the lobby of one of the hotels and thinking she could be 60 years old. She was still straight and elegant. However, beginning at about 82, mom began to noticeably decline. The stomach pains that had plagued her throughout her life became worse and she began sleeping for large parts of the day. After much hesitation, she moved to the Hyatt Hallmark retirement home in Bethesda, Md. She wasn’t very happy there and had no interest in making friends. She insisted on having her meals in her room. Eventually she needed a full-time care taker. 110

But despite her physical condition, her mind was as sharp, as was her pride. My favorite story is her response to a invitation to attend a lunchtime piano recital in her building. In turning down the invite, she said, “I have heard Rachmaninov. Why would I want to come down and listen to some high school student play a piano?” She died in September, 1997; I was in Hong Kong. I am forever grateful to Ilene that she was there at the end. When she died there was no pathology. She just died of old age and perhaps a lack of desire to live. It was not until the funeral that I found out from her older sister, Shirley, that she was not 89 years old as I had believed, but rather 90. Because she was one year older than my father, a shanda, in her day, she had lied about her age. I also found out that her birth name was Naomi, which she changed to Nettie because she thought it was more American. Likewise, my Aunt Shirley had gone from Sarah to Shirley. Three trips deserve special mention. In 1990, I visited Cuba. Americans were not allowed to go there as tourists. Only doctors, nurses and some academics were allowed in. I went for the Cuban International Film Festival through the Office for Cuban Studies in New York. I flew out of Miami Airport and was surprised that the flight was only one half hour. The special quality of Cuba hits you immediately as you step off the air plane in Havana. Wherever you look the cars were all from the late 1950’s. The city looks like a film set. However, many of the cars were on blocks in front of people’s houses because they no longer ran and the owners could not get new parts. Havana was not only stuck in the past, but sadly shabby. We were told that Castro had put all his resources in the service of raising the literacy rate and building up the countryside. Despite this, the people seemed happy, lively and very friendly. We stayed at the Habana Libre, which was the old Hilton Hotel. When I discovered there was no hot water in the bathroom, I called the desk. They immediately sent up a nice, older plumber who spent about thirty minutes in the bathroom and seemingly repaired the problem. However, when I discovered there was still no hot water, I inquired about what he had done. In his broken English, he explained there had never been hot water in this hotel, but he felt sorry for me so he had polished the hardware. During this trip I saw wonderful films from all over Latin America, special screenings at the Cuban Film Institute, visited Hemingway’s house and Harry’s Bar, went to the ballet and ate bananas. We had fresh bananas for breakfast, fried bananas for lunch and stewed bananas at night. There was practically no meat in the country and the little chicken that existed went to the tourists. They were desperate for American dollars. I also visited the Jewish Synagogue. It was no longer in use and, in fact, the ceiling was open to the sky and birds flew around in the sanctuary. It has since been repaired by a group of Americans. At this time there were only a few hundred Jews this is where i came in 111 still left in Havana. But unlike in so many other countries, there was apparently no anti-Semitism (and there never had been), but there was no opportunity either under socialism. Most Jews who lived there under Batista supported the Revolution, but eventually left as the government took over their property. My family had relatives there who finally emigrated to Miami. I know that Cuba will once again become a beautiful, vital place, and for better or worse tourism will return. With tourism, however, gambling, corruption and prostitution will probably return as well. To Castro’s credit, all that had been wiped out. I was surprised that there were no posters of Castro on the city buildings. There were a few of Che. But one could see Fidel every night on local television when they aired the government meetings. And although I knew there was dissent from intellectuals, artists, and gays, most of the people we met fondly referred to Papa Castro or Dr. Castro and one sensed they were willing to make the sacrifices that were asked of them. The trip the following year to Russia was quite different. The visit was sponsored by the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival with the purpose of introducing Jews there to Jewish culture. Most Russian Jews did not identify as Jews, but most did know something of their heritage. These were the first years after perostroika and the mood was ebullient. It was before capitalism and the Russian Mafia had taken hold of the economy. We had a large group, comprised mostly of people like me who wrote, lectured or organized festivals of Jewish films. So I was able to reconnect with lots of old friends. There were also a few celebrity directors like Paul Mazursky and Agnieska Holland. We all stayed at the old Soviet Hotel Russia on Red Square. At The Russia you were not given a room key, but had to get it from the fat lady (they were all fat), who sat at a desk in the hall. The hotel was huge and it took some intelligence just to find your room. There were screenings all over the city for a week and people came out of the walls. The response was literally unexpected. We were invited to go to the archives and see films made on Jewish subjects going back to the 1920’s. I was given the name of a man who worked there and even visited him at home, meeting his wife and family. They lived in a small apartment where each night the living room was turned into a bedroom. It was a rare opportunity to see what Soviet lifestyle was all about. For many years afterwards, especially when he lost his job, I sent money through a friend who did business in Russia. In Moscow we travelled on the wonderful subway system where each station is a gem with mosaics and even chandeliers. We also took the overnight train from Moscow to St. Petersburg. It certainly was nothing like the fabled Orient Express that I had read about and I made an effort not to visit the bathroom. Our stay in 112

St. Petersburg was brief, but we did get to see the beauty of the Hermitage with its wonderful art collection, although Catherine the Great’s amber room was still missing. The third trip which preceded the big adventure in Hong Kong, was a three week study tour of Turkey. This was organized by Archeological Tours and attracted a dedicated, intellectual group. There was hardly a significant spot that we did not see. We travelled by coach with a professor aboard. It was like going back to school. And in fact it changed my understanding of the ancient, classical world. Where I had been taught that Greece was the height or civilization and enlightenment, now it seemed that Greek culture was more barbaric. Women were mere chattel who stayed at home and were not educated and war was a sum zero game where you did not take hostages, but rather annihilated them totally. Almost every major civilization had called Anatolia home for some period of time and so there was a lot to see. We visited Ankara, Hittite sites, Pergamon, Ephesus, Izmir, Pamukkale, and Istanbul with its wonderful Haga Sophia and the endless stalls of the Grand Bazaar. But the highlight for me was Troy. Although there is nothing there to see but the big ditch that Henrick Schleimann dug in his effort to find gold, it is the idea of Troy that thrilled me. Having read so many books on the early archeologists, this is just what I had come for. There was a small amphitheater on the site and our tour leader read from The Iliad in the original Greek; I read the translation in English. The portion he chose was Priam’s grief over the loss of Hector. It wasn’t hard to put myself back in time. All this travelling seems to imply that I was fairly comfortable financially, but that was not the case. After Jerry’s death and before my extended stay in Hong Kong, money was often tight. But I decided I would still find a way to travel no matter what. Teaching in London was one way to solve the problem. Sharing a room on the trip to Turkey was another. And one time, I even volunteered to act as a courier for a professional transport company, which gave me a free ticket to London. As I tried to teach the children, decide what you want to do and find a way to do it; don’t begin by thinking, “I can’t afford it.” After Hong Kong I did another trip with Archeological Tours. This one was devoted to Bronze Age Greece. We saw Mycenae where supposedly King Agammenon ruled. We visited Crete and saw magnificent buildings at Knossos. And then we had time on Santorini, which must be one of the most beautiful spots on earth. Again I learned so much from our archeologist leader, especially that “it is always good to be the king.” The trip ended in Athens where I finally saw The Parthenon. Up to this point, I only knew the wonderful frieze known as the Elgin Marbles, in the Duveen room at the British Museum. this is where i came in 113

It was not long after these travels that I began to think of applying for a Fulbright. Jenny Lau, a fellow grad student, encouraged to me to think about Hong Kong. I was still young enough and in good health and I realized the children, both out of college and living on their own, did not really need me. But before the Hong Kong years, both Pamela and Bradley found marriage partners. The first time I met my future son-in-law, Jonathan Ratner, was when Pamela brought him to the apartment during his visit to Chicago for his brother Scott's wedding. I had been through several boyfriends by then, but JR was different. The minute I opened the door at Commonwealth and saw him standing there, I knew he was the one. First of all he reminded me of an older version of Bradley and something about his manner led me to believe that he and Pam were going to be a wonderful match. And they were. If I were to assess the meaning of my six years in Hong Kong, I would have to say it was my last hurrah. How wonderful for such an opportunity so late in life. I am reminded of Margot Fonteyn’s thoughts on her late life career made possible by her partnership with Rudolph Nureyev. For me it was the same. I was just young enough, with lots of energy and intellectual stamina. I was up for new adventure and still willing to put up with change, discomfort and compromise. As I write this chapter now at age 75, I know I could not do that again. My priorities have changed. Now I care about family and want to be near my children and grandchildren. I still like to travel, but I am not so interested in seeing everything and my creature comforts are very important. Hong Kong was my opportunity to be at a first rate university and see what I was capable of. I did meet the challenges. I taught very bright Chinese students, I conducted high-level theory classes, ran graduate seminars, supervised doctoral theses and sat on dissertation committees. I was finally among intellectual peers, especially Akbar Abbas. And I grew. But in addition to what happened at the university, a whole new area of the globe opened to me – primarily China, but also Japan, Vietnam, Thailand, Burma, Bali, Cambodia, Tibet, Java, and the Silk Road. One trip to southwestern China led to my collection of Miao textiles. I travelled there with a friend who spoke Mandarin and Eric Boudot, a Miao textile expert from Paris. Wary of conditions, I took a suitcase full of water bottles, granola bars and my own chop sticks. Basically I ate rice. The further we travelled, the worse the conditions, but we did see marvelous pieces. I brought back several examples of tie dye, embroidery- some on jackets, some on baby carriers- and many pieces of children’s clothing. I also travelled to Dubai and Egypt with a Hong Kong art group. In Egypt I saw all the usual sights and was duly impressed, but I think I had looked at too many photographs and when there wasn’t a full moon right above the pyramid at Geza, I was disappointed. Thereafter, I travelled with less preparation so that there 114 would be some surprises. When I was at Luxor and realized how close I was to Israel, I decided to take a short flight to Tel Aviv and visit Shai before he married. At the airport they really grilled me and when I finally was allowed to board, I asked the female security guard why they had spent so much time on me, going over and over the same questions. To my surprise, she said I had the perfect profile for a terrorist — female, no luggage, going for one day. But it was China that became my fascination. I couldn’t get enough. I read history, joined societies, and learned about ceramics and textiles. I was fascinated by the life in Shanghai before the Japanese invasion. I read memoirs. I absorbed everything. And of course I bought, Ching dynasty robes, bound feet shoes, jade, and ching bai, the wonderful Sung Dynasty ceramics with a soft blue-green color. On some Saturday mornings I would go to Hollywood Road to see what Mr. Ng had in his shop. I was directed to him by one of the curators at Christie’s who said he was one of the only men I could trust for ceramics in Hong Kong. After checking out the cases for new merchandise, I would sit in his back room and he would give me a piece to study. ‘Is it perfect?” he would ask. I would look, feel it, hold it up to the light and often say, “Yes.” Then he would tell me I had not looked closely enough. This was my education. I felt that until I was more knowledgeable I should not be spending large sums of money. And despite my desire to buy, a well respected collector in Hong Kong told me that when I was really wise (and perhaps older), I would give up all my possessions and keep only one perfect piece. I am still waiting for this moment. During my six years in Hong Kong I visited mainland China 20 times. Sometimes I went as a tourist, but I also went to lecture, which Hong Kong University encouraged and paid for. Mostly I was accompanied by a student who spoke English or had a contact to check in with. I felt safe in terms of my body, but always felt I was being ripped off by the merchants. I was happy to cross the border back into Hong Kong and return to British law and order. Despite all this adventurous travel, the most memorable evening took place in Hong Kong on Victoria Peak. It was late and several friends and I had just finished dinner, but not the bottle of wine. Akbar suggested we go to the pinnacle above the peak and see Hong Kong laid out below with all the lights. We not only had a good bottle of wine, but we also had a member of the violin section of the Beijing Symphony Orchestra, so sometime after midnight he whipped out his violin and played as we drank and took in the view. It was a perfect evening that never could have been bettered. During the years in Hong Kong, I was part of an international community that was totally new for me. The Chinese made up 98% percent of the population; the expats accounted for 2%. I made an effort to meet the Chinese. I came with a list this is where i came in 115 of people to contact and met more in the societies along the way. My university affiliation made it easy to make friends. Nothing is more respected in a Chinese culture than being a teacher, and a university professor is as high as you can go. One is always addressed as Dr. even when you might wish to be more informal. As for the expats, they were a very social group and we all had lots of perks. Most of the Caucasians there were American, under 35 and in finance. They were sent by their home institutions and given money to join The American Club (a city eating club with a sports facility further out on the island). Few people had relatives in the area so everyone was looking to make friends and were out every evening. We all entertained. I found myself among a much younger group and loved it. I was determined that when I returned to Chicago I would not go back to my Jewish upper middle class milieu, but in truth, the vibrant international world that I had in Hong Kong does not exist in Chicago or I never found it. I was making big money. The university paid for my dorm suite and then my flat and finally my suite at the Grand Hyatt. I could use my salary to travel in luxury, buy wonderful clothes, especially at Armani, collect Chinese ceramics and furniture. The university advertised that they offered the highest salaries in the world. Clearly this was a grand life style and hard to give up, which was one of the reasons I stayed for six years and even considered a seventh, which would have given me permanent right of return (in case there was ever another Holocaust). But other things were pulling at me. I now had four grandchildren and I was missing much of the fun years. I felt that if I stayed away much longer, I would not have a life to come back to. I stayed in touch with my friends through monthly letters, some phoning (a special pre-Skype plan) and visits home – 2 months in summer, a month during the Christmas holidays and often a week or two in spring. I made sure to see everyone, but my friends lives were moving on without me. And so my grand adventure came to an end. It was a wonderful period in which my learning curve went soaring and I made the most of everything. Although I had given up tenure at Rosary to stay abroad, I knew that that kind of experience, total immersion, would never come again. But much as I loved the big international life, I knew the time had come to go back home. This was reconfirmed on my last big trip to Tibet. Tibet seemed very remote and mysterious and I expected to have some sort of spiritual experience. The first day, tourists are asked to stay in their hotel rooms to adjust to the altitude. I did as told and read Edith Wharton’s The House of Mirth. I wasn’t prepared for how shabby and run-down the hotel would be. And cold. It was November, but they had not turned on the heat. So at night, I borrowed the space heater from the hotel beauty salon. Every aspect of my trip had to be pre-approved by the Chinese government. The guides were Tibetan, but they were afraid to deviate from anything already 116 planned. The Tibetans have wonderful high cheek bones and ruddy cheeks. The children are wonderful to look at in all their colorful clothing. The air is amazingly clean and the sky and clouds absolutely beautiful, but nothing really moved me. I just wanted to go home — not to Hong Kong, but to Chicago. That turned out to be my spiritual awakening. I was not in the U.S. for the birth of Jacki. I was however on an international call while Lisa was pushing Jacki out. I can’t imagine why the hospital operator put through the call. I did arrive in Chicago shortly later. Then I waited there until the birth of Abraham nine days later. Pamela had a doula who helped enormously with the birthing. I stayed in Hoboken until after the bris. Altogether I was home for a month. Getting this much time off was quite a challenge. When I asked Tak Wai, the acting department chair, for the leave of absence, he asked me why I needed a whole month off as it was my daughter and daughter-in-law who were having the babies, not me. I said I was a Jewish mother and added, “like a Chinese mother.” Then he understood and said, “Go to America.” Before I finish up on Hong Kong, I do need to include one extraordinary experience and that was my friendship with Brigitte Lin (Lin Ching Hsia), one of the most beautiful and famous movie stars of the 1980s. I was asked to give her English lessons through a mutual friend. We met twice weekly in my flat and just talked. After two years we became trusted friends and her celebrity melted away. She was one of the most warm-hearted people I have known. She was married to the head of Esprit International and was always showering me with gifts, especially red envelops from her gambling profits. And through Brigitte I met many of the stars and directors of Hong Kong film industry. this is where i came in 117

These Things Happen

Coming home for good was very exciting, especially moving into a new apartment. I didn’t want to go backwards in my life and returning to Commonwealth would have felt like a step back into the past. I had sold the apartment with no regrets in 1997. On the last day there, Bradley and I went room by room with a video camera and talked about the events that had happened in those rooms. The rooms were empty and it all felt very strange. Both Pamela and Bradley had come to go through their old toy closets and each packed up boxes for disposal or safekeeping. When Bradley disposed of all the things he didn’t want, I noticed that he had included his Cubs jacket and two baseball bats. I think Jacki was still an infant and Sam and Willy were yet to come. But I thought to myself, some day he is going to have a son who plays baseball and wouldn’t it be exciting if I just put these away for awhile and I did. It took another 13 years before I brought them out. Jacki played baseball for one season, but it didn’t take. Sam had other interests. But Willy took to the game and stuck with it season by season. So in 2010, when he was seven, I presented the jacket to him. Of course, it was too big, but I think he liked it. And in a few years, he will get the bats as well. Pamela was less able to give away things. However, she did separate the many, many books into two piles - those that could be given away and those she wanted me to keep for her. The ones to be given away went to the Newberry Library for their book sale. I don’t know when I realized that I had given away all of the poetry books by mistake. I knew that Pamela wrote her name in each book, so I figured I would wait until the sale and go buy back the inadvertent gifts. The day came and I was overwhelmed when I saw the bins and bins of poetry collections. I spent some time looking for her name, but could not find even one book. It reminded me of trying to identify Jerry’s shoes after I had given a pair to the thrift shop. In the end, I gave up, sheepishly called her to confess. I sent her a lovely anthology instead. She was quite forgiving to my relief. 118

Art was divided up and furniture was marked for storage or New Jersey. The children divided things up without even one disagreement. Pamela tended to go for the art pieces that she had remembered from childhood. Brad, with Lisa as guide, focused solely on aesthetic merit as none of the works had any personal significance. Somehow the Erenses ended up with the large oil of the Gary steel mills, which had hung in all of my apartments. It wasn’t valuable, but it still struck me as a good work. Within months the two families did a swap and the steel mills went to the Ratners. On the career-side, it was a big jolt to discover that my job at Rosary (now Dominican University) was not waiting for me when I returned. Donna Carroll, the college president, had not known me all the years that I was there. She took my departure for Asia as some kind of disloyalty. She informed Ric Calabrese, my department head and long term friend, that the money for my position had been given to another department. So reluctantly I became an adjunct at a salary of $2,500 a course. What a drop from my Hong Kong income. In 2001, I decided to do one more face lift. This time I went to Dr. Gerald Pitman in New York. The surgery was done at Manhattan Eye, Ear and Throat, the very hospital I had been to for my nose so many years before. I was quite pleased with the results, but wasn’t sure I ever wanted to go through the pain and discomfort again. Unfortunately, a few months later I began to have eye problems. At first, I thought it might be related to the facial surgery, but such was not the case. It turned out to be a macular hole in my left eye (not the same as macular degeneration). I was lucky that one of the top retinal surgeons practiced in Chicago at Rush Hospital, Dr. Kirk Packo. To close the hole I had to undergo surgery where they insert a gas bubble into the eye. The recovery process requires that you keep your head down, facing the floor, for approximately two weeks. This was grueling and I had to rent a special equipment that looks like a massage chair so that I was in the right position without too much strain on my neck. I also had to sleep face down on the bed with my head in a cup. The sad part is that when it was all over, the surgery was not a success and I had to undergo another two procedures to finally close the hole. After that there were more surgeries and cataract removals, but fortunately, Packo was able to save my sight and I am gratefully beholden to him. To augment my income, I looked around for another school, where I could teach part-time. Tony Jones, president of the School of the Art Institute, was an old friend and he was willing to take me on for one course in the Liberal Arts department. Eventually this led to an adjunct position teaching film history and criticism in Art History. I went from one course to two, then summers, and eventually was given a three year contract. I climbed the academic ladder for the third time. SAIC had ranked this is where i came in 119 adjunct positions and eventually I became an adjunct full professor with benefits. Being adjunct, I didn’t have certain responsibilities I disliked, such as advising students, attending meetings, serving on committees, and writing reports, so I was satisfied. Actually I adored my Art Institute art students and felt I had the best of it all. Otherwise, returning to life in Chicago was easy. I renewed my seats at the Chicago Symphony and at Lyric Opera and Ophira ben Arieh and I picked up where we had left off. I had met Ophira right before I left for Hong Kong. For years I called her my newest best friend. I knew from the moment we first met that we would end up good friends. Moving into Water Tower meant seeing old friends every day – Merle and Jerry Goldfarb, Ophira, and Jane and Floyd Abramson. Sometimes it felt like a grown up dorm as we ran up and down the elevators, borrowing this, sharing that. I loved being in such a busy building. There were two doormen, a concierge, office staff and maintenance men. The lobby led to the Ritz Carlton Hotel which was quite elegant and then to Water Tower Shopping Mall. I took exercise classes at the Carlton Spa in the hotel. I continued with Pilates, which I discovered in Hong Kong when I first had back problems. As the program was created by a dancer it was my cup of tea. Oddly, when I wrote home about it in the 1990’s, before it became so popular in the U. S., all my friends assumed it was something Asian. Water Tower was located near the Northwestern hospital complex and right next door were shops and theaters and restaurants. I felt that this was the place to be so that I would not be roaming around a big empty apartment feeling lonely. It was safe and convenient, which was important to me as a single woman. And hopefully as the preeminent building in the city, it would maintain its value. I loved the idea that I could have room service from the Ritz-Carlton. Bradley predicted that I would never use it which was pretty close to the truth. But once when Abraham and Hannah came for one of their visits, I wanted to do something special and so we ordered ice cream sundaes delivered to the apartment. It came on a service cart with a waiter who wore white gloves. They were duly impressed. Meanwhile I traveled as often as possible. I went to London twice with the Victory Gardens Theater group. Apart from the cold damp weather, it was a great opportunity to see plays and a chance to revisit London. The first time I went on to Berlin with a smaller group. Berlin still fascinated me and I loved being there. I visited Provence, a place I had always longed to see. The tour was sponsored by the Northwestern University Alumni. I also convinced Diana Driscoll, a friend from London, to go to Dublin with me for Bloomsday, June 16th. She promised to read Joyce’s Ulysses, but in the end I think she finished only half of the book. We also went up to Galway, where Nora Barnacle was born. Another trip to Charleston, S. C. was sponsored by Elderhostel. To my amusement, the citizens still 120 were proud Southerners who probably felt the wrong side had won in the Civil War. The highlight of the trip were the gardens. But the most important aspect of my new life was being a grandmother. I returned to Chicago in August 2000. For two months I lived at the Seneca Hotel until my apartment was ready at Water Tower. Jacki and Abraham were almost four; Hannah was two; Sam was born that coming December. I had always had trouble changing diapers so I was not much for babysitting in the early years. Each of my grandchildren is so unique and special and each is so different from the other, although the Ratners look exactly like brother and sister and the Erenses do as well. I think the Ratners look like Pamela when she was little, but Jonathan’s parents, Mal and Eileen, think they look like him. I do accept that Jacki and Sam are all their mother with blond hair, light eyes and slim bodies. Fortunately for Brad, Willy looks (and acts) like him. And as every grandparent will tell you, there is no love like grandparent love and nothing as delicious as grandchildren. You get all the pleasure with none of the work. Sam was born during a really cold December. Willy was born three years later. At first, for Bradley, who came from a family of two, this was a handful. Starting when Jacki was four, she would sleep over at Water Tower. These were great times as I had her all to myself. I taught Jacki that grandmas existed for one purpose only, “fun”. And I tried to live up to that motto. Over the years all three Chicago children came to stay over 2 or 3 times a year. I preferred single visits so I could concentrate on one at a time. We visited all the museums. Trains were always a favorite when they were young. They also liked the Shedd Aquarium, especially the dolphin show, the whales and the sharks. Sam was the only one who related to art. When young, he would stare at a painting for a long time, although I was never sure what he was seeing or thinking about. We went skating and bowling and to many, many movies. We took every means of transportation. Most often we took taxis because it was easier than driving. Once, coming home from the Field Museum, I got out of the taxi on the street side and told Jacki not to unbuckle her seat belt until I came around. She was about five or six years old then. I went behind the taxi and to my shock, the driver started to pull away. I banged on the trunk and he stopped, but not before Jacki became aware of what had almost happened. I was so upset. How could the driver not see that there was still someone in the cab? I guess she was too short or he was distracted. Jacki didn’t cry, but I, of course, was concerned. Parents are allowed to make mistakes, but not grandparents. I immediately called Brad and told him the story. I didn’t want Lisa to know, but, of this is where i came in 121 course, that was impossible. I promised that if Jacki reached 21 and still could not take taxis, I would pay for the analysis. She was in fact a little tentative for a few visits, but she overcame this like her fear of riding the elevators. With Jacki I tried to expose her to grownup food, such as Caesar salads at Rosebud, high tea at the Drake, French cooking at Kiki’s and Italian cuisine at Coco Pazzo. Sam and Willy favored mac and cheese or pizza. Our favorite games were Uno, which Willy always won, and Apples to Apples, which provoked a lot of laughter. We then moved on to checkers. Although both boys played chess, I didn’t know the game so I couldn’t participate. Now that they are older they bring books or go on the Internet. Although we usually eat out at Mity Nice or Cafe Med (our version of the Golden Cup), they have upgraded their eating tastes. For breakfast they like squeezing oranges in the electric squeezer and I receive kudos for my French toast. All of the children are very well behaved (obviously on their best behavior when they are with me) and each one is so cute. Visits to New Jersey are quite different. The household is more chaotic; things are just left around and no one is tidying up all the time. A wonderful atmosphere for children, but one that is not so comfortable for me. But fortunately I have my own bedroom suite on the 3rd floor which Pamela was nice enough to let me decorate as I liked. I picked the paint, the carpeting and the wallpaper. So I am always able to retreat to my own space. The only people who come upstairs are the children who used to wake me up in the mornings by climbing on the bed. Another wonderful addition to my life at this time was “The House with the Red Door” in Three Oaks, Michigan, which I have already covered. As a follow up to my visit to Provence, I thought that the country house provided a good opportunity for a country French dinner. In part it would be my version of Renoir’s “A Day in the Country”. Everything was going to be authentic. To accomplish my desire for a Provincial menu, I asked Michelle Gordon, my friend who was born in France, for help and she came up with the recipes and created a lovely little cookbook for me which I then had replicated in New Buffalo. When I was in France, I brought back 12 bottles of wine and snuck home some canned pate and olives in my purse, only to find that Froehlich’s in Three Oaks carried the same items in the cooler. To establish the proper atmosphere, I used my mother’s lovely French antique china plates. It is the only time I have ever used them. And we celebrated on my new screened-in porch. It was a glorious evening and even the weather cooperated. My love and involvement with Three Oaks led to a video entitled “Waiting for the New York Times.” The local pharmacy received only 5 copies of the Times on Sundays and you had to arrive by 8:00 a.m. to grab one. I thought it was hilarious 122 to see all the Chicagoans with their expensive cars turning up to satisfy their addiction and so I made a glorified 12 minute home movie with original music by Allen Turner. It was shown at the Vicker’s Theatre to everyone’s delight and even ended up as a special feature on the DVD release of “Crossword,” a documentary about the New York Times crossword puzzle. The country house inspired another project — a writer’s colony. When Jerry and I visited his country house in Woodstock, IL, we always talked about building small cottages on the property and inviting writers (or artists) to use them free in the summer months. Of course, that never happened. But the appeal of this idea came back to me. Then in some off-handed conversation with Charlotte Newberger, I mentioned it and she lit up. Charlotte reads a lot and is involved in many, many arts organizations. She said she had the perfect spot, which turned out to be The Heartland Spa in Gilman, IL, where she had a limited investment. After some negotiation, it was agreed that we could use the five bedrooms in one of the buildings on the property. It was perfect as this building had a kitchen, conference room and two bathrooms. It now has a plaque that reads, “The Writers Building.” We named the writing colony Writers in the Heartland. For one year Charlotte and I met every Friday for breakfast at the Ritz-Carlton and planning. We needed a name, a board, a tax exempt status, a website and URL, advertising, peer review readers, and, of course, money and advice. Little by little it all came together. Our hope was to someday rival Ragdale, an artist colony in Lake Bluff, IL. We didn’t accomplish this goal, but beginning in 2008, we sent 8 writers each fall for an all-expenses-paid one week residency. And there was much satisfaction in sponsoring emerging writers and in having turned a dream into a reality. As I had been to two writing residencies in the early 1990s, I had a good idea how they operated. The first one was at Cottages at Hedgebrook on Whitby Island off the coast of Seattle. It was for women only. There was even Tampax in all the bathrooms. It was a little piece of heaven. Each resident (there were only eight at any given time) had her own A-frame house which was outfitted with a sleeping cove, a pot belly stove, a desk and all the necessary books that writers need — a good dictionary, a thesaurus. The house had wonderful windows that let in a lot of light and there was a cozy window seat. The A-frames were set in a wooded area and each house was spaced far away from the next. The rules were that each writer had to abide by quiet hours until 5:00. At that time we all gathered in the communal dining room for the evening meal. We talked about writing and sometimes we read aloud and shared our work. But during the day, we could not visit anyone else. We could wander around and walk in the woods, which I did. In fact, one afternoon I turned around to see a deer no more than a few feet away. this is where i came in 123

I was terrified and I think so was he/she. We had a stand-off and finally the deer moved on. Having little experience in nature, such events were traumatic for me. I gained some familiarity by working in the garden and chopping wood, which we were required to do as a way of giving back something for our all expenses-paid-month. One of the highlights was the food. The meals were prepared by a recent graduate of the San Francisco culinary school. We took breakfast from the kitchen the night before, but lunches were delivered at our door in a basket. I spent one month at the Cottages and gained eight pounds. It probably took me another eight months to get that off. It was a wonderful experience and I was very productive. I finished the outline for a novella on my relationship with Jerry and the trauma of his death. I think it helped me finish my grieving. It also helped that there were only a few residents and that there was a good deal of solitude. And I am sure the all female environment played a part as well. It was not the same at the second artist’s colony, Blue Mountain Residency. Blue Mountain was in the Adirondack Mountains and had been a summer home for the Hochschilds, a wealthy east coast family. There were about 30 writers and painters and all of us were housed in the big house, which meant there was a lot of noise. We ate lunch together, which interrupted the work day. Further, there were visitors who came and went. One of the visitors was Oliver Sachs, who brought a patient with Tourette’s Syndrome, which only added to the commotion of mealtime. Finally, the frequent bed hopping was another distraction, although I did not get involved in that. So in the end, I was not able to accomplish much work. Another dream come true in these years was to see my wonderful key collection publicly exhibited in Chicago. I had wanted to give the keys to the Art Institute to display with the Medieval armor. I thought it would be good for children to see that metal work could be used for other things besides weapons, but the museum was not interested at that time. However, Loyola University was developing an art museum on their Lake Shore campus. It seemed perfect as they were just across the street from Water Tower and happy to have the donation. They did a wonderful job of research and cataloguing so when the opening came in January 2009, I was very pleased with the result. It is now part of their permanent collection. It is hard to know how to end this memoir. I am sure I have left out wonderful events and interesting stories. But there is one small incident that I think taught me how much we can learn from the young. I used to visit New Jersey every 3 or 4 months. On one visit when Abraham, then known as Bram, was about 4 years old, he was stirring milk in a demitasse cup with a tablespoon. I told him that if he kept doing that it would spill and sure enough the milk came careening over the table into my lap. 124

I must have jumped or shown some element of surprise because he said, “Don’t worry Nana. These things happen.” My first thought was that this child has terrific parents who don’t get upset about every accident and make their children feel guilty. But my second thought was that there was profound wisdom in Abraham’s simple comment, one that I have shared with many students and friends. Life is unpredictable and try as we may, we can only control a small fraction of what happens. We all make mistakes. If we could learn to forgive ourselves and others life would be a whole lot easier. I have not spoken very much about the men in my life other than my husband Jay and my fiance Jerry. There were obviously men before Jay — Irv, my high school boyfriend, Bob, my college boyfriend and Steve, my fiance. And there were men before and after my divorce. From each of them I gained knowledge of myself and the world. There were three in particular; however, whose presence in my life made a major difference. First there was Peter Ibbetson. I compare this to the relationship between Simone de Beauvoir and Nelson Algren, but perhaps I am just being romantic. He was younger, I older; he lived in the U. K., I in Chicago. Together we explored London. Like me he was interested in all things Asian. And from him I gained a sense of some beauty that I had not recognized in myself before. Next came Alan Rosenthal, who stimulated my desire to travel and to see the world. From him I gained a sense of confidence that I could be on my own and accomplish whatever I set my mind to. Alan was a filmmaker, so there was always much to share. And as an Israeli, he opened my eyes to a country I had not yet discovered. Finally there was Ronald Ruffer. This was all about fun. New York never looked as sparkling. A good deal of the attraction was intellectual. Nothing is more exciting to me than two minds playing off one another. Ron’s interests and talents were far and wide, so there was always something new on the horizon. When I look for a common denominator in all three men, I see that they all possessed high intelligence and a vast enthusiasm for living. All of them were well- educated and each had made his own way in the world, something I much admire - the self-made man. None lived in Chicago, which made the relationships difficult, sometimes painful, but also more intense. The love affairs lasted for longer or shorter periods, but even today, I count all three men as close friends. To sum up what I now feel about the meaning of these relationships, I quote Thomas Mann, “No, the agonies of love are set apart; no one has ever repented having suffered them.” And now there is Larry, who has become a strong, steady influence in my life. We reconnected in 2009 at the shiva for Herb Klaff. Being in a relationship with an old friend has a nice, cozy feel to it and it has stood the test of time. Despite the this is where i came in 125 many differences in our lifestyles, I am proud to say we have successfully negotiated most of them. Larry comes from a large family. He has more than 35 close relatives in the Chicago area and they have provided me with a warm and caring extended family, which is a lovely new addition to my life. And as always, I continue to travel, this time with Larry. We have vacationed in Cabo San Lucas, Puerto Rico and Cancun and travelled to Spain, Buenas Aires and Uzbekistan, as well as taken a restored 1920s Pullman train car from Chicago to New Orleans. Now that my accounting is over and I think about what I have done and seen and experienced in my life, I have to say that the two greatest treasures are my two wonderful children, Pamela and Bradley, and my greatest joys are the five children that they have sired. I should have mentioned earlier that both children have become accomplished in their own fields. Pamela is now, not surprisingly, a published author with two novels to her credit. The first, The Understory, which was published in 2007, was the winner of the Ironweed Press Fiction Prize and a finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for First Fiction and the William Saroyan International Prize for Writing. Her second novel, The Virgins, came out in 2013 and to everyone’s delight was praised by John Irving in a spectacular review in the New York Times. Bradley heads up the Chicago bankruptcy group at Jones Day, a major international law firm. However, as mentioned at the beginning of this work, it is their presence as wonderful human beings that makes me most proud and the fact that they have always been there for me for which I am most grateful. And I must add that I was most fortunate to be born in America in the mid- twentieth century. What better time to grow up as female; what better time to enjoy the full fruits of a Jewish identity and what better time to reap the benefits of post- war prosperity. I do not know what the future holds; history is fickle, but I do hope that my children and grandchildren will continue to share in the freedom and opportunities afforded me during my lifetime. When I think about how I became the person I am, I have to give credit where credit is due. There is no question that the strongest influence on my life has been my mother and it is appropriate that she have the final word, as she always did. My strengths are her strengths (my weaknesses are my own), whether they were given to me in my DNA or acquired by growing up in her presence. The intelligence, good health, practical knowhow and ambition have come down to me directly from her. Her love of books and movies, her pleasure in art and music, which she shared with my father, her pursuit of knowledge, her good taste and sense of style, were all passed on to me. Also important was the value she placed on “the best,” whether that meant the best clothes, the best furniture, the best doctors or the best schools. She felt that her family should have the best they could afford and because she grew 126 up in an immigrant family, she sought out this information. She wanted me to have a better life than the one she had known and although I may disagree with how she went about it, she certainly accomplished her goal. I did not appreciate my mother throughout most of my life and it is only now that I can see the value of what she gave to me. I wish I had been a better daughter and I wish we had had a more affectionate relationship. But fortunately I was able to use a different style of parenting with my own children and I think we all benefited. My mother had such high hopes for me and in that respect I do think I made her proud. For certainly no matter how hard I may have tried to resist her promptings, in the end, I became exactly what she wanted. And that in a nutshell is who I am today. this is where i came in 127

Appendix by Bradley Erens

This report is the story of my family. I have been able to trace the family back five generations to my great-great-great-grandfather on my grandfather's side. Unfortunately, I know very little about them. I do know that Nathan Sugenheimer was born in 1792 and died in 1890. I do not know the dates of birth and death for his wife, Eva Frankenberger. Nathan and Eva lived their whole lives in Germany. My grandmother's ancestors came from Poland. Almost all of them immigrated to the United States between the years 1895 and 1910. They came for various reasons. Some were fleeing from religious or political persecution, others came because of signs of revolutions and violence, and still others came because they were poor and they were looking for prosperity. The one thing these people had in common was that they were all looking for a better life in the place they called America. In 1839 the Sugenheimers had a daughter named Marianne. Marianne married a man named Nathan Frankenberger who was probably related to Eva Frankenberger (inter-family marriages were common in those days). The Frankenbergers lived in Theilheim, Germany where Nathan owned a dry-goods store and was the town rabbi. In 1917, at the age of 78, Marianne died. Nathan Frankenberger died in 1930 at age 88. In 1873, the Frankenbergers gave birth to Henrietta Frankenberger. As a young woman she did many things. She won many awards for her cooking and she also was a governess. Henrietta was brought over to America by an American-born cousin of hers, named Moses Bretzfelder, who also was a grandchild of Nathan and Eva Sugenheimer. Shortly after Henrietta’s arrival in America, the two were married in New Haven, Connecticut where they lived until they moved to Washington, D. C. where Moses worked in the Government Printing Office. As a new bride, 128

Henrietta became eligible to join the Daughters of 1853. This group originated as a burial society. In the Jewish tradition, a dead body left alone could draw evil spirits. Therefore, when someone died, the women watched the body overnight, then washed and prepared it for burial. Later the group acted as nurses and midwives. It is a hereditary honor to be a member of this group. You must be born into or marry a member to join The Daughters of 1853. Benjamin Bretzfelder was born to Moses and Henrietta Bretzfelder on August 15, 1907. After growing up in New Haven, he attended Maryland University. He was probably the first one on this side of the family to go to college. After college Benjamin became a pharmacist, and on June 12, 1932 he married Nettie Norman. Later, Benjamin changed his last name to “Brett”. Nettie was the third child of Belle Norman and Max Chiatt. Max was born in 1875 in a small town near Vilna, Poland. Belle was born in the same town in 1879. On May 1, 1908, they had Nettie (whose birth name was Naomi) and shortly after her birth, because of religious persecution, they immigrated to Washington, D.C. While going through immigration the official there asked Max what his last name was. He told him “Chiatt,” but the official found this hard to spell so he asked what Belle’s maiden name was. The official found “Norman” easy to spell, so this became the family name. Benjamin Bretzfelder and Nettie Norman married in 1932. The wedding was officiated by Nettie’s next door neighbor in SW Washington, Cantor Yoelson, who was most famous as the father of actor/singer Al Jolson. On May 31, 1938, Nettie and Benjamin gave birth to Patricia Fae Brett. Patricia grew up in Washington, went to college, and on August 21, 1960, married Jay Erens, a man from Chicago who had been working in the Supreme Court in Washington. After being married in Washington, the couple moved to Chicago. There, Jay became a lawyer and Patricia taught school and eventually became a writer. On August 20, 1963, they gave birth to a beautiful baby girl who they named Pamela Brett Erens and on November 26, 1965, they gave birth to a bouncing baby boy whose name was Bradley Brett Erens (that’s me). this is where i came in 129

Focus Nettie the Immigrant By Bradley Erens

Nettie Brett, maiden name Norman, is the only direct relative of mine who was born in Europe. She is my mother’s mother, and in an interview she told me what life was like as an immigrant. She was only one year old when her family came to America, so she only knows what was told to her about their home in Europe. She lived in a city of about 2 million people called Vilna, in Poland. Her family was poor. They lived in a house with a dirt and straw floor and did not have any eating utensils. Nettie’s father, Max, was somewhat of a revolutionist. He was not really active, but he did let active revolutionists use his house as a meeting place. When the Polish police discovered this, they were after Max, so he had to literally flee to America overnight. A year later he brought over his whole family. The boat trip to America was not pleasant. They were in steerage and everybody got sick. But finally they arrived at Ellis Island and entered the United States. The Normans left New York to live with relatives they had in Hartford, Connecticut. There, Max started a business that soon failed. He then decided to take his family to Washington D.C. where he had some cousins in the second-hand clothing business. Although Max had worked in a sausage factory in Poland, he was a fine tailor. With the help of his cousins he started his own second-hand clothing business. Although Max began to succeed, his family was still poor. They lived on 4½ Street in Washington, a poor Jewish section of town located in Washington’s Southwest sector. Since Max believed strongly in education Nettie and her brothers and sisters enrolled in school there. School was the first place Nettie socialized with non-Jewish children and this is where she got her first taste of anti-Semitism. Although jokes and insults directed towards her were not too bad, she realized for the first time that people were prejudiced against her. After a while she just accepted the fact that she was Jewish and people would insult her because of it. After that she was never bothered by the insults afflicted upon her. 130

Religion was a interesting aspect of Nettie’s early life. While in Poland, Max and Belle, Nettie’s parents, did not really practice religion. They did not keep kosher, go to synagogue, or sing prayers during the Sabbath. This continued after the Normans came to America, but as time went on Max decided that religion was more important. The Norman house became kosher, the Normans went to synagogue, Nettie and her brothers and sisters went to religious school, and the Normans began to practice many other Jewish Orthodox traditions. These were all Max’s ideas and Belle had trouble adjusting to them. Belle argued with Max about how they should practice Judaism, but Max was the head of the house, so the Normans became a very religious family. Recreation was also another interesting aspect of Nettie’s life. Life was hard growing up, so there wasn’t much time for recreation. Monday through Friday Nettie would go to school, come home, do her school work, and then do any chores she was supposed to do. Saturday was the day she liked the least. On that day she and her sister Shirley had to clean the whole house. It wasn’t particularly hard work but it was long and boring. Sunday was the day that Nettie really enjoyed. On Sunday she would get 15¢ and she could go out with her brothers and sister or her friends. They would take the streetcar as far as it went and then they would walk all through the streets looking at stores and restaurants. They would spend 5¢ on ice cream and then they would get on the streetcar and ride home. When they got home they were always exhausted, but they looked back on what a fun day they had had, and they couldn’t wait for the next Sunday to come. As Nettie grew up she wanted to become more and more independent. She did not dislike her parents, but she wanted to get away from them and go work in another city. After she graduated from high school she wanted to go away to college and experience the college life she had read about, but her parents didn’t have enough money to send her away so she went to Wilson’s Teachers College in Washington. After graduating from there, she wanted to go away and train as a nurse. Her father didn’t think this was worthwhile so he wouldn’t let her go and Nettie was hurt by this. She wasn’t hurt because she wanted to train as a nurse so badly, but she really wanted to get away from home. She kept trying to gain her independence until she finally did when she met and married a man named Benjamin. Bretzfelder, later shortened to Brett. Nettie’s experiences are much like those of other young immigrants growing up in America in the early 1900’s. Most were poor, but they were still happy. They had many good experiences which helped them mature and become adults. Most of all, these experiences changed them from foreigners to true Americans. this is where i came in 131

Nathan Sugenheimer (1792-1890) 132

Eva Frankemberger Sugenheimer this is where i came in 133

Henrietta Frankenberger Bretzfelder (1873-1957) 134

Moses Bretzfelder (1871-1940) this is where i came in 135

Belle Norman (1879-1950) and Max Chiatt Norman (1895- 1956) 136

Settlement House, SW Washington, Mother 3rd row, far left this is where i came in 137

Mother (1907-1997) at 16, 1923.

Mother and Aunt Marcia. 138

My father (1908-1968) as a young pharmacist. this is where i came in 139

The birth certificate of Benjamin Bretzfelder. 140

The change of name order for Benjamin Bretzfelder. this is where i came in 141

Certificate of citizenship for Nettie Norman. 142

Daughters of 1853. this is where i came in 143

An Almost Accurate Index

Abbas, Akbar ...... 113-114 American Jewish Committee ...... 72, 79 Art Institute of Chicago ...... 62-63, 71, 79, 85, 123 Aufricht, Dr. Gustave ...... 34 Balikov, Harold ...... 8, 10, 73-74 ben Arieh, Ophira ...... 6, 119 Brett, Benjamin ...... 14, 19, 22, 47-48, 75 Brett, Ilene (Fratkin) ...... 16, 110 Brett, Monroe ...... 8, 16, 19, 22, 48 Brett, Nettie . . . .7-9, 11-16, 18, 20-30, 32-40, 43, 45, 47-49, 61, 65-66, 77-78, ...... 81, 91, 98, 101, 104, 109-110, 124-126 Bretzfelder, Henrietta ...... 21, 23 Bretzfelder, Karl ...... 17, 22 Bretzfelder, Moses ...... 21 Brightwood Elementary ...... 12, 24 Bubblegum Digest ...... 82 Calabrese, Ric ...... 118 Camp Akiba ...... 14, 33 Carl Shurz High School ...... 58, 64 Catcher in the Rye ...... 42 Cindy Sherman ...... 24, 89 Cottages at Hedgebrook ...... 122 Commonwealth Avenue ...... 55, 62, 66-67, 76, 104, 117 144

Cuba ...... 110-111 Erens, Annette ...... 53-54, 63 Erens, Bradley ...... 6, 8, 23, 48, 58, 60, 63, 66-67, 74-77, 81-82, 84, 91-92 ...... 95, 100, 102, 105, 113, 117, 120, 125 Erens, Jacqueline ...... 6, 117, 120-121 Erens, Jay ...... 7, 8, 10, 13, 16, 18-19, 38, 40, 46-47, 51-57, 59-74, 76, ...... 78, 81-83, 87-93, 96-98, 101, 124 Erens, Lisa ...... 6, 116, 118, 120 Erens, Miller ...... 53-54,57,61, 63 Erens, Pamela . . . .6, 8, 12, 27, 29, 33, 48, 53, 54, 58, 61-62, 65, 66, 67, 72-78, ...... 81-85, 88-89, 93, 95-96, 98, 113, 116-119, 125, 128 Erens, Samuel ...... 6, 117, 120-121 Erens, William ...... 6, 117, 120-121 Films by Women/1974 ...... 81 Foster Parents’ Assn...... 75 Frankfurter, Justice Felix ...... 52 Galler, Gerald ...... 38, 64, 68, 97-104, 117, 122-124 Gene Siskel Film Center ...... 77, 81 George Washington Univ...... 48, 58 Goldfarb, Merle Pinsof ...... 63, 73, 119 Gordon, Lawrence ...... 63-64, 124-125 Harlan, Justice John ...... 51, 76 Highland Park house ...... 67-70, 76, 78 Hebrew University ...... 95 Hong Kong ...... 18, 114-116, 118 Israel ...... 55, 95-96, 99 Issues in Feminist Film Criticism ...... 83 Japan ...... 93-95 JFK death ...... 62 Jew in American Cinema ...... 87-78 Kael, Pauline ...... 86 Katz, Alex ...... 89 Kendrick, Juanita ...... 67, 69, 79 Klaff, Shom ...... 6, 8, 18, 64 Lake View Avenue ...... 61, 65 Loyola Museum of Art ...... 98, 123 MacLaine, Shirley ...... 26, 86 Marks, Leo ...... 109 this is where i came in 145

Marshall Fields ...... 63, 71, 84 Masterpieces ...... 71, 85 Mazursky, Paul ...... 111 Morse, Ann Ray Bretzfelder ...... 22 Nicholson Street ...... 8, 10-11, 18, 53 Northwestern University ...... 8, 56, 78-81 Pearl Harbor ...... 17 Pollack, Sydney ...... 86 Powell, Michael ...... 109 Ratner, Abraham ...... 6, 116, 119-120, 123-124 Ratner, Hannah ...... 6, 13, 87, 119-120 Ratner, Jonathan ...... 54, 113 Redford, Robert ...... 86, 120 Rich, Ruby ...... 81 Rosary College ...... 87, 99, 105-108 Russian Dinner Party ...... 77-78 School of the Art Institute ...... 118-119 Schoonmaker, Thelma ...... 109 Schwartz, Greta ...... 35-36 Sekimitsu, Abigail ...... 82-84 Sexual Stratagems ...... 83,85-86, 88 Sunday School ...... 74-75 Swoboda, Madame ...... 27-28 Three Oaks, Michigan ...... 11, 121-122 University of Chicago ...... 58, 65, 77, 79 University of Pennsylvania ...... 29,42,58 VJDay ...... 13 Washington School of Ballet ...... 26-27 Water Tower Condos ...... 119-120, 123 Weinberg, Shai ...... 104-105, 114 Wolff, Ernest ...... 20.41, 52 Wolff, Ernestine ...... 20, 41 Wolff, Regina ...... 20-21, 39, 41 Wollen, Peter ...... 80,91 Writers in the Heartland ...... 122 146 this is where i came in 147 148 this is where i came in 149 150 this is where i came in 151 152

Copyright ©2014 Patricia Erens hsI hr aeI Erens This Is Where I Came In This Is Where I Came In

Patricia Erens