Part I – David's Life This Part of the Book Contains a Chronological Account of David's Life

Part I – David's Life This part of the book contains a chronological account of David's life. It also includes, in appropriate places, much of David's written work, such as: compositions, essays, book plans, presentations, and the like, and some pictures of his art, notably, the windows. However, because of the sheer volume of what he left and I chose to record, I have decided to include much of his art work in a separate section, at the end, called Part II. Growing Up This section covers David's life through high school graduation. Newark, New Jersey at St. Michael's ,(ד' טבת התשכ"ד David was born on December 19, 1963 (corresponding to hospital, in Newark, New Jersey. He weighed 8 pounds and 6 ounces at birth, and was 22 inches long. For the record, it also became clear later that he was left handed. The Sandek at his Brit was Rabbi David Lifshitz, who had been Saba Wolicki's teacher in Yeshiva University. His godmother was his grandmother (my mother) Pearl (Peshe Rachel Etshokin DuBow) Dwork. David was named after my father, David Daniel DuBow. The mohel was Rabbi Mordecai Zimmerman. David was a hungry baby, who ate eagerly and slept a lot. He found and started sucking his thumb by the time he was three weeks old. Maybe that was the reason that he did not cry a lot. When he first stirred, he sucked his thumb and only started to cry when he was really hungry. Then, he had to be fed right away. After eating, he also sucked his thumb. This helped him settle down and go to sleep easily. In any case, I remember him as a very easy and predictable baby. It was a good thing, because I was a very inexperienced mother, having had little exposure to babies before my own. When David was born, we lived in a two bedroom apartment at 240 Mt. Vernon Place, in the Ivy Hill apartment complex, on the outer city limits of Newark, New Jersey, and across the street from a lovely park. 1964, Three Months I went for long walks with David almost every day, for a number of reasons. I liked to walk, David liked the walks, and it enabled me to run errands. As a baby, David smiled readily at everyone. As a result of his enchanting a group of elderly ladies in the park, they got together and bought him a highchair. Another gift that David received when he was born was a multi-colored, zigzag crocheted afghan blanket. A lady named Mrs. Clumpus made it for him. He kept that blanket on the end of his bed for years. Around the time of his death, it was still used as a throw in his living room. I repaired it a few times. The last repair was a new white crocheted edge. David stood up quite early. He first learned to stand up by himself in the crib when he was about six months old. For a short time, he would stand up and then cry because he couldn't figure out how to sit down. But, he soon solved that problem. At that time, we had no carpet, but we did have a lightweight coffee table that was just the Growing Up, Wallingford, Connecticut right height for David. He would stand up at one end of it and start taking steps. As a result, one end of the coffee table would start to slide on the floor. However, since the other end did not move, David would end up going around in circles, much like oxen did centuries ago at grinding wheels. Wallingford, Connecticut In July, when David was seven months old, we moved to 93 Constitution Street in Wallingford, Connecticut. David was already standing up by himself by this time. By ten months, he was walking without holding onto anything. This was good for me, because I was already expecting his brother Zvi in March. We continued to take frequent walks. We lived in a three bedroom, split-level house that was surrounded by lots of very tall trees. There was no sidewalk in front of the house. There was a steep hill from the front of the house down to the street. In back of the house, the land extended uphill. A small piece was grass and the rest was untouched forest. It was in this house that David first encountered stairs. One day, on the way into the house, when he was just learning to talk, he proudly announced, "I gupping the stairs". Just outside David's bedroom window there was a large bush in which some robins chose to build a nest. We were able to see the sky blue eggs and watch the young birds hatch, eat, grow and fly away. David loved to watch them. This love of nature continued all his life. David was very aware of the world around him and loved to observe the sky, trees, animals and everything in nature. 1964, Nine Months In the fall, we had huge piles of brightly colored leaves. David loved to play in the leaves while I raked them into piles. We purchased a swing-set for the backyard and David (and later Zvi) often played on it. A friend offered us a small gray kitten. It was very cute, so we accepted it. We called it Smokey. However, as the kitten grew, it needed places to sharpen its claws. Also, it learned that there were many small animals living in the trees that surrounded our house. By the time Zvi was born (when David was almost 15 months old), we had to give the (by now) cat to a local farm. Smokey stayed out all night and caught his own food anyway. We were afraid the cat would bring home fleas and give them to Zvi in his playpen. One morning (before Zvi was born), David was following me around my bedroom and fell. He hit himself on the footboard of my bed and needed stitches just above his eye. It was very frightening for me, but it turned out to be not very serious, although it could have been. I also remember David having a bad bout of croup, which wasn't really serious either. However, as I said earlier, I was an inexperienced mother and his loud barking coughs and high temperature made a strong impression on me. Other than these incidents, I remember David as a sturdy, healthy child, who was always on the upper end of the size charts and ate well. He especially loved yoghurt. His favorite flavors were strawberry, prune and coffee. Growing Up, Mt. Clemens, Michigan Zvi was born when David was 14 and a half months old. David was a calm baby, who woke up at six in the morning, took regular long naps and was asleep for the night by six in the evening (with the help of his thumb and his favorite yellow thermal blanket). Since Zvi's addition to the family did not upset his routine very much, he did not show any noticeable reaction to his new brother. David, Zvi and I spent a lot of time out of doors. When we moved to Connecticut, we purchased our own washing machine. However, since we did not yet have a dryer, I hung the clothes outside on lines most of the time. While I hung and took in the clothes, David and Zvi played outside with me. We also continued our long walks (we would be out for an hour or two), with Zvi in the carriage and David sitting on a seat resting across it or walking. 1965, One Year and a Half We would go into the center of town (a 15 minute walk away) to the library, shopping or just enjoying the weather. At that time, David and Zvi were both very nervous around dogs. The family across the street from us had some very large, noisy, and aggressive dogs. However, another family not too far from us had two young playful dogs that were also noisy, but friendly. These dogs were kept tied in front of their house on chains. So we spent several afternoons sitting just out of range of those dogs, just watching them jump and play. Eventually, the boys got used to them and recognized that their barking and jumping was just playfulness. From that time on, neither was afraid of dogs anymore. Mt. Clemens, Michigan In May of 1966, when David was just under two and a half years old, David's second brother, Eliav was born. Then, in July of that same year we moved again, this time to Mt. Clemens, Michigan. We moved into a three bedroom home that had been built before indoor plumbing. We had big flat lawns in the front and back of the house, several huge lilac bushes, very tall walnut trees in the back, plum trees, a climbable apple tree, and dirt that provided many hours of fun for the boys, especially after a rain. While the boys played outside in the dirt with their trucks, I began working on an old round wood table that we found in the garage. When I first discovered it, it had the remains of several coats of peeling paint, but it was very sturdy. I started removing the paint and later, sanded, stained and refinished the table. We used it for years and later gave it to Zvi. He used it for a few years and passed it on to David.

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