Volume 12 Number 104 June 2018

HERO OR SCOUNDREL? A visit to Ocean City for two or three by George Kurz days became an annual tradition for us. Each time we saw the jagged metal out “I wonder what those iron pipes in the ocean, one of us was sure to sticking out of the water out there are,” comment, “Our shipwreck’s still there,” I mused to Elisabeth on our initial visit or “I wonder if they will ever clean it to Ocean City, NJ, in March 1982. up.” Why would anyone want to go to Ocean City in March! For us, the On about our 15th visit to Ocean City, occasion was our honeymoon, and we the beach was a beehive of activity. were intent on enjoying every minute, Enormous pipelines ran virtually the full riding our bicycles, walking the length of the beach. Noisy earthmoving boardwalk, flying kites on the beach, equipment was pushing sand and never giving a second thought to everywhere. Strange-appearing ships sat the wintry weather. far offshore near the north end of the island. “Oh, they’re sucking up sand From where we stood on the from the bottom of the ocean out there,” boardwalk near 17th Street, only a we were told. “The beach is going to be narrow stretch of beach separated us restored.” Ocean City was at last from the edge of the ocean, even correcting decades of erosion of its though the tide was low. The strange beaches. pattern of twisted metal easily visible between the breakers was probably a When we returned the following year, mere 75 yards away from us. A sign the change was dramatic. The level of on the beach warned swimmers to stay the sand under the boardwalk was a clear of the area. good eight or ten feet higher than it had been. Just beyond the boardwalk, there “Could they be part of an old was a new sand dune. Whereas shipwreck?” Elisabeth asked. previously the water came right in under the boardwalk and at high tide waves “I’ll bet they could,” I responded. often splashed against the bulkheads protecting homes in that area, now the ocean’s edge was nearly 100 yards headed for the museum. There we found beyond the boardwalk, even at high a sizable exhibit devoted to the Sindia. tide. Ocean City’s beach restoration Pictures of the ship showed her project had been a success. Our magnificence with three square-rigged “shipwreck” had completely forward masts and a gaff-rigged disappeared. We had no idea whether mizzenmast. Many objects recovered it had been removed or was just from the ship were on display, including covered by sand. fine china cups and saucers.

The boardwalk has several wooden The highlight of the museum’s exhibit pavilions that project out over the was a video which included the voices, beach, providing lovely places to sit in recorded in 1959, of two eyewitnesses the shade and enjoy the sound of to the shipwreck. One man told how as waves and seagulls. One of these a boy he could see the stranded ship out pavilions prominently displayed its his window from his home on Asbury name in large capital letters: SINDIA. Avenue. A nearby sign marked the location of the wreck on December 15, 1901, of It was all very convincing—convincing, the Sindia, a four-masted steel bark that is, until our next trip to Ocean City. built in Ireland in 1887. According to When I mentioned my interest in the the sign, she was carrying a cargo of ship to the owner of the bed and porcelain, fine China, manganese ore, breakfast where we stayed, whom I and other items from Kobe, Japan, to shall call Leonard, he came alive. “The New York under the command of Sindia was the largest ship under sail in Captain Allen McKenzie when she ran the world,” he claimed. “She had an aground in a storm. Stuck on the sand experienced captain who would know for three or four days, she eventually he wasn’t at New York City. He could split in two and flooded. Most of the see the Atlantic City lighthouse from far cargo was lost, but there was no loss of out and would know where Ocean City life, thanks to the heroic efforts of the was. Ocean City Life Saving Station. “Besides,” Leonard continued, “He The entire wreck, including the bit that came in under full sail. I’ve checked the had projected above the water in years weather records, and there’s no record past, was indeed buried in sand. of any severe storm at that time.” Visitors were referred to the Ocean City Historical Museum for more “I don’t get it. Why then was the Sindia information. wrecked?” I asked.

Elisabeth knew I was hooked. We took “According to the ship’s manifest, she our bikes, left the boardwalk, and was carrying 200 tons of manganese,”

2 Leonard elucidated. “None of that was the whole story. It would be an ever recovered. I’ve researched the expensive project, but it would be newspaper accounts. What really fascinating. We would expect the sale of mattered was 72 tons of silver coins the cargo to cover the cost and yield a from China. Yes, the crew was all handsome profit as well. Can you rescued, but the officers stayed on imagine the tourists wanting to watch? board till those silver coins were all Why, money could be made just selling brought ashore.” T-shirts!”

With that, Leonard reached onto a I decided to ask Leonard no further shelf in his kitchen and produced a questions, although several were on my silver coin, about the size of a half- mind. Would he someday organize an dollar. It had Chinese writing on one excavation of the Sindia? Was he side, English on the other. “Are you probing for people who might be willing saying this was one of the coins on the to invest in his dream project? There Sindia?” I inquired. could be no doubting that her cargo included fine china. We had seen “No. But it’s one like the coins that the examples in the museum. But could captain brought in. He had on board Leonard prove his theory that the ship his own personal cargo which he had, instead of the manganese on its insured separately, not with the manifest, a cargo of contraband, which insurance for the regular cargo. led the captain, fearing detection were Actually, the cargo was largely he to land in New York, to decide his contraband from Shanghai where chances were better if he deliberately vendors were selling goods for five ran his ship aground? cents on the dollar. He had the cargo in huge cartons. The money that captain In short, was Captain McKenzie a hero, made went to finance oil exploration in as one might conclude from reading the Oklahoma by Rockefeller.” sign along the Ocean City boardwalk, or actually a scoundrel? It may take many “Are you saying the ship was wrecked decades of natural beach erosion and/or deliberately, Leonard?” I asked an enterprising archaeological team, but incredulously. I hope one day we will know the answer to the mysterious shipwreck of the “Due diligence has not been Sindia. exercised,” Leonard went on, ignoring my question. “Probably one-third is ***** still in the ship under the sand. BEYOND THE PARKWAY Cofferdams would have to be built by Kay Silberfeld around the area, the sand removed, and the ship emptied before we would have It was a question I hadn’t considered until a recent exchange of emails with a 3 close friend from childhood. How was wouldn’t say, “Oh those Jews. . . they it possible that in the late 1930s, my don’t know how to behave properly.” Jewish grandfather was able to purchase property in Greenwich, CT, a While I was in elementary school in town known for its anti-Semitism? The Greenwich, my non-Greenwich same friend told me that she used to grandmother came with my mother to hear her mother refer to “those people pick me up. Apparently, she then told who lived beyond the parkway.” my parents they could not keep me in “Beyond the parkway” was a phrase I that school because she had not seen had never heard before, but, indeed, any other Jewish children there (I was that’s where my grandfather’s property not the only one). I didn’t change was and where I lived as a child. It schools, but the question itself indicates also explains why none of my (gentile) the uneasiness of the time and the school friends lived nearby and why variety of attitudes in my family. there had been a gradual influx of Looking back now, I’m glad I was so other Jewish families into our area. unaware of being different (Jewish). It amazes me now how ignorant I was, The “beyond the parkway” property was particularly for someone growing up a wonderful place to grow up. And I during WWII. My first awareness of was further fortunate that the principal any distinction between myself as a of the school I went to in Greenwich Jew and non-Jews occurred when I was accepting of all individual was about 11 years old. A gentile differences. One after-effect of all this is friend invited me to go to a dance at my hesitation even now to say that I’d the Greenwich Country Club. Next lived in Greenwich as a child. came a telephone call from her mother Another part of this story took place at to my parents. Her mother said that she Harvard Summer School just before my thought I might be uncomfortable at senior year in college. Neither of my the Club, and she withdrew her two roommates there had previously daughter’s invitation. The call led to a associated with a Jew or with someone serious and upsetting family from the New York City area. Those discussion. relationships worked out all right, but Another late childhood eye-opener was the one with a summer boyfriend ended my mother insisting I change out of badly. He came from a small town in my sporty clothes (were there blue Ohio where there weren’t any Jews, jeans back then?) before she would plus my association with New York take me into town (Greenwich). Her City (it was new to me that this gave me explanation was that I had an an air of sophistication which could put obligation to my fellow Jews to dress people off) made him uneasy. In appropriately, so other people addition, he had a job working in a

4 parking garage. A customer he thought well, she hadn’t liked to think about that was Jewish gave him a hard time, and one. therefore, “all Jews. . . .” Her children had been so young at the It was quite an educational summer. time that she had convinced herself they Among the things I learned, aside from had no idea what was going on. She had more art history, was what a sheltered decided not to worry about them. As childhood I had had growing up they grew up, they learned they must “beyond the parkway.” not play those songs. Their mother would get angry and then sad. Yet it ***** amused her to think she could be so Fiction sensitive, to notice their awareness of her, even to know she was violating FORSYTHIA ON FIRE their innocence. by Yoma Ullman But many years had gone by. The For many years, Mrs. Willis had children were grown and gone. When thought of her single infidelity with Mrs. Willis revisited the forsythia, the satisfaction. Indeed, she had revisited cherry blossoms, the daffodils, they no it many times, suppressing the faint longer had that unusual clarity. The feeling of guilt the memory aroused in music was hardly ever on the radio as favor of more pleasant recollections. she drove, and she never played it at She liked to remember the heightened home. As she became older, she grew, perception of the spring she to her surprise, happy with this experienced that year. She was at the development. Where once she had time living in Washington, DC, a city scratched at the memories, as at poison of many parks. Every spray of yellow ivy, eager to feel something, anything, forsythia had been etched sharply now she let them be. It was, finally, a against the soft new green. Pink cherry relief to be free of them. After many blossoms had bobbed against the years away, she moved back to bluest of skies. Yellow and cream Washington. She wondered if being daffodils had transformed the parks. back there would give the memories The movie “The Graduate” had just their old magic, but after a while, she opened, and the sound track was realized they were gone. everywhere. Its songs became her One late winter, she was sitting on the theme music. “Scarborough Fair” and Metro in the early afternoon, thinking the forsythia had been entangled in her placidly about the educational toys she mind. “Sounds of Silence” had would buy for her grandchildren later expressed the miserable frustration that that day at a little store she knew on ensued. And as for “Mrs. Robinson,” upper Connecticut Avenue. She moved

5 on to think equally placidly about the herself. But then he began to sing. The dinner she had scheduled that night song was “Mrs. Robinson.” with an old friend who was coming in from New York. She sat abstracted, Mrs. Willis was forced violently into the calm, complacent, in a seat near the present and the past simultaneously. For exit. the present, claustrophobia clamped down on her. She needed to get out of At Dupont Circle, a man carrying a the train at once, but the next station, guitar came aboard. He stood between Woodley Park, was some way off. Her the opposing doors and quickly tuned head felt as if it would explode. Played the instrument. harshly, the chords of the song clanged in her skull. She looked at the impassive Mrs. Willis did not like musicians who faces around her with some vague idea played in the subway. They of getting help. But the young Germans embarrassed her. She was sure they had gone to sleep, their heads nodding were illegal. She did not like to have together. Across the aisle, a business her reactions, and her money, woman checked flow charts and an demanded from a distance of a few older man read the sports page. Down feet. She retreated into her abstraction, the car, a young mother stabilized a gazing firmly at her reflection in the stroller with her foot, and the baby window beside her, which also showed inside it sat entranced as he sucked his two young tourists who sat slumped in pacifier. the seat behind her. When they spoke, it was in German. She promised As for the past, the shock had come herself a treat of coffee and a scone when she was relaxed and vulnerable. when she was next above ground. That springtime episode could not have been further from her mind. Now it was The man with the guitar was a type with her again, totally, brutally. There Mrs. Willis knew all too well. He was was no satisfaction this time, no hint of no longer young, his lank hair was that long-ago elation. She was prey to dirty and badly cut, his shirt was open her unedited reactions, and they came at down his shaggy chest, his jeans were her in a rush. far from clean, and he wore tattered running shoes. She thought she could She had spent so many hours persuading smell beer and harsh cigarette smoke. herself that although her lover had been He looked more like a truck driver some years younger than she was, she than a guitarist, more a frequenter of was not, of course, Mrs. Robinson. He taverns than of a ceilidh. After one was no innocent, and she had been torn glance she turned away, refusing to apart in a way Mrs. Robinson would acknowledge him, withdrawing into never have admitted to, even if it had been true. Nor did she meet him in hotel

6 rooms for illicit sex. It had been a on. She had tried to blind herself to this matter of endless phone conversations, possibility and had done so successfully of hidden tears, of solitary appreciation for decades. As the song scourged her, of that heightened awareness. she admitted that she had very probably damaged her children. She had also believed that because they never actually slept together, it And as for the marriage, whose faults wasn’t classic infidelity. With the whip even a five-year-old could see? What of the song on her, she was reminded had she done to that? She twisted in her that infidelity came in many forms and seat, trying to get away from her didn’t necessarily include physical thoughts. contact. Things had never been the same after The car was airless; she could hardly that spring. Not that they had been ideal breathe. She looked at the other faces. before the forsythia broke into bloom They were without expression, without and lit her world with temporary fire. sympathy. The young mother popped Her husband worked long hours and bubble gum, the baby sucked away. loved it. He had never seemed to notice No one paid her the least attention. the change in her. She was stuck home with small children. The unexpected How would she survive until she could elation, the feeling of reciprocated escape at the next station? The train interest and understanding, had swept was slowing down as it so often did, her away. conspiring with the singer to make sure she could not avoid hearing every In spite of herself, she looked at the word of the song. He had reached the guitar player again. She could hardly line about having to hide it from the believe that this ugly man had thrown kids. her back to that spring only to destroy her carefully constructed memories and They’d been so small at the time, hold up a mirror in which she was surely untouched by their mother’s forced to see that all her rationalizations preoccupation, her occasional were dishonest. He seemed to be paroxysms of tears. Yet one evening, looking directly at her, his expression a watching Mr. Rogers’s new show for quizzical probe. children, the older child had turned from the screen and asked her mother, She turned away once more and looked “Wouldn’t you like to be married to down the car. She met the brown eyes Mr. Rogers?” of the baby in the stroller. The pacifier had just dropped out of his mouth, and Now, far under Rock Creek, Mrs. he was realizing that his one comfort in Willis knew for sure that her child had this bewildering world was gone. His been aware that something was going 7 mother was reading an ad on the wall where she lived with her parents and her above her and chewing steadily on her older brother (whom she describes as gum. her hero). She was diagnosed with polio at the age of four and remembers very Together, Mrs. Willis and the baby little of it; however does not feel as reached the end of their endurance. though she suffered with it very badly The baby opened his mouth and let out while she was sick. The disease a cry of such desolation that everyone subsided after about a year, and she in the car turned toward him. Mrs. went on to have a healthy, normal Willis wished with all her heart that childhood. she could permit herself a similar cry. Instead she gathered up her bags, Jo’s family lived within view of Mount pulled herself to her feet, and made her Rushmore. They would go over to the way unsteadily toward the opposite “site” of its construction on weekends end of the car as, at last, the train for family picnics. She can still pulled into the station. remember when she and her brother had lunch with the workers. ***** Her father worked as a banker. When all THE BEACH the banks in South Dakota closed during by Gene Carlough the Depression, he was able to get a job and moved the family across the country Busy gulls, and castles built. to Washington, DC. She recalls that Creatures beached and shine of sand. finances were strained, but praises her Ocean smell and lap of waves, parents for never letting her know just Plus the heat of shining sun. how bad their financial situation really What a day to be alive, was. Walking on the beach with you. While moving across the country was ***** hard for her, Jo made the best of her situation during her junior high years in A SPECIAL DC. “My parents both worked, so my BIG BROTHER, girlfriend and I would walk around SHIRLEY TEMPLE AND looking for things to do.” She recalls becoming friendly with the guards at the THE PRESIDENT White House, and they allowed her to (Note: This piece is reprinted from The access the grounds (while fellow polio Pennsylvania Polio Survivors survivor President Franklin Roosevelt newsletter.) was in office). She remembers playing inside the public rooms of the White Jo Gross was born in Deadwood, SD, House, pretending to have tea with

8 foreign princes. The girls were careful liked to watch how easily children at only to “squat” over the furniture, this age took to reading. Her focus pretending to sit, since it was against became Special Education. the rules to sit on anything. She recalled a specific memory of doing Years later through mutual friends, she this, and suddenly feeling as if met her future husband Max, and they someone was watching her. When she immediately hit it off. They married and looked over, she saw President moved to College Park, MD. In addition Roosevelt in his wheelchair, chuckling to Max’s four children from a previous at her. Jo remembers that they spoke, marriage, Jo and Max had three children but not what they spoke about, because together. she was too flustered! At the age of 35, Jo started to Jo had many adventures at the White experience symptoms of what she later House during her preteen years. In the discovered to be Post-Polio Syndrome early summer of 1938, Jo and a friend (PPS). Her legs started to become very went to the White House hoping for a weak. She had considered polio to be a chance to see Shirley Temple. One of thing of the past, and therefore never the security guards tipped them off that really thought that it had anything to do Mrs. Roosevelt and Shirley Temple with her symptoms. were in the garden. They ran there Years later talking on the phone with searching for them. They agreed to her cousin who also had had polio as a split up, and whistle if they saw her. Jo child and been diagnosed with PPS, Jo heard her friend whistle and realized their symptoms were the same immediately ran in that direction, only and then considered that she might have to turn the corner and run straight into, PPS as well. Her main polio symptom not only Shirley Temple herself but as a child was weakness in the legs, and also Eleanor Roosevelt! “How the same symptom had returned. embarrassing! I was so shocked that I could not say a word,” she recalls. However, by knowing the explanation Both she and Shirley fell down as a to her seemingly mysterious symptoms, result. and by working with doctors “willing to learn,” she explains that it is easier to Jo attended Montgomery Blair High deal with the PPS reality. School in Silver Spring, MD. She went on to study at George Washington and Jo and Max live in Pennswood Village. Towson State Universities, wanting to She started an active polio support become a teacher. She started out group for the community. They call teaching 2nd grade, but went on to their group “Polio Plus” to include teach nearly all grades. Second graders anyone with a physical disability or any remained her favorite, because she

9 chronic long-term issue. The group to flower, serve my purpose. now meets monthly. They consult each By planting time this spring, other regarding medical care and share you were mulch. Thanks. their symptoms and life experiences.

Jo is a proud grandmother of 10 grandchildren. She has lived an extraordinary life full of friends, Publication of family and travel. She has traveled Pennswood Village Residents Association extensively with Max to many parts of Founder and Editor Emerita: the world, both on cruises and by Paulina Brownie Wilker plane, visiting scores of countries and Managing Editor: Anne Baber seven continents. Contributing Editors: Ginny Lloyd, Jane Perkinson, Her life has truly been one of heroes Kay Silberfeld and adventures. Typists: Sara Pollock, Joanne Brown ***** and Maria Eisner Proofreading: Harriet Maneval REPORT ON Distribution: Gerry and Don Abell MY COMPOST PILE Layout: Dick Piccolini by Anne Baber Contributors: All Pennswood Residents Who knows how you got there. Email your contributions to Maybe you sprouted [email protected] from a windblown seed. Maybe or place typed hard copy in our open mail box. Past copies of the a bird dropped you into Village Voices are in the Pennswood my carefully cultivated row. Library on shelf 21. You are welcome to Though I didn't even read them (and leave them) there. know your name, I fetched water, I fertilized, I fussed over you. Finally one day, I couldn't ignore the obvious any longer: "Just a weed," I muttered, yanking you out by the roots. I let you molder on the heap. Ultimately, you, who were unable

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