My grandmother’s name was Alice and she was a Russian Jew from Odessa.  I never met my grandmother but from my mother’s descriptions of her, I am not sure that I would have liked to.  She appears in my mind’s eye as a somewhat foreboding presence.  She is pretty in an angry sort of way with light blue eyes, light hair and horn-rimmed glasses.  My grandmother wanted very much to be middle class and fought hard to live up to her own ideals.  She was part of many social clubs and had a lovely home with a maid.  My mother grew up in a household that had a particular dinner on a particular day.

By all accounts, my grandmother was an angry woman and was very vein.  She was not really excited about having five children and quickly invested in a maid who cooked.  In the afternoons she was out of the house as often as she could be.  She tried to better herself by going to clubs and attending programs in the arts.  She loved the arts and exposed her children to dancing and music and theater.  However, throughout her life my grandmother had the physical body to deal with. 

She had a terrible stomach, she had thyroid problems, and at an early age, she had problems with her heart  Her anxiety level didn’t help.  She was not a relaxed woman. She was irascible and it was easy to be so with five children around.  My grandmother couldn’t be described by any of her children as “warm.”  My mother remembers going home and standing by the heater for warmth that was more than purely physical.  From my mother there are memories of a dinner time where she unexpectedly had water thrown in her face and was sent to her room and this image that she would keep, was written in stone.  Although my mother was a beautiful baby, my grandmother though my mother quite ugly as she grew up and told her so.  Accordingly, my mother became the kind of child that fulfilled her mother’s expectations.  She was a fighter and a brat.

My grandfather was another matter.  I was able to form my own opinion of him because he was the only grandfather I met.  When I knew him he was a small frail man and mostly, quite kind.  Yet like my mother, he was also very determined.  He was a Russian immigrant from Odessa and his mother who was a maid, had little time for him.  He began working when he was young and like most of his generation, retained a work ethic throughout his life.  When my mother was growing up he was a shopkeeper of a small store and he supported my grandmother in the middle class style she so desired.  His hours were long and constant and he was rarely home.  He loved my grandmother dearly and always supported his wishes.  For the poor, hard working man that my grandfather was, my grandmother, with her light coloring and aspirations to escape the lower class seemed quite a catch.  He thought she was beautiful.