The pink Magnolia stellata: Memory Lane at VGH, 2: The Chimney and the Christmas Tree – and Mum.

My brothers and I were all born in Willow Pavilion (1957-1960), when it was the Obstetric ward of the Vancouver General Hospital. Later, Willow became the Willow Chest Centre for Tuberculosis and in 2013, it was extensively renovated to become a six floor facility for the treatment and rehabilitation of complex mental health conditions.

To the east of Willow Pavilion is the large maintenance services facility for VGH. Older Vancouverites may recall its sky-scraping chimney. I definitely do, and I was very excited to find a photo of it in the Vancouver Archives!

Above: from L to R: four storey unidentified building, Centennial Pavilion, Willow Pavilion, facilities services with tall chimney. ( Vancouver city planning photo).
Below: Willow Pavilion today with the truncated chimney in the foreground. Perhaps it was deemed an earthquake hazard, my engineer son suggested….

The original very tall chimney is part of my formation….I have long been convinced that when I asked her, at a very young age, Mummy told me I was born by coming out of that very tall chimney!

Today, as I see the archive photo above, I wonder whether she was perhaps pointing at Willow Pavilion while driving by and saying: “That’s where you were born”.  Perhaps I interpreted this to mean I came out of that chimney! She was very good at telling us amazing fairytales, while she did the ironing on weekends, or when reading to us before bedtime. However, on medical facts she was always clear and clinically accurate!

I also have in my memory that she told us a dinosaur swam out to turn on the fountain in the centre of Lost Lagoon in Stanley Park….’til this day, every time i pass Lost Lagoon, i remember our childhood fascination with that fountain and how it worked! We drove past it at least twice weekly, to visit our Granny who lived in West Vancouver.

Willow Pavilion and Centennial Pavilion ( since 2015, renamed Leon Judah Blackmore after a very generous benefactor), are still there today, in the midst of new buildings erected and old ones being demolished, as you read!

The photo above was taken two days ago, on May 14, 2020, while walking between buildings during my work shift at VGH.  Towering behind Willow and Leon Blackmore ( Centennial Pav) one can see the tall Jim Pattison Pavilion, aptly called by VGH staff “The Tower” for short! All three buildings are presently filled with patient wards.
In the left foreground, the previous Health Centre for Children, later used for Psychiatric services, is being demolished after a year of abatement for asbestos. In the right foreground is Heather Pavilion.
Below are a couple more photos from back in the day….check out those cars!!

Also, back in the day, every year in December, a huge iconic Christmas tree was erected on the lawn in front of Centennial Pavilion.

(Photo from Vancouver Sun archive)

There was a Christmas carol sing-a-long in the late afternoon, early evening of a Thursday.  By 5 PM, it would already be dark out, and the huge tree on the lawn glittered with colourful lights. Mum would bring us children to the sing-a-long.

I recall a thick mob of people in the lobby of Centennial where a hot chocolate table was located – the thick mob spilled outside the front doors, where a lively pianist played carols on an upright piano, surrounded by singing healthcare workers.

We children were fascinated by the pianist’s hands! It was, of course, cold damp Vancouver December weather, but she was prepared and wore such interesting gloves. Her knitted gloves came partway down her nimble fingers, leaving the distal knuckles and fingertips free to tinkle the ivories and ebonies!

Christmas season brings to mind another VGH childhood memory.

Crofton House School, “for girls”, which I attended for twelve years, along with a few other “lifers”, held an annual Christmas Carol service down at Christ Church Cathedral on a Friday afternoon in mid- December.

We girls, dressed in white, with our white-ish berets and navy blazers on, would be bussed downtown and then lined up in pairs, in grade order, in the cold grey stone basement Crypt. Then we’d make our way slowly up the divided staircase, meet up with our partners again and process down the aisles of the beautiful sanctuary, whilst singing “Once in Royal David’s City”. So begins the lovely traditional Anglican service for the Third Sunday in Advent: “Service of Lessons and Carols”. When over, we processed out to “Hark the Herald Angels Sing” and descended the stairways into the Crypt.

Parents and relatives attended the service. My working Mum did not, but she would pick me up afterwards…..I remember waiting for her, and I was usually the last girl left downstairs in the cold stone Crypt ( along with an unlucky teacher who would have to wait with me).  I wonder as I write this why it was called the “Crypt” – are there people actually buried down there? I could not find out, but did find this historical article.

Click to access HistoryBrochureWEB.pdf

Eventually, my Mum would come rushing into the Crypt, her white labcoat visible under her raincoat: “Quick, Jenny, I’m parked illegally….” and we’d rush out to the car, hastily parked somewhere on Georgia or Burrard Street, or in the lane behind.

One year, Mum took me back to VGH to attend her Pathology Lab Christmas party after she had picked me up from the Cathedral. Here we are: Mum and I, happy to be hanging out together. Today, May 16th, is her birthday. She would be 99 years old! I still miss her, it seems even more these days…perhaps as I’m growing older and doing more wandering down memory lane.

     

I do want to recount one last school- age memory of a visit to VGH, which occurred when I was thirteen years old.  My estrogen levels were starting to rise. I grew my hair, no more little Dutch cut! And I note a pimple on my mischievous face in this Grade 9 school photo.

School was mostly fun for me; my body, mind and spirit were developing in the company of awesome friends, many of whom are still close and dear today, and we were guided by memorable and generally dedicated and caring teachers.

It was a grey and rainy Wednesday, midweek, and we adolescent girls were bored.

During recess, we hatched a plot to sneak out to the little corner store across the street and buy candy during lunchbreak….it was true “penny” candy in those days – dry chewy strawberries, pale yellow bananas, rocket candy necklaces, double- bubble chewing gum with waxy Pud jokes inside. The purchases were put into a miniature brown paper bag. (TQ to my Crofton friends for their added memories!)

Candy orders were taken, nickels and dimes were collected and “yours truly” (and I think, with an accomplice, although who that person was seems to be eluding our memories so far), headed off down the long curved driveway….sneaking out just as the bell rang, i.e. before teachers had time to peak out windows or exit doors.

I had borrowed a friend’s raincoat.

I recall crossing 41st Avenue at Blenheim and then running west along the half- block to the little corner store at Balaclava and 41st. Somewhere along that stretch, I almost tripped as I felt something jam between my knees and then a stab of pain.  I  or we, kept running, and reached the corner store door… CLOSED!  The old wooden door with the glass window showing the rather dimly lit interior was locked. 

I, or we, made it back to school safely and undetected by teachers, to a bunch of expectant, and then disappointed friends.

When we examined my leg, we saw that a lead pencil tip had pierced my skin above my left knee and broken off inside. What? How?  We explored the raincoat and felt a pencil in its hem!  Further examination revealed a hole in the raincoat pocket through which the pencil must have slipped down.  I had to make my way down to Bedford- Jones Hall to see the school nurse. There was no need to mention the failed candy shopping expedition; the borrowed raincoat story was explanation enough.

My mother was telephoned at work; I had been coached to memorize her VGH switchboard phone number and her local- 3238, since age five. Limited school files in those days, I guess….

In the early afternoon, my Mum came to fetch me and bring me down to VGH; we waited in a clinic room in Centennial Pavilion, where she had asked one of her Residents to meet us. This Orthopedic Surgical Resident was doing his 3 or 6 month Pathology rotation with her.

I well recall sitting on the examining table and a handsome young man entering the room and then removing the broken off pencil tip from my left leg and putting in a few sutures.

Presumably he cleansed it well and gave me local anaesthetic before proceeding with the minor surgery, incising the skin and extracting the “foreign body”. I do not recall any trauma; needles and knives have never bothered me. I always loved the  various minor surgical procedures I performed as a GP in small remote towns, and I thrived in my seven years work as a GP Surgical Assistant in the Operating Rooms.

And that day, decades ago, in the clinic room, my thirteen year old emerging young woman’s gaze and heart was quite content to let her young surgeon do his work.

My Mum noticed my starry eyes, of course, and teased me for quite some time afterwards 🙂

The blue/ grey lead dye, incision and suture marks are still visible today on my 62 year old leg, usually covered modestly by below knee clothing.

The bit of pencil graphite dye in my left leg never troubled me.  This past Wednesday, I took a two hour bike ride in the morning before a Zoom team meeting at 11 AM.  I needed to burn off some anxiety with a good cardiac and muscle workout.

The air was heavy with impending showers, and dark grey clouds hung low, but the rain held off, apart from a few drops. I breathed in the fresh moist air and feasted on the colours of rhododendron and lilac blossoms and of the brilliant green of the verdant grass and foliage.

As I rode, I thought about my Mum, her life and work. Over the previous weekend I had perused photo albums and had read some of my Granny’s memoirs, where she wrote of Lore’s artistic ability….in her early teens Lore had designed over 500 miniature costumes. I remembered how when we kids were little, she would sketch faces in pencil on our morning boiled eggs, set in egg cups on our little wooden table and chairs in our large old kitchen. And in the evenings while she sat at our kitchen table writing up reports, she always had sketches of faces in the margins. She could draw very well!!

One heavy photo album I found this past weekend is full of high resolution electron microscope photos of the ultrastructure of brain tumours.

As I rode hard up the Arbutus Greenway bikepath, I had the sudden revelation that my mother was artistic….although an excellent diagnostician, analytical thinker and research scientist, she had an eye for the patterns of beauty in the anatomy she studied and diagnosed.

This afternoon, I looked at her publication which came out in 1984. She had given me a copy decades ago.  Only today, I read the Preface for the first time ever and noted the following sentence: “Finally, a well- preserved and prepared specimen has visual esthetic value: It is a pleasure to behold.”

And today, for the first time, I skimmed through the photos, admiring their patterns and design.  I found one of a benign papilloma that struck me as truly beautiful. Enjoy the detailed structures and her descriptive words below! Mum, the artist!

And so, I reflect back on the Pink Magnolia stellata, now green with leaves, as summer season approaches. The tree which continues to demonstrate the faithfulness of God seen in the seasons. And I reflect on the photos in this Diagnostic Altas, demonstrating the intricate structure of our bodies. And i reflect on our family, my parents and siblings, children and how we pass on from parents to children down through the generations, tell the stories and memories that form us and share the various appreciations of art that touch our senses. I believe those stories we tell, that art we share in various forms, enriches our relationships and perspectives in life and helps us to live with meaning and purpose, passing the good, blessing others.

Thank you, my dear Mum –  although I haven’t been with you for over thirty years, I love discovering and understanding you more.

 

 

 

The pink Magnolia stellata: Memory Lane at VGH, 1: Childhood with my brothers and our Mum.

About three weeks ago, April 2020, having been asked to help out during the Covid-19 crisis, I began part-time work at Vancouver General Hospital (VGH), with the Department of Spiritual Care and Multi- Faith Services.

The window of my shared office space, in the stately old “Doctors’ Residence” (see above), looks out across Heather street directly into the lane where – beginning over sixty years ago, my mother parked her car during most of her thirty-five year career at VGH.

Her bright red little Austin 1100, which we children named “the Mummy car”, had a little parking spot reserved in the bumpy pot-holed gravel lane behind the tall narrow house of a thin, stooped elderly man. She paid him $20 monthly, i believe. I remember him coming out from his house to the lane to collect.

( above) An Austin 1100; ours was a 4 door model with a left-sided steering wheel, of course. I was not able to locate a photo of the Mummy car in our family albums. I suppose we were always out and about it in, whizzing around town with our “super- Mum”, who had an talent for interspersing work and errands with fun; yummy food also was never forgotten in the process.

Those tall narrow old houses along 12th Avenue are long gone. Today, there stands a modern building for the UBC Medical Student and Alumni Centre. Today, the laneway is paved, and on the north side is Banfield Pavilion, a longterm care facility, and a lovely green lawn and trees.

Our dear Mum, who sadly died in 1988, is also long gone, but her legacy lives on at VGH amongst her students, now older medical staff, and in her publications, amongst them the book: Ultrastructure of Brain Tumours and Biopsies: A Diagnostic Atlas by C. L. Dolman, (1984). Her legacy also lives on through her three children and the stories we still recount in the family and to her grandchildren, whom she never lived to see.

Back in the early 1950’s, after attending U. Of Toronto medical school and continuing on with a Pathology residency in Toronto, Dr. Lore Aszkanazy, returned to Vancouver to begin her long career here at VGH.  After she was married and when we three children ( all born here at Willow Pavilion), reached elementary school age, we often accompanied Mum here on Saturday mornings. Back in those days, Saturday morning was considered part of the work week.

Now known as Dr. Lore Dolman, she had an office in Heather Pavilion, on C- floor. Today, while Pathology has moved to the Jack Bell Research building, Heather Pavilion is still partially used by other departments, e.g. Infectious Disease, and has offices and functioning labs.  The older sections, built in Romanesque style, which used to be the patient wards, are now used for offices, and this part has been declared a Heritage building.

Only last night, i dreamed of Heather Pavilion….it is part of my history and formation.

Mum’s office was one of the windows behind the green tree in the middle photo.

I still remember walking along the gravel lane after parking the Mummy car; holding hands with her and my brothers and J – running across Heather Street and entering the building through an unimpressive side door ( see below) into a narrow corridor. Partway down the corridor on the left side, was a small administration office, where my mother had a mail slot. In those days, a suction system transported internal hospital mail, and the woman at the desk sometimes let us kids put the tubular murky-walled container containing a form or a letter, up into the pipe. There may have been a switch to activate the suction, actually, which we were permitted to lift up. I do still remember watching the capsule vanishing up and away out of sight, and hearing the strange vacuum suction sound! So mysterious! (Rather like emails or WhatsApp today 🙂

The side door to HP today; the second view is taken from the Spiritual Care hallway.

VGH and our childhood activities there felt familiar; it was just being with Mummy in an extra childhood backyard. We had fun together, and since she worked fulltime, I think it was also special for her to both include us in her workplace and to be able to spend more time together with us.

Exiting the long corridor, we’d walk up one flight of stairs to C- floor and spend a bit of time in her office. While she chatted with her colleagues and attended to a few matters, we’d be busy sliding open and closed the little wooden covered window between her and her colleague’s cigarette smoke smelling office, or looking up at a high shelf upon which we could see our parents’ newly wed picture, our own baby photos, and the smiling face of our Aunt Lisl, about whom we heard stories but never met, until 2016! ( For the 6- part account of that amazing but true event, check out this same blog address: “jroosma.wordpress.com” Archives, November – December 2017).

Mum’s office had big windows and there were some plants, many books, a microscope and some gross things floating in bottles sitting on various shelves! Pathologists!!

Then we took the elevator down to the basement A level, where we would wait in the morgue office while she supervised Saturday morning autopsy rounds.

From the tiny morgue office, where we three alternatively played happily together or squabbled over taking turns sitting on the desk, counter or chair, we could not see into the morgue itself at all. However, we could see through the large internal office windows, into the morgue “ante-room” which had a wall lined with rows of floor to ceiling solid wooden doors with metals handles, the kind one pulls towards one to open the catch. We kids tried to open one once or twice, but it took adult strength.

Occasionally, we would see “Zeke, the morgue attendant” ( a household name), wheel in a gurney on which lay a deceased patient, shrouded in a sheet; tall strong Zeke would pull down the metal lever handle, open a fridge door and slide the body onto a shelf inside and then click the door shut.

At the tender age of five or six, I apparently wrote a Grade One or Two news bulletin: something along the lines of:

“On Saturday we went to the morgue with Mummy and we saw two dead bodies.”

I’m sure i didn’t get all the spelling correct, but the teacher understood enough, and my mother was called into school for a meeting!

I’m quite sure Mum was very matter-of- fact in her explanation of the situation, she was that sort of person, and managed to allay any fears. We definitely did continue our regular visits to VGH with her. ( I don’t personally recall that incident at all; it was recounted to me at a much later age by Mum ). At the time, she kept her meeting with the teacher to herself, but most likely gave me some wise guidance on what was appropriate to include in my weekend news report written while in school on Monday mornings 🙂

Digressing for a moment: I did have a Grade One news item published in the Croftonian, our school annual: my very first publication!

“On Saturday we went to Woolworths and my Mummy bought me some slippers and my slippers were red.”

This event, I definitely do remember. Not only was it in black and white in the 1963/64 Croftonian ( those annuals I have sadly lost in all our many moves), but Mummy expressed she was embarrassed that I had mentioned that we shopped at Woolworths, our local “five and dime”store! “Couldn’t you have written Woodwards?” she asked laughingly! “Now everyone knows we shop at Woolworths!”

I loved those red Foamtread slippers. I can still remember unwrapping the tissue paper and taking them out of the shoebox and stroking their soft material; they had black soft corduroy backs, and a lovely red soft ( I believe also corduroy) front. So comfy and cosy, and the colour made me happy!

Now, back to memory lane at VGH, mid-1960’s.

After Mummy had finished her check- in on the autopsies, she would then lead my brothers and I downstairs to the level below the basement – to the Tunnels!  Fifty-five years ago, we had memorable adventures in the still enduring and functional tunnel system. We loved the spookiness of the dim lights there, and the blind corners with the huge round mirrors. On a lucky day, we would meet a laundry train, which had a small engine where the driver sat, and behind were usually hitched two wagons loaded with large cotton sacks stuffed with hospital laundry. We would flatten ourselves against the tunnel walls, suck in our tummies and wave at the driver, who cheerily smiled back.

Then we would take the elevator up above ground again, emerging in the Hospital Cafeteria, where Mummy bought us each a sugared jelly doughnut. She always just drank a black coffee. The cashier knew us and beamed at these three little kids and their friendly smiling auburn headed Mum.

Fast forward fifty-five years…..to early April, 2020.

Not only does the tunnel system still work presently, but my brothers and I can be found at VGH!!

Unlike their peripatetic sister, the wandering middle child, my extremely capable, kind- hearted and fun brothers have been job-stable for decades; both have worked at Vancouver General Hospital for at least thirty years!

During my second week of work there, we met briefly during our busy day, on the side- walk at Willow Street and W. 10th Avenue, beside the pink Magnolia stellata.💞

 

 

The pink Magnolia stellata: “ YOU are an Artist!”

On a warm Spring day a year ago, early April 2019, I bicycled to work at Vancouver General Hospital.  My bike safely locked in the Cycling Centre, I walked briskly down the West 10th Avenue sidewalk towards the old Doctor’s Residence where the Department of Spiritual Care and Multifaith services offices are located.

However….first things first!

Yes, a pause must be taken on the way, in order to appreciate at close hand, to gaze upon and to record, the lovely blossom tree experienced only as a pale pink blur as I had sped along the bright green bicycle lane on the opposite side of the road.

When I arrived at the garden area at Willow Street and W. 10th Avenue, I put my panier down on a bench and stared up into the multiple shades of pink of an exquisite star magnolia, some blossoms just emerging from their thick outer cover, some already wide open exposing creamy yellow centres; a clear blue sky the backdrop. I rummaged in the side-pocket of my panier, located my cell- phone, unlocked the camera and aimed upwards; click, click….shift angle slightly….click, click!

I needed to drink in the beauty of the pink blossoms, filling my senses and grounding me before I entered the hospital wards to encounter suffering.

To absorb nature’s beauty with all my senses has been a habit since my earliest days, beginning in my rambling family garden.

As I paused from my reverie and recording of beauty to look sideways and check my bag, I noticed a woman had appeared to my right. Using an iPad, she too was taking photos of the lovely tree.

She too paused for a moment, and I caught her eye, smiled and said, probably common words, but likely with a passionate tone: perhaps: “Sooo beautiful….!”

The woman surveyed me up and down for a few long seconds, and then she emphatically stated in a thick European accent: “ You are an artist!”

Before I could respond, she smiled and added, touching her right earlobe: “And look, we are twins!” She was wearing a single dangling earring with three strung pearls. I felt one of my ears and touched my dangling earring with it’s two strung pearls. ( I wore one in each ear).  Strangely, I did immediately feel a close connection to the woman.

She gazed approvingly again at me, from head to foot and back up again! I too gazed down to see my legs in navy blue dress slacks stuffed awkwardly into my ankle length socks, a faded navy cotton with a bright pink argyle pattern on the cuff; on my feet, black MaryJane strap shoes. Nothing fancy; the “comfort plus” brand recently purchased from PayLess Shoes- perfect for my middle – aged feet! Perfect for hospital chaplaincy work, which involves a surprising amount of walking – both from building to building as well as up and down long corridors.

As I lifted my head, I noticed the sleeves and the front of my fully buttoned- up cardigan, patterned with medium and large daisy-like flowers with petals in shades of mauve and pink around black centres, all on a white background.

Perhaps I could indeed be mistaken for an artist of some type!

The woman noticed my hospital ID tag and asked if I was a nurse. I responded that I  was a chaplain, along with the explanation that I visited people who requested spiritual or emotional support. She then began to share some of her story with me. It turned out her people were my mother’s people; she herself suffered from a chronic mental illness and had experienced many challenges and deep wounds trying to live in Vancouver in poverty. She told me that she, as an artist, would much rather have spiritual care than the medications forced upon her, which she felt were poisoning her organs.

As we parted, me to the offices and she back to her ward, her hour- long pass finished, I promised her I would ask my colleague to visit her ( I myself worked in Critical care areas, and the work was divided rather strictly).

As we parted, I truly felt a deep connection with this woman. This connection I still feel today as I write. Although I never saw her again and do not even remember her name, every time I pass that little tree, and inbetween times too, I remember that unique encounter with my “twin”.

I did refer her to the appropriate colleague, but the patient did not wish to open further.

In pastoral work, and actually in all of life, I increasingly believe one must always make the most of any meeting, however brief, with a human brother or sister, also with our animal friends and nature: I believe it is always sacred time!

When my sons come over, I regularly regale them with stories of people I meet. They expect that when I randomly encounter people in random places – surprisingly folk often very quickly share important parts of their life story with me.

When I recounted to them about my random meeting with this lovely woman whom I had met while taking photos of flowers, and about her pronouncement, or perhaps her anointing, of me as “an artist”, and then added in my story, towards which hospital ward she then headed, they were highly amused…. “Mum, YOU are an Artist!”

I responded with a knowing smile and a little shrug: “It takes one to know one, guys!”

I learned much at my mother’s side from a young age, not only about the magnolia tree – that it is one of the oldest flowering species on our earth (we had a white star magnolia in my rambling childhood garden) – but also how to tell a story with a good laugh at oneself, and perhaps subversively, with a deeper thought upon which to reflect.

I do hope my sons will remember fondly their slightly crazy “artist” mother and her oft- repeated stories!

 

P.S. For those interested in more trivia about the Magnolia plant:

“Of the many interesting facts about the magnolia flower, the most striking one is that it is a very old flower. In fact, there are fossils dating back 20 million years that show that the flower has been gracing Earth since the very beginning of time….”

https://gardenerdy.com/magnolia-flower-meaning

The pink Magnolia stellata: God’s faithfulness.

I fell in love with this little pink star magnolia tree at the corner of Willow and West 10th Avenue last year, when I was working for a few months at VGH in the Spiritual Care department.

The 2019 photo above, I cropped in order to avoid the many faces of pedestrians and the busy bike and car traffic normally at this crowded intersection. I was very pleased to have captured the seagull!

Below is a photo of the same intersection a year later, March 2020. I have returned to help with the Spiritual Care team at VGH during this Covid-19 pandemic.

The roads and sidewalks are quiet – not truly “quiet as the grave”, but perhaps one could rephrase it: “quiet in fear of the grave”.

Yes, the concrete buildings and sidewalks and asphalt roads are still there, and our stable mountains to the north, but not a person visible!

No healthcare staff, clinic patients or visitors, who usually swarm around at noon hour. Not even a seagull in sight!

Yet, the little pink star magnolia is there, in bud, some blooms bravely emerging, even in the cooler spring weather we’ve experienced this year.

The pink Magnolia stellata: a sign to me of God’s faithfulness, based on God’s promise to Noah after the flood: God will not again curse the ground, in spite of the continued reality of the evil in humankind’s heart (along with the good!)

The seasons, although perhaps slightly altered with climate change, remain.

“ While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.” – Genesis 8:22

The pink Magnolia stellata at Willow and 10th: God’s faithfulness.

 

 

 

Amalya Malka Meisses Ashkenazy, 1849-1935. Part 2: Natan and Amalya; their children, grandchildren and on….

Amalya and Natan had five children: Nachim Alois,  Szymon, Paula, Joszef and Roszalia.

 

Alois Nachim became a lawyer and married Therese Blum, from a prominent family from Stanislau, Poland, who had a leather goods factory in Vienna. They had one son, Otto.

Alois and Therese were hidden in Belgium by a priest, Dom Bruno, and survived the war. Their son Otto was hiding out in Marseilles, while waiting for a boat to flee; he was caught in 1942 and sent via Drancy to Auschwitz, where he perished. He was 26 years old.

After Alois’s death in 1948, Therese moved to New York, changing her surname to Ashe, and lived there until her death in 1961.

Szymon excelled at Sanok school and with scholarships, finished highschool in Lviv, then going on to study Mechanical Engineering in Vienna. He married Anna Mahler in 1918 and they had two daughters, Elisabeth and Leonore, my mother.

Simon and family had a summer house and property in Austria and did not return to Sanok. Lisl and Lore apparently knew their cousins Mausy and Litsa and visited in Vienna. My Aunt Lisl reportedly preferred her Aunt Roszalia and cousins to the Mahler uncles on her mother’s side. And Anna reflects in her memoir that Lisl was a Mayss.

“Once Wolf’s mother was visiting us in Vienna, and when she saw Lori, she cried out: “What a good child!” But when her family saw Lisl, they all cried out: “She is a true Mayss!” Wolf’s mum’s maiden name was Mayss, and Lisl took after that side of the family.”

Simon was caught by the Gestapo while in the family apartment on March 15th, 1938. His wife, Anna and daughters Lisl and Lore had fled by train to Switzerland on March 13th, the morning after the Nazis marched into Vienna. Simon was imprisoned in the Gestapo Headquarters ( former Hotel Metropole). After a failed attempt at extortion, he was tortured and murdered. He is buried in ZentralFriedhof cemetery in Vienna.

Paula married Elias Beer and they had one son , Milos ( Milek) and also lived in Vienna. Paula died of tuberculosis in 1927. Her husband and son were caught in Vienna and died in Sobibor extermination camp.

Joszef had a hearing problem, apparently from a fall as a young child. He married (there is no record of children), and stayed in Sanok and ran the Hotel Warszawski. In 1940, he was apparently either beaten to death by Ukranians or killed by Nazis.

Roszalia married Max Zuckerberg, a banker, and they had two daughters, Martha and Elizza and also lived in Vienna.

(Left to right) Back row: two un- named cousins, Max Zuckerberg ( in suit), Roszalia

Middle row: Amalia, Joszef, his wife.  Front row: Elizza ( Litsa) and Martha ( Mausy)

Roszalia and the grand- daughters often returned to Sanok for summer holidays.

The story of Roszalia, Max and their daughters’ escape, I will recount in another installment, along with some further details of my own mother’s flight with her sister Lisl and my grandmother Anna. Stories of strong young women.

Natan Aszkanaszy died in 1929, and Amalya lived to be 86 years of age, dying in the year 1935.

Thankfully we have photos of their tombstones in the Jewish cemetery, taken before it was destroyed (1940-45) and the stones used to pave the roads of Sanok.

 

That graveyard today; photo taken by my cousin on a visit to Sanok. All photos of the Sanok family and of Otto, courtesy of my cousin.

Two years ago, I knew nothing about these family members! I still picture vividly the table napkin with a family tree being penned in by my genealogist niece, the small black x’s beside the names of those who perished, and the numb shock of it all.

Amalya Malka Meisses Ashkenazy, 1849-1935. Part 1: My Polish Honeymoon and chocolate.

Today, for International Women’s Day ( March 8, 2020), I must bite the bullet and, at least, begin to write about my Polish family.  This past week, I began the process and went to see the excellent movie, My Polish Honeymoon, at the Vancouver Jewish Film Festival.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt8682932/

I had ordered a ticket on line. I prepared a travel mug of mint tea with a thick slice of lemon and packed an apple to eat on the way. I already had rainboots and coat on, keys in hand, when I suddenly remembered: “Chocolate!” There was a partial bar of Lindt – dark chocolate with orange and almond – tucked away on the bookshelf by my bedside. Grabbing it, I stuffed it in my purse as I ran down our condo stairs.

Chocolate helps me deal with pain….that self- medication started when I cracked my hip in Malaysia thirteen years ago….I recall how, even as I thought about hobbling towards the fridge, where we one has to keep chocolate in the tropics, the pain would lessen as endorphins started to flow!

More recently I have discovered that chocolate also helps me with Holocaust pain; I’m presently nibbling on a second row of thick Lindt hazelnut.

At the bus stop, a woman approached me asking for: “One bob”, a British expression for a shilling. I offered her my apple, but she said she wanted to buy a Coca Cola and only liked apples if they were baked! I checked my wallet, but had no change. I offered her the chocolate: “Thank you, I do like chocolate!”

I wondered briefly how I would fare on my possibly traumatic armchair journey to Poland without chocolate….but I also understood that this woman had her own degree of trauma.

As I walked across Burrard Street at Fifth Avenue and saw the the queue just inside the cinema door, I spotted the familiar jacket and shape of a dancing friend at the end of lineup. I joined the queue and tapped her on the shoulder. Big smiles all around, and not only did we sit together, she treated me to a popcorn! ( just as good as chocolate, when sitting with a friend accompanies it!) “Thanks Mom!”, i said, adding, to her approval: “You’re my young Mom!” Very true, too, as my own dear Mum, if still alive, would have been turning 99 years old this May.

My own Mum was definitely on my mind, though, as I came to this movie about Poland, where her father, Szymon Aszkanaszy was born;  in Sanok, in 1882. While growing up, my Viennese born, Czech roots maternal Granny and her family stories dominated our life, and I had heard so little about my grandfather’s Polish family. My mother never volunteered anything, apart from the story of her father’s decision at the train station itself, to stay in Vienna, when her mother, sister and she herself all fled that morning after the Anschluss, in March 1938.  Then she would pass on again, the life lesson she had learned at age 16, ( because Simon was caught only days later, and after an unsuccessful extortion attempt, murdered), that one’s possessions do not matter.

I do not recall any other stories except a mention that she thought her father’s family had been somewhat religious….I think this may have emerged when my brothers and I all embraced the Christian faith in our teens at various independent stages.

I have realized, with deep pangs of remorse, that I never asked her anything either…but although I had not asked for any more details about the family, I did tell her when we did Expo 86 together, when I was 28, with no prospective husband in sight, that if I had a son one day, I would name him Simon, after her father. This visibly pleased her. Neither of us knew she would die only two years later.

Three years later, Gary and I named our firstborn son G. Simon! Interestingly, he is the one who generously keeps our cupboard stocked with Lindt Hazelnut chocolate bars! ( He’s a smart shopper and frequents the sales at London Drugs!)

Perhaps a message of comfort spanning four generations, from that so-close, yet so-far “other side” of life.

Here is my great – grandmother, Amalya Malka Meisses Ashkenazi ( daughter of Haim Meisses and Mrs. Pessel- Meisses).

On the viewer’s far right in the photo below, Amalya is about age seventeen.

Amalya was born in the year 1849 and married Natan Ashkenazy, who apparently was a rabbi ( his daughter Roszalia’s grave has “daughter of rabbi” in Hebrew on it). His family had likely come from ByeloRussia ( Belarus) several generations previously. Amalya apparently had very long hair, almost to her feet, before they married! It was then cut, and she wore a sheitel ( wig), a Jewish Orthodox tradition.

Together they ran the Hotel Warszawski in Sanok, Galicia, now southeast Poland.

In the hotel entrance (from the viewer’s left to right), stand Joszef, the tall third son, who ran the hotel, tiny Amalya with Elizza (Litsa) and Martha (Mausy), grand- daughters visiting from Vienna. ( ca. early 1930’s)

The Hotel Warszawski was built in the 1850’s by Amalia’s family, and they ran it until 1940, when Joszef, her third son, who was the hotel- keeper, was either beaten to death by Ukrainians or killed by Nazis.

The hotel is still running today. My cousin, son of Litsa, says it’s a long inconvenient trip there from Vienna, and there is no Jewish presence left in the town of Sanok.

Natan and Amalia’s gravestones were taken to pave roads after 1940, and the site of that Jewish graveyard, where their bones still rest, is filled with a few stones from another destroyed graveyard….see Part 2.

My Polish Honeymoon is an excellent movie, and, along with some comedy, poignantly shows the erasure of Jewish life there and helped me understand my own mother’s silence.

Malvine Gutmann Mahler: Part 2 – a cheerful and resourceful woman; her spirituality, helpful relatives, music🎶

At age twenty two, Malvine married Sigmund (“Regi”) Mahler from Lipnice, a village in Bohemia. I know of no recounted nor written story about how they met. They married in Prerau in 1880, and then lived in Vienna, where Sigmund had worked to support himself through high-school and then was hired as a clerk for the Südbahn railway.

Malvine Gutmann Mahler – wedding day

Sigmund Mahler

They had six children, and lived in a cramped Viennese apartment; my Granny’s first bed was a dresser drawer, and her closest brother, Robert, slept on two chairs pushed together end to end. The children were raised speaking high Viennese German, and  their parents used Czech as their secret language for things they wished to discuss privately.

Sigmund sadly died when he was 42 in 1897; he had experienced some type of depression and fell fatally ill with pneumonia while undergoing the innovative treatment of cold- water therapy.  (Vienna, of course, had all the latest psychological and psychiatric treatment.)

Benno, the eldest of five sons was then 14 years old; little Annerl ( my Granny), was only three years old.

Sigmund & Malvine’s children – Benno, Leo, Oskar, Friedrich, Robert, Anna -1896

“ Although the maid helped, Mother’s work was never done. Soon after my father’s death, she moved into a large apartment and rented out rooms to boost her small [widow’s] pension; besides her six children, she and the maid had to look after two subtenants. The convenience of electricity was not yet available. Light came from kerosene lamps that were lit with paraffin and had to be cleaned carefully each day and refilled, which smelled unpleasant. Wood and coal were used for heating. Every room had a stove, which had to be cleared of ashes and refilled daily with fresh paper and kindling, and the fire had to be stoked regularly to keep it going…”

Every summer Malvine took the children two weeks early from school; they moved to the country and stayed with the local peasants in the village of Scheideldorf. The cooler country summers and life outdoors with farm animals and food was a healthy choice! This tradition had already begun with Sigmund, who discovered the village and starting bringing his wife and children here annually. Little Anna’s earliest memory, at age 2 1/2, is being carried in her father’s arms as he was walking back to the village through the forest.

I have inserted some passages from my grandmother Anna’s memoirs ( soon to be published – spring 2020 in Vienna!), which describe some of the influences in Malvine’s life which gave her strength and support to enable her to rear six children as a young widow. Of course, Anna’s own memories and opinions shine through!

Although everyone knew we belonged to the despised Jews, Mother was very respected in the village [Scheideldorf]. Since she went to church every Sunday with the farmer’s wife from whom we rented, we were considered to “belong.” Years later, when I was able to reason, Mother explained to me: “When you live among a pack of wolves, you have to howl with them, otherwise they’ll tear you to bits.” 

My mother was not really devout, though she never failed to attend synagogue for the high holidays, and she fasted. She never demanded that the youngest children should share the fast, but she did demand it from the older ones, which was met with hearty opposition. There were arguments during which my mother would make disparaging remarks about my father’s side of the family, to whom she referred alternately as gypsies and Apekeure, a Hebrew word for uneducated.

Malvine did her best to educate the six children in the Jewish Orthodox traditions she had learned from her father, teaching them to pray with tefillin. This was  something that contributed to Anna’s alienation from religion. She wondered how women were supposed to connect and pray to God!

“How the female sex could make itself heard remained a mystery since
there were no tefellin for women. It appears, the Jewish Lord could not care less about us.”

My Granny pays tribute to her mother’s cheerfulness throughout the memoir.

With Robert and Anna, the two youngest children

With a chair she had needle-pointed

Mother had a blessed temperament. With her cheerful disposition, she saw the comical side in everything. I can’t recall ever having seen her sad or weeping. She quickly flew from distress and banished it from her mind. She had already been cheerful as a child, but she claimed that she drew her sunny spirit from the “green books.”
These “green books”—named after their green bindings—had become the frequent subject of heated debates in our family; for many years, I did not understand what they contained. Only later, did I discover that they contained theosophical philosophy. They were translated from the American, and mother studied, indeed, venerated them.
She needed peace and quiet for this undertaking, and her children and busy household never granted her any rest throughout the day; being an early bird, she arose at five o’clock in the morning and set off on her usual morning stroll with her “green books.” The peasants knew the solitary rambler; she gossiped a little with each of them as they worked, and she often shared some humorous anecdotes, back at home, over breakfast. ….As a child, I became acquainted with the names of Ralf Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, Prentice Mulford, or William Walter Atkinson, and Los Angeles, where all those books came from, became as familiar to me as if it were a suburb of Vienna.

I so appreciate and take encouragement from my great grandmother’s approach to life; taking time for herself to nurture her soul and peace of mind, even in the midst of continuous family responsibilities.

I also love Anna’s description of her mother, Malvine, actively “flying from distress” and intentionally “banishing it from her mind”.  A word to the wise, as I tend to empathize deeply alongside individuals and peoples in situations of suffering, and stayed mired in my sadness.

“The wise woman is she, who is too full of joy to be overwhelmed by trouble.” One indeed does need to intentionally nurture one’s deep sources of joy to face life’s troubles.

Malvine was also known for her bursts of uncontrollable laughter! Below is an excerpt from Book 2 of Anna’s memoir, where she recounts a scene from her wedding to Simon (“Wolf”Aszkanazy ( July 21, 1918) and describes the Mother of the bride – Malvine’s “dreaded laughing fits”.

Since Benno had become a prisoner of war of the English, brother Leo took the paternal position under the Chuppah, next to Mother. Wolf’s parents likewise stood as his witnesses, and the cantor intoned his whiny chant. I didn’t dare look at Mother so that she wouldn’t get one of her dreaded laughing fits.

Then, at the rabbi’s behest, my betrothed placed the plain wedding ring on my finger, pronounced the prescribed “Li,” which I also repeated after the rabbi. He then handed us a chased silver chalice of very sour wine, from which we both drank; and then, Rabbi Dr. Bach pronounced us man and wife.

Had it ended there, everything would have gone smoothly and without incident. But the cantor hadn’t yet warbled enough for his money. To my chagrin, he began to sing once more. Men should only sing at a distance; otherwise, it looks ridiculous and unflattering. More so for a fat, older man with bulging lips and an ugly ragged beard standing at arm’s length! Chaos broke out when he “squeaked” the highest note.
The wedding guests were more polite than the audience at an opera––who, in such instances, would let out a loud gasp that travelled [through the hall] like a wave. They [the guests] remained quiet, but Mother held her lace handkerchief before her eyes and was shaking so that it innocently passed for a mother’s harmless tears. But I knew better. There it was, the dreaded laughing fit. I pressed my bridal bouquet in front of my face, as she did her handkerchief, and only the cantor’s eyes warily noticed our ill-concealed outburst, which we desperately endeavoured to suppress.

This is one gene I have definitely inherited from Malvine, as has our youngest son! “Dreaded laughing fits” continue down the generations to make fun family stories which are recounted often!

Helpful Gutmann relatives from Malvine’s father side came alongside and helped her out when she was widowed.

In this time of hardship, I became aware of a rich relative of my mother’s. The head of the multimillionaire House of Gutmann, who owned numerous coal mines and steelworks, was her second cousin, and he generously came to her aid. Mother was far too proud to accept charity, but she benefitted from his financial help from time to time and sometimes also from advice regarding my brothers’ studies. She also received all the coal our household required, free of charge. For many years, I was under the impression that coal was a commodity for which one only had to tip the delivery men.

This company also employed Benno, Leo, and for a time Oskar and Robert. Fritz studied Architecture and eventually opened a successful business ( Bruder/ Braca Mahler), along with younger Robert and brother-in-law, Simon Aszkanazy, Anna’s  engineer husband.

The other, poor branch of the family, to which my mother belonged, remained modest and bourgeois, known simply as Gutmann. It was a very good name, highly esteemed in financial circles, and my mother was chagrined to shed it upon her marriage to the very modest Südbahn clerk Sigmund Mahler. The name Mahler did not carry any attraction for her, particularly since she viewed them with utter disdain….

Her chief grievance, however, was the fact that neither my father, nor any of the Mahlers, really practiced the Jewish faith. To my mother’s infinite shock, my father even ate trefene (non-kosher) sausages; she suspected that he even ate pork out-side the house!
She sometimes told the story of how her learned, scholarly father had grilled his future son-in-law on his knowledge of the Talmud, whereby Sigmund Mahler had proven himself to be a despised Apekeure (Epicurean). That had pained him very much, but since he had promised his daughter, the apple of his eye, she had to be delivered to this Epicurean who even smoked on the Sabbath. 

Enter: Gustav Mahler, Sigmund’s first cousin

But then, in 1897, an important event occurred for our family—and as I later learned, for the whole musical world—a still relatively unknown Gustav Mahler [only 38 years old], was appointed director of the Wiener Hofoper (Vienna Court Opera). For the first time, my mother uttered the Mahler name with respect since Gustav Mahler belonged to our family. The much vilified and defamed Mahler family came from the small town of Kalisch, in Bohemia, and as my mother only now found out, Gustav Mahler’s parents were my father’s cousins. A couple of brothers and sisters had married their cousins.

[ Gustav and Sigmund Mahler were first cousins – a fact we just discovered this past year, thanks to Kathy Simpkins’ skills with the internet and genealogy sites! Sigmund was five years older than Gustav, although his father, Leopold, was a younger brother to Gustav’s father, Bernhard. They married two women with the same last name, Herrmann, who were not sisters, but likely cousins. Until now, we knew only that they were some vague type of cousins from neighbouring villages.]

They had only been poor peasants; just a few of the children went to the big cities to study. They could not get any financial help from home and had to earn their own way through scholarships and tutoring. This is how Father finished high school and how Gustav Mahler graduated from the Music Academy.

I have read that Abraham Herrmann, Gustav’s maternal grandfather, was wealthy and had a piano that little Gustav could play on, and that his family encouraged his musical talents and education.

Gustav Mahler

Sigmund Mahler

                                    Gustav Mahler                                       Sigmund Mahler
Naturally, the nomination of Gustav Mahler as director of the Hofoper ( Court Opera House) electrified our family and rather embarrassed my mother. Until then, only her own relatives had given her any pride, now she had to admit, if somewhat grudgingly, that my father’s family had been smitten by some Glanz und Wonne (Glory and Fame).

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustav_Mahler

“Meanwhile, my eldest brother, Benno, discovered his talent for cutting silhouettes…. mother appealed to David von Gutmann to use his influence to have him accepted to the Academy of Commerce and to pay for his education. And so, Benno dutifully graduated from the boring Academy of Commerce, though his passion was for designing and painting. In mother’s opinion the arts were unprofitable, so he cut out silhouettes in his free time.  He eagerly attended the opera and carefully followed Mahler’s movements with the baton when he conducted. He cut a whole series of characteristic movements and took them to the opera house one day. He introduced himself as Benno Mahler, which opened doors and gave him access to his uncle….

At home, with beaming eyes, he [Benno] reported that Gustav Mahler had pointed out some faults in the cutout motions, “because I never make such movements when I am conducting,” but he had still taken all the silhouettes and since Benno adamantly refused to take money for them, Mahler promised him free tickets to all performances that were not sold-out. He had called the porter, Mr. Hassinger, from the director’s stairway and introduced him to Benno, and he instructed him to give the boy free tickets whenever he came by.”

Great Uncle Benno Mahler’s silhouettes of Gustav Mahler conducting.

A link to some of Benno’s other artistic representations of his older cousin Gustav: done when Benno was 17 years old!

https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/the-man/portraits

“This opened up a new chapter in our lives. The young boys spent almost every evening at the opera. I was not taken because I was still too young. A real enthusiasm for music took hold of my brothers, and four of the five started to take music lessons. Benno, the eldest, chose the cello. Leo chose the violin. Oskar, as usual, did not wish to learn anything; in his opinion he had the finest ear in the family, so he would just listen and criticize. Fritz chose the violin, and Robert learned the piano.

At home, once the brothers moved beyond the elementary stages of learning, we had chamber music evenings. Since they had started to earn some money, they could afford a good teacher. Herr Palm, a second violinist from the Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna Philharmonic), came to our house to provide violin and cello lessons. Though he was always drunk, we listened with never-ending delight to all the current theatre gossip. Furthermore, Uncle Theodor’s wife, Louise, had become great friends with Gustav Mahler’s sister, Justine, who ran his household until he married. From her we also learned everything that went on at our famous relative’s house.

 

Again, the theme of anti-Semitism came up, and my brothers said that whenever Mahler appeared at the conductor’s podium, a war between applause and derogatory hissing would break loose in the auditorium until the first bars of the overture started. None of the factions wished to be guilty of the sacrilege of disturbing the music—the situation would have become nasty—so, as soon as the music began, the audience settled into perfect silence.

[Gustav’s] marriage with the much younger Alma Maria, daughter of the painter Schindler, provided never ending gossip for my mother and her sister-in-law, Louise. Although they had to acknowledge the seventeen year old bride’s great beauty, they were furious that he had married a Gentile.

That he had been baptized a Catholic, they reluctantly excused, “because otherwise he would never have become director of the Hofoper.” They quoted Heinrich Heine: “The baptismal certificate is the entry ticket to European culture.” “But to get married in church on top of it!” That was one concession too many. Then, they learned with satisfaction that the absentminded artist had forgotten the time of his wedding and kept the bride and her large retinue waiting a long time in church.”

Last year, while visiting Vienna, a display at the Jewish Museum mentioned Alma Rosé, a young violinist. Alma was a niece of Gustav Mahler. Gustav’s younger sister, Justine, married Arnold Rosé, concertmaster of the Vienna Philharmonic for over fifty years.  Their daughter, Alma, managed to escort her elderly father to safety in England in 1939, but she returned to play music in Holland and was eventually caught and interned at Auschwitz concentration camp in 1942, where she creatively managed and conducted a women’s orchestra which extended and even saved the life of some four dozen women.

See the movie: Playing for Time ( based on Fania Fenèlon’s memoirs). 

And the book: Alma Rosé: From Vienna to Auschwitz by Richard Newman. https://www.amazon.com/Alma-Rose-Auschwitz-Richard-Newman/dp/1574670514] This book is an excellent and very detailed account of Alma Rosé’s story, painting a fuller picture of her life and background, along with many survivors’ recollections of Alma, their conductor and director.

Btw, there is an Alfred/ Alma Rosé and Gustav Mahler exhibit in the University of Western Ontario in London, ON; apparently Albert Rosé, Alma’s brother fled Vienna to the USA and at some point settled in London, Ontario.

https://www.lib.uwo.ca/news/2018/journey_of_the_mahlerrose_collection.html

https://mahlerfoundation.org/mahler/plaatsen/canada/london-on/gustav-mahler-alfred-rose-collection

However, it was only this year, while I was verifying the close cousin relation of my great- grandfather, Sigmund Mahler, with the now world famous Gustav Mahler, that I began to read more about Alma Rosé and came across her photo. Her face seemed so familiar, and I realized with a pang that I was seeing my mother in her; same jaw and chin and mouth – from their common Mahler great -grandparents. With another pang of mixed emotions, both family connection and grief, I also recognize my own jaw and chin, and that my middle son and of one of my niece’s.

Alma Rosé

Leonore Aszkanazy Dolman

Alma Rosé                                      My mother: Leonore Aszkanazy Dolman

These stories, especially of Alma Rosé’s fate and that of my Great Uncle Benno, (the young silhouette cutter), who along with his wife, Grete Mendl Mahler, were transported from Vienna and murdered in Riga Latvia in 1942), have aroused deep trauma in me. There is also deep grief from longing to be able to talk of these matters with my mother – who has been gone from this world almost 31 years.

I have questions: while growing up in Vienna, did she meet Alma, her cousin, who was 15 years older than her? Perhaps….And many other questions…

Simultaneously, I understand why my mother said very little. She needed to close that chapter.

I’m thankful for my great grandmother’s lesson to me at this time. It is a choice of necessity for me, as our world’s dark deeds are heavy.  Therefore, I am consciously choosing to close this chapter, to banish dark thoughts and flee from pain, past and present, and choose cheerfulness

A fellow follower of Jesus reminded me that all the darkness from humankind’s evil deeds, past, present and future, was placed on Jesus hanging on the cross. I am feeling anew how tremendously dark and heavy that burden was. And yet, Jesus went willingly and intentionally, in order to deal with it, once and for all, an atoning  sacrifice to set our world right again.

A deeply comforting and hopeful reality, and a good place to pause.

More stories to come in due time 🙂

 

Malvine Gutmann Mahler 1858 -1940; Part 1: background and childhood.

Malvine, my maternal great- grandmother, was the youngest child of Susanna Reich and Bernhardt Gutmann. Malvine was born on April 24, 1858 and raised in Prerau, Moravia, now part of the Czech Republic.

Some of the following stories I heard from my own mother, who told them rather frequently during my childhood 🙂 I was surprised to find the written form in my late teens in my Granny, Anna’s memoirs ( the first 100 pages had been self- translated into English). Other facts and stories I learned only when I read the complete and fully translated memoir, during the past three years. I’ll include some quoted passages from Anna’s memoirs, as she relates them in quite a lively manner!

Malvine’s grandmother ( my great – great – great grandmother!)

“Great-grandmother Reich must have been an altogether remarkable woman; although she was very poor and provided for her useless husband and her countless children by picking rags, she was still recognized by Jews, and also peasants in the area, as a sort of lay judge. People took their disputes to her rather than to the official tribunal. She spoke fairly and impartially, and, although no police enforced her judgements, people accepted her adjudication. 

She was also prone to melancholic episodes that we would call manic-depressive episodes nowadays. She could sit there silently for hours, and nothing could pull her out of her apathy. The doctor tried to startle her out of her stony silence by calling out “Fire!” but she just kept sitting there.”

Malvine’s mother ( my great – great – grandmother)

Susanna was the youngest of those “countless children”, and she married only after she was thirty years old. She had taken the responsibly, when her own mother died, to look after her elder siblings and their children through various difficult circumstances.

 

Susanna Reich

Bernhardt Gutmann

Bernhardt ( Benno) Gutmann

After she was thirty, Susanna met a young man, Bernhardt ( Benno) Gutmann, a “bocher” (“Jewish youngster”), who was a Talmudic scholar.  In those days in Europe, only the eldest Jewish son could marry legally, as the Jewish population was curbed from expanding by Christian Europe.  The offspring of the other sons were considered illegitimate. However, Bernhardt, being the eldest son of a second wife, was enabled to bypass this law and they could have a legally registered union in 1848.  This was also the season of emancipation in parts of Europe which were undergoing “ Spring” type revolutions.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_emancipation

Susanna started a thriving drapery in town and worked hard to support her family, while Benno, who had hoped to teach school ( see below) studied Talmud.

Enter the rich branch of the Gutmann family, the “von Gutmanns”!

“ My grandparent’s financial situation improved drastically when Wilhelm von Gutmann appeared and made his poor relative [Benno] the representative for his coal business in Prerau. Now grandfather also had a good income and could contribute to the household. But my mother [Malvine], as an adolescent daughter, had to extend her activities over two businesses—mornings at her mother’s drapery store, afternoons at the coal-depot with her father. She must have been very hardworking, for he soon depended entirely on her and fled from the detestable money-making back to his books.

He philosophized with the local priest for hours about Moses Mendelssohn, and Spinoza the “renegade.” The coal business gently ran its course because my mother also hated everything to do with “business.” The full potential of the business was revealed by one of my grandfather’s successors, a man called Kestranek, who became a quasi-millionaire with it. His son then became one of the general managers at Witkowitz.”

So Bernhardt, the “bocher”, who had a wonderful playful sense of humour, and was greatly favoured by Malvine over her serious, busy and intense mother, spent his days studying, whereas Susanna’s thriving lace and drapery shop kept her there working for many hours daily.

Family Gutmann with Malvine, age 14 (far right)

Of their ten pregnancies, five miscarried ( possibly due to Susanna’s physical job lifting heavy bolts of cloth), one baby was rolled on and smothered during the night, and the second youngest daughter, Flora, died at age 14.

Only three survived, Regine, Theodor and and Malvine.

Regine and Theodor both suffered from Syphilis as children. They contracted this from their wet- nurse, who was employed because Susanna was so busy working. Both children were eventually taken to Vienna for treatment by Dr. Billroth, his name still famous today for his surgical advances. Theodor, who apparently was blinded for some time, was fully cured, and Regine was left only with some facial defects. She did marry and had one child, Hilda, and shortly after, sadly died of pneumonia.

When I was born, I was pronounced by my Granny to resemble my great – Uncle Theodor – perhaps the dark features?! Wish I inherited his curls!

Theodor became a physician in Vienna and lived to be 78 years old. A newspaper obituary from 1931 shows him to have had three sons. ( more followup to be done to search for more possible cousins!!)

 

 

Malvine’s childhood and schooling

“Despite anti-Semitism, the Jewish population in the monarchy was so interwoven with the Catholic majority that the boundaries often became blurred. That’s how my Jewish grandfather, Bernhardt Gutmann, had become fast friends with the Catholic priest of Prerau, while my grandmother, Susanna —who ran a type of draper’s business, from which she sold not only linens, cottons, silks, colourful head kerchiefs for peasant women, but also altar vestments, as well as religious clothing to nuns and priests and provisioned the Prerau convent—had become good friends with the Abbess. This, even though my grandmother was known to be a Jewish zealot and had been nicknamed “God’s police.”

Culture and education is the bond that brought some believers of different faiths together. In such a small provincial town as Prerau, there were only a few educated people. If one wanted to have good conversation, faith barriers had to be dismissed. Only in the Jewish Gutmann did the Catholic priest find a kindred spirit, knowledgeable in theological scripture. And Grandmother’s good relationship with the Abbess would yet bear unexpected fruit.

Once Grandfather had taken Grandmother to be his wedded wife, it turned out that, as he was not a local, many obstacles were put in the way of his employment as a teacher at the town’s Jewish school, on which he had so set his hopes. He was from Leipnik, a two hour train ride away, and surely one couldn’t really entrust Prerau’s children to such a “train travelled” individual. This was instigated by the local teacher, who saw my educated grandfather as a most dreadful competitor and, consequently, became his arch-enemy.

He also took out his anger on their children, and my mother bitterly told us how he sent them to stand in the corner after every market day, or even beat them over the hand with his ruler. Twice a week was market day, when all the kids had to help out and couldn’t come to school. She had complained repeatedly at home that the teacher hurt her terribly, that her hand would swell to bursting point. But her parents had other worries than to intervene in the situation.

One day, Mother [Malvine] who was seven years old at the time, had to stand in the corner again. She spotted the open classroom door nearby, and before the teacher could stop her, as though chased by furies, she bolted through the town square into her mother’s shop, with a whole crowd of children trailing behind.

Now the scandal was public. Grandmother, bursting with anger, abruptly threw out the teacher, who was leading the group of Jewish school kids and still breathlessly demanding the rebellious child’s return, before going to the Abbess at the convent. She shared her troubles with her, and the Mother Superior gladly accepted her businesswoman friend’s two daughters, Regine and Malvine, into the convent school….

There was a right old revolution in the Jewish community of Prerau; since “Frau Gutmann—God’s police,” who even corrected the Rabbi, had given her kids to be educated by nuns, all other families now brought their adolescent daughters to the Abbess to be schooled. Besides the usual school subjects, the convent school was well known for teaching girls French, fine needlework, and to play the piano. That’s how the girls were taught to be young ladies, opening up a new world for the Jewish girls.
They left the ghetto of their own free will and went to the convent, and better education was the only incentive for this.
With satisfaction my mother never forgot to add, “and they only won over one Jewish girl to be baptized.”

Although Malvine was raised in an observant Jewish household, her parents taught and modeled openness and socialization amongst people of different beliefs and cultures and also modeled the importance of a good education.

Malvine, age 16

Even my strictly observant great- great grandmother Susanna read Shakespeare – pronounced “Shak- es- speare” by her, on Sundays, and when she and Benno went to Vienna every two weeks to buy goods for her shop, they would always take in the culture while there.

“…without fail, Grandmother would spend the first evening at the old Burgtheater in the Michaelerplatz, while jovial Grandfather went to the Carltheater, where Nestroy, Scholz and director Carl, the famous comic threesome, staged Nestroy’s enduring comedies….

Grandfather marvelled at Nestroy, the master satire who almost never stuck to his text, but rather extemporized on it further––something which repeatedly landed him in prison because his political humour was as apt as it was sharp.

When he got back to Prerau, all the educated German speaking inhabitants would gather around him [Benno], and amid a great howdy-do, he would share, with much talent, all the wisecracks he had heard.

The anecdote below, was recounted frequently by my mother to entertain us when children:

But even his [ Benno’s] own family was touched by his humour. One day a “wizard” with a “learned” horse came to Prerau and turned up in the village square. People were standing around in a circle, when the wizard asked the horse to pick out the prettiest girl. The horse turned around, stopped in front of my mother [ Malvine], and bowed its head to her. Beside herself, she bolted to her parents at the shop and, with glowing eyes, related the event, whereupon Grandfather took his perpetually smoking pipe out of his mouth for an instant and remarked drily, “You appeal to a horse?”

And young Malvine did inherit her father’s great sense of humour and ability to entertain others!

My mother [ Malvine] must have been very well liked because when plays were staged, to which Prerau’s upper crust were invited, she assumed all the comic and trouser roles. She just had to step on stage and everyone split their sides laughing. I readily believe it because even as kids, whenever she imitated someone, we would die of laughter at Mother’s comic talent.  She inherited this talent for rendering humour from her father.”

Excerpts taken from “soon to be published” Book 1, Chapter 2 of the Memoirs of Anna Helen Mahler Askanaszy.

I have greatly enjoyed reflecting on my ancestors: my great- great -great -grandmother, sought out for her wisdom and judgement; her daughter, Susanna, the responsible devout “God’s police”, who acted decisively in her family’s interest when needed, and especially on my great – grandmother as a spunky child. Much more to come on Malvine’s  hard work and comical side!!  Stay tuned for more stories.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Small is beautiful

Lately, I’ve been remembering my childhood garden, a huge double lot in Vancouver. In the Spring, there were small pale-yellow primroses and small dark purple ones. I would pick them, along with moss, to decorate a little Easter basket; purple and yellow, the colours of that season. There also were miniature violets, so difficult to find; my Mum and I would search for them in one spot of the garden….they came up near the grassy edge of the flower bed under our small pretty pink dogwood. Sometimes they were in the grass! They reminded her of her childhood in Europe.

 

In July, our mother taught us to appreciate the delicate scent of blue cornflowers in the sunshine, found at the edge of our Dad’s huge veggie garden, amongst the buzzing bees and flitting butterflies.

 

And there was the exquisite fragrant taste of the tiny wild strawberries that my brothers and I searched for, hoping that a bird hadn’t pecked them first. Between us, we would gather a small bowlful to share and savour together.

In late Summer, my Mum’s favourite appeared – a few stems of light orange montbretia, hidden between its finely pointed verdant leaves in the partial shade of our dogwood trees. When I see these montbretia now, if the shading and colours are just right, I feel such a deep grief and and longing for my Mum, who has been gone for thirty years – there is so much we haven’t been able to share together.

I am very thankful for those simple joys together as family in my childhood garden, and for the sense of appreciation for the gifts of nature that we were taught by our parents. Now that the property has been sold and divided, with a house on each lot, the garden is smaller and new. I walked past it the other day with friends and realized that my childhood garden only lives on in memory and photo albums.

The photographs in this blogpost are taken on daily walks in our present neighbourhood of Mount Pleasant in Vancouver, which still has the older varieties of blooms that triggered these memories.

The completely unexpected surprise last week, of a serving of five small wild strawberries from a friend’s patio garden (the same variety, European she said, that I knew so well from my childhood garden, and which I have never seen since, but for which I have been longing and even speaking of lately), touched a deep place inside me, and I had to write.

I had to write about and share pictures of these blooms and fruit that, to my sensibilities, possess a beauty more subtle and understated than the larger, brighter blooms and fruits so popular today.

I had to describe some of the special memories of my childhood and to relate how I was taught to appreciate the rhythms of nature, the rewards of waiting and searching, and the love for delicate beauty.

Thank you to my parents, and I miss you both!

Small is beautiful!

It’s a small world after all: where Franz Kafka, Taylor Swift, ABBA and Yemen intersect

A few weeks ago, as Swifty and I strolled lazily homeward along the False Creek seawall on a lovely warm Friday evening, we came upon two young women waiting beside the footpath, one of whom offered me a small package of a dog food sample. “We have started a new organic pet food business; would you like to try some for your dog?” Swifty, who loves people, was already being very friendly with both young women. “ Sure!” I responded gratefully, as I am always looking for something to sprinkle on his dog kibbles, trying to encourage our fussy and pampered “Basenji mix” dog to eat.

I enquired how the name “Kafka” was chosen….it was the name given to the pet cat of the founder of the enterprise; she had been reading Kafka’s “The Trial” when she adopted her cat, and the cat’s disposition suited the name.

“Here’s our business card; please email and let me know if he likes it!” “Will do.” I wished the young women all the best in their venture. I enjoy young people and love to encourage them in their creative and hopeful ways to improve our world.

 

Franz Kafka (1883-1924)

Kafka, Sarah’s cat

Swifty and I continued home as the sun set behind us, giving hints of peachy pink to the darkening sky above the ever changing high-rise skyline of Vancouver, striking against the beautiful blue silhouette of the local mountains, so familiar and steadfastly unchanged since my birth.

Once home, I fed Swifty, adding a teaspoon of the colourful dogfood sample, rich with chopped veggies, over his kibbles. He chowed down rapidly! A friend of my son’s who was over as they prepared to leave for a hiking trip took a look at the little sample package and it’s listed ingredients…“This looks good enough for humans to eat”, he observed correctly.

Kafka’s Organic Petfoods is indeed made with the best ingredients! Check out their website: https://kafkasorganic.com and you can follow them on Instagram @kafkasorganic.

Kafka’s Organic business card lay on our counter reminding me of my duty, and a couple of weeks later i did email and report that Swifty had loved the food!

That’s great to hear Jennifer, thank you! We have a professional photographer coming in for pictures on July 24/25. We have some doggie and owner models, would love to include you and Swifty too if you’re interested? Let me know 🙂

Surprised and definitely interested, I responded by sending this photo to remind her of our handsome photogenic pooch, and I also let her know that I would check my calendar for availability.

Dates were duly confirmed, and I looked forward to a new experience.  As some of you know, I do take plenty of photos and post them, at least in the past couple of years, since I have had a smart phone with a PHD (Press Here Dummy) fairly high quality camera. However, being involved as subject, or rather, sidekick for the dog, in a real photoshoot and by a professional photographer was completely new to me! Wow, who knows where this could lead….

Swifty and I were first on the list of about a dozen owners and their dogs. We walked down from our place, me in my usual last- minute rush, so that I arrived hot and flushed.  Swifty’s normal morning walk suddenly had a new twist to it, as he was met by a group of enthusiastic young people wearing “Kafka’s Organic” white T- shirts, and we were ushered inside the lovely spacious party room of an Olympic Village condo block.

After being introduced to the team, I changed to a brightly coloured T- shirt which I had brought along as instructed and was then directed to the make- up table. This is serious, I thought, makeup!!

Meanwhile, Swifty was also feeling the stress…..for him, the friendly team in “uniform” doting on him with sweet voices and directing him inside, brought back memories of experiences both at the vet and at groomers. He responded with a “bolt out of here” yank on his leash.

Actually, last year we had to stop taking him to groomers because he has had an increasingly severe anxiety reaction each successive visit. Swifty is a shedder so we try to furminate him fairly regularly, and our son Sam eventually shampoos him, after I hound him enough! This seems to work well in our walk-in shower, where a continuous stream of sweet- talk and a gentle spray of warm water does the trick. We have let Swifty’s nails grow long; “au naturel” is easier on everyone!!

However, this afternoon we were here for our first photo shoot, and I was determined to make this work! I locked the dog’s leash to control the attempted bolts and cajoled him. His tail was between his legs as he cowered under the make- up table, while I had a major hot flash causing the make- up expert to give me extra “dabs”, as she tried her best to beautify me. “Lipstick!!”, I protested. “I’ve only worn it twice in my life, on my wedding day, and under duress once or twice, when I have performed in dances.” I told her my husband was attracted to me because I didn’t wear makeup, and that we were still happily married at almost 29 years later. Then I realized that was probably not the best thing to say to a young woman making her living applying makeup, so I back-tracked a bit, and told her that I now, being older, wore more eye makeup. I decided to enjoy the experience and allowed her to do her job.

Thankfully, I had gone for a hair trim the day before at my local Fantasy Cuts salon, and Kafka’s talented expert also did a little “this and that” to it with gel to get my hair just right!

Swifty has humble origins as a rescue puppy from an abandoned house in Salmon Arm. His mother and litter mates were fortunately all abandoned together. He was subsequently adopted by our family from the Richmond SPCA in 2011 when he was 3 months old….(my husband and I and each of our three teenage sons were interviewed extensively before the adoption was approved). The litter of puppies had been named for the Muppets, and the shy little golden one we chose was “Kermit”.

Sam, our youngest son, who is the owner of the dog, changed the name to Swift or Swifty. Of course, all Sam’s friends and family knew why immediately! Taylor Swift,  the lovely blonde country singer who rapidly rose to stardom in her late teens, had became an intense “love from afar” for our youngest son when he was the tender age of thirteen.

Today, here we were, Swifty and I, with our humble, low- maintenance backgrounds, participating in a professional photoshoot! This day, July 25th, 2019, could we put our best feet forward?

Make- up done, I dragged the dog out from his hiding place to begin the formal photoshoot, which began with the indoor shots. His cute curlique tail was hidden, tightly tucked between his legs, and his shapely noble frame was pitifully withdrawn into a shrunken curve. As I sat down on a chair at the “set”, Swifty was noticeably trembling, while I was doing my best by uttering reassuring comments in my “Mummy voice” and frequent comforting pets.

One of the team noticed. “Awe…he’s trembling! Does he have a favourite song we could put on?” “ Maybe classical?” someone suggested. “Well, he does like some of my Israeli folkdancing songs… ( but no, i said to myself, too hard to find quickly online, and he gets excited and tries to dance with me )….

“Umm, how about ABBA? Try ‘Dancing Queen’”, I suggested.  I often play ABBA Gold loudly when I’m cooking, and it gives me energy to get my work done; I felt it was sure to give Swifty associated memories of good smells and home.

Within a nano- second, Dancing Queen was playing, and MAGIC – Swifty’s trembling stopped! Wow! These smart young folk could offer pet psychology classes as well as good food!

Swifty and I actually both relaxed somewhat, and the photoshoot proceeded fairly uneventfully; there was some passing panic from him outside when he was asked to jump up on a bench beside me (memories of the vet and needles, I think!)

Then there were some shots with the food; Swifty, who is of hunting background and usually has a long look around to make sure no predators and competitors are going to pounce on him while eating, amazingly ate it within seconds so that there wasn’t even time for photos. He was given a second portion, and the cameraman had readied himself for the quick action this time round! The team worried they may not have enough food left for the next participants!

After that, Swifty was instructed by me to put his paws up on my knees and shots were taken from behind my head. By now, Swifty was very happy, (he was now feeling well fed and “paws on the knees” is not a behaviour that would be tolerated by me at any other time). With his open mouth and hanging tongue just inches from my face, I could see the remnant food juice on his lower chins hairs and even a little chunk of carrot on the back of his tongue! I smiled and encouraged him through all of this.

Once all done, I snacked on some fruits, veggies and juice provided, while Swifty relaxed beside me, and we had a peak at the next models.

Whew, at least Swifty didn’t have to sit on a chair at a table and eat out of a bowl on a placemat!!

We walked home very, very slowly, both completely drained of energy for the rest of the day! We had made it through, and later I found out, we did apparently make the cut… perhaps you’ll see Swifty’s photo on Kafka’s Organic website! ( a middle – aged woman with her anxious dog!)

P.S. I may be able to add some of the actual professional shots at some future point, so do check back.

Afterword: How then should we live?

As for me, I have been reflecting how it’s rather ironic that I did a photoshoot for this delicious pet-food (and I do wholly support these young peoples’ goals and efforts!), while my heart is also breaking with all the human suffering in our world.

I have had the people of Yemen especially on my heart and mind for a number of years.

When I found the photo of Franz Kafka’s thin face online (he was already afflicted with tuberculosis and died of the disease at the age of forty), his features interestingly reminded me of a young KPU student whom I met very briefly during our Kwantlen Polytechnic University World Interfaith Harmony Week activities in 2018 ( at the time time I was working as chaplain at the Multifaith Centre). The student came up to talk with me, just before I was about to start a presentation with a colleague on Reconciliation Initiatives in the Middle East. He said to me, with his huge dark brown eyes filling with tears: “ They don’t talk about Yemen in the news.”

He stayed for part of our talk, and politely left early for a class, as he had already informed me he would. I hoped to follow up with him, but I never saw him again. However, I have not forgotten him; his name and face and people are on my mind and heart often and again as I write this, prompting me to continue to focus my search for ways I can personally help, and encourage Canada to help, the people of this war- torn, poor and hungry country.

For those looking for ways to help , over the past year, I have found that Save the Children Fund and World Renew both help in Yemen.

World Renew ( which is the relief and development branch of my husband’s church denomination, CRCNA), is working in Yemen through ADRA (Adventist Development and Relief Agency), a Canadian Food Grains Bank (CFGB) partner organization to implement food distribution. Recently, World Renew contributed $50,000 to support the work of ADRA, which was matched 4:1 through their membership in the CFGB. The response is providing food vouchers to 1,100 families through March 2020. The vouchers can only be used to purchase staple foods e.g. flour, oil, rice, beans. These vouchers enable households to decide on the timing and food quantities.

Since the photoshoot, Kakfa’s founder, Sarah Fernando, and I exchanged some emails, sharing our personal backgrounds and dreams, and I heard that she definitely desires to help with various projects, both locally and abroad, for those who are disadvantaged in this world, once her new business is doing well.

https://kafkasorganic.com/pages/about-us

I very much look forward to being involved as possible!

There are many ways to help one another in our global village.

It’s a small world after all and a very complex one….

How then should we live?