“Hurry up, put those blouses in the suitcase, the car will be here any minute” my mother said. We closed up the suitcases and were downstairs in front of our house waiting, when the big black car arrived. Known as a “hack”, it was a rented car with driver that took us door-to-door from the city to the Catskills, a common form of transportation in the 1940s, when few people owned cars.
I, Sam, and our parents settled in the back seat, while the luggage was loaded into the trunk. The car was quite roomy, with jump seats that could accommodate two more people, though the ride of more than three hours would not be so comfortable in those seats. Sam and I, however, tried them out towards the end of the trip, and though they offered a bumpy ride, it felt like fun to us, exaggerating the effect of the bumps in pre-seat belt days.
It was the summer of 1943, and we were on our way to Kerhonksen, N.Y. to the Kuchalein, run by our cousins, the Yachnes family. Our first trip there was in 1937, when I was nine months old. We went again in the intervening years, but the summer of 1943, our last time there, is the summer I remember most vividly.
The Yachnes farm had been converted into a bungalow colony in 1935, and that was where the extended family went to get away from the city heat. Each family unit had separate small sleeping quarters, while meals were prepared in the kitchen in the main house, which was shared by the families staying at the farm. Everyone ate in the large dining room off the kitchen. This arrangement in Yiddish was called a kuchalein, or “cook for yourself”, a common Catskills summer accommodation for New York families of modest means. There were few facilities on the farm, but lots of fresh air, cousins for playmates, and imaginative games that we created, often making up the rules as we went along.
Our family went for the first time in the summer of 1937, when I was just nine months old. One of my most precious photographs shows three generations of us; my grandparents standing in the back row with my parents, and aunt and uncle. The children are seated in front and I am on my cousin Charlotte’s lap. Everyone has dressed for the picture, and the men in city clothes look like they have just arrived for the weekend.
Two other pictures taken at the same time feature me; I am being held by my father in one and by my grandfather in the other. They were both taken in the same spot, one immediately after the other, besides a spreading oak tree in front of a log fence. They both look young, and the years seem to fade away. I feel warm and fuzzy when I look at what a cute baby I was, with light brown curly hair, big brown eyes, and chunky thighs, or pulkalas in Yiddish. Those three pictures are all I have of that summer, but they evoke feelings of love and warmth. When I look again, I realize that of the ten people in the picture, just my brother Sam and I are still alive.
The summer of 1943, when I was almost 7 is more vivid in my memories. During the week we were mainly women and children. The fathers came together on Fridays from the city, arriving around 6PM, having arranged meet-ups so they could share a hired car.
The days were pretty much the same, the mothers spent time with each other chatting, taking walks along the road, sitting on the lawn in the wooden Adirondack chairs, looking after the children and preparing meals. There also were regular games of Canasta on the porch of the Main House.
For the children, whose number and ages varied by week, there was a swing set on the lawn, and sections of tall grass and woods for the chasing and hiding games we played. There were trees for climbing, which the older boys did, while the rest of us hunted for grass-hoppers and frogs. In the evenings we caught fire-flies, which we kept in jars with paper covers punctured to provide air, and released our last night there.
Card games occupied us when it got too hot or rained, and that was the summer I learned to play “War” and “Go Fish”. Games, I taught my children, when they were probably the same age as I was that summer.
I wasn’t the youngest child there, only the youngest of the “big kids”. Sometimes it was hard to keep up with the boys, including my brother Sam, when they got really active and wild. Then I sought out my mother, the shade of the porch, and the quiet of the adults, where I could also check on the babies and play with the toddlers. My cousin Miriam, the oldest of the Yachnes clan had married three years ago and had an infant in the carriage and a toddler. In those years, I didn’t understand what it meant to be an orthodox Jew.
One day, the word went round we would be going to the barn. It was about a quarter mile up the road and we went as a group, with Bume, the owner’s youngest son, probably around 14 that summer, leading us. His father, Chaim would be slaughtering chickens and we were going to watch. When we arrived, Bume showed us where to sit, so we could be safe and also see the action. There was a large tree stump nearby. Chaim came out of the barn soon there after, with an ax in one hand and a chicken, held by its neck in the other. Chaim laid the chicken on the tree stump, positioned it so its head lay to one side, and in one fell swoop, brought the ax down on the chicken’s neck. But the chicken kept moving. It had no head, but it seemed alive. My eyes were fastened on the chicken as it ran in circles and just kept dancing. “Is it dead”, I asked, fascinated by all the signs of life it showed, wondering how that could be. The older kids laughed, “Of course it’s dead, it has no head”, they replied. Now, when I hear the expression of “running around like a chicken without its head,” I see that newly slaughtered chicken by the barn in Kerhonksen.
Towards the end of our second week, I saw my mother and Aunt speaking a lot to each other in Yiddish. My mother seemed worried and my aunt tried to reassure her. I couldn’t understand what they said, but I felt the tension and felt that something was wrong. The worried conversation was not only between my mother and aunt, but between my mother and grandmother. When I asked, my mother tried to reassure me, “just adults talking”, she said.
A few days later, my mother told Sam and me that she needed to return to the city to see the doctor. We would remain and return when my grandparents and aunt left, at the end of the following week. I remember feeling torn. I wanted to go back with her, but I also wanted to stay with my cousins. But my mother said I should stay. “You still have another week in the country. Why go back to a hot city. You will have more fun here”.
We walked out to the road to wait for the car that had been hired. My mother carrying a small bag walked with my grandfather, who would return to the city with her. The family gathered, reassuring and hugging my mother. We all waited together until the big black van, that in my mind’s eye looked like a hearse, arrived. My grandfather got into the back seat first, and after hugging and reassuring us, my mother got into the car, laying across the back seat, with her head on my grandfather’s lap. I saw her through the back window, and we all waved as the car pulled slowly away.
When our week was over, I returned to the city with my grandparents and Sam went to Aunt Minnie’s. My mother was confined to bed. We stayed with our relatives, probably close to three weeks, until after Danny was born and my mother returned home. Born prematurely, Danny remained in the hospital for almost a month. When we all got back together again, we were a different family.
That was our last summer in Kerhonksen. The following summer, both Sam and I went to camp, both of us for the first time.