Forword
This manuscript was written by Samuel Bernard Heifech my grandfather in law. He came to the United States of America from Starodoub, a city in Poland on or about 1905. This diary was started on the 21st day of October 1925 and the last entry was made on august 20th 1955, less than two months prior to his demise on October 12, 1955.
This diary was not read by anyone until after his death. It was saved by his daughter Minnie for many years until after his granddaughter Rosie got married and I was introduced to this book in which I took a deep interest.
While reading it, I must say that I shed tears of joy and sadness at the stories and the dear moments in this this man's life. I also had this diary saved for many years, however it bothered me to see such good material that took him over 30 years to accomplish go to waste.
The diary was getting old and the pages were turning brown and were almost impossible to handle without tearing or breaking them. Every time a tear or a break would happen, it took with it a precious word or sentence which bothered me to no end. His wish, was that someone in the family would put this diary between two covers and he will bless this person from wherever he is.
I decided to begin an attempt to grant his wish, and proceeded to contact various publishers in New York , New Jersey and Pennsylvania. I mailed the manuscript to them and months later, I received it with a very nice thank you note informing me that they are not interested at this time. (I suspect, because it was not typed and formatted)
I did not give up, I then took the manuscript to the "Jewish Publication Society of America" in Philadelphia. They were extremely nice to me, they promised to have the chief editor review the manuscript and get back to me. Nine weeks later, I was contacted and informed that the manuscript was reviewed and that I could come and pick it up.
Needless to say, my frustration level was quite high. Three years passed and this task was still buried somewhere in the back of my mind. I wanted to do something with this diary. This man left a wish which was never fulfilled. I took it upon myself to fulfill his wish as if he personally left me this order.
After some deep thinking and weighing various alternatives, I decided to do the next best thing, and that was to make my own book. Well, the work had just begun. The original diary was rebound with glue and scotch tape to strengthen the pages in order that they withstand the extensive handling which was to come. The originals were copied, reduced to an 8 and 1/2 by 11 inch size, all the pages were numbered, a table of contents was generated, as well as a cover for the book, I included a family tree, a copy of his picture and made enough copies to be able to satisfy the immediate family members.
All the time and effort spent on this project, was one hundred percent my pleasure. I enjoyed every minute of it and felt elated every time a step was accomplished which took me closer to the goal.
At last his wish to have this diary between two covers has been fulfilled.
My only regret is that I never had the opportunity to meet him. He died while I was still in high school in my native French Morocco. At that time, I had no idea that I would end up in the United States, marry his granddaughter and meet him through his diary.
Needless to say, after reading the entire book, we became very close friends. All my efforts are dedicated to his granddaughter Rosie, his great grandchildren and now great, great grandchildren.
Now, with the advent of the Internet, I decided to include various excerpts of this diary for any interested party to enjoy. Up until now, I carried all the effort. However, with the assistance of Sam's grandchildren, hopefully, I will get some assistance in completing this wonderful task.
Table of contents
Yahrtzeit Calendar
We all have our hobbies and pet desires. Be they rational or eccentric our spirit is not at rest until they are given expression. A fool is he aiming at the unattainable. but there is nothing above reach in wishing to print or publish this record of a stray soul for the-amusement of a reading public or the intimate interest of a lineal kin.
If it is found of general interest and commercial potentiality- all's well and good; it will be the sole care of the printer to put it between covers and have it faced presentably.
If however, it meets a deaf ear from promoting interests it is my command and hope and wish that my near and nearest have this diary booked as a memento to my fly by duration and keep it rolling in the family-for the information and entertainment it affords.
The funds for printing same to be furnished either by my direct estate if its meagerness will allow it, or by a family chest contributed in accordance with means and grade of love and respect for a related mortal.
My soul will not be in peace and I will not give you rest and comfort for generations until this, my humble wish is fullfilled. I will turn my weary bones and gnash my teeth until I sense a book of this manuscript is sent to the Library of Congress in Washington, the Public Library in New York and several copies distributed at random.
Then my soul will have peace and bless my beloved ones with peace and contentment for many happy years.
Samuel's Diary is a Manuscript of over 900 Pages written between the 1925 and 1955.
May God bless his soul.
Perpetuity. We all know that life is short--several million breaths and we are gone. I often deplore myself for not enjoying life to its full extent. And oh, how I love to live--every inhaled breath is a joy to me and a sorrow at the same time for being a discounting figure on my life. But alas, we are toys to be played with by nature. And so the hours pass by, -the years move on, until we roll off the brim of life and we are shrouded into a veil of forgetfulness. This is the most tragical aspect of human life. It is not so tragical with the person of great deed or wonderful mind--he leaves his name and fame to humankind and civilization and his works are a monument to his memory and glory. But we--little ordinary human insects--we strive and we struggle, we sigh and we joice for so many odd years of when we pass off. What trace or track is left of us, of our innerselves? Thanks to human ingenuity, a copy of our outerselves, a photo of our form may be left to posterity. But our inner self, the real spirit of our lives is lost and forgotten with our last whiff.
Why? Wherefore? - It’s tragical and it's an old slumbering question. I for myself, strangely enough, not participating of the sweets of life feel strongly the pangs of mental torture at the thought of becoming a lost and forgotten atom in this universe. But, I say, just as the great man leaves his works and immortality with humankind at large just so can the average person leave a reflection of his spirit and mind to his nearest kin and posterity by registering his events and impressions, his thoughts, his wits, experiences and feelings; in short: everything that impresses his life from day to day or time to time as we go along, thereby revealing and exposing his innerself and making himself understood for certain actions and traits:
Therefore my dear children, it's to you that I am talking through these pages. It's to your benefit to read and to keep this book as a memorial of your father who loves you with a keen sense of feeling and if you want to know your own selves--study the source whence you came from; behold the joys and sorrows your parents lived through and you will understand your own strange ways and straightforward paths. And once we understand ourselves, we may command ourselves for the good of the community and humanity at large.
I beg to be excused for any and all imperfections in my writing. Don't forget, dear reader, that I didn't have any schooling worth mentioning and if you find any mistakes in here--it is to your benefit of knowing and my knowledgement.
Keep this book immaculate and as a souvenir for your grandchildren-- just see how far it will pass along. Thank you.
I am starting to write this on the twenty-first day of the tenth month of nineteen hundred and twenty-five. Heaven knows when I'll stop.........
Let this serve as a tombstone
for my dear mother and myselfAn Ordinary Man’s Life
Chapter 1
1
The first upshot.
I was content for a while that I was not smothered amongst the pillows for heaven only knows whether i was a welcomed visitor! my father was just in his teens and was worriedly expecting to be called for military service. he had a mindful of ambitions to open up a tinsmith shop but this was to be realized later.
my mother- well, she had the satisfaction that when papa saw her for the first time in her native town(she was from a different province) and the schadchen" wanted to show him different girls about town he refused saying: 'if I cannot marry the first girl. I saw I don’t want to see any at all- just picture how elated my mother must have felt. my father was just about up to her hips in height but great with delight in matrimony. kismet wanted they should join in union and besides being burglarized on their marriage eve nothing in particular happened until I began to clamor for what was coming to me.
2
On the wandering path
I remember being a little tot carrying a big pitcher of some beverage followed by my mother with a stock of pastry to delight the hearts of the faithful soldiers in return for a few kopecks that helped us get along in that strange town where we lived illegally; for a common soldier was forbidden to take a wife unto himself.
I must have been a pretty little darling for the shikses' of the neighborhood used to take me into their homes and treat me with the best part of their swine. (sorry I don’t remember how good it tasted.) and So for four years of military service rolled by and with an additional member to our family that arrived with military promptness we returned with honors to our old Sarodoub.
We were greeted by a host of cousins, uncles and a blind old grandmother of my father who was known for her wisdom. she felt the face and features of my mother with her forefingers and brought out the verdict that she was a very beautiful woman. she soon treated us with cups of milk from a nanny goat and we were all happy. father established his long cherished tinsmith shop and the cares and worries of a livelihood began to follow. I remember the anxiety of many a day for the price of a case of tin plate to be made up into cups pails graters and so forth. I used to wade in the tin wastings laid about the house and many a time I pricked and cut my tender buttocks to my mother's dismay. sister would sit in a pile of same with a face full of sores and pimples heaven knows from what source salved up into a creamy white and yell her lungs out. she was a premium cry baby.
3
The environment
I have a mental picture of the oblong courtyard where we lived practically all those years holding a gallery of tenants enough to inhabit a village. On one end to the front, a fat cobbler lived. He was a master boot maker of aristocratic means whose clientele were the elite next to him lived the landlord of the twinned court an old pious Jew whom every grown up knew to be an old man since their childhood. On the opposite side from the left there lived Berze the tailor a dwarf like creature with a giant wife who had a houseful of sons that were chasing after the town maidens. In that house all the political and conspirative news were at hand.
Next door toward the center lived a flour merchant with two daughters rather reserved and kept aloof from the other tenants. Next to it was a groats-mill trodden by one horse. I remember the poor creature standing in one place steadily moving a platform under his feet- trodding in the dark until he would get blind then he would be replaced by another one.
Following in line was the general lavatories a double compartmented affair that served the entire settlement. Many a quaint face turned away with a crampy feeling eagerly looking backwards with a watchful eye. The blending odors of such a communal depository is only material for illusion. Then there was a barn for the prosperous ones to keep a cow in. Next to this barn was a bookbinder and in his hovel a Hebrew teacher had his class of beginners. Unto that tutor my mind was entrusted to be filled with the first rudiments of lure and learning. I remember upon the first lesson of the alphabet a confectionery spray came down from on high which a Samaritan angel threw me down as a token of good grace.
On the rear right, there lived the sexton of a nearby synagogue. He was one eyed and two daughtered; one was a divorcee and the other supposed maiden a sore eye. She was like a cat always in other circumstances. Rumors about town had it that the tailors from the front changed those circumstances in the rear. That same maiden is married here in the to a reverential cantor. Crossing a hallway another court yard was reached with another set of tenants most conspicuous of all being a produce merchant with a big barn where the moujiks' used to bring their products such as flax bristles and the like. Rumors had it that he used to cheat on the peasants by having some member of the house put his feet under the platform scale and so reduce the weight of the merchandise in question.
Then there was a hovel sunken in the ground where lived an octogenarian lady. she took a fancy to our house and would come and make no. I right under our window and mother was terribly sore and aggravated.
Passing a small gate there was a big yard with a legendary synagogue that withstood fire contagion which spread so often over the town. there stood a shanty where an old rabbi lived famed for his piety and miraculous power as one legend went the rounds woman barren of child asked him for his blessing which he gave her and told her to proceed home and she will bear with child upon which she asked his handclasp as a token of good grace. this he refused as a pious Jew is forbidden to hold the hand of a strange female so he told her to go forth and she shall perceive the sign of heaven. there upon the woman gave birth to a son with only the left hand. this was an omen of wrath for the distrust in the holy man.
On that courtyard the loafers played ball. the gentle god-fearing lads would not engage in such sports. outside that court was an apple orchard with a tempting fence to climb for the tempting fruit.
On the corner was the club house where the affairs of the town took place and underneath lived the superintendent with a houseful of maidens engaged in rolling cigarettes. there, my first curiosity was aroused by seeing girls smoke. those were habitual smokers puffing ardently with grace and passion. coming back to our courtyard: on the center right was our abode- a big one room apartment of recent build. a narrow hallway with a storage room. on the top shelf in the very corner of that pantry I kept a little tin box and that was my safe where I used to put away my kopecks saved up from the fruchens I was supposed to buy for breakfast. in that hall were stationed two vats filled with drinking water and alongside of it was a tub for refuse; after it was heapingly filled it would be emptied in the yard, no place in particular. there were two sets of drinking water brought on the shoulders of a carrier in two wooden pails. one set was from a nearby well delivered every other day; that was common drinking water and for general use. the other was filled special for tea and was brought from a distant well once a week, famed all over town for its tea qualifications.
Right by the door was one room partitioned off and rented. The rest of the house held the baking oven facing the door with a compartment on top. In that oven bread was baked once a week to last for seven days besides challah for Saturday and the Sabbath meals were stored into the day before.
In winter on Friday nights it was the greatest pleasure for the entire family to lay on top of that oven eat sunflower seeds and relate ghost stories. On the other side of the oven was a hearth, the top of which was used as a sleeping bunk. The entire room was used as a combination workshop dormitory dining room, guest room etc ...
I cannot forget the visit of a great uncle, a big strappy man from a distant town. We had as a guestly treat beans for supper. He then occupied the couch, the most imposing piece of furniture in the house. In the middle of the night, I heard the big great uncle bursting forth shooting volleys exploding.
I was dazed not knowing what happened to our dear guest. On the other hand there lingers in my memory the visits of my kindly maternal grandfather a typical wandering Jew. He was always on the go bag under arm marching from one town to another visiting his scattered daughters or relatives.
To me it was an event when zeide' used to come. One thing he always used to bring a 'nosh'. How I lived to feel around his sack and praying paraphernalia; take out his snuff boxy examine it, and take a sniff at it- the sneeze that followed was a delight. He was around the seventies with stooped back and always chanting by himself repeating each phrase absent mindedly two or three times. After every meal he had to eat a slice of bread as an encore.
In his younger days he was a musician playing the trombone or any of the biggest wind instruments. Later, he switched to the drums banging the big drum or thumbing the tambourine. I remember his joy on one of his visits when he volunteered his services to a neighbor's wedding. He was pounding his fist on a little hand drum with such a zeal that it was bleeding- as he was out of practice and he painted the drum scarlet red but he kept on banging at it as if nothing happened.
To be continued.......
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