A GRANDPA'S WAY

Even in his early 80s, my Romanian-born grandfather remained vigorous and physically impressive — stocky, barrel chested, with white hair and a matching bushy moustache.

Whenever he came to visit at our house, he walked in assertively and quickly, with his head erect and cane swinging.

But a closer look revealed some evidence of aging. His skin had a reddish/tanned leathery appearance after decades of exposure to the elements in his construction business. And his once strong voice had grown harsh from years of shouting at workmen.

His face was bristly and coarse, partly because he only shaved in the evening, a habit from his days as a builder.

There also was something else: he exuded the pungent bouquet of cigarettes and Scotch whiskey, another holdover from his career, when he braced himself for a hard day’s outdoor labor by having a few “shots” with his breakfast (usually a steak), and after work as well. 

That was my Grandpa Isidor Kramer, and I still remember him clearly for many reasons now — a full 60 years after his death.

For instance, Grandpa in general was a man of few words, but he sure could combine a colorful vocabulary with a forceful way of speaking if he wanted something done.  

Take the time my older brother, Chuck, and his wife invited our family to attend the ancient ceremony for a Jewish holy man (called a mohel ) to circumcise their still-infant second son. We had gathered in their new house, a typical 1950s suburban split level home on New York’s Long Island, and everybody was ready for the service to begin—except my grandfather.

“You son of a bitch!” he suddenly shouted in his harsh east European accent to the mohel preparing for the operation. “Wash your fuckin’ filthy hands before you dare touch that baby!” 

Then, as we gasped in disbelief, the spry, powerfully built 82-year-old man began waving his cane menacingly at the much younger, bearded mohel and chasing him down the hall into a nearby bathroom where, terrified, the poor guy violently slammed the door behind him. After a few minutes, he came out sheepishly --  looking embarrassed and displaying thoroughly washed hands for Isidor’s grudging approval. 

It was shocking for us all, especially the holy man, who had come to perform the traditional Jewish ritual. Our group stood silently as he proceeded with the operation. Yet, we could see his hands still trembling from the nearly violent encounter with Isidor. This was particularly disturbing for the males, uncomfortably aware of the extreme delicacy of the surgery under way. Ouch!

That was 64 years ago, when I was 15 and only starting to learn much about my grandfather. I later found out that he had good reasons to be so blunt in demanding cleanliness from everyone in his orbit, particularly in his immediate family. He had had some bitter experiences.

Infections, my mother told me, first took the life of his 7-year-old daughter and a few years later killed his first wife and her unborn child. Moreover, he had survived frequent and deadly epidemics of cholera, typhoid, measles, Spanish influenza, and the like, which were common then both in Europe and America. 

Some of what I know about Isidor is certain. For example, he was born in 1875, although it also might have been three years earlier. At that time, families in Eastern Europe often altered male birth dates to avoid military conscription. In any case, he grew up near  the Romanian city of Botosani and close to the eastern border with Russia. 

In addition, there’s no doubt that Isidor’s father owned a wine press business, processing local farmers’ grape harvests for a percentage of the juice. He was ably assisted by his wife, who was said to be a tough, sturdy pipe smoking woman and lived more than 100 years. 

The first important turning point in Isidor’s life came when he neared the age for military service and decided he would be wise to leave Romania — a  haven for antisemitism, a land threatened by severe internal divisions and frequent wars with its neighbors, especially Russia and Austria-Hungary, 

So he went to Egypt to join an older brother who owned a high-end jewelry store in Cairo and had become very wealthy. Isidor worked in the store and had a chance to learn English there, since Egypt at the time was virtually a protectorate of Great Britain and the store specifically catered to its many colonial military and civilian officials.

But instead of staying in Cairo after making a sufficient amount of money, Isidor returned to Romania with ambitious plans to get married, go to America, start a business, and begin a family.

His choice for a bride was his niece, Clara, and technically their relationship was incestuous. But such matches occurred at times in relatively small, isolated Jewish communities where marriage prospects were very limited. A board of rabbis gave the okay if there were no signs of hereditary mental or physical defects in the family for several generations back. 

Soon after their wedding, Isidor, 26, and Clara, 24, headed for the United States,  departing from the German port of Hamburg. They made the long trans-Atlantic voyage aboard the Belgravia, a new passenger steamer, and arrived May 30, 1900, at Ellis Island in New York.

The couple decided to remain in New York, where Isidor quickly prospered as a contractor, building homes, apartment houses, and shops all over the city. Construction was a tough business, with many shady, colorful and even criminal elements, but he was a tough guy, too, and apparently could be violent if he had to (as the mohel nearly discovered).

He also proved to be successful as a father, as he and Clara became parents to five daughters including my mother, Esther. Unfortunately, Clara died at age 38 and Isidor had to reinvent himself.

For several years, my grandfather evidently had a very full social life with numerous girlfriends—including some “live-ins”—and was a real “man about town.” He was frequenting the opera, dining in the finest restaurants, and always dressed fashionably in a top hat, tuxedo and spats.

Understandably, his daughters often remarked that grandfather was a bon vivant, in the mold of the actor Maurice Chevalier in the film Gigi, and he used to comment proudly, “We Romanians are the Parisians of eastern Europe.” 

And because Romanian is one of the Romance languages, Isidor quickly learned to speak passable Italian, which endeared him to his mostly Italian immigrant workforce. During Prohibition, they cheerfully supplied him with their home-made wine. 

But he eventually abandoned bachelor life and married again, this time to a widow with several children. As you might expect, the combination of her children and his made for an  unusually complex household and understandably strained relationships. 

So Isidor took a very decisive and harsh step to untangle this web of domestic tension, without a word of explanation to anyone.

One afternoon, when his four unmarried teenage daughters came home from work and school, they found all their possessions and suitcases piled up outside in front of their East New York house. They also discovered that the locks were rekeyed. Not a word came from inside, and they couldn’t get in.

With no other place to go, they dejectedly trooped over to an apartment nearby where their eldest married sister, Leah, was living. All four stayed there until they had jobs and places to live on their own. For years afterward, their relations with Isidor were frosty and absolutely frigid with their stepmother, Lena, whom they derisively called “Cutie-Pie” until her death in 1955. 

Over time, Isidor’s ties with the five Kramer daughters improved, and I recall some visits to our home on Long Island quite clearly. 

They typically began with my brother Chuck, sister Corky, and I lining up dutifully to greet Isidor for the ritual greeting kisses. Like a good many other East Europeans, he was very demonstrative when kissing, especially children. He gave each of us big, juicy smacks with bear hugs. Shaken and a little embarrassed by all that, we waited for his next predictable act. It went like this:

After balancing his cane against the largest, most comfortable chair in our living room, Grandpa eased himself into it with a great show of dignity and then, speaking firmly in his raspy “Don Corleone” voice, asked my mother to bring him a tumbler of Scotch. He then sat back, smoking and sipping his drink.

That usually led to my father leaving the room. He vehemently disapproved of the way Isidor treated my mother and her sisters in their youth. In my father’s absence, Isidor would hold court like a movie ‘don’ and listen attentively to my mother and her sisters who were present.

A man of few words, yes he was, but those he used were pithy, direct, and memorable -- particularly  his way of passing along practical wisdom, briefly expressed in common sense maxims. He had some specially designed for dealing with restless, bored children — hardly surprising for a man who was the father or the stepfather to 12 or more kids by at least two different women. (We never could get any of those counts straight.)

A standard maxim from Isidor was, “A man spends millions of dollars for free libraries [meaning Andrew Carnegie], so go take a book and read!”

If a child was impertinent enough to continue whining about boredom, the next quotation from my grandfather’s repertoire was delivered menacingly in guttural Yiddish, “Geh, schlog dein Kop en Vant!” (“Go, bang your head against the wall!”). 

While overseeing a household with many children, Isidor rigidly enforced organization, neatness, and cleanliness. A look at my slovenly bedroom or my brother’s would prompt Grandpa’s most celebrated maxim, which my mother often repeated later in an exasperated, shrill shout with an index finger wavering in excited circles pointing at the mess: “Everything has its place, everything in its place!” 

And when it came to information to locate any misplaced articles such as wallets, B-B guns, baseball gloves, and schoolbooks, this emphatic remark was added, “One motion! You come into the house, and you put everything in its proper place right away! One motion, indivisible . . . !”

This constant dinning may not have worked immediately, but at least it  influenced all three of us eventually to be fairly neat and orderly. To my family’s great amusement, the effect was greatest on my brother, the worst neatness offender of the three, who later invented and manufactured plastic organizers for desk supplies and grooming equipment.

Isidor passed away in New York in the fall of 1959, alone in his small Brooklyn apartment. He had been supported for years by Clara’s five daughters, having lost most of his wealth in the great Depression. 

Decisive action marked his character— his lucrative stint in Cairo, an unconventional marriage, and then a successful emigration to America. Difficult, yet colorful and unforgettable in many ways, he had lived his life fully and enthusiastically. A man of few words, but he shared much practical wisdom. He was stern and tough, but in his later years, he mellowed, exchanging much affection with his daughters by his first love, Clara, and their children. 

Lewis Sussman, a retired professor of classics at the University of Florida, has written three books and many articles on ancient rhetoric and Roman historians. He says his most notable creative writing is in his checkbook.