An Overdue Visit From Grandpa Louie
The past lives on in memories and family lore
Family lore shapes the generations, but when we’re young, we may not care to hear about it. Then sometimes the memories return, as with Joan Benowitz’s visit from Grandpa Louie in From Our Readers.
Waking up this morning I felt as though something had changed. Putting on my robe I walked downstairs into the kitchen and saw my Grandpa Louie sitting at the kitchen table looking just as I remembered him, white hair and all. How could this be? The last time I saw him I was about 15 years old and two weeks after that, he was dead. So how could he be here waiting for me to have breakfast with him? Cautiously I sat across the table from him, daring to look directly into his eyes and called out, “Morning, Grandpa!”
There was something slightly different about him. Maybe it was the luminescence around his body which I tried to ignore. I asked him if he’d like to have Wheatena for breakfast, “…just like Grandma used to make, with lots of cream on top.” Although it was unusual for me to have heavy cream in my house, I just happened to have some left over from a recipe I had made the night before and I was so excited to be able to offer him breakfast just the way he liked it!
“Of course, sweetheart!” He chuckled in his lighthearted and loving way.
“Grandpa, since you’re here, I want to apologize for not having the patience to listen to your stories about your homeland and how you came to America. I was a teenager when you tried to teach me about the origin of our family and I had the inane priorities that kids my age had at that time. Now being older and wiser, I would appreciate hearing about the challenges I know you had in your life.”
As we stirred the cream into our cereal, he began to tell me about the rustic life he had in the farmland of Russia. It sounded so lovely and peaceful with grains swaying in the breeze. And I could see that he had deep feelings for the loving family he came from which consisted of his father Abraham, his mother Lillian, and three older brothers, Morris, Jacob, and Aaron. My grandfather was the youngest child at 15. Suddenly his tone changed as his memory took him to a dark place.
“One day the Cossacks came thundering in on horseback and set fire to the crops. We ran into the forest with whatever we could carry, to get away from those brutes,” he sighed, shaking his head. I could see the horrific picture he painted clear as day.
“We gathered what little we had including some money we had tucked away from the sale of some wheat, and headed for the port on foot. What else could we do? Our lives were over in Russia. We walked during the day and slept in open fields at night with one person standing guard. Finally after three days we reached the dock.”
Astounded, I asked, “What did you eat during those three days?”
Grandpa replied, “We ate whatever grew in the fields. Mostly grass.”
If my grandfather hadn’t come back to visit me today, no one would ever know about the hardships he lived through all those years ago. He was a quiet man but I needed him to press on so that there would be a record, at least in my mind.
“ What happened next?” I asked with a quivering voice.
“We would’ve gone anywhere that day, just to get away from the Cossacks,” My brave grandfather replied. “The next day there was a ship heading to America so we took it.”
“How long did it take you to get here?” I asked, knowing it had to be an extended period of time. When he responded with the answer of around one month, my jaw dropped. I wondered how they survived. Grandpa said that his family arrived at Ellis Island in 1908.
My dear Grandpa Louie and I shared a sweet Golden Delicious apple while he continued with his story.
“My father arranged for our family to stay temporarily in an apartment of some cousins so we slept on mattresses on the floor. We were happy to have a roof over our heads so we didn’t really mind. In the meantime, my father found a job in a sweatshop like many other immigrants in those days. But within a short time he angrily said that he didn’t like the way he was being treated by his boss and decided that since he had to give blood, sweat, and tears to ‘just get by,’ he might as well do it at home. Joanala, I couldn’t believe it but my father told me that my family and I were going home.”
“Grandpa, are you serious?” I asked, stunned that my great-grandfather could be such a hothead and was so narrowminded. “What did he expect, gold in the streets?”
With tears in his eyes my grandfather explained, “My father was a stubborn man and meant what he said so with suitcases in hand, my family walked downstairs and headed back to the docks of New York. Suddenly I stopped by a park bench across the street from the tenement we were staying at. I told my father that I was not leaving. I knew I could make a better life for myself in America. It would take time, but I would make it. He called me a fool and left me sitting on that park bench. I was only 15 years old! I never saw him or the rest of my family ever again.”
Crying by that time, I blurted out, “Oh Grandpa, how could he be so cruel?”
My grandfather continued, “I was heartbroken and I was also too embarrassed to go back to the tenement so I slept on the park bench that night. In the morning a distant relative walked by and in an awkward blend of Yiddish and English asked, “What are you doing in the park at this hour?”
After telling him my tale of woe, he replied, “You will not sleep on this park bench another night. Come home with me!”
“So another mattress was added to the hallway floor and I began my journey to the American Dream. And by the way, it was beshert (meant to be) that I stayed. I met your lovely Grandma Ida in that tenement.”
“That’s an amazing story, Grandpa. Thanks for telling me. I’m going to write it all in a journal and read it to my children and grandchildren so they’ll know where they came from. I love you, Grandpa.” I gave him a kiss and suddenly I heard a call in the distance that I hadn’t heard in many years.
“Louya! Louya!” I turned to my grandfather but he had disappeared.
Read more like Joan Benowitz’s memories of her Grandpa Louie and other contributions from Boomer readers, including nostalgia, essays, and short fiction, in
Do you have your own stories you’d like to share with our baby boomer audience? View our writers’ guidelines and e-mail our editor at Annie@BoomerMagazine.com with the subject line “‘From Our Readers’ inquiry.”
