Inspiration

 

Louis Levine

     I decided to feature my paternal grandfather in this first post of the new year. My cousins, my sisters and I referred to him as Zayde, an endearing Yiddish term for grandfather. He was a strong and independent man who may have appeared hard and gruff but he loved and cherished his children and grandchildren.

     Louis Levine was the second child and only son of Beryl and Tiba Levine nee Weiner. He was born on December 20th, 1885 in Traby which is in the western part of what is now Belarus not far from the Lithuanian border. Louis was his Americanized name but he was called Lazar (short for Eliezar?) possibly named after his grandfather. There may have been times that he was referred to Alexander but never in any official capacity. When Louis was 4 years old his father died. This happened on or about the day his sister, Bertha was born. Tiba, being a widow with a newborn and no income, sent Louis and his older sister Mary to live with relatives. Mary was sent to Vilna where she lived with Tiba’s sister, Nachana. I’m not quite sure where Louis went but at age 6 he was a shoemaker’s apprentice. In an interview he said he lived in the town of Ivye for a while where three of his uncles lived. Ivye is about 20 miles from Traby.

Louis ship manifest showing he was a shoemaker

     Louis arrived in the USA in June of 1904 on the ship, Arcadia. He was processed through Ellis Island and was almost refused entry because he claimed he was being met by his mother’s brother with the last name of Weiner but Simon Muckler was the man he was supposed to meet. Simon’s last name had been changed to Muckler from Weiner when he was still in Europe but Louis did not know that.

Louis in hospital with prosthetic legs

     He was having trouble finding enough work to put food on the table so Louis moved to Mt. Pleasant, PA where he had many relatives including his father’s brothers and his own sister, Mary. In December of 1905, about a week before his 20th birthday Louis was involved in a terrible accident. The story is as follows. Louis was very uncomfortable around horses but he needed to make a living so he agreed to peddle junk for his brother in law. Very few businesses had trucks in 1905 so a horse drawn cart was the norm. The horse was scared to cross a bridge and Louis was trying to pull him to get him to move. The horse reared up and Louis fell backwards onto some trolley tracks and was hit by one of the trains coming through. He was injured badly and it resulted in the amputation of both legs and his left arm. Louis was in the hospital for many months but was finally fitted with prosthetic legs and he eventually walked out on his own. This incident was the defining moment in his life. He was no longer the tall handsome confident young man but now a severely challenged man trying to make best of an awful situation. We shall see what he accomplished and how. 

     In 1910 Louis moved back to New York City. He kept in touch with his uncle, Simon Muckler who lived on Henry Street in the lower east side of Manhattan. Ironically, Simon lived next door to Tillie Cohen (born Tiebe Kaganovich) who eventually married Louis. Four years after moving back to NYC they were married in a Rabbi’s office on Rutgers street. Louis had a junk business in Brooklyn and they lived in an apartment above the store. In 1916 their first child, Bernard was born. 

     Louis was restless. He never stayed in one place too long. He lived in several different towns in Europe and in his ten years in America he lived in New York, then Mt. Pleasant, PA, then back to New York and in 1918 back to western Pennsylvania. They did make a slight detour into Philadelphia and stayed at Tillie’s sister’s house so that their second child Morris could be born. Once they got to Westmoreland County they lived in Jeannette, Pa and Louis had a hardware store but began to dabble in real estate. He got some seed money from his brother in law, Frank Levin and started buying tracts of land. He either resold the land or built homes on them and sold them for a nice profit. He had three different partners during the 1920’s and even had a tract of land named the Levine-Lieberman tract for development. They also had three more children born in Jeannette. Helen was their first daughter and Herman and Sam were twin brothers. They lived in Pittsburgh for a couple of years where he had a hardware store in Squirrel Hill but in 1929 he moved the family to Cranesville, Pa in Erie County. Their last child, Ruth was born in Cranesville but shortly after that they moved into the city of Erie.

     Louis started a used clothing business in Erie. He moved his store to a couple of locations. I have a lot of great memories of my grandfather but one of my earliest memories was visiting him and my grandfather in their store and being in the back courtyard behind the building. He eventually retired and moved into a house on East 31st street in Erie. I spent a lot of time at that house. Having my grandparents so close to me (their house was about a half mile from our house) was a bit of a blessing. Our family along with my Uncle Sam’s family used to meet at their house for dinner on Sunday nights. All of my father’s siblings came into Erie to visit their parents on a regular basis so I got to see them often. If my parents went out of town we spent the nights at Bubbie and Zayde’s house. When I was in elementary school I had to go Hebrew School two afternoons a week at around four o’clock. When Hebrew school ended I walked to their house with one of my classmates that lived two doors away from them. My father would pick me up from there on his way home from work.

Zayde and me having a discussion

     I remember my Zayde as being a smart, resourceful, confident man. Despite his handicap he was fiercely independent. It was obvious that he had only one arm but many people that knew him well were unaware of the fact that he had two prosthetic legs. That is how well he walked. I remember, as a teenager, going into downtown Erie by bus to do some shopping or perhaps meet a friend or go to a movie. I would bump into Zayde occasionally and we would ride the bus home together. He cherished his grandchildren and he played checkers or did jigsaw puzzles with us. He would tell stories of when he came to the USA and the challenges he had then (not knowing the language and having no money.) He told me a story about when he was staying with his Uncle in New York. Louis was walking down the street and passed an attractive couple walking the other way. Louis turned and looked back at them and noticed that the man only had one arm. He was very intrigued by this. He had never seen somebody with an appendage missing. When he got back home he tried doing things with one hand only. Opening a jar, buttering a piece of bread, or tying a necktie. He was unsuccessful but then he rationalized by saying “why do I need to try these things with one hand? I’ve got two” Little did he know that in about a year he would need to master those one hand skills. He did so with great success. 

    Zayde was very strong, physically, as well as mentally and spiritually. Having only one arm made his remaining one very rugged and toned. Even into his 70’s he could give each of his sons a tough match of arm wrestling. He would not let anything keep him tied down. He once fell and broke his hip. The doctor assessed the injury and Louis’s pre existing condition and told him “you will never walk again.” Louis answered “I’ll walk on your grave.” A rhetorical answer for sure but when that doctor passed away, Zayde called my father to ask for a ride to the cemetery. 

Levine family in Erie circa 1935

    He was the patriarch of the family in every sense of the word. He sat at the head of the table at holiday dinners and recited the blessings over the wine and the bread from heart. The youngest person at the seder would come to him to ask the four questions during the passover seder. He would listen intensively and proudly smile when the questions were done. Everybody came to Erie to visit him although when the wanderlust kicked in he would travel to his children’s homes.

Louis and Tillie's 50th wedding anniversary 1964

     As he got older his general health was ok but the nagging afflictions of old age began to take their toll. His hearing was bad and the hearing aids of that generation were not so technically advanced to do much good. His eyesight began to fail due to Glaucoma. It got to the point where he could not see well enough to read, watch TV, or even recognize someone’s face. He told me that of all the things that had happened to him in his lifetime going blind was the worst. Every morning, however, he would wake up, strap on his prosthetic legs and be ready for another day. Even though he sat all day in his wheelchair he put on his legs. When he got married, Tillie’s family was a bit disturbed that she chose a man that was so obviously challenged. How would he be able to support her, they all asked. She confided to me that she always thought of him as a whole man. He needed an angel and found one with her.

     My eyes never considered him handicapped. It seemed to me that he could do and did do everything and anything he wanted to. After his accident in 1905 he got married and had six children. He owned and operated many businesses and made money then lost it all in the depression. He sent two of his children to college where they went on to have very successful professional careers. He also supported the rest of his children in whatever paths they chose to follow. He loved and cherished his 13 grandchildren and was saddened by the untimely death of one of them. He attended the weddings of at least two of his grandchildren and was able to hold in his hands two of his great grandchildren. 

     He was tough and in his old age a bit demanding. He lived with his daughter, Helen for a while and then with his son, Moe. Finally, around the age of 95 he needed more help than could be provided by his children and was moved into a nursing home. I would visit him regularly and he complained about living there. He would say “This place is not right for me. Most of the people here are younger than me.” I answered “Zayde, most of the people in the world are younger than you.” In February of 1982 Louis passed away at age 96. 

     We have transcripts of an interview that Louis did with his son in law, Murray Ringold and Murray’s son Steven. It relates his experiences of living in Europe, coming to the USA, and his assimilation into American society. In high school speech class we had an assignment to speak about a famous person who had inspired us. I chose to ignore the famous person part and talked about my Zayde.