FOUR WEDDINGS AND A WILLOW TREE

My parents met at a Catskill resort catering to young singles in summer of 1942. After a torrid eleven month courtship courtship involving train and bus trips between New Jersey and Long Island and dress-up dates at the ballet, opera, and restaurants in New York City, fully documented in their midweek love letters, they married in the garden of my grandparents’ home in Glen Cove, Long Island.

The wood frame house where my Zausmer grandparents raised their seven children was small, with two boys in one bedroom, four girls in another bedroom sharing a four drawer dresser, and the youngest, my Uncle Joey, sleeping in an alcove in the master bedroom.

My mother Rose, the oldest daughter, had to leave college to help support the family in the Depression years. My Uncle Nathan, the oldest son, became an attorney in town and also had a taste for new technologies of the time. He not only had an 8 mm movie camera, but filmed in color. He documented my parents’ wedding from beginning to end and the film survived long enough to be transferred to video.

Although the house was modest, the yard was large, over an acre. Many family photos of the era show me and my cousins playing in the backyard, surrounded by flowers in bloom, Adirondack chairs, a birdbath, and the grape arbor which had served as the wedding canopy (chuppah). I recall that my grandfather, who spent long hours running his hardware store downtown to support the family, was able to hire an Italian fellow who maintained the yard (this photo shows the property three years later).

The July 11th afternoon in 1943 was brutally hot and humid. My mother’s grandfather, Ephraim, in his nineties, the last of that generation, walked unaccompanied down the slate garden path to the chuppah. The wedding party followed, sisters and brothers from both families, all beaming with joyful smiles. My Aunt Ruth (Nathan’s wife) was obviously pregnant with the first grandchild and hammed it up for the camera, sticking her tongue out at the photographer – her husband! The scene under the canopy was magical, sunlight streaming through the roof of the arbor as my dad lifted the veil of his beautiful bride and they took a sip of the ritual wine, then kissed and embraced after the Rabbi’s pronouncement of marriage.

The newlyweds took off to Havana for their honeymoon, a popular destination at the time. Unfortunately, I have not found any photos of their trip.

Everyone at that wedding is now gone. The aunts, the uncles, my four grandparents, their cousins, the bride and groom, the neighbors . . . except for my cousin Donna, the grandchild in utero, who still lives in Glen Cove.

LEISURE

A poem by Orthodox Jewish poet

Zelda Schneurson Mishkovsky 1914-1984):

We had a hidden treasure of leisure

Delicate as morning air,

Leisure of stories, kisses, tears,

Leisure of holidays.

Leisure of mama, grandma, and the aunts

Gliding in a boat of light,

Slowly floating

In the small boat of peace

With the moon and heavenly bodies.

Today, August 27, 2022, would be the date that Paul and I would have celebrated our 50th anniversary. I had planned to write the story of our wedding day when it occurred to me that I had followed a tradition of outdoor weddings in my family and strengthened that tradition to include my own children.

After a long and occasionally stormy four and a half year romance (with at least one serious breakup), we married in 1972 in the backyard of our small ranch house, under the weeping willow tree. Paul, a hairdresser, had evenly pruned the bottom tier of leaves the week before to make room for the ceremony and create a natural canopy. I had recently completed my judicial clerkship in New Jersey and returned to Massachusetts for the next chapter of my life. On that day, I immediately acquired not only a husband but a ready-made family, Paul’s two little sons who lived with him.

Like my parents’ wedding day in 1943, it was hot and uncomfortably humid.

I had seen a chamber quartet at a performance and contacted them to play the music. A local restaurant catered the event, with two large roasted turkeys and a sheet wedding cake that they could not manage to lift out of the cardboard box. We had told the guests to bring their bathing suits for a swim. The adults did not take to that invitation, but all the children were prepared.

hydrangea petals

the piqué

of her wedding dress

We left for a European tour – London, Wales, Paris, Burgundy, then Geneva – leaving the boys with with maiden Aunt Sarah Levine from Utica who agreed to stay – end date not determined – and get them off to school. My mom bribed the boys to clean up the cigarette butts scattered over the front and back yards (we must have forgotten to put out ashtrays) for one cent a piece. They presented receipts with accurate counts and earned several dollars, I am told. To this day, I continue to bless dear Aunt Sarah for taking on this task for the three weeks that we were away. There was no way to communicate at the time if any problems occurred, but all was well upon our return. When Paul contracted food poisoning at a fancy hotel restaurant in Geneva, we decided to book tickets home, along with the two racing bicycles we had purchased in Paris.

Our marriage and family life began in earnest.

Shortly after our return, an early fall hurricane roared through the region. I had been napping in the bedroom and noticed that the room slowly became very dark. Looking out the window, I was surrounded by leaves and branches as the willow tree silently uprooted and ever so gracefully landed on the house. Later on, Paul enjoyed retelling the tale, claiming that the tree had fulfilled its purpose and no longer needed to weep.

When our daughter married in 2013, my husband was not well. She arranged with my cousin Diane to have the wedding at their beautiful property in White Plains. They found a rabbi, rented a tent, and took care of all the arrangements, knowing that I was preoccupied with caregiving for her dad. Huge pale pink peonies and gorgeous deep blue hydrangeas provided the elegant color and embodiment of happiness of the day. I thought of my mom, and felt as happy as she must have felt, accompanying her own daughter down the aisle.

Alex’s parents and brother, and our son and two of our granddaughters, all traveled from Israel to attend. My husband and I walked our daughter across the lawn to the wedding canopy. No frills, just good food with friends and family on a sunny and temperate afternoon before the newlyweds left for their honeymoon in Hawaii.

Before the end of the year, so sadly, my husband was gone.

In January 2019, my son and his bride married on a rooftop garden in Jerusalem. The evening was magical, a cloudless night, the air cool and fresh. Bright stars sparkled above us in the skies of the Holy City. Residents from apartment balconies in the surrounding buildings watched the ceremony and broke out into cheers!

As I write this on an August afternoon, clouds have moved in and just broken out into a heavy, thunderous  downpour. But for these four weddings, the skies were calm and the heavens showered blessings of the future upon the lovers.