I was born in a little town in Poland, named Pinsk, on September 3, 1914. My parents names were Niska and Jacob Flaksman. My father was a wholesale fruit dealer, buying up huge quantities of fruit to distribute to stores. Women did not have any profession in Europe, so my mother was a housewife. I also had a little sister, who was two years younger than I, but I have no memory of her, because I was three years old when my mother died and was told about all this much later.
My maternal grandparents lived in Drohichin. So after my mothers death, my grandparents did not want me to stay with my father. Eventually I would have another mother, a stepmother, who my grandparents thought might mistreat me. You know what step-mothers were like then, and to my grandparents I was the apple of their eyes. They took me to Drohichin and I lived with my grandparents two uncles, an aunt, all single. My little sister died shortly thereafter.
My grandparents were not rich, but I had everything I needed and lots of love. I called my grandmother Momma and my grandfather Papa not knowing the difference. When I got older, I started to ask questions. Why are my girl friends parents so much younger than you are? Then they explained to me the whole story.
My aunt, Sima, married Motel Zisook. A year later a child was born, named Joey. My uncle Motel left for the United States, alone and I helped to raise my cousin Joey. I was only ten years older than him. He was a very spoiled child. He gave me a lot of trouble, he used to pull my hair, etc. After five years, my Uncle Motel sent for Aunt Sima and cousin Joey. My aunt Sima used to send me beautiful clothes from the U.S. and I was the envy of the whole school.
I was enrolled in Hebrew school when I was six., under the name of Sima Goldberg (my grandparents last name). It was a private school and by the fourth grade they had to take me out. They couldnt afford the tuition. I was then enrolled in a public Polish school. I was a good student, later I had a very nice social life, a lot of friends.
At 14 I joined a zionist youth organization called Betar (the closest approximation in English). We used to have meetings, boys and girls together, sing Hebrew songs and dance Horas, and dreamed of coming to Palestine (the name we used of Israel). As we got older, around 16 or 17, we had to prepare ourselves for the hardships in Palestine, so we had to go for two years with Hacshora, or hard work, which usually involved a lumber mill or some of the same. Hacshora was required of all prospective young people who wanted to immigrate to Palestine by the Zionist organization.
When I was 15 I was going steady with a young man named Herschel. He went to Hacshora for two years and got his certificate to go to Palestine. Yet in order to get two people in on one certificate you could take as your wife. Some marriages were real, others were fictitious, getting married and then divorced as soon as the couples arrived in Israel. Herschel was given a woman to be fictitiously married to, and it wasn't me. My grandparents would not let me work for Hacshora and this woman had. Yet Herschel didn't want to marry this woman, he wanted to marry me. He asked his friend Menachem Begun for advice. Begun organized a Hacshora with a few boys who worked in a farmers fields and I was their cook. I didn't have much experience with cooking. One time I tried to make scrambled eggs with fried onions, which I wasn't supposed to do, because money was scarce, food was not cheap and burnt onions could be eaten. After a few months Herschel and Menachem worked it out so that I was eligible to go to Palestine on the same certificate.
We went to Pinsk and got married. After a few months we left for Palestine. We came to Haifa and stayed with Herschels cousins. They were ultra religious and for some reason didn't believe that we were married, so we got married a second time. After a while we got jobs working for another cousin who was a building contractor. I worked with men on the buildings, cleaning the boards that were used to form cement so that they could be used again. Wood was very dear in Israel and it was recycled when ever possible.
Eventually we moved into our own apartment. We worked very hard. When the building business slowed, we tried to go into the grocery business with a partner. It didn't work at all. Then the same cousin go another contract for some new homes, so Herschel worked for him. I didn't because I was pregnant. I had a stillborn.
A couple of years later, in March 1937, Natan was born. Times got very bad, there was no work and we really struggled to make ends meet. When my Aunt Sima found out what was happening, she wanted to bring us to the U.S. She couldnt send for us, because she couldnt prove that she could support us, so aunt Sima went to Herschels aunt and uncle, Aunt Sarah and Uncle Morris Lason, and had to plead with them to send for us. Finally they did and on June 28, 1938, we arrived in New York. To our pleasant surprise, uncle Shia Levy met us at the boat. We didn't even know that we had another uncle until the Jewish agency, the Hajas, paged us and said that Shia Levy was looking for a couple with a baby with our names. We were supposed to take a train right away for Chicago, but instead Uncle Shia sent our luggage and kept us for a few days. The next day he took us to a department store and outfitted us with beautiful attire.
On July 4, 1938 we arrived in Chicago. Both sides of the family, mine and Herschels, met us at the train station. For me it was exciting, I didn't know anyone from before, I hardly remembered my Aunt Sima. From the station we went to Aunt Simas rooming house, where she and her family lived, and also in the same building they fixed us up an apartment, adjoining our apartment.
After we settled down, Uncle Morris gave Herschel a job at his dairy, called Capital Dairy, which he was part owner. Herschel earned 15 dollars a week. I learned how to shop and cook and keep house, but language was a problem. After a few months the Union found out that the dairy had a non-union man, so Herschels job was taken away. So Uncle Morris sent in 15 dollars a week anyway. Eventually Uncle Morris gave him a job in a non-unionized dairy in northside Chicago. We lived in southside and the commute was so difficult in the winter time that eventually Uncle Morris paid the Membership fees for the union so that Herschel could work at Capital Dairy.
After six months in the U.S. a terrible tragedy happened. Uncle Sam Devines daughter committed suicide because of an unhappy marriage. She was very talented, beautiful, and a para-legal secretary too. Her marriage was very bad, but divorce was not common in those days, so she killed herself. Aunt Sophie and Uncle Sam were very heartbroken, so the other relatives persuaded us to move in with them. Uncle Sam loved to play with Natan and being there helped to heal their wounds. I felt very comfortable with Aunt Sophie, Harry and Joe.
After six months we moved out, because I was pregnant with Shelly. I lived on the West Side. On may 22, 1939 a baby girl was born, and we named her after my grandmother Roshell, nicknamed Shellie.
I suffered from hayfever and asthma in Israel and in Chicago. We had another aunt living in Los Angelos. She came out for a wedding in Chicago. We met and she found out about my sickness, so she invited me to come to L. A. Her husband had the same problems in Chicago, and felt much better in California. I took her up on that and in July, 1945, when the kids were out of school, we came out to visit her and Uncle Poplo. When the hayfever season began, on August 14, I felt so wonderful that I pinched myself to see if I was still alive, thats how good I felt. Without hesitation I decided that we should move to California, but it was the end of the war and apartments were very scarce. I started to look for an apartment and I couldnt find anything, so I decided to go back to Chicago. To my dismay, I couldnt get a train ticket to go home. September came, I had to enroll the kids in school and yet had no where to live. With two friends I found a little, condemned house in Boil Heights, and through a lot of hard work and effort I cleaned it out. We moved in October, 1945. I called my husband and told him to sell everything but the linen and silverware.
We settled in. The kids liked school, Herschel got a job. We lived there for three years, by that time Leon, my brother in-law, came from Chicago to visit and liked it so much that he decided to settle there. His wife had died in Chicago and he had two boys living with an aunt in Canada. We bought a building, a partnership, for both families.
We bought a grocery store, I helped part-time, kept house, took care of the children. I led a pretty normal life.
Though I had much unhappiness with Shelly, Natan, or Norman as he was then called, gave me much happiness. In the last year of her high school career, Shelly became mentally ill. Norman on the other hand, got a scholarship to The University of Chicago, went to U.C.L.A. graduate school and then became an intern. He met a girl and got married in June 1962. He went for his residency into the army, on the Berry Plan. Afterwards he moved to Northern California, in Hayward.
[transcribed to digital format Jan. 7, 2000 by Dave Lewak, son of Norman]