By Doris Hoffman Slater

My grandfather dominated any room he was in.   He was a great presence, and he was not a quiet man.  He loved to eat, and I remember many problems revolved around how much he missed my grandmother's cooking.  He particularly liked her chicken soup and felt nobody else could do that as well.  Fannie was a fine cook, too, but my grandfather didn't think she was up to his standards.  My mother, the oldest daughter, prided herself on her cooking and baking, and would bring him her stuffed cabbage and rugelach. 

I'm sure Grandpa must have visited us, but I can remember only going to visit him.  When I was 10 or 11 years old, I attended a Workmen's Circle School to learn how to read and write in Yiddish. He loved hearing me recite poems I was studying and parts I was learning in plays.  But he always wanted to know when I was going to master Hebrew.  As an adult, I studied it briefly, but Hebrew would not stay in my memory bank. I still understand Yiddish, and with a little brushup, I can read, but I speak it only barely.

Grandpa was very kind to his grandchildren, and he would slip some coins to us when we visited.  One of my fondest memories is of Succoth, when the small shed that was attached to the back of the kitchen was made into a sukkah.  He would gather palm fronds and myrtle and willow branches and an esrog, and he would decorate the sukkah.  Eating there was such a treat.  In my memory it's a room large enough for all of us, but now I'm not so sure.  It was the room at the top of the stairs going into the house from the backyard.

Grandpa always wore a vest, as you see in the photo.   I remember him sitting in a large armchair

with a wooden frame and wooden arm rests.  I remember my mother spent a lot of time calming him down when he got upset.  

He was a very strong man, and he had been a presser in the garment industry.   [He later went into commercial real estate, according to his youngest son, Archie.   Ed.]

Grandpa was well known in the neighborhood and at the local shul.  He died at home, and he was "laid out" in the front room of the house [as was Toby, his sister-in-law -- Ed.].  The funeral procession started from the house and went through the streets to the shul. I remember there were many people following behind on foot.