More treasures from my family album

In my previous post, I reprinted two poems that were favorites of my mother. In another recent post entitled “When did March 20th become the first day of spring?” I told you about my grandfather, Nathan Silberman (1875-1970) and showed you a photo of him with my mother and grandmother in the late 1920s or early 1930s, as well as one of him at the age of 71 in 1946.

Today I want to show you a few more treasures from my family album.


These are the women in Nathan Silberman’s life. On the left is his youngest daughter, my mother, Ruth Elizabeth Silberman (1910-1957). In the center is his wife, my grandmother, Rosetta Aarons Silberman (1878-1937). On the right is his firstborn child, my mother’s older sister, my aunt Marion Silberman (1899-1987). The photo may have been taken at West Chester State College where my mother received her teaching certificate in 1930, or it may have been taken in front of the family home on Wyncote Road in Jenkintown, Pennsylvania. If it was taken around 1930, my mother would have been about 20, my aunt about 31, and my grandmother about 52.


Here is my mother with her older brother, my uncle Jack (1907-1987), who was better known in Lebanon County, Pennsylvania, as Dr. J. DeWolf Silberman, M.D. He graduated from Hahneman University’s Medical School in Philadelphia and practiced in the small town of Annville in Lebanon County for many years. In this photo he may have recently moved to Annville. He married the nurse from Pittsburgh who worked with him, my Aunt Ruth Michaels Silberman (1908-1976). They had one son, my cousin, Jack, Jr. (1934- ).


Here are my mother and her sister in the early or mid-1930s, probably after my Aunt Marion had moved to New York City and married my Uncle Ferdy. They had one son, my cousin Philip, who became Dr. Philip F. Caracena (1935- ).

I do not have a photo of my mother’s other brother, my Uncle Sol Silberman (1903-1989). He lived in Jenkintown his entire life. He and my Aunt Naomi Salus Silberman (1907-1984) had two daughters, my cousins Joan Lynore Silberman Rush (1932?- ) and Eileen Mae Silberman Stone (1935- ).

Nathan and Rosetta (the 1910 census calls her Rosalie) were married in 1898. Marion came along in 1899, Sol in 1903, Jack in 1907, and my mother in 1910. There was also a daughter, Rachel, who did not survive infancy.

Nathan’s parents were Max Silberman (1846-1914) and Sarah Nusbaum Silberman (1849-1925). Rosetta’s parents were Solomon Aarons (1847-1902) and Rachel DeWolf Aarons (1848-1932).

My great-grandfather Max Silberman opened Silberman’s Department Store in Jenkintown around 1880. I have a photograph of him sitting in front of his store, next to a sign that reads, “Gloves, Suspenders, Knit Jackets, Trimmings, Ladies & Gents Underwear At Wholesale Prices.” Sitting on the curb in front of the store are four young boys, one of whom (I think) is my grandfather. When he became an adult, my grandfather played the clarinet in the Pennsylvania National Guard Band during the Spanish-American War and helped found Jenkintown’s volunteer fire department. He had a real estate and insurance office in Jenkintown for many years that my Uncle Sol ran after my grandfather retired. The office was on West Avenue between the Post Office and the bank at the corner of Old York Road; a sign in the window read, “N. Silberman and Son.”

After having had family members live in the same small town in Pennsylvania for well over one hundred years, not a single member of my family lives there now. We cousins have scattered to the four winds.

[A note of clarification, 3/30/2010, or, if you are British, 30/3/2010: In no way did I mean to imply that by playing the clarinet in the Pennsylvania National Guard Band during the Spanish-American War, my grandfather helped found Jenkintown’s volunteer fire department. No, indeedy. They were two separate and totally unrelated events, and this note would not have been necessary if I had put the word also before the word helped in the sentence in question. Thus do we live and learn. Yours for accuracy and clarity in blogging, I remain, RWP]

Two of my mother’s favorites.

In the previous post, I shared with you a well-known poem by A. E. Housman, and afterward I got to thinking about poems my mother liked. (No, I don't know why, but thank you for asking.)

Here are two. She introduced me to the first one when I was very young, and I found the second one folded up in her purse after she died.


Abou Ben Adhem
by Leigh Hunt (1784-1859)

Abou Ben Adhem (may his tribe increase!)
Awoke one night from a deep dream of peace,
And saw, within the moonlight in his room,
Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom,
An angel writing in a book of gold: —
Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold,
And to the Presence in the room he said
“What writest thou?” — The vision raised its head,
And with a look made of all sweet accord,
Answered “The names of those who love the Lord.”
“And is mine one?” said Abou. “Nay, not so,”
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low,
But cheerly still, and said “I pray thee, then,
Write me as one that loves his fellow men.”
The angel wrote, and vanished. The next night
It came again with a great wakening light,
And showed the names whom love of God had blessed,
And lo! Ben Adhem’s name led all the rest.



Go To Father
(Anonymous)

“Go to father,” she said
When he asked her to wed.
Now she knew that he knew
That her father was dead,
And she knew that he knew
What a life he had led,
So she knew that he knew
What she meant when she said,
“Go to father.”

It’s that time of year again.

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
by A. E. Housman (1859-1936)

Loveliest of trees, the cherry now
Is hung with bloom along the bough,
And stands about the woodland ride
Wearing white for Eastertide.

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Twenty will not come again,
And take from seventy springs a score,
It only leaves me fifty more.

And since to look at things in bloom
Fifty springs are little room,
About the woodlands I will go
To see the cherry hung with snow.


Actually -- truth in blogging -- my personal middle stanza would go more like this:

Now, of my threescore years and ten,
Sixty-eight will not come again,
And take from seventy springs eight and threescore,
It only leaves me a couple more.

Of course, I intend to stick around for several more decades, but my recent 69th birthday puts a whole new perspective on this year’s spring: it makes it all the more lovely. I could never see enough of the delicate, beautiful cherry blossoms -- or the dogwoods or the redbuds or the tulip trees or the flowering peaches or the Bradford pears, for that matter, and I won’t even begin to talk about the azaleas (and the rhododendrons and the mountain laurel and the forsythia and the jonquils and the narcissus and the daffodils and the phlox and the...).

So a priest, a rabbi, and a preacher walk into a bar, and...

photo on Drudge Report, 3/23/2010

When did March 20th become the first day of spring?

Your Honor, I place into the record Exhibit A:


When this photograph was taken, this dapper gentleman was 71 years old. A decade earlier, when he was in his early sixties, the doctors discovered that he had cancer of the colon. They performed a colostomy and told him he had six months to live.

Oh, he lived. He lived for almost 35 more years. He outlived all of his doctors.

Finally, just three months and one day before his 96th birthday, he died on December 20, 1970.

He is Nathan Silberman, my maternal grandfather. He was born in 1875. I am now two years younger than he was when the photo was taken in 1946.

We always said my grandfather was born on the first day of spring. For several decades now the vernal equinox seems to have occurred on March 20th, not March 21st. When it changed, and why it changed, and whether the earth is speeding up or slowing down or merely sliding a little backward or forward in its orbit like a yo-yo on a string or possibly tilting a little more or less on its axis than it used to, I do not know. Perhaps it is related to the reason a leap day was not added in century years 1700, 1800, and 1900 but one was added in 1600 and 2000. I wish someone would explain it to me.

But this I know. Today, March 21st, the real first day of spring, is my grandfather’s birthday. He would be 135.

Your Honor, here is Exhibit B, a photograph of him with my grandmother and my mother around 1930.

I meant to post this rebus yesterday.

Jinksy will understand. But do you?





































































































I will post the answer tomorrow.

Update, 3/19/2010, 3:50 pm EDT. I have decided to post the solution this afternoon so that my thousands of readers will not be on needles and pins until tomorrow.

My more erudite readers will know that my rebus is a photographic version of a famous greeting card created by Sandra Keith Boynton in 1975. My immediate problem is that I have no idea which of you happen to be my more erudite readers.

Jinksy knew the answer because two days ago I sent her some environmentally aware, green, we’re-riders-on-the-earth-together birthday greetings that went:

Hippo birdie two ewe,
Hippo birdie two ewe,
Hippo birdie deer Jiiinnnnkksssyyyyyy,
Hippo birdie two ewe.

Just substitute rhyyymeswithplaaaaague (shown here circa 1943 with my mother) for Jiiinnnnkksssyyyyy and you have most of today’s puzzle celebrating my birthday, which was yesterday. Thank you once again, Sandra Keith Boynton.

I think the ending of the rebus, which happens to be my own addition, is rather obvious:

...and many mower.

Banjos of Mass Destruction?

Once again Mrs. Rhymeswithplague and I find ourselves in the dreaded and dangerous Alabamistan (northern sector), where we must come when we want to visit our daughter, her husband, and our two grandsons.

As on our numerous previous incursions, we determined to continue our search for the banjos of mass destruction about which so much is written but very little seems to be known. Of necessity, our intelligence gathering has had to be done surreptitiously. You can imagine our shock to learn today that our own grandsons are involved in some very questionable activities.

We discovered that under our very noses the next generation is being systematically trained in the operation of terroristic devices. Our own grandsons have attained a remarkable level of proficiency in a new weapon system known as Band Hero, which, it can now be reported with a high level of certainty, combines the previously discovered weapon Guitar Hero II (GH-II) with the even more fearsome Electronic Drums Plus Microphone (EDPM).

This evening we were also forced to listen briefly to a cacophanous display of discordant sounds on Alabamistan Public Television that would not be tolerated in our own more civilized environs. Afterward, as we tried to recover from the unexpected assault on our ears by such odious “music” (so called), the likes of which we have never before heard, the announcer said, “I’m sure you enjoyed that inspiring performance of Rhapsody in Blue”! Only one adjective applies to what we heard, and it is not inspiring. It is unrecognizable.

Oh, the humanity!

We are not deterred by the fact that we have yet to discover any actual banjo on anybody’s knee.

Our only regret is that we have but one set of ears -- well, okay, two sets, actually -- to give for our country.

Here are our two Alabamistan grandchildren when they were two and three, respectively. Now they are nine and nearly eleven.


Don’t they look dangerous?