REMEMBERING MOM 2011

I dont remember how well I knew Mom while I was growing up. Our relationship
was a little distant, and our meetings were episodic. Eventually, as a punishment
for my many transgressions, I was sent to live with her and her new family, which I
did perhaps in all a total of six years. But growing up our contacts were irregular
and brief. I was very fond of her, and as a kid - although I saw her rarely - I adored
her. Its true that for many years, she did not have much enthusiasm for
motherhood or marriage, but who can say she was totally wrong. At age 25 she
found herself with four boys, a two year old, a one year old, and two infants, and an
undependable husband. She was living in Corona in rooms above the stores on 37 th
Ave. between 99th and 100th St. Milk came from a nearby grocery store paid for by
the charity of Our Lady of Sorrows RC Church on 103 rd St.
Although she left her family, she never moved far from them. She always lived in
the neighborhood of Corona. Her last apartment, before she married Frank was on
99th St across from PS19. I dont think she actual ever visited Grandmas house. I
have no recollection of her ever being inside there although she and I are in a photo
in front of the house. She always promised to show up for a holiday or a birthday,
but she almost never did. She never made it to the annual Christmas night
gathering at Lilly and Phils. On the other hand, though she wasnt exactly
welcoming, she never seemed to mind when I visited. I remember tracking her
down at the Shellys bakery where she worked, on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson
Heights. That was before she went off to become Rosie the Riveter in WWII at
Sperry, where Freddy Schuler introduced her to Frank. She was always fine with me
finding her. A few times she took me with her on dates, sometimes as her son,
other times as her brother. I loved being a conspirator.
A boy friend of hers had a car, and one day he took us to visit a big stone building
an orphanage. This would have been in 1939 or 1940. That is the only time we
visited the twins. One of them was a dark haired ordinary looking kid that was
Robert. The other one, Paul, had a great big head of golden curls. I dont remember
anything about the visit how long we stayed, what we said, what their reaction
was to a visit from their mother - only those curls were memorable.
Years later, when Carol and I tried to get Mom to tell about the orphanage and the
twins, but she would say she didnt know or she didnt remember. Once around
1970, I went to my teaching colleague, John Flanagan, a lawyer and by then a state
assemblyman, and asked him for help. He told me of the many families that had
been separated in those awful years, and how unlikely it would be for us to be able
to locate them because court records were irrevocably sealed. Then one day in the
summer of 1977, Aunt Anna was visiting. We were together at someones house,
and Aunt Anna came over to Carol and I and whispered Angel Guardian - it is the
name of the orphanage where the twins were sent. It is in Brooklyn. Carol called her

cousin, Msgr. Joseph Funaro, and he called the home. In a day we had an
appointment.
The day we went to visit the orphanage was strange. It was the day after the
summer of 1977 NYC blackout. We drove to Brooklyn along Atlantic Avenue. The
traffic lights werent working, but there wasnt any traffic. The roads were virtually
deserted except for the city buses and us. We watched a line of looters walk out
of a closed Times Square appliance store, each of them carrying a TV set still in its
box. When we got to Angel Guardian, it seemed closed. There were no children. We
met with an old nun alone at a table in a large room with polished wood floors. She
explained that there were no longer any children at the orphanage; there was no
more supply of children who needed to be adopted. The function of the orphanage
now was help people reuniter their lost relatives. She opened a photo scrap book
and there on the page was a picture of the boy with the golden curls. I said, Thats
him! Within a few days we had met everyone: Bobby, and his soon to be bride
Noreen; Paul and Carol and their handsome brood. Mom wasnt thrilled with these
events, but she went along in her own way of accepting the inevitable.
I remember one afternoon, when I was working at GTE in the early 60s, I got a call
from her. She said, I just made some buchti come over and have a cup of coffee.
For those who dont know, buchti are a bready filled bun. If you are descended from
landowners, your buchti are filled with cherries, or berries, or cheese, or perhaps
even poppy seeds. Our buchti were filled with cabbage, proving that we were
peasants, but they are delicious. Moms buchti were terrific right up there with her
putchki , klednicki and her incomparable polisnacki limp, gray greenish, and
delicious.
Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, there may be a heaven, and I have read
that if there is a heaven, everyone gets in. By now Mom should be pretty well set.
She would have quickly found the hair salon, and where she could get a good cup of
coffee. She must have found the table where they play Michigan Rummy, and met
the gang that plays Scrabble. She will have found a place to buy her scratchies
and perhaps she has even discovered the bowling alley. George Bernard Shaw, in
the play Man and Superman says that in heaven you can be any age that suits
you. Im hoping that Mom has elected to be auburn haired and 28.