My mother was born Esther Carpol in Glasgow, Scotland in 1885. She was the only daughter of Jennie Carpol, who also had seven sons. Mama's father, whom she loved dearly, died when she was eight years old. Her mother ran a boarding house to support herself and seven children. Her mother later married a bachelor named Hyman Davis, who lived in her boarding house, and together they had a son named Jack Davis.
Although shy, Mama was a very attractive, well dressed and sought after young girl. She played the piano very well and appeared on stage with her brothers Hyman and David in a dramatic theater group known as the Athenaum, which produced plays, both dramatic and comedy. These plays were at the Scotia connected with Glasgow Scottish University (like a sorority or fraternity) where her brother, David, was a brilliant medical student who also taught Hebrew in the Glasgow school system. He later died at a very young age (about 19 or 20) of a brain tumor. His funeral was conducted by one of Glasgow's most respected rabbis named Rabbi E.P.Phillips, and was widely written of in all of the papers. According to a letter written to me many years ago in 1967 by Mama's brother Sol, (who filled me in on some information about Mama as a young girl) he wrote that my brother David appears to have inherited the nobility of character from the man (his late brother) he was named after. This is the highest compliment one can pay from which I have heard about this wonderful you man and about which we would all totally agree as far as my own brother, Dave, is concerned.
Mama's oldest brother, Hyman, went to live in South Africa for a few years working the diamond mines. He sent for his brother, Bill, (the only brother who remained a bachelor and was closest to Mama all her life) who also worked the mines for a few years. Hyman wanted Mama to come from Scotland to South Africa to marry a man he had met there, but she refused to go. As a young girl Mama worked in a cigarette factory until she went to Canada (Toronto) where she met my father, Sam Snider, who was working as a medical assistant in a doctor's office, where she had accompanied her sick girlfriend. My father took an immediate liking to my mother, and they were married about three weeks later in 1910. She was 25 and he was 27.
Both Dad (Sam Snider) and Mama (Esther Carpol Snider) were raised in very strict Orthodox Jewish families. Dad's father was a rabbi. Dad was born in 1883 in Lithuania, which is part of Russia. He left home at the age of 14, and I don't believe he ever saw his parents again. He had a sister (who was very tall and from whom I probably inherited my height), and a brother.
Leah was Mama and Dad's first child, a daughter born around 1911 or 1912. She played the piano by ear, probably inherited the talent from Mama. They had a second child, a son, Nathan, born around 1913 or 1914.
When World War I broke out in 1914, Dad enlisted in the Canadian Army Medical Corps and was in for four years, during which time the only communication my parents had was through letters which needed an interpreter since mama could only read and write in English which Dad couldn't understand, and Dad could only read and write in Yiddish, which Mama couldn't understand.
When Dad returned from the army in 1919, they decided to move to America and they settled in California because everyone in Canada thought that was the land of Paradise. Manuel was their first child to be born in California in 1920. Both Leah and Nathan were born in Canada before Dad went into the Army.
In California, they lived in big beautiful homes that Dad bought (one a 12 room home with a big glassed-in library in Santa Ana which was his favorite) and others in Riverside and Alhambra. Mama wanted to live closer to her mother who had bought a home with a duplex in the rear in Boyle Heights. So my parents sold their last home in Alhambra, and bought another one closer to my grandmother on Dundas Street, near City Terrace. When the depression hit in 1929, my parents lost their home and life became very difficult financially for them. By this time, they had three more children, Robert born in 1923, David born in 1926, and me (Edith) born in 1928. I was born in the last home they owned on Dundas Street in Los Angeles. Dad couldn't find work - he tried many things, brush maker and junkman peddling in a horse-drawn wagon, and other odd jobs, but could not make a living. We were extremely poor with no assistance (later we were able to get welfare and Dad worked for the WPA as a laborer in return for free welfare) and many days would go by with nothing to eat and sometimes we would only have bread with sugar on it.
When Leah was 16 years old, she married a man about 30 at the urging of my mother's mother (Jennie Carpol Davis). Leah was too young for marriage and could not cope with all the responsibilities and they were divorced. Shortly afterward, her husband committed suicide and Leah suffered a nervous breakdown. She was hospitalized at the age of 19. When this happened I was about three years old and too young to remember her.
Dora, my younger sister, was born in 1931, in a house on Cincinnati Street a few blocks from where my grandmother lived. On the 4th of July, someone threw a firecracker on the roof of our house, and by the time the fire department arrived, the roof had burned down. We still continued to live in that house without a roof until the authorities forced us to move. After that we kept moving from house to house after being evicted because we couldn't afford to pay the rent.
Mama was very short (about 4'9'' tall) had a sweet kind face, and a thick Scottish brogue, and found humor in everything. When she would go to the store, the clerks loved her accent, and would always ask her to repeat what she said, but instead of repeating, she would spell out the words. She was shy and introverted, but when it came to any problems with her children, she was extremely protective and assertive, and would not stand for any unfairness. One day, when my brother, Dave, was about eight or nine years old, he came home from school at lunchtime and was outside the kitchen window when my mother overheard him talking to his friend and saying he was afraid to go back to school because some bullies were going to beat him up. My mother didn't let on that she heard, but when Dave went back to school, my mother took me (I was home sick) and immediately went to the principal's office and told him she had to withdraw her son from that school and he would not be coming back because she did not him going to school with gangsters. The principal calmed my mother and told her that the bullies would be expelled, so she consented to let Dave stay in school.
Mama was very Victorian and undemonstrative, but although she never kissed and hugged her children,. we were always aware of the great love and affection for us and knew that she would do anything for her family.
My father was about 5'7'' tall and quiet handsome. He had a wonderful outgoing personality with a great sense of humor, and was very kind and helpful to people less fortunate. There was a very poor family living next to us, and the Water Department turned off their water because they were unable to pay their bills. My father took up a collection to help pay their bills, and their water was turned back on. This family always remembered my father doing this, and years later my brother, Manuel, had a teacher who was one of the sons of the family, and he told Manuel that their family had never forgotten what my father had done for them. My father had a beautiful singing voice and was asked many times to sing at weddings. In later years, when he would have a little too much to drink, he loved to sing and we would sing along with him.
My brother, Nathan, was a hippy-type individual years before it became popular. Since there was so much difference in our ages (15 or 16 years) I don't remember him living with us because he moved out of the house at a very young age, and he only occasionally visited us. The last time I saw him was in 1952 at my brother's funeral. My uncle Bill, who was the only member in the family to keep in touch with him, said that he lived in the Ocean Park, California, area.
My bother, Manuel, was the only one in our family to go to college. He went to Los Angeles City College where he majored in journalism. However, during the depression, he had to quit college and work full time to help support the family. While attending college, he met and fell in love with a girl, and was very disappointed when the relationship ended. After that he did not take women seriously and we all thought that he would be a confirmed bachelor. It was quite a surprise when he announced that he had gotten married in 1959 at the age of 39. They were married for six years when his wife died in 1965. He had no children of his own. In the late 1930's he did some professional prize fighting in Los Angeles, and during one of his fights, he was declared the winner as he was being carried off on a stretcher because his opponent had delivered a foul punch. During World War II, Manuel was drafted into the Army, but about six months later while in training in Texas, he fell off a model ship and injured his back. He was then honorably discharged on a disability from the Army. He worked for Thrifty Drug Stores for many years and was the ship steward and very active in the Union. He retired from Thrifty Drug Stores on a disability due to complications associated with diabetes which he developed in his late 30s. He had a good sense of humor and was the practical joker of the family. At the age of 52, his leg had to be amputated, and later he became blind, both due to his illness with diabetes. He shows great courage in coping with his problems, still maintaining a sense of humor through it all, while his health was steading deteriorating, and we all admired him for this. He remained very close to our family and seemed to enjoy being with all the family for the last 10 years of his life. He enjoyed buying gifts for people especially See's candy and beautifully decorated cakes, and even though he couldn't eat any of this, he seemed to gain great pleasure watching us all enjoy it. Whenever he visited us, he would have comic books and candy or toys for our children. He died on July 25, 1975, at the age of 55. Philip particularly missed him and would not talk about him for a very long time, when suddenly one day he asked "why did my Uncle Manuel have to die?"
My brother, Robert, was loved by everyone. He was a gentle and kind person. Dave and I have often remarked how Dave's son, Steve, has the same wonderful disposition and personality and reminds us so much of Robert. Robert was an excellent artist, and one of his hobbies was drawing characters from the newspaper comics. He also participated in running (track and field) in high school gymnastics, for which his picture appeared in the Roosevelt High School yearbook. In 1942, after World War II started,. Robert began working at Lockhead Aircraft in Burbank, where an explosion occurred, and he became very ill and died at the age of 19. I was 14 years old at the time. My grandmother never knew he died, and she died a year later in 1943 in her late eighties. My parents were so grief-stricken over Robert's death that they were unable to tell us when he died, but we all knew instinctively what had happened. One day, not wanting to believe that Robert was gone, I asked my father when we could visit Robert. Tears came to his eyes and he replied "someday we will all visit him." No other questions were ever asked again. My brother, Dave, remembers seeing my father sobbing on the bed after Robert's death, but none of us mentioned him again for many years because we wanted to spare my parents any more pain.
My sister, Dora, married at a very young age (three weeks before her 16th birthday in June of 1947). She eloped to Arizona and married Frank, a young man of 18, who was of the Catholic faith. Although this hurt my parents very much, they did nothing to annul the marriage. They worried that if the marriage was annulled, she might go back to him anyway which would be worse if they were not married. They were married for 16 years and then divorced. They had two children, a son and a daughter. Dora did not remain close to our family and throughout the years we have seen very little of her and her family.
My brother, Dave, and I have always been very close, since childhood. He was liked by everyone, and I always looked up to him and was so proud of him and always thought how lucky for me to have him as my brother and lifelong friend. He has a very outgoing pleasant personality, and although as a youngster he was not afraid to fight to defend himself if he had to, which happened quite often in a rough neighborhood such as ours, he was always very fair and considerate in everything he did, and was respected even by the hoodlums who would try to beat him up. He was drafted into the Army during World War II, and was in the thick of the fighting in Okinowa in the South Pacific until the end of the war in 1945. He married at the age of 22 in 1948 to my very dear sister-in-law, Harriet (who we all met after their secret marriage), and she has always been my very best friend. After working on several jobs, Dave and Harriet decided to go into business for themselves, and started their own successful donut business in 1960 called "Dave's Buttermilk Donuts". Dave's dream of always wanting to be his own boss had finally come true, and we all admired him and Harriet for their accomplishment. They have two sons, Steve and Ronald. All through the years our families have maintained a close and loving relationship.
As a child, I was extremely shy and very attached to my mother. I always wanted to be with her and never wanted to go very far from home. I remember always going shopping with her, visiting my grandmother on Friday nights with my sister, Dora, and the three of us going to Hollenbeck Park every Sunday afternoon to listen to the orchestra that performed outside under the gazebo while we sat on the grass. In the evenings we would all sit around the house listening to the radio, which offered a variety of programs which included drama, comedy, music, quiz shows, and mysteries. There was one particular scary program that we listened to, and when it went on, my brothers would turn off all the lights and make all kinds of strange noises to scare us even more. We delighted in being frightened because we realized it was strictly fantasy. In those days, there was no crime as there is today, and a person could walk down a dark alley in the middle of the night and not have to worry about anyone harming them. Most people slept with their windows wide open and hardly anyone ever bothered locking their doors.
Since we seldom had any toys, I remember sitting with my brother, Dave, in front of our house, which looked out on the highway, and identifying all the makes and models of the cars passing by. We would also smash empty cans and tie them to our shoes and used them to walk on. We were very creative and made playthings out of pieces of wood, empty boxes and anything else we could find. When Manuel started working, he would occasionally buy us windup toys especially around Christmastime and See's candies for Mama as a special treat because he knew how much she loved chocolate.
There were never enough bedrooms for the family, so there were always beds in every room except the kitchen. In one house, my brother Manuel had to sleep out on the open porch with blankets hanging around his bed to give him some privacy. Occasionally we were given five or 10 cents to go to the movies on Saturdays where we stayed from one in the afternoon until nine at night. We would take potato latkes and that was our food for the day. My Mexican girlfriends would take tortillas and we would exchange latkes for tortillas. In those years, most of the houses had front porches where the neighbors would sit and visit with one another. People would take walks and stop to talk to each other. Everyone seemed to know everyone else in the neighborhood. Most of the young teenagers would meet and hang out for hours at the corner grocery store. In spite of the fact that we were very poor, I have warm happy memories as a child of two warm and loving parents caring for their children and trying their best in the midst of poverty, despair, and adversity.
Because of Dad's knowledge of medicine, we felt secure knowing that we never had to go to a doctor since he was able to care for us during any illness. However, when I was about four years old, I developed a rare mysterious skin condition on my face and because it was so bad, my parents put a cloth mask on my face and took me to the hospital. I was there for several weeks, but the doctors were still unable to identify the ailment and were therefore unable to treat me effectively. My father told the doctors he would have cured me himself in 14 days, and would bring me back to them to prove it. Sure enough, at his word, he brought me back in the time he had said, and all the doctors marveled at what he had done and personally wanted to shake his hand. All these years later as I think back to that experience, the thing that I remember most is my father buying me ice cream from the ice cream wagon outside the White Memorial Hospital after each of my visits. I suppose Dad sensed the anticipation of getting the ice cream relieved some of my fears and anxiety of having to go to the hospital so often. Maybe because of his lack of confidence in doctors after that experience, he himself refused to see any doctor, and one day when he was very sick and my mother had summoned a doctor to the house, he locked himself in the bathroom and refused to come out until the doctor had left.
In the late 1930's my father was able to get a job as a janitor and elevator operator for Nabisco. We were so proud of him for being able to get a job. He would bring home broken cookies from the job as a special treat. When we had a little more money, we would buy freshly baked cinnamon rolls from the corner bakery, and how we all enjoyed that fir breakfast. Later, my father got another job as a maintenance man and elevator operator in the Garment Center in downtown Los Angeles. When his bossed learned that he had two young daughters, he told him to have us come to the factory and pick out a blouse. I was only about 10 years old, but I still remember the trill of picking out that blue ocean print long sleeve blouse.
We had a set of encyclopedias called the "Book of Knowledge". I used to read them over and over again particularly the Fairy Tales section that were in all the books. I read them until I was about 14 years old. I went to several different elementary schools because we moved around so much. There was only one junior high school in the neighborhood (Hollenbeck Jr. High School), so it didn't matter where we lived. We finally moved to a house where we lived for several years, from about 1940 til 1947. At the age of 11 or 12, I got a job cleaning house for my girlfriend's parents, while they worked. Everyday after school, I would go there to clean their house for which they paid me 50 cents a week plus dinners every day with them. The only reason my mother let me work there was so that I would be assured of a good meal every day. I worked there for a couple of years until I had saved enough money to buy a winter coat. Sometimes on Friday and Saturday nights I would babysit for another couple, for 50 cents a night to make come extra money.
When I was 15 years old, I got a job as a waitress and short order cook at Thrifty Drug Store on 2nd and Broadway in Downtown Los Angeles. I told them I was 16 so that I could get the job, and in order to appear older I had to wear lipstick for that summer. I loved that job especially when I had to make the sodas and malts and sandwiches. I remember my mother and Dora were so proud of me and came downtown to see what I looked like in my blue waitress uniform.
I later got a job closer to home at the corner drug store as a waitress and short order cook. I liked the job, but the boss didn't like to pay his salaries, and I would work for weeks while he put off paying me until I finally decided to quit. I then worked at the Broadway Department Store in Downtown Los Angeles in the lingerie department during Christmas vacation from school and on Saturdays. Later I got a job working at Sears after school and on Saturdays. At first I worked in the Checkout Department for employees (they would check their coats and lunches with me) and then later transferred to the Shipping Department as a clerk and typist where I made 65 cents an hour. I worked there for three years until I graduated high school in January 1947.
I then worked for a lawyer as a clerk but stayed there less than a week because the job consisted of me having to do bookkeeping and payroll which I have always disliked. I never went back to collect my salary.
In February 1947, shortly after graduating from Roosevelt High School in Los Angeles (Boyle Heights), majoring in stenography, I got a civil service job with the County of Los Angeles Engineering Department. I began as a stenographer with a salary of $157 per month. I enjoyed this job and the people with whom I worked, and made some very nice friends.
In May of 1947, we were evicted from the house that we had lived in since 1940 because the people from New York who had bought our house wanted to move in themselves. Houses were very scarce at the time and our family had to separate and rent rooms in various houses. Dave and Manuel got a room together, my mother and father another room in the basement of a house in City Terrace, Dora went to live with a girlfriend (where she was living when she eloped with Frank), and I roomed with the daughter of the owner of the corner grocery store. I would walk everyday after work to visit my parents, and longed for the time when we could all live together again. Times were very difficult for us, and my family lived separately from May 1947 until the end of December 1947, when Manuel was able to find a house for us by agreeing to buy a few suits, which cost a few hundred dollars, from a man who owned the house we eventually moved into. It was a comfortable house and I lived there until I got married in 1953. Shortly after moving there, my brother Dave met and married Harriet in 1948. Two months later on January 31, 1949, my father died of a heart attack at the age of 66. I was 20 years old at the time. Mama, Manuel and I continued living in the house.
Three years later, on March 19, 1952, Mama died of a heart attack at the age of 67. I was 23 years old. I missed her so much, and was very lonesome without her. I continued to live in the house with Manuel.
I got promotions on the job with the County Engineer's office until I became secretary of the Division Engineer and worked there until May 1957.
On April 4, 1953, I went to a Jewish dance in the Beverly-Fairfax area of Los Angeles with two of my girlfriends. It was there that I met Sid, my wonderful husband. When we met, I felt that he was very special, and I was impressed with his honesty and sincerity, and his down-to-earth manner, qualities I have always admired and respected. There was an immediate kinship and I knew that I had finally met the man I was to marry. He felt the same way and on our third date, he asked me to marry him. I was so happy - I couldn't believe that this was actually happening to me. I was 24, Sid was 35 (there is 10 1/2 years difference in our ages). Harriet made me a bridal shower at her home in Culver City, and 32 years later she made another bridal shower for our daughter Ellen in her home in Culver City, in another house close to where I had mine. Two of my old girlfriends who attended my bridal shower (one of them had been with me when I met Sid) were also able to attend Ellen's shower. We were married on August 16, 1953 at Harriet's and Dave's home in Culver City, with Harriet as my matron-of-honor. It was a beautiful afternoon wedding with about 75 people in attendance. It was the happiest day of my life. I felt so fortunate to have married such a wonderful man.
Although we knew each other 4 1/2 months before we were married, it seemed as though we had known each other always. Coming from the same type of background, we had much in common, and our values and feelings were similar, so the transition to marriage was very easy and comfortable. We went to Lake Tahoe on our honeymoon, and continued to go there every summer for several years to celebrate our anniversary. Ours has been a wonderful marriage and our lobe for each other has frown even deeper over the years. We have been married for almost 33 years.
We decided to wait a few years to raise a family, so I continued to work and we were able to have lots of time to ourselves, go on vacations, and to save money for a down payment on a home. In 1956, Sid took me on my first airplane trip to New York to meet the rest of his family that I hadn't already met here in Los Angeles.
In May 1957, three months before our son Philip was born, I resigned from my secretarial job with the Los Angeles County Engineer's Dept. after 10 years of service. Since we were able to save money during the four years before Philip was born, and Sid always had a good job, I never felt the need to go back to work and stayed home to raise our children, which to me was the most wonderful job in the world.
Soon after I resigned my job in May of 1957, we bought a house on Beverly and La Cienega in the West Hollywood area. Shortly thereafter (three months before Philip was born) I developed high blood pressure and the doctors were concerned with the possibility of toxemia, for which I was given medication. I was placed in the hospital in June for one week where the doctors were able to check me regularly. I had a very difficult birth, and when Philip was finally born on August 10, 1957, we were in seventh heaven - we couldn't have been happier - he was the most beautiful boy imaginable and brought to us a very special love. Although he was very hyperactive and cried a lot, we didn't suspect immediately that anything was wrong until he was about three years old when he was still unable to talk. When he was tested, it was found that he had been born with minimal brain dysfunction with damage to his nervous system which manifested itself in learning disabilities. We took him for one hour sessions of special training at the Frostig Center for Learning Disabilities in Los Angeles three times a week. It was a long trip from Oxnard (65 miles each way) but Philip cooperated and tried very hard with his exercises and homework. He continued to go to Frostig Center for three and a half years from the age of five til he was eight and a half years old. He made wonderful progress and we were very proud of him. No son could ever be as dear to us as he has been.
Ellen was born on August 28, 1959, while we were living in Alhambra. We belonged to Kaiser Permanente Medical Plan, and coincidentally both Ellen and Philip weighed the same (7 lb. 13 oz.) at birth, were born in the same hospital on Sunset & Vermont in Hollywood, and I had the same room both times. Ellen was a ray of sunshine in our lives. She was the sweetest and most loveable and understanding of children, and being raised with a handicapped brother made her more tolerant and sensitive to people less fortunate. The children loved each other and got along beautifully. Our lives have been enriched by our children. They brought us such joy and happiness and new meaning to our lives, more than we could have ever imagined. The memories of raising our two children are treasures I will cherish forever.
COMPARTA UN OBITUARIO
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