Generation Bubelah: Part VI: Love and loss

This entry is the sixth in a series of an oral history I did with my grandmother before her passing. In her stories, she speaks of  her parents' immigration to America from Russia, growing up Jewish in a German neighborhood and simply being a Jewish girl in the Midwest. Here are the entries in the order they were written and the continuation of her story below

• Part I: Midwest Judaism in the 1920s
• Part II: Jewish in the Midwest during WWII
• Part III: Adjusting to Jewish life in the 1930s
• Part IV: WWII and the rise of anti-Semitism
• Part V: Children and parents

Not going to college was never an option in our family. It was expected of all four of us. I wasn't allowed to go far away from home and ended up at Ohio State University.

I met this gal who was visiting one of her relatives in Columbus. The gal was working in a hospital as a medical technician. She told me all about it and I thought to myself, wow, that sounds like something I would like to do.

My father wouldn't let me go to medical school. He said, "Jewish girls don't go to medical school to become doctors. They can't be too intelligent or else nobody will marry them."

I majored in Bacteriology and Chemistry. Then I spent a year at Children's Hospital for lab technician training. I took the national exams and I passed. I got a certificate and everything.

The big thing in college was joining the Communist Party. I never joined but my brother Ruby got swept up in the whole thing. They weren't really communists, but they were sympathizers. It got them into big trouble with the government and people had problems finding jobs because it was on their records.

People have a way of finding things out; nothing was kept secret. I graduated from OSU in 1940 with a degree in medical technology.

Once my kids had kids of their own, Harold and I started to travel throughout the state of Ohio. We would go for long weekends or for weeks at a time. It was the most fun. We went everywhere in Ohio and outside of Ohio. Every winter we would go to Florida for a few weeks.

There was one time when we walked into a hotel lobby and there was a photograph of our granddaughter Lauren in a white tutu holding a nutcracker. Harold got so excited that he bought an easel and set it up in front of her picture. He wore a beret and put a cigarette in his mouth. Everybody thought he was an artist.

If I were to choose what the most incredible traveling experience was for me, I would have to say our trip to Israel. Traveling in general is always exciting but Israel was breathtaking. The first time we went I was in awe. To know that I had worked so hard for Israel to become a state and here it was.

Getting off the plane the first time and walking to Israel was the most incredible thing. Since my first visit, I have been back to Israel seven times.

The one event that I will never recover from was Harold's death. He was on his way to synagogue when he started to feel a pain in his chest, so he stopped at the doctors office. They ran all different kinds of tests and it turned out that he had blocked arteries, so they recommended surgery. Harold agreed because he felt that, since was so young and he had never had a heart attack, it would be easier to have the surgery now than in later years.

He came out of surgery and he was doing well. All of the nurses and doctors said there was nothing he or any of us should worry about.

I went to pick him up on Monday to bring him home. When I got there, he was dead. He was sitting up eating breakfast and he died; all of a sudden he was gone. He did at least get to see all of our grandchildren before he left me; he loved them very much. He had a great big funeral at the synagogue. The place was packed like on Yom Kippur, and the Rabbi recited a beautiful eulogy and that was it.

His death happened so fast, I didn't even know what to think or how to react. I didn't even cry, because I was once told that if you are in control, nothing can break you. I had to be in control for myself but also for the family.

Plus, crying in public is not proper. I did what I was supposed to do. And here I sit in this house in these dingy gray rooms all alone by the telephone.

I miss him. It gets very lonely without him here. Nothing is as much fun, and I don't have anything to look forward to. We used to do everything together, and we had a wonderful relationship; he just left me.

At least I have those wonderful memories, but I hate to eat alone. Now, I look forward from one meal to the next, because that's all there is. I am a people person and to visit with most of my friends I have to go to the cemetery.

I look at all the numbers in my address book and it seems that each week I cross another one out. I go to call someone to see if they want to have dinner and then I remember that I will never be able to reach them. I wish he were here with me.

I miss sharing my pillow with him and I miss his voice. I have pictures all over the apartment so he can see what I'm doing. Although he is gone, he will never become a stranger to me. I make it a point to keep him with me wherever I am. I am reminded of him everyday because he lives in my children and grandchildren.