The House on Burchfield Street
I’ve written about the Morrowfield and what that place meant for me; however, I had a set of grandparents on my father’s side who lived in a big house on Burchfield Street.
My father’s parents were Orthodox Jews. They kept the kosher laws, they observed Shabbos, my grandfather walked to Poale Zedeck every Saturday morning. I’ve met lots of Jewish people over the years and I’ve noticed that rarely do two households observe the kosher laws in exactly the same way. I was an observant little girl with a sponge for a brain and I always wanted to know the reasons for everything. My mother, having answered my questions repeatedly on any given day, gave me the name of Question Box.
So I observed, in my grandparents’ household, the two dish towels separated on a towel rack. Once or twice I used the milk towel to dry the dishes on Friday nights after having chicken for dinner. Let’s just say that I was warned to be extra-careful about these things. The lights were set on timers–food for Saturday had been pre-cooked (no cooking on Shabbos)–at the end of Friday afternoons I remember my grandparents consulting the Pittsburgh Press to know the exact minute of sunset so my grandmother could bentsch licht.
My grandfather was a man full of zeal, fiery temper, and as a lawyer he did not always keep a cool head. He would get angry about something in court and once in a while got his hands slapped by a judge. However, you could never find a man more devoted to his race. He adored Judaism and after a while I could tell that he took so much pleasure in keeping the rules and regulations of Orthodox Judaism; it was obvious.
My poor grandmother. The work fell on her, mainly. For me, as a young girl observing, Passover appeared to me as a kind of hell. With all the milk and meat stuff to watch, on Passover yet a third complete set of kitchen ware had to be brought down from the attic and the other stuff put away. I was so happy when my grandfather decided to lighten this load that fell on his wife and took her to a kosher resort at Atlantic City for Pesach.
Were there problems? Of course. I worried a lot about my own father, having a father like his who was so full of emotion and insistence on little things. My father was a quiet man and I blamed my grandfather for somehow bringing a curse down on us. I was reading Greek and Roman mythology then and with my crazy imagination I thought my grandfather represented Zeus. I watched my father walk into the house on Burchfield Street, pick up the Pittsburgh Press, sit in a chair, and hold the paper up in front of him. Something had to be wrong here, I thought. Thankfully, over the years, through communicating with various lovely people who knew all of the family, I learned more about my grandfather’s big heart, his love for the family, and I remembered how he would bless the grandchildren on Shabbos. It’s a beautiful custom. And I also realize that my father was a quiet person, no matter where he was or who he was with. I think this trait had little to do with my grandfather.
lgmwriting 