This is another of my treasured stories that my mother told me. I love this. I went bonkers when she told it to me.
My parents were 20 and 21 years old when they met; my mother’s cousin, Bryna, because of her outgoing, funny personality, always had a group of young men hanging around. These were nice, Jewish boys who liked to listen to music and relax together. One of these was Sherry Golding.
Right from the beginning my mother fell in love with my father. He was tall, had a head of wavy black hair, came from an educated family, was a college graduate. He wasn’t one of the most talkative young men; he had dignity even then. He was a foot taller than my mother and, in every way, she “looked up to him.” She never lost her sense of adoration for my father. Over time it grew stronger.
Then one night, after a date, he said to her: “I want you to be my wife. Will you be my wife?”
My mother said that she was not expecting this–she was bowled over with a kind of joy that she had never experienced. Of course she said yes.
She was sleepless from excitement and finally woke up Bryna and said: “Sherry Golding just asked me to marry him!!!”
My comment was a question in which I asked: “Mom, you mean you had no idea that he was on the verge of proposing to you?”
“It was only in my dreams. I truly thought that I wasn’t quite good enough for a Golding, especially him.”
There was pain there that came from the persistent nagging feeling of being not quite good enough.
I must have heard this 1000 times: Les, I loved your father more than he loved me.
GAKK! Finally I said: “Mom!! You give Daddy credit for being so intelligent. He chose you. So if he’s as smart as you say, it means you are as good as he was!!”
My mother, no matter how much I tried, would not give up this idea. She was haunted.
When the two young people told their families the news they met up with certain obstacles. My grandfather wanted his son to have an advanced degree in chemistry before he went into the working world and got married. He said he would pay the fees for my father to go back to school.
So here we have two very young people, somewhat unsure of themselves, each having to stand up to a dominating parent. This could possibly have been the first time my father went against his father’s wishes but he said no. He wasn’t going to do that. He wanted to get married and he already had a job in his field.
So the two got married at the Orthodox synagogue at the corner of Murray Avenue and Hazelwood Street, then flew to New York City for their honeymoon. My mother said this:
“I got on the plane with Sherry and I said to myself–my mother has stepped in my way but not this time. This is what I want.”
lgmwriting 