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50 Beverly Hills Gothic
Once busy providers, unemployed men line up at a soup kitchen in New York City, 1932.
A YOUNG WIDOW
My mother Lena was courageous and innovative. The Brighton house had two stories, plus a full basement and she created a boarding house. Lena rented out the top floor to tenants. Street level became a kosher restaurant. And the basement was reserved for Lena, my father’s mother, Bubbie Rachel Salter, the children and God knows whom else! Like my Levine grandparents, Bubbie Salter only spoke Yiddish. I remember her in her rocking chair, rocking. She lived into her 90s, but never learned English.
To accommodate more people, we often split mattresses. But sometimes even both mattresses of my bed were rented out for the night, and I found myself sleeping on the dining room table. No matter how little the family had, my mother was always generous with the less fortunate, offering them food and shelter. Of course, she cooked three meals a day for the family and the boarders, too. She was working constantly.