Thinking and remembering. How many people are married (to the same person) for fifty years. Cause to celebrate.
My grandmother's family came here when she was a toddler. They were fleeing from the pogroms. She was educated here. An American.
My grandfather walked out of Russia to escape the czar's army--20 years in the military. He arrived as an adult.
He found a room to rent with my grandmother's family. My grandmother told me about all her fancy beaus driving up in horse-drawn carriages. She was the daughter of a rabbi. Very middle class. She fell in love with the boarder. Go figure. Of course, my mother fell in love with her neighbor. (A trend?)
My grandmother was educated by the standards back then. She graduated from high school. My grandfather could not read or write English. I remember feeling stunned when this man I admired, adored, and looked up to asked little me to read something to him. Stunned. I did it. And thought about it a long time. He read a Yiddish newspaper printed in Hebrew. I thought about that too. I couldn't read that. So it worked out fine.
Here's a young (dark hair) grandpa reading his paper:
) & also very intelligent. Not at all bad combination! 