Ida and Her Daughters

By Ted Gross

Ida and Her Daughters is the story of a thirteen-year-old immigrant girl who flees the pogroms of early 20th century Russia with her father and older brother and creates a life for herself in America. Settling in Bangor, Maine with relatives, she is enamored of a young American who impregnates her and, after their marriage, they begin to raise three girls in a nine-year period—until he abandons her for another woman.

This saga of Ida’s struggles as well as her daughters' subsequent lives in twentieth-century America is gripping. Rhonda, the eldest, is forced into an arranged marriage; Ruth, the second, marries a husband who becomes embroiled with the Mafia, and the third, Debra, falls in love with an ambitious academic during the racial revolution of the 1960’s and ‘70’s in New York.

Ida and Her Daughters is a panoramic view of twentieth-century America, from the experiences of an immigrant girl to the separate marriages of her three daughters. In this compelling novel, Ted Gross has explored the American family, its strengths and its weaknesses.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Sep 9, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664185029

Ted Gross

Ted Gross was born and raised in Manhattan, New York City and in 1978, moved to Israel, and currently resides in Jerusalem. In 2002, Ted as a reserve battlefield medic ended up in Jenin, and the battles that took place there became front-page news all over the world and the book (as of yet unpublished) "Three Weeks In Jenin" is a graphic experience of what was experienced in this village during that time. "Ancient Tales, Modern Legends" is a collection of short stories which were written over a period of many years Ted's love of the short story art-form is apparent in this book. His early reading was greatly influenced by I.B. Singer, O'Henry, Cheever and Vonnegut. He currently is working on the "Chronicles of the Children of Heaven" (a fantasy work) which the first Volume "A Tale That Is Told - Part 1" has been released on Kindle and in Paperback. A second collection of short stories is to be released as well. Over the years short stories by Ted have been published in various venues. "A Pot Of Gold" was recently published by Istoria Books (in their "Lunch Reads 4) with excellent reviews and is available on all electronic devices as well.

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Copyright © 2021 by Ted Gross.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Rev. date: 09/09/2021

Xlibris

844-714-8691

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CONTENTS

Prelude

I IDA

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

II RHONDA

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

III RUTH

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

IV DEBRA

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

11

12

13

14

15

16

17

18

19

20

21

22

23

24

25

26

27

28

29

30

31

32

33

34

35

36

37

38

39

40

41

42

43

44

45

46

47

48

49

Epilogue

Acknowledgments

In Memory

of Ida

Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change

Courage to change the things I can,

And the wisdom to know the difference.

— Reinhold Niebuhr

PRELUDE

As always, Ida awoke in the early morning darkness at her railroad apartment above the café on State Street in Bangor. Her three daughters were still asleep—Rhonda in one bedroom, Ruth and Debra, the younger girls, in a room they were forced to share. They had lived in this apartment for eight years, ever since 1940, when Ida’s husband abandoned the family for a younger woman in Portland.

With her cloth gray robe wrapped tightly around her waist, she shuffled quietly down the long, narrow hallway toward a small bathroom that was used by all four of the family, closed the door gently, and gazed at herself in the mirror. She was a short, stout Russian immigrant of thirty-eight, with determined, pretty, hazel eyes that never complained. Her singular goal in life, now that she had to depend on herself alone, was to send her girls to college so that they might find proper husbands to care for them and, if that wasn’t possible, careers that would make them self-dependent. Methodically, sleepily, she washed her puffy face, combed her curly, auburn hair, and returned past the kitchen and other two bedrooms to her own, where she made her bed carefully and straightened out the room, unadorned except for a fading photo on her end table of her mother, who had died of tuberculosis when Ida was only twelve. On the wall above her bed was a large poster of FDR in all of his benevolent authority. She put on a beige dress and her familiar apron and sneakers. Embarrassed by the sneakers, she wore them because she was on her feet eighteen hours every day in the café and suffered from gout and arthritis.

In the kitchen, she began to prepare breakfast for her daughters. Rhonda soon joined her, yawning good morning. A graduate of the University of Maine as valedictorian of her class, she was completing a masters’ degree in American Studies and eager to settle in New York City, where she intended to begin a teaching career, share the literature she loved, and hopefully find a husband. There were too few Jewish boys in Bangor, but in New York—in New York, anything was possible. She had spent half the night reading The American Tragedy for her masters thesis on "Women in the Works of Theodore Dreiser’’ and kept yawning as she put cereals and milk and berries into bowls and placed them on the round wooden table. As the oldest daughter, she had assumed the role of surrogate mother when her father abandoned them, but it was a reluctant role, soured by the conviction that Ida had not done more to keep her marriage and family together and that she, Rhonda, had been chosen to oversee her younger sisters, thereby thwarting her own modest ambitions.

In the kitchen she set the breakfast table. Ruth joined her and silently, unobtrusively, kissed her mother good morning and began automatically to help. Shaped like her mother, short and plump, she bore in her eyes Ida’s sweet smile of possibility. She was a gifted artist who carried her talent modestly and kept a little studio, with one small window for sunlight, in a corner of the storeroom behind the café, surrounded by wooden cases of beer. She had little time to paint, for she was too busy helping Ida serve customers as well as handle the family’s finances and finish her own college education. An indifferent student, Ruth already was being courted by Lester Marcus, a young man who wanted to marry her and take her to Lewiston where he planned to work in his father’s camera store. That possibility gave Ida consolation, but not Ruth; she wanted more than Lester Marcus and Lewiston, Maine. Although she tried and knew that marriage would provide a safe future, she couldn’t persuade herself to fall in love with him.

Now Debra stood at the entrance to the kitchen, as if she were approaching a stage in the theater of her mind, and clutched a well-worn paperback copy of A Doll’s House.

I saw your light on at two o’clock, Rhonda scolded her.

And I saw yours. I was rehearsing, if you don’t mind.

For what, pray tell?

For my final audition.

And when is that, Ingrid Bergman?

Today, at four o’clock."

And what’s the great drama?

"A Doll’s House. Can’t you see?"

You might as well forget it. You’re such a blithering romantic. Old battle-axe McCarthy will never give you the part of Nora. She’s an anti-Semite to her core.

That’s not true. She’s a brilliant teacher and coach—she’s taught me everything I know. And she admires me. She smiled, as though she was the one in the family who held the secret to success. Besides, I don’t look Jewish.

"Schande, Ida snapped. Shame on you, Debra. Don’t you ever say that. Don’t even think it."

Oh, you are so naïve, Rhonda insisted.

Debra refused to believe her. She had just been accepted as the first Jewish girl in the prestigious, exclusive, all white, all Christian Queens Club and without Ida’s knowing it, she was already dating Christian boys.

Ida rose from the table, shorter than her three daughters, but still the commanding presence.

Stop prattling on and eat your breakfast, both of you. You’re supposed to support each other. You’re supposed to work together. This is a family. A Jewish family. You go for that part, Debra, and don’t let anyone ever discourage you. But I don’t want to hear you ever say you don’t look Jewish, as if that’s something to be ashamed of.

Debra sat silently, smiling. She knew the truth. Everyone said she looked like Ingrid Bergman.

I’m just being realistic, Rhonda defended herself.

All this petty bickering in the family won’t help anyone. Lift up, don’t put down. Find the best in each other. There’s no one else you can trust in life but your family.

Carefully Ida descended the long flight of narrow, creaking wooden stairs to the street level, the stairwell dimly lit by one solitary, low-watt bulb. When she reached the front of the café, she had to fumble with her keys to open several locks, pick up the delivered fresh pastries in a box at the entranceway as well as several copies of The Bangor Daily News, and then turn on the lights of her livelihood. What she confronted was not really a café but a beer parlor with a soft drink and ice cream counter opposite the bar for beer, and booths in the rear for those who wanted to linger. Ida called it a café because the girls had convinced her that the change in name would lend the enterprise tone and a touch of class. Ida’s Café. In time, she thought, if business continued to go well, she might even hire someone to make lunch-time salads and sandwiches and serve them at the booths.

No one would be coming in so early to drink beer. By noon, when the flyboys from Dow Airport and some locals arrived, Rhonda and Ruth, old enough now to serve beer, would take turns after their university classes.

At the counter for coffee and pastries, soft drinks and ice cream, Ida prepared for her early customers—lonely old widowers who were fond of her and admired the courage she’d shown after James Bell had left her stranded. She prepared coffee in the large canister and began sipping her first and only cup of the day. Approaching the entranceway was old Charlie Winslow, the next-door neighbor who had sold her the apartment and café as a package eight years before, toward the end of the Great Depression. Without asking, she poured him a cup, flavored it with cream and sugar, and presented him with his favorite sugar donut.

The daughters soon came scrambling into the store to kiss their mother goodbye and have their dresses and shoes approved and their hair arranged properly before scooting off to the University of Maine in Orono for Rhonda and Ruth and Bangor High School for Debra.

They’re wonderful girls, Charlie grinned, as they rushed off. You should be very proud of them, Ida.

Softly Ida smiled to herself. It had been a long journey to this moment of independence and security. An immigrant woman, she had raised her girls alone and was proud of them now. They were all that mattered in the world of wars and economic turmoil that she had endured.

I

IDA

1

Ida Alpert, all of thirteen years in age, had traveled with her orthodox father and older brother Robert by train from Minsk to Vladivostok and across the Japan Sea to Yokohama, then by steamer for a twenty-one day voyage in steerage on the turbulent Pacific Ocean to San Francisco, and by train through the United States to Chicago and New York and north to Boston and finally Bangor, Maine, where her uncle, her father’s younger brother, was waiting for them. Across America, she stared at a country too vast and complex for a thirteen-year old girl with no knowledge of English to understand.

Her memories of childhood in the Pale were marked by some happy experiences with a few close friends and by the security of her mother. a warm-hearted woman who died at thirty-four of tuberculosis. Her strong, stubborn father was another matter. He provided authority but little love in a Russian childhood marred by the disdain and even hatred of Jews that made her feel worthless and insignificant in her homeland.

Her uncle Jack had preceded them to Bangor and established a small clothing store, urging his older and less adventurous brother Max to come and be his tailor. Her mother, who had protected her from the anti-Semitism of other children in Russia, had died just a year before the family fled the old country and left the girl bewildered and dependent, after she arrived in this strange new world, upon her older brother Robert and her uncle’s wife, Rachel. Her aunt had been born in America and was much younger than Jack. A kind and welcoming woman, Rachel had been unable to bear a child of her own and adopted Ida as the daughter she had always wanted.

As a shy, insecure immigrant girl, Ida entered grade school and learned some basic English, although more often than not she preferred to remain safely silent in the midst of others, worried she would say the wrong thing and be derided as just another greenhorn. But she soon fell in love with everything about this Promised Land —its freedom, openness and optimism—and in a short time she began to speak a kind of pidgin English. By the time she graduated from elementary school, she was comfortable enough with the language to be working part-time in the clothing store and helping Aunt Rachel cook dinner for Uncle Jack, her brother Robert, who had swiftly integrated himself into Bangor High, and her unassimilated father—Max Alpert, a bearded, observant, dyspeptic man, old before his time, now fearful of death, who insisted on speaking only Yiddish and subscribing to The Forward, laying tefillin every morning, and isolating himself in daily prayer every evening in his room and at the little store-front synagogue on Saturdays. He was the only orthodox Jew in Bangor. As a teenager, Ida never quite lost her timidity and suspicion of others and clung to Aunt Rachel for guidance in this new world, saving her meager earnings so that she could help Robert enter the nearby University of Maine and then, as he hoped, law school.

By fifteen, Ida had grown into a short, plump girl, plain in appearance but radiating a contagious sparkle in her hazel eyes. By sixteen she was almost self-confident, an indispensable assistant to her uncle, dropping out of high school to earn more money for Robert’s future. Although her uncle and aunt had continually urged her to pursue her own education, she never did complete high school.

2

Jimmy Bell was drawn to Ida’s infectious smile the moment he entered the Alpert haberdashery. He was a scrappy eighteen-year old kid who had forgone college to work at his father’s nearby auto-repair shop, a fast talker, a joker who prided himself on having been born in America and becoming almost financially independent, although he still lived at home. A wisecracking, good-looking charmer just short of being cocky, he sported thick unruly brown hair and the jaw of a prizefighter, strutting about the neighborhood as though he were embarking upon some exciting adventure any girl would want to share. He loved cars and had planned to work full-time as his father’s mechanic until he could become a salesman and afford a customized white shirt, crimson tie, and dark blue sports jacket, gray slacks, black shoes that shone in the dark, selling auto supplies to garage owners throughout the state and maybe New England and even beyond. Jimmy craved to be the American businessman on the make. When Ida met him he was still driving his father’s Ford, but he assured her that one day soon he would be flashing his own sleek, black Studebaker.

When he came into the Alpert store for the first time, Ida could feel his attraction to her, and she wondered why. She had so little to offer anyone, she thought. Still she was flattered—no one had ever really noticed her before. They chatted while she helped him select a sweater for the bitter winter that would soon be coming.

The second time, he asked her to join him after work at Winslow’s hideaway.

How long have you been in Bangor? he asked her once they were settled in a booth at the rear of the hideaway—he with a beer, she with an ice cream sundae.

Two short years.

And you’re at Bangor High now?

Not any more. I dropped out after my second year.

Oh, no. Why did you ever do that?

To help send my brother to the university.

He was stunned by her response. Give up your own education for an older brother? He had never heard of such a thing.

You must go back. You’re nothing in this country without at least some basic education.

You graduated?

Absolutely. I didn’t go on, though. I’m not a big fan of schooling. He laughed at himself. I was glad to have my father’s business to fall back upon.

I would like to have an education, like everyone else. My English is still so bad.

Your English is okay, he assured her. You just have to lose that accent."

She didn’t know the word.

Accent?

The way you speak. It’s too Russian—or too Jewish—or both. You can’t get by in this country unless you speak American.

And how do I learn to speak American?

By going out with me, he chuckled. By listening to the radio. The accent will go away in no time. You’ll learn. You’ll have to learn. Let me tell you something –-he lowered his voice surreptitiously and cupped it into a conspiratorial whisper so that no one could overhear him, although no one else was in the hideaway—Americans have problems with greenhorns.

Do you?

Not at all, not at all. Actually, my folks are from Lithuania. They call themselves Litvaks. Now, there’s a nice Yiddish word, even though it’s the only one I know.

As he babbled on, she was amused by his bravado, a little put off by his superiority, but still attracted to him. He was the first young man to have noticed her and seemed so certain of himself, a handsome scrapper –-or at least handsome enough in her eyes—on his way to becoming a man who would be energetic and ambitious and successful.

It was his self-confidence that drew her to him, his certainty, his Americanness. This was exactly what she needed at the age of sixteen. She saw him again—and again. Why not? There was no one else. He drove her to crowded Saturday night dances at the City Center and, though she was awkward at first, by the end of the evening she could move well enough to enjoy herself. In time, he took her to movies, to a restaurant for dinner, and to the Barnum and Bailey circus when it came to town. Whenever he picked her up at the home of Uncle Jack and Aunt Rachel, they were as cordial as Ida could wish, even though they worried about her exclusive attachment to only one young man whom Rachel derided as a whippersnapper.

Be careful, she warned Ida. You’re still so young. Take your time. Don’t let anyone hurt you. There will be other young men. There will always be other young men. You’re only sixteen years old.

But Ida wasn’t listening. She needed to be loved beyond Aunt Rachel and Uncle Jack and her ambitious brother Robert, who was becoming thoroughly Americanized, more distant —basketball, the debate club, the dances, the girl friends—that he was growing beyond her as he whizzed through high school. She wanted to please Jimmy Bell so much she allowed him to be intimate with her. When he ran his hands across her breasts and between her plump, adolescent thighs, she knew it was sinful and dangerous and violated every tenet her mother and father had ever instilled in her. She remembered her father condemning another girl near their home in Minsk who had become pregnant before wedlock, bemoaning the schande it was and how the girl had disgraced herself and her family forever. A schande—the word still burned in her impressionable, innocent mind. But by now, Ida had convinced herself that she loved Jimmy and did not want to anger him or lose him, not even after he took her into the back seat of his jalopy.

No, Jimmy, please, please don’t, not yet, not now—not yet.

I have to.

No. I’m too young.

But he couldn’t wait. Or wouldn’t wait. And she wanted to please him. They drove home silently that night, separate and apart from each other in the car. As she began to leave, he reached out to her with what could have become an apology. She resisted.

Ida—

Jimmy, she wept. I never want to do that again—not until we’re married.

She showered her body harshly and examined herself in the mirror to see where and how she had changed. Nothing had changed—not yet. Tears scorched her frightened face as again and again she beseeched her dead mother’s forgiveness.

Weeks later she missed her period—and then she missed a second. Terrified, she grew more depressed than she had ever been, with no one to turn to. She had always leaned on Robert for guidance, and he had been as protective of his kid sister as she could ever have wanted; once, in fact, he had saved her from drowning in their favorite lake near Minsk, sweeping her in his arms and comforting and calming her after bringing her to shore. But this was a schande, a shame too personal to divulge, even to the brother she idolized. Aunt Rachel was the one who responded to her unnatural taciturnity and sadness and fear—she was the one who sensed immediately what had happened.

In the middle of the night, Rachel, who herself was only thirty-five, approached her bedside.

Whatever has happened, Ida, you can tell me. I’ll help you. I’ll help in any way I can.

Ida gazed at her through burning, blinding tears.

I won’t tell another living soul—not your father or Robert, not even Uncle Jack.

Ida could no longer live alone with her secret and finally unburdened herself.

Rachel sat beside her, on the edge of the bed, listening hard and without judgment, then embracing her and wiping the tears from her face, murmuring again and again, We’ll work this out, Ida. You and I—we’ll work this out together. Nobody else has to know.

I want to kill myself.

No you don’t. It seems like the end of the world just now; but we’re going to work this out together. She waited until Ida’s tears were dry. After a long silence, she asked the essential question: Do you love him?

Yes, she murmured, quickly. I do. I do. I do. I do. I want to love him. Rachel wiped away her tears. Then, after a long, awkward pause, she said, Good. Because that’s all that matters.

Yes, Ida cried uncontrollably. I love him, I love him, I love him. I want to have his child.

Tightly Rachel wrapped her arms round the trembling girl and brought her close to her heart.

First, my girl, we need to see Dr. Schmidt.

3

After the pregnancy was confirmed, Rachel encountered Jimmy’s mother.

They met for tea late one morning in the living room of Gloria Bell’s modest bungalow, adjacent to the family’s auto repair shop. Gloria, a thin, self-effacing mother of forty, praised Ida’s sweetness and expressed the pleasure that she and her husband felt in seeing Jimmy finally settle down with a nice Jewish girl who was so devoted and authentic.

Rachel sat silently and waited until Gloria was done speaking. Then, quietly, firmly, she informed her: We have a problem.

Oh?

A serious problem.

Oh?

Ida is two months pregnant.

Gloria diverted her eyes from Rachel.

Has she seen a doctor?

We’ve seen Dr. Schmidt. She’s two months pregnant.

Gloria kept looking away, but Rachel would not avert her eyes.

What are we going to do?

At first, Gloria could not seem to find words. After a long, uncomfortable pause, she muttered, defensively, She let him? She let him do that?

He forced himself upon her. He’s responsible for this.

They’re both responsible, Gloria protested. They always blame the boy, don’t they? She’s no helpless victim. Embarrassed by her own words, she turned her anxious eyes slowly to Rachel. Oh dear, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. They’re so young, the two of them. They’re no more than a boy and a girl.

What are we going to do?

Their eyes stayed fixed on one another as they sat in silence.

Will Dr. Schmidt—

That won’t happen, Rachel stopped her. Ida won’t let that happen. She’ll bring up her baby alone if she has to.

Gloria stared at Rachel and, after a long silence, murmured, I’ll speak to Jimmy. He’s a good boy at heart. He really is. He must have gotten carried away, as boys will—but he’ll want to do the right thing. We all want to do the right thing, don’t we, Mrs. Alpert?

4

Ida stood naked before the bathroom mirror, touching herself. Nothing had changed—not yet. Her body was, as it had always been, round and plump and shapeless. The little wart on her nose would never go away; her hair would always be short and curly, the color of amber at twilight. She picked away at her lingering adolescent pimples; they too would plague her all of