SIDNEY WHO?

By Norman Reisman

Most of what I know about my mother comes from stories and anecdotes told to me over the years from my many aunts, uncles and cousins.  Helen was only 35 when she died in 1953.  I was 4 and a half.  She was the youngest of 8 siblings and I am, to this day, the baby cousin (at 76, no less).

There was a 22 year age gap between her oldest sister, Katie, and Helen.  One of my older cousins, Leo, told me that when he and Helen would pass each other in the hallways of Brooklyn’s James Madison High School, he would always say, “Hi Aunt Helen” even though he was a year older than she was.

Of all my aunts and uncles my favorites were Edie and Irving Atlas.  They lived across the street from us in Midwood, right behind Wingate Field.  Irving was a taxi driver and always wore his chrome change maker on his belt.  Edie worked at The Dime Savings Bank on Ave. J.

When Helen died, Edie dropped everything to take care of me.  Before school started in the mornings, we’d watch Arthur Godfrey on her tiny TV with a plastic magnifier attached to the screen.  (Remember Julius La Rosa?) And she introduced me to the music of future icons of the era.  She loved Elvis Presley but had great difficulty imitating Chubby Checker’s Twist. Every morning she would walk me to Kindergarten at PS 99. Every afternoon she’d walk me home, usually stopping for a Charlotte Rousse or a slice of Ebinger’s Blackout Cake along the way.

Fast forward to about 20 years ago and my older sister, Elaine, unearthed Helen’s High School Yearbook, The James Madison Class of 1937.  It was such fun to look at and see the things that the other kids wrote next to their photos.  But right on the inside cover, there was an inscription that nobody could explain.  In bold script, like half a page large, was written: “To the best sister-in-law a guy could ever have” and it was signed “Sidney.”   I didn’t know of any Sidneys nor did my sister.

We asked around but none of my surviving cousins remembered or ever heard of a Sidney in the family.  None of our aunts and uncles were alive so we couldn’t ask them.  Finally, Cousin Michael provided us with the answer to this mystery which he heard years before from his mother,  Aunt Millie.

In 1932 Esther Alter, my maternal grandmother, Helen’s mother, passed away.  Aunt Edie was married to a man named Sidney at the time and they decided to take in Edie’s 2 youngest sisters, Millie and Helen (ages 15 and 14 respectively).  For some reason, Edie and Irving were always in love with each other but wound up marrying different people.  According to family lore, one day Edie’s phone rang.  Sidney was sunning himself out on the kitchen fire escape.  Helen and Millie were in the kitchen.  It was Irving.  He said to Edie, “Edie, I’m getting divorced and I want to marry you.”  Edie hung up the phone and yelled out to Sidney, “Sidney, Irving’s getting divorced and I’m divorcing you, too and marrying him.”  Sidney nearly fell off the fire escape, but that was the end of him.  And the only evidence I’ve ever seen of his existence was his inscription in my mother’s high school year book.

Post Script-

About a year ago, my wife, Sandy and I were in Queens near Edie and Irving’s Cemetery and I decided to pay my respects, never having been there before.  After a lengthy search, I spotted Edie’s grave, covered partially by a shrub.  When I bent down to move the branches and read the headstone, my phone did one of those pocket call things, only it started playing rock and roll music.  Definitely a spiritual greeting from my wonderful loving Aunt.