Fishers and Cohens (almost certainly Bronx, NY, about 1950)

This is my favorite of all the family pictures, having all four of my grandparents, and almost all their children, in one photo. I don't know where this was--Betty and I noodled over it, and eliminated all the likely places, but I'm sure it was someone in our family's apartment. I don't know the event either, but given how everyone is dressed, it could well have been a Passover celebration. In any case, in this photo are:
[Back row] Annie, Sam
[3rd row] Jerry, Betty, Mollie, Isaac, Sue
[2nd row] Rae, Paul, Rose, Sol
[Front row] Josh, Willa

Missing are Bud and Harry Cohen, plus my father (who undoubtedly took the picture). As always, click on the picture for a much larger version.

Orchard Beach (Bronx, NY, about 1951)

From a New York Times article a few years ago, At Orchard Beach, people remember summer days when their apartments felt like steam baths, and how a trip here meant not just relief but an escape from a harder-edged world.

Among my most enduring memories from my childhood were trips that my parents and I took across the Bronx to Orchard Beach. These always involved lots of my parents' brothers and sisters, and were usually arranged on very short notice. Sometimes it would be after dark, unbearably hot, and no one could sleep, so we would pile into whatever car could be scared up (usually one of Bud's). We'd sleep on the beach.

I don't know who is with Willa here, but you can see Paul and me in the background. Also in the background are the colonnades, the front of the bath house, now a NYC landmark. Here's a current picture on Flickr. Orchard Beach is in Pelham Bay Park, yet another Robert Moses megaproject from the 1930s, and NYC's largest park.


With one of my omnipresent comic books. I had a vast collection of the humorous kind: Donald Duck, Mickey Mouse, etc. My 20 year old parents read them too, and embarrassedly insisted they were doing it to vet them for me. I believed them at first.

My mother at about 23.

And two pictures of my grandmother, with Willa, and then with me.

Harry Littman (New York, around 1960)

Harry Littman was Willa's first husband, and the father of her daughter Jill. When I was in my early teens, Harry often let me/encouraged me to do things my parents wouldn't have approved of (e.g. I drove on the NJ Turnpike at about age 13). Jill now lives in South Florida, so we've had a little contact with her (and I have a picture of her somewhere to add to my 1st cousin collection). Harry eventually also moved to South Florida, and had a wine bar in Fort Lauderdale, but died about 3 years ago.


At some point, Harry sold cameras for a living, at one of the big midtown camera stores (I think he did that a lot). He loaned me a very small Minolta camera, and I took the first picture I ever took, in a taxi on our way to an amusement park in NY. Here's the picture, it is of Larry, with Betti Joy looking on at the left.

Willa and Paul (Bronx, NY, about 1949)

When I was born, Willa, my father's youngest sibling, was 5, and Paul, my Mother's, was 4. It is family legend that the day I was born, Paul was caught in the bathroom attempting to shave, I guess as a result of his unclehood.

I think boy toddlers often wore dresses in the old country then.

Greenmeadow, Part II (Palo Alto, CA, Summers 1991-93)

During all three of our Greenmeadow summers, Dora hung out a lot with the Cooke family around the corner. Margaret was around her age, and had 3 (I think, and judging from the pictures) younger sisters and a little brother (who called Dora "Doe-fully"; he couldn't manage "Dorothy").




The rest of these are more family pictures; see yesterday's post for commentary.

Greenmeadow, Part I (Palo Alto, CA, Summers 1991-93)

When I joined HP, I was asked to spend summers in California for a few years, since I'd be something of an island in Boston. In 1990, we spent about a month in boring corporate apartments (if you go to the link, you'll see the pond where Dora got to know about 40 ducks by name--the rest of us were just bored there).

But in 1991, 1992, and 1993, we rented the same absolutely wonderful Eichler house in a neighborhood of them called Greenmeadow, in Palo Alto. If you don't know about Eichler houses, I recommend the short Wikipedia article I linked; they are very special. The owners, Ken and Virginia Crittenden, were a retired couple who went to their cabin in the the Sierra each summer. They had bought the house new in the early 1950s, and were among the few remaining original owners in Greenmeadow.

In the Eichler philosophy, the house was a wall to the street, but inside it was built around a wonderful courtyard.


We had a few visits from our family members, especially the California ones, but all three of our living parents visted as well. Below, my Uncle Bud and his wife Laura are at the outdoor table with us, along with their three kids, Matthew (Cousin #10/Bud's #3), Natasha (Cousin #11/Bud's #4), and Sophia (Cousin #12/Bud's #5).


The Crittendens had a dog who went with them to the Sierra, but they left the cat, Sooty, with us (I don't think it would have worked to take him).



We "asked" the kids to engage in some activity for the summer, which was always hit-and-miss. But by the third summer there, Dave had gotten pretty old, and rebelled. So I set up a serious computer science exercise for him: He had to write a Pascal program that would efficiently find a solution to "Dad's Puzzle". I outlined the general nature of the steps one would take to do so (using a breadth-first tree search, and hashing to prune the tree), and, sure enough, by the end of the summer he had succeeded. It was even animated, so you could watch the solution happen on the screen.



The 4th of July parade was a big Greenmeadow thing, and if you look at the pictures of last year's, little has changed. Dora became good friends with a neighbor family, the Cookes (more on them tomorrow).


Willa's identical twins, Sherry (Cousin #13/Willa's #2.5) and Heather (Cousin #14/Willa's #2.5) came with Willa (no, I don't know who is who, though I imagine Sherry to be on the left).


That's Willa, with Dave, my father, Heather or Sherry, and Betty. There's my parents' two families together at a small gathering 40 years after the pictures I had before.


Bud's son Barry and his wife.




Matthew and (I think) Sophia, with the very-tolerant Sooty.

So Blackmail Me (various places and times)

Today is Sunday, Passover, and Easter.


Woodbridge, CT, probably 1984.


Probably Colonie, NY, around 1979 (we went to seders at Sam & Sue's for many years when our kids were young). A couple of years ago, at the Bas Mitzvahs of my cousins Lauren and Lizzie, I was assigned to hold the Torah scrolls. Ours kids tried to grab a photo of this, claiming they were going to blackmail me with it. This is the only way to deal with blackmail!


Bronx, NY, around 1951. With Willa (who was 5 years older than me).


Plainsboro, NJ, April 2006. Stolen from Dora without permission (as is the next one).


Member of lost tribe chomping on matzoh. Picture of Lizzie and Lauren in the background.


Jerusalem, Nov 1999. Jesus' tomb, place of the resurrection, in the Church of the Holy Sepulcre. Picture taken from the Hill of Calvary. Elizabeth and I visited in 1999, when I had a conference in Haifa.


Philippine pilgrims walking the stations of the cross.

Three Pictures from Betti Joy's Wedding (Somewhere in NJ, probably late 1970s)

It's Sunday, so family event picture. I like this picture because back and center is Larry, my mother's nephew at my father's niece's wedding, as was typical then (the two large families were very close). Seated left to right: me, Elizabeth (just a sleeper, but we were sometimes pretty tired at my cousins' weddings--with 19 first cousins, there were many--because we brought our kid(s)), Mike (Moose, Betsy's ex-husband), Betsy (Cousin #2/Sam's #1.5), unknown. Standing: Larry (Cousin #3/Betty's #1), Judy (Larry's wife), unknown couple. Betti, whose wedding it was and is pictured below, is Annie's first daughter. Now I've got pix of 5 of my 19 first cousins in this collection.


Front: Willa, Annie, my grandmother Rose Fisher, Lisa, I'm pretty sure that's Lisa, anyway, she sure looks like Annie (Cousin #4/Annie's #2). Back: unknown, Annie's husband Stretch (Irving), Betti (Cousin #5/Annie's #1), Joe (Betti's husband), Sam, my father.


Front: my mother, Willa, Rose, unknown couple. Back: my father, Annie, Sam, Sue, Stretch.

My Father and His Siblings (Miami Beach, FL, probably late 1970s)

Left to right: Harry, Annie, Sam, Willa. Visiting their parents, or their mother if my grandfather had already died, at their apartment at 84th and Harding. This is a weird picture of my father (it is my father), the only time I've seen him look anything like this. I'm guessing at the date, but it's about right.