In 1944, at the age of five, my family moved into an apartment building on South Fourth Street in Louisville, KY. I later learned that it was owned by a Jewish lady, Sara Landau. I remember attending a Seder with my parents in Miss Sara's apartment, also attended by Misses Minnie and Mathilda. Although we were not biologically related, Sara and Mathilda served as my surrogate "aunts". This practice continued with my children, John (see above), Karen and Martha calling them "Aunt". They were very dear friends to us all. My parents lived in the apartment building until 1961, when my father retired and my parents moved to California. They would stay with Sara whenever they returned to Louisville to visit family and friends in the area. My children liked to pound on her piano when we stopped for a visit, so she gave them the piano in hopes that one or more of them would learn to play. That's illustrates the kind of generousity she had.
Once, she shared an experience while teaching at Berea College. It seemed that a young student was troubled about recent events near his home town. Somebody had enclosed a large area with a high chain link fence and nobody seemed to know what was going on inside the fenced area. He feared that the German's may have established a base of operations to attack us from within (this was during World War II). She asked him where he was from. "Oh, a place you've never heard of. It's a little town in Tennessee called Oak Ridge." She suggested he express his concern to his Senators and Representative.
In reply to <p>My father grew up in the by John Reeve
In 1944, at the age of five, my family moved into an apartment building on South Fourth Street in Louisville, KY. I later learned that it was owned by a Jewish lady, Sara Landau. I remember attending a Seder with my parents in Miss Sara's apartment, also attended by Misses Minnie and Mathilda. Although we were not biologically related, Sara and Mathilda served as my surrogate "aunts". This practice continued with my children, John (see above), Karen and Martha calling them "Aunt". They were very dear friends to us all. My parents lived in the apartment building until 1961, when my father retired and my parents moved to California. They would stay with Sara whenever they returned to Louisville to visit family and friends in the area. My children liked to pound on her piano when we stopped for a visit, so she gave them the piano in hopes that one or more of them would learn to play. That's illustrates the kind of generousity she had.
Once, she shared an experience while teaching at Berea College. It seemed that a young student was troubled about recent events near his home town. Somebody had enclosed a large area with a high chain link fence and nobody seemed to know what was going on inside the fenced area. He feared that the German's may have established a base of operations to attack us from within (this was during World War II). She asked him where he was from. "Oh, a place you've never heard of. It's a little town in Tennessee called Oak Ridge." She suggested he express his concern to his Senators and Representative.
W. Frank Reeve