Sydney Taylor was my aunt, my grandmother's sister. I remember "Mama and Papa", they were my Grandma Sele and Grandpa Mishan. Mishan was a family hero who sent money he earned in the rags ("shmatte") business to relatives in Europe, to buy them boat tickets to America before the Holocaust. Uncle Ralph was Syd's husband, and he was proud of her, and was always promoting her and supporting the arts. He was a successful businessman with Caswell Massey. He told me once that if he dedicated all of his time to his own art, playing classical recorder, that he would eventually figure out a new way of manufacturing the instrument, and would just end up doing business full time again. On the other hand, he said, if he gave his business to an musician, the person would waste his days playing his instrument and eventually the business would fail, but he'd still be making art. Ralph didn't practice art like his wife, but he loved and supported all artists. He knew the risks and the sacrifice. I'm proud of my family, and although All Of A Kind Family books are highly romanticized accounts, they re-create a lost world, one that many of our Jewish families came through. That sweet, nostalgic world exists just outside of the horror and struggle that Jews have survived, and is part of the reason for our survival.
Sydney Taylor was my aunt, my grandmother's sister. I remember "Mama and Papa", they were my Grandma Sele and Grandpa Mishan. Mishan was a family hero who sent money he earned in the rags ("shmatte") business to relatives in Europe, to buy them boat tickets to America before the Holocaust. Uncle Ralph was Syd's husband, and he was proud of her, and was always promoting her and supporting the arts. He was a successful businessman with Caswell Massey. He told me once that if he dedicated all of his time to his own art, playing classical recorder, that he would eventually figure out a new way of manufacturing the instrument, and would just end up doing business full time again. On the other hand, he said, if he gave his business to an musician, the person would waste his days playing his instrument and eventually the business would fail, but he'd still be making art. Ralph didn't practice art like his wife, but he loved and supported all artists. He knew the risks and the sacrifice. I'm proud of my family, and although All Of A Kind Family books are highly romanticized accounts, they re-create a lost world, one that many of our Jewish families came through. That sweet, nostalgic world exists just outside of the horror and struggle that Jews have survived, and is part of the reason for our survival.