Passed Down Feud

/ By / In / 14 Comments

My maternal grandmother, Belle Perlis (Anglicized from Potocksy) Stein, was the oldest of nine siblings, all of whom came to the Unites States from Bialystock, Russia (territorial Lithuanian). My grandparents came in 1906, as I’ve written about several times in the past. They landed on Ellis Island and made their way to Toledo, lived in a two-flat with Grandma’s mother. I knew all of her siblings, who were younger and seemed to mostly reside in Detroit.

Grandpa and Grandma (Zalman/Sam and Belle Stein), in my Detroit den, early 1950s.

Grandpa (Zalman/Samuel Beckenstein, shortened to Stein in the U.S.) had a more complicated lineage. I know of two brothers, Joseph and Willie, who came to the States. One brother went to Argentina. I don’t even know his name. His two sisters and their families stayed behind (except for one niece, Paula, who married a Zionist and escaped to Palestine in 1939). All the rest perished in the Holocaust. My grandfather never spoke of them. However, a family of first cousins, named the Weinners, lived in Detroit.

1st generation Weinner family, Selma upper left, Harris upper right (both married siblings of my grandmother; the family are cousins of my grandfather).

Perhaps because there were so many in Grandma’s family, there was a lot of marriage between her family and Grandpa’s family. His brother Joe married her sister Millie. And two Weinner siblings, Selma and Harris, married two more of Grandma’s siblings: Beatrice (the sweetest and most beautiful of the Perlis women) married Harris, and Selma married Moe. So there were lots of double first cousins and complicated family relationships. There were also lots of professionals among the men, doctors and lawyers, who did well professionally.

As the youngest of the generation of first cousins, I don’t know the cause of the family feud at my grandparents’ level. I heard it had something to do with a real estate investment gone sour between Harris and Moe. My older cousins may know. One recently told me there was competition between my grandmother and her sister-in-law, Selma and their two daughters (Cornelia and Corinne), both deemed “old” to not yet be married, but my mother married before her cousin Corinne and my cousin says this caused the feud to erupt.

All I know is that my mother, Cornelia (called Connie; she hated “Cornelia”), and her cousin Corinne, named for the same ancestor, who lived a few blocks from us in Huntington Woods, did not speak to one another and I was not allowed to speak with her daughter Sue, though she was one grade ahead of me at the same high school. Crazy, right? And this was decades and a generation after the seminal event. Whatever happened ruptured whole groupings of the family for decades.

My mother once told me that the last time she saw Corinne’s brother and sister-in-law (Dr. Sanford Perlis, a psychiatrist in Westport, CT and Yale, and Vivian, his extraordinary wife), was at Moe’s funeral in 1952 (Moe was Corinne’s father). At the time, she was pregnant with me and Vivian was pregnant with Michael, exactly two months younger than me. These sorts of stories infuriate me. I just do not understand how generations can be made to carry on with some ancient grudge. Not all in the family did. My mother’s brother, Joe, who took over the family jewelry store in Toldeo, never bought into the nonsense.

As many readers know, Christie Hefner is a lifelong friend. In the early 1990s, I began to hear stories from her about the new publisher of Playboy, my second cousin, Michael Perlis! She had very good things to say about him. She sent me a November 22, 1992 New York Sunday Times profile of Mike which made me ponder reaching out to him.

At the end of 1992, Dan had a big client in New York City. We found a sitter to stay with our young children and made plans to celebrate my 40th birthday in the city. We got tickets to see Gregory Hines in “Jelly’s Last Jam” on Broadway, made reservations at several wonderful restaurants, and visited old friends. I visited art museums and galleries during the day while Dan was with his clients. I flew home on Dec. 10, my actual birthday, but I’d had a wonderful visit.

Christie had moved the publishing part of Playboy to New York at some point, so Michael was based there. I mulled over the idea, then called his office after arriving on Monday, December 7. I knew he’d heard about me through Christie as well. I left a message with his secretary that we were staying at the Waldorf and would love to meet him for a drink. It was time to end the family feud. He called back within the hour and we made plans to meet the next afternoon at the bar at the Waldorf.

We had the most marvelous time. He was engaging, interesting, well-traveled, wanted to know everything about us and our family. He told me he had visited Bialystock while starting up the Polish edition of Playboy; he found scant remnants of a Jewish community. We clicked in so many ways. It felt like coming home. At the end of our time together, he said, “You should look up Sue. You’d really like her.”

I pondered his words and wondered how best to do that. She just lived one town over, but this was long before Google made it possible to look her up online. I finally got her mother’s address from a cousin and wrote Corinne a letter. “My mother may be crazy, but I am NOT! I would like to get to know Sue. Could you please send me her address and phone number?” Corinne responded with a very nice note and Sue and I have been friendly ever since, attending our kids’ b’nai mitzvot, grandkid’s brit milah (which was the last time I saw Michael), or just having dinner together. COVID has taken its toll, and of course, we are gone all summer, and now are spending lots of time in London. Sue and her husband Rich now have four beautiful grandchildren, so do lots of babysitting. No one is accessible as we were before. But it is still lovely to have a cousin just one town away. And long ago she confided in me that as her father, who died long ago, grew increasingly incapacitated, my father occasionally gave him ride to his office downtown, unbeknownst to the rest of the family. My father, kind man that he was, also did not buy into long-ago family feuds.

And I finally got to meet Michael’s parents in 1993 at one of the bar mitzvah’s. They lived in Westport, CT, where Sandy was a well-respected psychiatrist who passed away a year later. I went to his funeral. The concert master of the BSO played at the funeral.

Brother and sister, Corinne Nayer (Sue’s mother), Sandy Perlis (Mike’s father); 10/17/93

First cousins, Sue Kesner and Mike Perlis (my second cousins); 10/17/93

His wife, Vivian was an accomplished harp player, but was busy raising three children. She worked in the Yale Library, where she had the idea to do oral history on some of the local distinguished musicians of the 20th century. She began with Charles Ives, moved on to Aaron Copeland (and wrote his definitive biography), was working with Leonard Bernstein at the time of his death. She proved the value of oral history. She invented an important part of history.

Rich Kesner and Vivian Perlis; 10/17/93

With Mike Perlis at the Kesners, 10/17/93

Michael and I went through a period of closeness, but have drifted. He’s gone through divorce and remarriage, several important jobs. He will be 70 on February 12 (my brother’s 75th birthday), two months after my own 70th birthday. But I know he’s there and when we do see one another, the closeness of family remains. No more family feuds to get in the way! Not ever!

Dad’s 50th Birthday

/ By / In / 10 Comments

We moved from Detroit to our newly-built home in Huntington Woods (about 2 1/2 miles northwest of our Detroit location) on October 1, 1963. Rick and I had already started in the Royal Oak school system and we were in shock. We were both young in our classes, having needed to skip grades due to the vagaries of the Detroit school system. Rick was half way through high school, so at least could be in choir and work on the school newspaper, but he made few friends.

I was a loner, geek, mocked by the sophisticated girls who had all been together forever, and whose mothers were also friendly. The school was K-6; we were the oldest at this school now, so entering into that climate was challenging at best. It was devastating for me. Yet I was still one of the smartest, a truly awful combination. The teachers and counselors told me that in the fullness of time, I’d be fine.  That didn’t help me in that moment.

For the first several weeks of school, Dad had to drive me out to the suburban school (which recessed for lunch). My mother arranged for me to go home with someone from my class for lunch, or drive out and take me to a local fast-food restaurant, which I rather enjoyed, then come back and pick me up at the end of the day. The big moving van unloaded everything at the new house on that first day of October, but there was still a punch list to be finished (as is always the case in new construction). It was a few weeks before the house was finally finished and we felt settled.

The stress of the move and the unhappiness of her children was too much for my mother. She had a complete nervous breakdown sometime around the end of October and took to her bed. I don’t remember her leaving it at all for weeks and weeks. We had full-time cleaning help, who picked me up from school and my mother’s sister, Stella, came in from Cleveland to run the home. A depressed hush fell over the household. Mother was on a strong medication to treat “depression, anxiety and nervousness”.

This was the home scenario when word came to our class on the afternoon of November 22 that something terrible had happened. Our teacher told us nothing more than that. He stepped out of the classroom and a buzz went up about what could have happened. One wit said, “I know! They’ve poisoned our bubble gum!” Yeah, serious thinkers, these girls. Unconfirmed rumors about the assassination floated. The teacher came back, told us that the President had, indeed, been shot, but warned us not to tell the younger students and look out for them on the way home.

I raced home, turned on the TV for confirmation and went upstairs to my mother to give her the horrific news as she lay in bed. I burst into tears. I honestly don’t remember her reaction. Certainly no comfort came from her. I believe she asked me to leave her room. But soon the edict came down: the news was too depressing. She didn’t want the TV on in the house (though from her bedroom, she couldn’t hear it). I was not allowed to watch much of the coverage throughout the following three days.

My father’s 50th birthday was November 23. With the help of my two aunts (my mother’s oldest sister lived in Greater Detroit, as did most of my father’s siblings), there was a 50th birthday party/house warming party planned, even with my mother in her current state. One sister lent her a pink satin bed jacket, so she could receive visitors in bed. It was too late to cancel it, despite the devastating news from the previous day. The family gathered, marveled at our new home, sampled the proffered food, sang “Happy Birthday”, visited my mother in bed. It was surreal, like something disconnected from time. We couldn’t actually be happy, given what had just taken place in Dallas the day before, and with the “hostess” in bed. I’ve always referred to it as the saddest party on earth. I remember no joy, even though it was probably good to be with family at such a moment.

7 months earlier at Uncle Art’s 65th birthday (my dad’s oldest brother), including 6 of the Sarason siblings. Dad is on the left. I have no photos from Dad’s party.

I was sent to neighbors for most of the three day period of mourning for the President. The Pearlmans had four children, one was my age and in my class in school, a real friend; a daughter two years younger, with whom I became friendly; a year-older son who sort of tormented all of us, and an older, brilliant son, who would soon be off to Harvard. (I remained in touch with the parents until their deaths.)

I did not get to see the funeral, nor see John, Jr salute his father’s casket though I had devoutly adored the Kennedys since seeing the movie “PT 109” years earlier (it had nothing to do with politics and everything to do with image). Those iconic images were lost for me.

I begged for, and was given, an early Chanukkah present: a OUIJA board, which I took over to the Pearlmans and we played with that by the hour. They were a wonderful distraction, but I never got over being denied the opportunity to mourn for the fallen President with the rest of the country and work out my grief collectively.

I became obsessed with the assassination and all things Kennedy. The Featured Photo is the first (of many) books I bought on the topic, this one purchased with my own allowance money. I didn’t get to the news stand quickly enough (I wasn’t quite 11 years old), so did not get a copy of Life Magazine from that week, but have MANY more from subsequent anniversaries. I clipped every newspaper story about the family. I have two banker’s boxes filled with magazines and clippings, and shelves full of books, too many to enumerate here, but here is one comprehensive, famous one.

I have a dear friend who lives outside of Dallas. I visited her for the first time in that location in the brisk winter of 1994. Knowing my Kennedy obsession, we drove down to Dealey Plaza. We stood on the grassy knoll and looked in all directions, imagining the events of that long-ago Friday (I’ve seen the Zapruder film). We went to the Book Depository Museum and looked out the window. I wrote a cri de cour in the Visitors Book. I thought it would be a cathartic moment, but I did not have a revelation, nor find closure.

There is nothing more for me to do. I know of my psychic wounds. The participants are dead. Those four days are inextricably bound up with national and family trauma and the psychodrama of young adolescence from which I try to move on. I hope the nation does not ever head down that path again.

Huntington Woods house, March, 2015. It was white with black shutters when we owned it. I did not knock on the door. It does not hold pleasant memories for me.