Birth...1899
The young Father paced restlessly up and down the kitchen floor, with his eyes glued to the bedroom. "Well, Mr. Zavelski," the midwife at last pulled the curtains aside and announced over her shoulder, "you have another baby girl -- just as I said it would be."
I was the third daughter born to Loeb and Sarah Zavelski, in the backward country Czarist-Russia, under the harsh reign of Nicholas II, the last Czar. And they named me Maryka.
Like thousands of babies in the late '90's, I was born without the aid of modern-day obstetrics and without the aid of a physician. In the dim light of a kerosene lamp, the midwife simply took a rope and tied it to the foot of the bed, and told my young mother to slowly pull me out of my peaceful slumber -- into a turbulent world.
Childhood
The first seven years of my childhood, the most formative and impressionable years, were not devoted to play, school, or creativeness. We constantly suffered from waves of revolutionary disturbances, pogroms, and riots. The world as I knew it then, was largely full of fears and frustrations. Windows were always covered with heavy shutters to keep stones from flying through. People in Czarist-Russia were hungry, cold and barefoot.
Migration
The migration of Russian Jews was stimulated by the bloody massacres and outrages perpetrated in Kishinev in 1903. Like thousands of others, my father escaped from Russia into Hamburg, Germany. There was no saying "good-bye" at a railroad station, and there was no way of knowing whether father was even alive, or what had become of him. Sixty days and sixty nights limped by without a word from him. My mother was left with five children ranging in age from three to nine, and another child on the way to be born in a few months.
At last one day came a letter postmarked "Brooklyn, New York." Mother held the letter shakily in her hands. "Dear Sarah and Children." Papa wrote hurriedly. "I am safe in America, but oh so lonely. Soon I will send for you all. Hope you are all well."
Leaving Russia...
Not out of movies, nor out of books, but from the stories Mama had heard and retold to us, I had formed a picture in my mind of America. A little girl's creation -- that all little girls wore shiny slippers; frocks with pink sashes; that all dolls had hair and eyes that opened and closed; that everyone was happy and rich; that everyone ate a lot and laughed a lot.
Then one day, nearly eighteen months later, there came a letter from the New World. Papa, single-handed, from his $12.00 weekly earnings as a bookbinder, had purchased passage tickets, second class, for the entire family; furniture on the installment plan; and rented a house at $6.00 a month.
Packing began at once. And now for the first time we were all happy. Oh, so happy. But with this happiness came a sudden feeling of great sadness too, for my Mama and for us as well. We discovered that there was no passage ticket for our aged grandfather. And we were to bid our seventy-five year old grandfather "farewell," never to see him again. Grandfather's spirits were crushed when the news came to him that we were all to sail to America and leave him alone -- to die. "My last daughter. The only grandchildren I ever knew, he uttered tearfully."
The Trip
At last the great day came, a day of happiness, sadness, good-byes and tears. In 1906, we crossed a stormy Atlantic on the White Star Liner, Caronia. The trip took nearly eight weeks. We were constantly detained at various ports of entry.
At last, the Statue of Liberty, with its blazing torch against a dark March sky, had slowly risen to welcome us. The Caronia was finally docking at Ellis Island. Immigrants from all corners of the earth stood on the long deck, in anxious anticipation of that great promise that the New World held to them -- Liberty! Freedom! And Justice --for all!
Leaning against the rail stood Mama. On either side of Mama's arms and skirts, clung the six of us - Rachel (10); Minnie (9); Maryka (7); Anna (5); Lester (3); Rubin (2). Mama watched wearily for her first glimpse of America. And tremulously, we all waved to the Statue of Liberty as it was gradually coming into full view under the moon and stars.
I was hardly aware where I was until someone had shouted:
"Amerika! Amerika!'
Then voices were lifted in song
"...Sweet Land of Liberty..."
"Soon I will see my Papa!" I murmured excitedly...And I could hardly wait.
