Chapter 1 - Sam & Ida Rappaport
Other Relatives
Mom had three brothers: Uncle Hymie, the oldest, Uncle Morris, and Uncle Mitchell (Mike). Uncle Hymie and Aunt Rose and their family lived in Toledo. Of Mom's out of town relatives, these are the ones we saw the most of. We visited them in Toledo, and every year they drove down and visited us in Rochester. Also, some of the Toledo children stayed with us while studying at the Eastman School of Music. This is another talented family. Mitch, who played flute, stayed with us, and so did Pauline and Edith, string players. Anne and Irene are the other daughters. (The reader will note that Sam & Ida Rappaport's children are related to some musically gifted people.)
Uncle Mike's family lived in Cincinnati. Uncle Mike and his wife Esther and their children visited us in Rochester once. He is remembered by us as saying: "It's just as easy to love a rich person as it is a poor one." They had a son, Perry, and a daughter, Charlotte.
Uncle Morris also lived in Toledo. He left there after his wife died, in the mid-1930s, and drove to Rochester in an old touring car, either a 4-door convertible, or a 4-door with no top. He stayed with us for several weeks, it seems, while on his way west. He didn't have a specific destination in mind when he left Rochester. He said that he planned to drive west until his car quit. Apparently the car quit in Columbia, Tennessee. That is where he ended up. He had been a tailor, and he opened a tailor shop in Columbia. Mom would write him several times a year, but he never answered her. On her birthday, though, she would receive a box of stockings from her brother Morris in Columbia, Tennessee. Uncle Morris had no children.
Uncle Mike and Uncle Morris were both in the Army during World War I, and we have photos of them in uniform. There is one photo of Uncle Mike on a horse that has been a favorite of the family because Uncle Mike never seemed the type of man to get on or near a horse. He was neat and clean, not the horsy type.
Pop had another sister. Jenny Goldstein, a red head, who lived in Philadelphia, but we lost touch with her. Pop didn't make much of an effort to keep in touch with his sister. The family did make one trip to visit her in Philadelphia, where she and her husband operated a cab company. Jenny had a daughter, Cleo, and there used to be plenty of photos of Cleo, a beautiful girl, in the house. But, we just lost touch. ("Keeping in touch") was done by mail. We would never make a long distance phone call just to find out how someone is doing. Long distance was saved for important messages.) (Not "keeping in touch" with relatives seems to be fairly common in our family. With few exceptions we don't see or write to our cousins.)
Pop had two cousins, the brothers Sam and Nathan Rappoport (another spelling of the name), living in Brooklyn. This part of the family he did keep in touch with by calling on them whenever he and Mom were in New York visiting Mollie and Lou. Sam and Mary Rappoport's children were Edith and Bernie, who later came to live in Rochester, Arthur, a physician who interned at General Hospital in Rochester, and a daughter Ruth. Nathan Rappoport's children were Milton, Edith, and Bernard. The boys were both doctors, and when Milton changed his name to Roberts, Bernie felt compelled to do the same.
There was another cousin of Pop's in California, Boris Rapport (yet another spelling). He came to the US after living for a while in Harbin, China. Pop did not make any effort that we knew of to communicate with him. Buck met Boris and Boris's son Jack when he was in California in 1961.
Pop still had some family left in Russia. We can remember sending letters to Russia and receiving the letters in the odd shaped blue envelopes with the strange stamps. But once World War II started in 1939 there were no more letters.
While we seldom saw the out of town relatives, when we did it was special. When Aunt Rose and Uncle Hymie would come from Toledo and stay with us, it became a party, at least for the kids. When they came the children gave up their beds and slept on the couch, the lucky one, or more likely on the floor. The house could be wall-to-wall kids, and it was great fun for us. We probably looked forward to those visits more than Mom and Pop did.
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