Dora’s House, Chester, Pennsylvania
MARRIED LIFE BEGINS When Herman recovered we began our marriage in earnest. Despite the rocky start Herman and I were in love and three and a half months later I was pregnant. I left the dress busi- ness to Pearl and Al and became a stay-at-home mother-to-be. Of course the home I was staying in was my mother-in-law’s. Nana Dora was very particular about her kitchen. She would often cook on a second stove she had in the basement rather than make a mess in the upstairs kitchen. About four months after we started living with Nana Dora I decided to have a dinner party. My guests were Herman’s broth- ers and their wives, Pearl and Albert, and my old boyfriend Al Pollack. Why Al Pollack, you ask? I ask myself the same question. How could I have been so insensitive as to invite a man I had recently been dating to dinner at my new husband’s house? I have no excuse. The meal was to consist of a salad to begin, rib roast, potatoes, and a vegetable, plus dessert and coffee. Don’t even try to imagine how nervous I was. I don’t know if anything turned out right. I needed all the help I could get. On top of it, I smoked up Nana Dora’s kitchen. It was a long time before I had another dinner party. Three months later Dora announced that she
would not be home to make dinner for Herman and me tonight. I was on my own. I spent the day at my sister-in-law Ida’s place playing Scrab- ble. All day I worried about the meal I would be responsible for that evening. You might think this was going to be a complicated meal, right? It was hamburgers, a can of spaghetti and a can of peas. But when you don’t know anything about cooking
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