Once when we had a day at the beach I was digging in the sand and found a wallet with two and a half dollars in it. You can’t imagine how much money that was in those days. We used the money to fix my bicycle. To give you another sense of how tough times were, one day some men came to repossess our furniture. I must have been a feisty little girl because I remember punching them again and again for making my mother cry. My sister, Pearl, who was then about four years old, got very sick with double-pneumonia. With no money for proper care she was in danger of dying. My mother told me that a Japanese doctor saved her by putting long needles in her feet. That sounds like acupuncture, but I really have no idea. What- ever did it, Pearl pulled through.
THE LONG WAY HOME Not long before we gave up on California to return to Philadelphia my mother gave birth to my brother, Allen. When she went to the hospi- tal a woman I didn’t know took care of us kids. I remember waking up and seeing this strange, homely woman and being frightened at her appearance. Fortunately she turned out to be very nice. When Allen was about six months old, just as the family was preparing to leave California, he contracted whooping cough. At the time there was no vaccination for this highly contagious disease making it often fatal to infants. The plan was for my mother to travel by train with us children. My father would follow driving an oil tanker that he had built himself. Both trips were eventful with my mother managing all of us and trying to get medical care for Allen every time the train stopped. One doctor told her that her baby wouldn’t make it if the trip continued. But, as with most things when you have no choice, my mother continued on. Luckily Allen did make it. My memory of that train trip includes seeing the sunrise over some mountains. What I was doing up at dawn I have no idea, but I had never seen anything so beautiful, and so close it seemed I could touch it.
Part of original immigration document
Lejby Szlugera
Mr. & Mrs. Leon and Sadie Schluger
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