Uncle Mickel and Sania his wife with the extended family
up they simply kicked clothes under the beds or hid them under the blankets. When the girls had a date they kicked clothes under the sofa. In those days before refrigerators, milk and other foods that needed to be cold, were kept in an icebox – just a cabinet lined with sheet metal and with a shelf for a block of ice. Once some milk was spilled in the ice box; Uncle Michel’s family cat was recruited to clean up the mess. Unfortu- nately for the cat Uncle Michel closed the icebox door and forgot about the cat. Two hours later they opened the door and the nearly frozen cat jumped out. That cat had a charmed life. Uncle Michel had a bird that he loved and kept in a cage on the second floor of his home. One day he goes upstairs to visit his bird and finds the cat licking his whis- kers and there are bird feathers all over the floor. When Uncle Michel realized what had happened he grabbed the cat and threw him out the second story window. When the cat landed in the street he just got up and walked away. That’s why people say cats have nine lives. EVERY CHILD NEEDS A PET Uncle Michel kept a barrel of pickled herring. As a child I remember him hooking a string
through a herring’s mouth and giving it to his children as a pull toy. They were undoubtedly the only children in Pennsylvania who had a pet herring. One of the Sefferen boys, who was very short, was dating a big blonde girl. When he would take her out in the family car he sat on a large phone book to bring himself up to her level. My cousin Ruthie, one of the Sefferen grand- children, had Infantile Paralysis, also known as Polio, a terrible disease that crippled her. Polio was a plague during those years before a vaccine was developed. Many children were permanent- ly disabled and parents constantly worried about their children getting it. Ruthie’s mother, Alice, was married to a man who was very successful in the dungaree business. Tante Sania, Uncle Michel’s wife, was a very talented fiddle player. I remember her playing and walking along the boardwalk in Atlantic City with many children following her to listen to her music when World War II ended. She was the Pied Piper of Atlantic City. Even when Sania became quite deaf she continued to play beauti- fully from memory. She was our “Fiddler on the Roof.” She learned her musical skills in Russia. But Uncle Michel was the star of the Sefferen 37
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