25/11/23 Ruth's Narrative
The Tatah was a Orthodox Rabbi that got a years contract at small town congregation but after a year he had to move as he was not popular. He worked as a Hebrew teacher and kosher slaughterer, and a mohel and had worked at Glen Falls, Bellville , New York , New Jersey, Port Jervis. In 1929 the came to Suffolk Virginia which was a peanut capital with a couple of movie theatres and a few stores and a white and black side of town.
Tatah set up Shilski's Grocery Store in the black part of town and it was closed on Saturday but the only store open on Sunday. There was a lot of through traffic as well as soldiers based at Norfolk and the business did quite well. Tatah abused her Ruth. It was a place of Klu Klux Klan and Tatah did not like blacks.
There was her brother Sam, her and younger sister Dee Dee and the father would teach them the old testament.
Soon after Sam's bar mitzvah he ran away from home in 1934 to Chicago and would write letter to his Mamah in English but Ruth had to translate them into Yiddish as she spoke little English.
Suffolk had a black school a white school and a tulmud torah at the shull, teaching Hebrew and bar mitzvah. Jews had to buy property in certain areas some places were reserved for WASPs. Both black and white were very poor and they would fish to get crabs and turtles on the Nansemond River. their family were never hungry but lacked love.
She had one friend at school who was prepared to play with her despite her being Jewish. Ruth had a relationship with a black boy Peter which was very dangerous, she fell pregnant and her mother who knew sent her to her grandmother in NY where her grandmother got her an abortion. She did a year at Girls' commercial high school and then returned to Suffolk to finish school. In NY she stayed at Bubah (grandma) and worked at aunt Marys leather factory while she was at school. At the time Dennis was working there. She describes Harlem in those day as the centre of entertainment, and got different jobs there.
Back in Suffolk Peter meanwhile got a black girl pregnant and married her. Tatah would take her to meet his Jewish suppliers to find a marriage partner and she learned the business thornily. Tatah wanted to set her up on a trade route with the farmers of the area and she could have made a lot of money, she drove a truck here. Mamah was ill and could only use one hand but managed to cook and do everything. Tatah went off with a non Jewish woman with 4 to 5 kids and wanted Ruth to look after Mamah but she had to get away and Dee Dee held this against her.
1941 Summer Bubah died and they sent a letter to Tatah about this Ruth had to translate it into Yiddish, later on Mamah died and now she was totally cut off from Suffolk
Bach in Harlem she lived with Dennis who had come from High Point, North Carolina the same town as John Coltrane As a musician Dennis could not make a living. They had children together and later he married her. This was at a time when most interracial marriages did not last. The lived in a single room sharing a bathroom and kitchen in 1943. Dennis went to night school and qualified in Divinity. They now lived in a house in Red Hook and they set up a church in their home.
When they had enough members they found a place for the church and Ruth had to hire it as the owner did not want blacks. Dennis got ill with respiratory disease and died, Ruth did not know while he was dying of cancer. Ruth now a widow had been with Dennis for 16 years.1957 Soon after James the 8th child, the writer was born. When she tried to contact her family now her aunt did not want to know her and she found out that her brother Sam her brother had died in the war.
James's (the author) narrative
The end of the book James gives a list of his sibling and the fact that all of them have more than one degree some are doctors, academics, professors etc
8 McBrides Andrew , Rosetta, William , David , Helen , Richard, Dorothy , James.
4 Jordans Kathy, Judy. Hunter, Henry. In the end Ruth herself got a BA at Temple University.
1966 Black Power permeated St . Albans Queen, Malcolm X had been killed the year before. Mom instructed us never to reveal details of our home to people of authority like shopkeepers , social workers etc. Ruth worked at the Chase Manhattan Bank on the shift from 3 pm till 2 am. James parents believed that money without knowledge was worthless. Education tempered with religion was the way to climb. She considered white folks evil to blacks but forced her children to go to white school to get the best education. "What is money if your mind is empty"
Our house was a combination of a 3 ring circus and a zoo.
When she went shopping for clothing it would be to get the best deals at Delancey street where she negotiated in Yiddish but would not tell her children how she spoke that. She spoke about Jews as being different to other. whites. When the children asked her what color is god she answered "the Color of Water" She said she was light skinned and when asked if they were black she answered the are "Human Beings"
Every year the New York Public school System would send out a notice of vacant places in schools enabling kids to be bussed from other areas to fill them, and her kids ended up travelling miles to schools at predominantly Jewish white neighborhoods.
His older brother Richie was arrested on a minor offence and told to plead guilty by the court appointed lawyer, Ruth got up ran to the white judge and burst out that her son is a collage student and get top marks. The judge seeing her a white women cancelled the charges, if she would take responsibility for her son. Other wise the children were embarrassed that they had a white mother. The stepfather Hunter Jordan Sr. was easy going and treated all the children as his own. James regarded himself as a black man with a Jewish soul.
Hunter Sn. lived in his own house near work he worked for the NY municipality fixing and operating their boilers and came home to them on weekends. He had a beautiful house that he had paid off the mortgage and had put his soul into it, it was appropriated for development and he was paid out very little as the area was being renewed. After that he moved in with them permanently. It was traumatic when the stepfather died after 14 years marriage and Ruth was in a state of depression. James now neglected his school work and started taking drugs. Ruth then sent James to stay with father's sister Jack in Louisville, Kentucky for summer. Here he saw how people lived and realized the importance of education when he got back.
1974 most of the older kids were studying on scholarships and could not help her so she sold the house in NY and moved to Wilmington, Delaware where the cost of a house was cheaper but commute to school or work longer.
1975Graduated from school and when he got into Oberlin Collage on a scholarship to study music she put him onto the Greyhound bus with tears in her eyes she knew it was her duty to send her children away. She did not want him to be close by collage as it would not be good for him.
1982 he was in the south and to Suffolk the grocery store had become McDonalds and he knocked on the neighbors door introduced himself. "You mean you are Rabbi Shilsky's grandson" James phoned his Mom who then cried on the phone when she spoke to Eddie.
By now James had been a successful reported and moved to the better news papers but kept giving up his jobs and always got hired at other papers. He was already married with 2 children. Once doing a report on a Jewish school in Quean's and he mentioned he had a Jewish mother the headmistress told him that then by Jewish law he is Jewish.
1992 He knew he had a story about his mother especially because she was so busy hiding her past and as a reporter started to research and went to Suffolk. He found that DeeDee left Suffolk soon after her mother died one semester before graduation. The few left of the Jewish community made him very welcome and told him that the next generation had moved off, there had been up to 30 Jewish families at one time. Ruth's brother Sam had been in the air force and died flying over Alaska. Eventually he traced her friend Frances and she and Ruth picked up where they left off.
In his music career James sold some of his compositions and won the Stephen Sondheim awards for theater composition.
This book has sold 2 million copies and is studied at schools.
2010 Ruth Mc Bride Jordan died aged 88 in Ewing NJ. Born Ruchel Zylsk, then Rachel Shilsky, Ruth McBride and finally Ruth Mc Bride Jordan.
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The Heaven and Earth Grocery Store by James McBride.2023 389pg 8/11/23
This is a work of fiction but based on the Color of water you understand that Chona reflects Mc Brides Grandmother as well as his own real mother. While his own grandmother was unloved and treated badly and deserted by her husband Chona has a happy and loved life.
1972 June The State Troopers found a skeleton at the bottom of a well and it had a mezuzah with it. This was in Hayes street and the next day the street' was torn up for development. They knocked on the door of the only old Jew living on Chicken Hill of Pottstown where the old synagogue used to be. Except for Chicken Hill the whole town was washed into the Monatawny Creek in a storm a few days later. This was 1972 when Hurricane Agnes struck.
47 years before the Moshe could talk the horns off a devils head. Chicken Hill was the run down area where the towns Jews, blacks, immigrants who couldn't afford better lived. Chona gave Moshe a talk on Moses and he fell in love with her. The parents were overjoyed that someone was marrying their disabled daughter. This was a real love marriage despite being childless. Chona's mother died 2 years after the marriage.
Moshe financed by his cousin ran a dance hall theater and brought Black bands and his fortune grew. Moshe now wanted to move to a better neighborhood buy Chona refused. Nate worked for Moshe at the theater and his wife Addie helped in the grocery store that Chona would not give up. She also suffered from a strange illness. Chona and Moshe had 12 wonderful years together and went to far off doctors as they didn't like the local Doc Roberts, who had been at school with Chona had a crush on her as he also had a Polio limp. He had marched at the head of the Ku Klux Klan and she wrote to the press that you can recognize him despite the sheets he wore in a KKK parade. On parade day the Jewish stores closed and the Negroes were not seen on the street. Chona kept her store open. Negroes fill Chona life with tales and stories about their escaping the south.
Isaac had led his cousin Moshe over 1000miles on Europe to get to Hamburg and America. at 37 his had the biggest theater in Philadelphia. Malachi bought the bakery but because he did not know the business and baked such bad hallah went bankrupt. Passed away = she got her wings.
Homes were enclosed by the filth of factories that belched bitter smoke into a grey sky.
Dodo was a kid that was hurt when the stove exploded and lost his hearing and was looked after by Nate and Addie. Chona gave him shelter in the shop to hide him when the state wanted to put him into an institution, he would cross the fence to Bernice brood of kids when the inspector came. She was a single parent not even Nate raised the question as to who was the father or fathers. Somebody had given Dodo away.
Bernice Davis was Fatty Davis's sister and at school with Chona could sing like a Robin everywhere but not at school.
Nates work crew had build the Rebs, 3 story house with the grocery store on ground floor.
17Jewish families raised money to build a shull. Moshe wanted to contract Nate but the German Jews wanted a proper architect who pocketed the money and left Pottstown.
Shad was saving to send his children to Lincoln University a Negro collage in Oxford Pa. or Oberlin College Ohio the first white university to take Negros in America.
Chona and Bernice each made a dress Bernice's was better both using the same stitch, however the teacher ripped it apart as it was not the stitch type she had instructed this broke up the friendship.
Chona read about socialism and Emma Goldberg.
The WASPs all claimed to have originated on the Mayflower of 1620 but this was nonsense. Doc's society was established before the Jew, Greeks, Mennonites and Russian Orthodox arrived and the Negroes came from the south.
By 1932 , Bethlehem Steel, Jacobs Aircraft Engine Company and established there.
A girl married Doc because he was a doctor they had 3 children and a loveless marriage. He was always attracted to Chona. Descent white people attended the Presbyterian Church. " Jews and Negroes were polluting the towns white teenager with their Jazz, Chona husband was the worst". Chona had never been one to play by the rules of American society. Every act of living was a chance for Tikun Olum. The women with the bad foot was all soul.
Doc came into the store Chona had a epileptic fit and he attempted to rape her. Dodo who was hiding in the store attacked him and police were called and Dodo who tried to escape broke his legs and was put into the Pennhurst, mental asylums'. Dodos real name was Holly Herring. "Dodo would get a good education there" The rumour about Doc raping was in town. "pity there nwas no white man in th store , it would put an end to the rumour" Doc was in a state on nerves and somehow had Chonas mezuza pendant in his pocket which he wanted to dump at Chicken hill.
Dodo he learns sign language to talk to Monkey Pants. When Son of Man the orderly rapes him Monkey Pants throws feces on him. Dodo understood this was an act of love and solidarity.
Jews here no longer want Yiddish music and theatre they want to be cowboys and even Negro musicians.
Louis Armstrong had the powerful Joe Glazer as a manager.
The Spanish singer brought descarga , ponchando ,tango , piano guajeos , mamba, Africano Cubano. They introduced Puerto Rican, Dominican Panamanian , Cuban Ecuadorian , Mexican music. Sister Rosetta Thorpe was a gospel singer of the 30s and 40s.
Nate had served in Graterford Prison where he was called Nate Love. He was scared of locked places.
The shull mikva was getting water from the farm pump it had been clandestinely joined but now with drought had run empty. Dealing with the anti-Semites of the local council was a problem. The frog in the mikva. story. The wells were drying out and Nate was asked to secretly join the shull water pipe to the council on. The manhole lid had to be replace with new concrete cover
Lowgods
The town was made great by being cannon makes gun makers steelmakers. The celebrate George Washington victory at Valley Forge.
Skrup was a master shoe maker who could do anything with shoes
Plitzka the mayor of had gamboling debts. Fatty and Bernice's father had planned to save money to send them to collage but he died young. Doc Roberts was mistaken for Plizka as he was wearing a Red military uniform instead of Blue and beaten up. He wondered and fell down the manhole which was later covered.
The guy who delivered eggs to the asylum, Nate opened the door to meet Son of Man and plunged a knife into his heart. He got hold of Dodo then
onto the train where it was arranged that 2 railway workers to get them away.
Nate went south and had 3 children and eventually died in 1972.
This book is full of humour with a happy ending, its similar to Mark Twain and Dodo is the Tom Sawyer character. Dodo attempts to fly to escape.
Malachi is prophet number 12 followed by Jesus. negroes know who they are. Bernice echoes Mc Brides real mother who had 12 children. Micky the egg man is a Faulkner type character. There is the theme of antisemitism, remember the 1960 the good relations between Jews and blacks.
McBride aged 19 saw a job offered at a summer camp for a dishwasher but was given the job of a councilor, he had no idea, then, that the four summers he would spend at the Variety Club Camp for Handicapped Children in Worcester, Pa., would leave an indelible impression on his life - and become the foundation for his new novel "The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store." for 15 years he tried to write about his experience there
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