GHENADY ST., JEWISH QUARTER, LOS ANGELES 1933
My dad, Harry Dubake, was an adventurous dude, especially for an immigrant Jew from Romania. Very little frightened him. In 1927, after he married my mom, Freida, also a immigrant Jewess from Poland, he bought a Model A Ford and with their two year old baby girl Eshy, they drove cross-country to Hollywood.
His Uncle Louis was writing them these warm optimistic letters in Yiddish telling them of the ‘goldeneh Medina’, a veritable gold strewn heaven on earth for good Russian and Romanian furriers in Los Angeles. Uncle Louie had started up a small business in Los Angeles after leaving New York with the idea to make fur coats for all the hot Hollywood big shot stars of the late 1920s. He wrote my father if he could find his way out west from Brooklyn to Hollywood, he could be a partner in his fur coat business.
So that’s what Harry Dubake did. . .bought his first car from Henry Ford, took my mom and my oldest sister, Eshy, and headed out to the West Coast—must have been a scream these Romanian and Polish Jewish immigrants driving cross-country in 1927. . .balls, ‘chutspah’, far as I can tell, it probably runs in the genes.
Stories they told us was that they were really doing well in California in partners with Uncle Louis, making money making mink, otter and Alaskan Seal coats. The two families—Mine and Uncle Louis Becker's family of four he brought out from The Bronx—bought this four-bedroom two-story house both families lived in. My middle sister Rosie was born there in LA in 1930 and then I was born in the same Los Angeles bungalow, July 1932.
Everything was going A-OK, swimmingly, for these immigrant Jews in LA. They had all their fur equipment and sewing machines set up in the basement of the house. . .when in 1933—I wasn’t even a year old—a major earthquake hits them, totally unannounced, right where the house was situated on Ghenady Street, in downtown LA. It was called ‘The Long Beach Earthquake’, no less than a six point six on the scale! The epicenter was in Long Beach but the fault line ran through the old Jewish neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles and really did up a mess of houses, bungalows . . .major cave-ins up and down the block.
Our house just completely collapsed while they were all eating dinner, can you imagine! Every one did the duck & cover or hauled ass, dishes crashing all around them, screaming “gevalt!. . .’gevalt!”! Harry and Freida grabbed up my two older sisters and Uncle Louis’, marshaling his family out from under the dinner table, they all ran out of the house whilst the walls literally were crashing down around them.
Harry, Freida, my sisters Eshy, almost seven, and little three year old Rosie, my Uncle Louie, and his wife with their two kids in tow, all miraculously got out of the collapsing house as best they could, and out onto the street.
In total bewilderment, they all looked around—the earthquake's loud, horrendous, cracking sounds and tremors having abated for a moment—just as my mother Freida started screaming at all of them, at the top of her lungs, wildly!
“Vee is der kind? Oooy Oooooy, gevalt, a got is mir!!. . .vee is Efroim?. . .vee ist de baby de baby?”
Freida was yelling bloody murder at my Uncle Louie and husband Harry, hitting at both about the head and shoulders, their eyes glazed, finally popped in realization—“de baby!, ve got to get da baby!” the two men screamed, and they ran headlong into the crumbling ruins of the collapsed two-story house.
I the baby was supposed to be in my crib on the upper floor. . .but there was no second floor left! My dad and Uncle Louie began moving fallen beams and rubble as some other men came over to help, until they finally spotted my overturned crib in what was, in fact, their illegal fur workshop in the basement. They managed to free the crib from the piled on rubble and lifting it up, turned the crib over.
There was I, ‘Buster-boychikle Froimaleh’, a sturdy seven-month-old, sitting up, playing ‘potch potch henty’ (patty-cake) complete with a bright, happy two-front-tooth’d smile plastered on my gorgeous little face!
Like always, efsher, maybe, I thought, I could get lucky again!!…….
His Uncle Louis was writing them these warm optimistic letters in Yiddish telling them of the ‘goldeneh Medina’, a veritable gold strewn heaven on earth for good Russian and Romanian furriers in Los Angeles. Uncle Louie had started up a small business in Los Angeles after leaving New York with the idea to make fur coats for all the hot Hollywood big shot stars of the late 1920s. He wrote my father if he could find his way out west from Brooklyn to Hollywood, he could be a partner in his fur coat business.
So that’s what Harry Dubake did. . .bought his first car from Henry Ford, took my mom and my oldest sister, Eshy, and headed out to the West Coast—must have been a scream these Romanian and Polish Jewish immigrants driving cross-country in 1927. . .balls, ‘chutspah’, far as I can tell, it probably runs in the genes.
Stories they told us was that they were really doing well in California in partners with Uncle Louis, making money making mink, otter and Alaskan Seal coats. The two families—Mine and Uncle Louis Becker's family of four he brought out from The Bronx—bought this four-bedroom two-story house both families lived in. My middle sister Rosie was born there in LA in 1930 and then I was born in the same Los Angeles bungalow, July 1932.
Everything was going A-OK, swimmingly, for these immigrant Jews in LA. They had all their fur equipment and sewing machines set up in the basement of the house. . .when in 1933—I wasn’t even a year old—a major earthquake hits them, totally unannounced, right where the house was situated on Ghenady Street, in downtown LA. It was called ‘The Long Beach Earthquake’, no less than a six point six on the scale! The epicenter was in Long Beach but the fault line ran through the old Jewish neighborhood near downtown Los Angeles and really did up a mess of houses, bungalows . . .major cave-ins up and down the block.
Our house just completely collapsed while they were all eating dinner, can you imagine! Every one did the duck & cover or hauled ass, dishes crashing all around them, screaming “gevalt!. . .’gevalt!”! Harry and Freida grabbed up my two older sisters and Uncle Louis’, marshaling his family out from under the dinner table, they all ran out of the house whilst the walls literally were crashing down around them.
Harry, Freida, my sisters Eshy, almost seven, and little three year old Rosie, my Uncle Louie, and his wife with their two kids in tow, all miraculously got out of the collapsing house as best they could, and out onto the street.
In total bewilderment, they all looked around—the earthquake's loud, horrendous, cracking sounds and tremors having abated for a moment—just as my mother Freida started screaming at all of them, at the top of her lungs, wildly!
“Vee is der kind? Oooy Oooooy, gevalt, a got is mir!!. . .vee is Efroim?. . .vee ist de baby de baby?”
Freida was yelling bloody murder at my Uncle Louie and husband Harry, hitting at both about the head and shoulders, their eyes glazed, finally popped in realization—“de baby!, ve got to get da baby!” the two men screamed, and they ran headlong into the crumbling ruins of the collapsed two-story house.
I the baby was supposed to be in my crib on the upper floor. . .but there was no second floor left! My dad and Uncle Louie began moving fallen beams and rubble as some other men came over to help, until they finally spotted my overturned crib in what was, in fact, their illegal fur workshop in the basement. They managed to free the crib from the piled on rubble and lifting it up, turned the crib over.
There was I, ‘Buster-boychikle Froimaleh’, a sturdy seven-month-old, sitting up, playing ‘potch potch henty’ (patty-cake) complete with a bright, happy two-front-tooth’d smile plastered on my gorgeous little face!
Like always, efsher, maybe, I thought, I could get lucky again!!…….
I just love this dramatic beginning for what is obviously going to be a dramatic life. It takes me to a time and place I never experienced, yet oddly enough feel a certain nostalgia for. Look forward to the next episode. Please let me know when it's posted.
ReplyDeleteNaomi Beth Wakan (Canada)
Great blog Pops!
ReplyDeleteWhat happened to the "Who can live like this?", packed up the model T and headed back to Brooklyn.
Looking for ward to you next post and fondest of my memories!
Garin.
Good read Papa Fred!, I look forward to reading more when you put it up.
ReplyDeleteHarrison
Wow! What a beginning! I can only imagine your family's great relief.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward to future blog posts, for sure.
With warm regards,
Mary
This is a great idea for a blog. I am starting here at #1 so I haven't got to your latest posts yet. Very interesting and entertaining. My own ethnic heritage is very different to yours. But what I have in common is that my father's and mother's people were immigrants -- Spain, Sicily, Ireland -- and that is a strong commonality for people of such diverse ethnicity.
ReplyDelete