Synopsis: Chicken Hill Chronicle

Americana memoir

Chicken Hill Chronicle
A Saga of Life in Small Town America

By Lawrence Cohen & Norman Cohen (deceased)


Preface

During a family gathering, eighty-two year old Norman Cohen becomes incensed. A causal remark by his sister about their father releases long repressed memories. For the first time Norman realizes the extent of his parents’ lengthy mistreatment of their oldest son. He slips into depression. To salve his anguish he crafts an autobiography which his son attempts to edit. The end product is a kaleidoscope of family stories reaching back to nineteenth century immigrants.

Prologue

It is 1930. Norman Cohen gives serious consideration about college. The best math student in his class, Norman decides to study engineering. On the advice of an instructor, he applies to only one school, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. RPI sends an acceptance letter. In the meantime, the country’ economic fortunes turn sour. The Great Depression has begun. Norman’s mother Yetta opens the letter from RPI. She informs her eldest son the family cannot afford to send him to college. Norman meekly accepts his mother’s verdict. He spends the next decade in dead-end shoe store jobs. Four years later, however, Yetta and her husband Abe send their daughter to college. To get the money, his parents sold their political party registration to the family’s worst enemy, Joe Printz! Norman also learns his mother secretly accumulated a college fund for her two daughters. He does not understand. Why do his sisters get to go to college and not him?


PART I Die goldene medina

Chapter One Lantzmen

Alexander Estreicher and Jacob Feldman, lantzmen from Galicia, Austria-Hungary, travel by train to Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where they hope to find work in the coal fields. They are almost penniless. In his pocket Estreicher holds the Shenandoah Coal Company handbill from previous employment years earlier. Estreicher’s English is poor, Feldman’s is non-existent. From the train the two men admire the Pennsylvania countryside. Awakened from his nap by the conductor’s call for the next stop, Estreicher tells Feldman that they are getting off. Estreicher and Feldman descend from the train. Although the surroundings are unfamiliar, Estreicher is unworried. They enter the terminal hall. Estreicher approaches the railroad clerk and asks directions. The clerk is confused. He looks at the handbill. Estreicher and Feldman, he says, have gotten off at the wrong station. Instead of PottsVILLE, the two men are in PottsTOWN! The clerk begins to laugh uncontrollably.

Chapter Two Rose

Adolph Markowitz rushes to his wife Raisal. A letter arrived from her brother Emmanuel Schwartz. It contains passage money for him to go to America. The letter forces a decision on the young couple. If Adolph departs, the separation could be for years. What will happen to Raisal and their four young children? Raisal reflects on their situation. She decides her husband must go to die goldene medina, America. In 1887 Adolph reaches America. In New York City he meets a lantzman, Alexander Estreicher, who convinces him to come to Pottstown where high wage factory jobs are available. Rather than labor in a factory, Adolph decides to try his hand at peddling. Meanwhile, an epidemic sweeps through Galicia; three Markowitz children fall victim. Adolph labors almost beyond endurance to earn passage money for his remaining family. In late 1889, Raisal, Adolph’s mother Lena, and their surviving child make the perilous journey to America. The family is reestablished in Pottstown on Chicken Hill, a low rent neighborhood of immigrants and African-Americans. Raisal changes her name to Rose.

Chapter Three Mishpoohah

Adolph and Rose Markowitz determine to bring the rest of the mishpoohah from Galicia. Family members arrive in Pottstown. Her brother Emmanuel tries his luck as Pottstown’s kosher butcher. Emmanuel leaves Pottstown but soon returns, this time to open a liquor business. Rose’s sister Rachael weds Adam Wolf, another lantzman. Eventually, the Schwartz patriarch and matriarch, Chaim and Rivka, arrive in Pottstown. A despondent Chaim decides America is not for him and returns with his wife to Galicia. A heartbroken Rivka dies soon after; Chaim’s pride and stubbornness prevent him from coming back to America. While Yiddish is the primary language of the Markowitz house, Adolph strives to master English. Rose does not learn English but survives well enough without it. With his five young sons, Adolph is strict. Not so with his two daughters. In addition, Adolph is a stickler for education. All his children go to school. However, only the boys are expected to continue their education. The girls will find husbands.

Chapter Four Der Shul

Although a few Deitch Jews inhabit Pottstown, the Eastern European newcomers find their new community devoid of Jewish institutions. When enough Jewish families reside in Pottstown to meet the numerical requirements for Jewish services, the Jews create a burial society, establish a congregation, and build a synagogue, or shul near the crest of Chicken Hill. The shul serves as the community’s ritual core, especially on Shabbat and holidays. Inside, two worlds exist: men below, women above in the balcony. The men dominate worship and prayer. The shul also functions as the meeting house of the Chevra, a sort of men’s club. Chevra meetings are loud, boisterous affairs and reflect the tensions, emotions, and idiosyncrasies prevalent among Pottstown’s Jews. The universe of Jewish life centered on Chicken Hill lasts for three decades until construction on High Street of a modern synagogue comparable to Pottstown’s most impressive churches.

Chapter Five Der pedler

The “peddling” profession Adolph enters reflects vast nineteenth century economic and social changes. Peddlers extend America’s expanding market economy to every corner of the country. Although competition is tough, Adolph develops into a savvy peddler. His mastery of English contributes to his success. Adolph’s five sons assist their father. They rise early to prepare the wagon and horse and escort their father on his rounds. A chasm exists between business ethics and morality practiced at home and among Jews. To make a few pennies more off the goyim, anything goes. Relations among Pottstown’s Jewish peddlers are usually cordial, but business is still business. Through diligence, and the help of his sons, Adolph builds a successful junk and scrap enterprise. The family moves into a larger Chicken Hill house with electricity and indoor plumbing! Adolph is an early resident of Chicken Hill to own a telephone. After his sons move on, Adolph eases into “retirement.” He uses savings to purchase Chicken Hill properties, an endeavor unimaginable to him in Europe. He becomes a Chicken Hill landlord and dies of a heart attack while shouting at a deadbeat tenant.


PART III Dos Amerikanisch

Chapter Six Dos bruderen

Adolph and Rose’s American born children are introduced. Each Markowitz boy displays a distinct personality. Mike is a gambler and a conniver. He opens a shoe store in Norristown and is moderately successful as a businessman. Ben is serious and hard working. To avoid the draft for the World War, he seeks enrollment in medical school. After torturous efforts, he overcomes academic hurdles to become a pathologist. Robert is cocky. Expelled from high school just before graduation, he soon wises up and goes to college. After a bus accident that nearly claims his life he becomes a social worker. Francis, the youngest child, is spoiled, rebellious and lethargic. He flails around in various shoe related jobs and settles down only with the assistance of family. The eldest son, Sam, is intelligent but superbly gullible. From his first day at Bucknell, he associates with the charismatic son of a Baptist minister. Sam drifts from his Jewish roots into Christianity. Family efforts to retrieve Sam fail. Sam studies Christian theology and enters the ministry. Yet, doubts about his chosen path cause him to change direction. He decides to become a rabbi! Despite his wayward past, Sam achieves his goal.

Chapter Seven Yetta

Yetta is the oldest child born in America. Of the Markowitz children, she is the most split between the shtetl world of her parents and America. The family’s immigrant status weighs heavily on her. She craves more attention from her father. Adolph, however, believes her role at home is support for her mother Rose. Yetta desires to emulate the academic success of her brothers. Adolph feels education for his daughters is a frivolous luxury. Besides, money is tight. Yetta performs the lion’s share of housework and childrearing. She resents her only sister Kate whom she viciously castigates at her mother’s deathbed. Yetta’s insensitive nature causes a fissure with her cousin Golda with whom initially she is close. Adolph’s constant drumbeat about finding a husband traumatizes the young woman. Her anger smolders into adulthood. Yetta seems destined for spinsterhood. In desperation, her parents send a bindle brief match-making letter to a Yiddish newspaper. The letter is answered by an Abraham Cohen of Louisville, Kentucky, currently resident of Manchester, New Hampshire.

Chapter Eight Der zigar maker

Abraham Cohen, Yetta Markowitz’s future husband, is introduced. Decades earlier, Abe’s father Sima Kotkin travels to America, earns money peddling slippers, returns to Lithuania, and begins a family. After a failed enterprise, he must returns to America. To avoid the possibility of being refused entry into America, Sima changes his name to Cohen. He sends for his family which settles in Louisville, Kentucky. Abe, the oldest surviving child, is a lackluster student and drops out of seventh grade. He sells newspapers at the local ballpark and develops a passion for baseball. His father decides to apprentice his son as a cigar maker. By his late teens Abe takes his cigar making skills to Tampa, Florida. Thanks to his cigar making skills and emerging gambling talent, he accumulates a nest egg. The footloose young man travels throughout the South, the Midwest and the West. For a short time, he even owns a saloon in Oklahoma City. Eventually, Abe settles in Manchester, New Hampshire, and returns to cigar making. Desirous of finding a spouse, he replies to the Markowitz bindle brief letter. Abe and Yetta are married in 1913. They return to Manchester.

Chapter Nine Der kremer

In Manchester, the couple’s first child, Norman, is born. Why wasn’t Norman’s birth ever registered? Yetta is demoralized about her marriage to a cigar maker. She presses her husband to emulate her relatives in the shoe business. After two failed business attempts, they return in 1917 to Pottstown where Abe opens a small shoe store. Business is poor. Abe renames the business “Royal Shoe Store.” Abe believes his landlord intends to sell the buiding. He decides he must relocate the store. An opportunity arises to buy a good High Street location. However, Abe is cheated by his lawyer Joe Printz and fails to get the property. A less favorable High Street location is purchased. Pottstown’s mayor asks Abe to press fraud charges against Printz, but Abe refuses. He will not shame a fellow Jew. His decision reflects his narrow attitude towards the goyim. While Abe’s business efforts sputter, cars become a fixture in local culture. Abe is obsessed and owns a string of automobiles. A shoe company offers a sales promotion with a car as first prize. In cahoots with his brothers-in-law, Abe wins the prize but looses the shoe company’s franchise.

PART III Norman

Chapter Ten Yingl

Norman describes his earliest memories. The boy believes he inherits stubbornness from his mother who punishes him often. He fears his mother. Norman attributes his shyness to being the youngest in his class. Except for his grandfather Adolph, adults ignore the young boy. At home Abe and Yetta constantly fight, usually about the family’s poor finances. Lack of money dominates Norman’s worldview; he never possesses items enjoyed by his friends: ice skates, a sled, a bicycle, even marbles. The boy escorts his father to shul and runs errands, including taking chickens to be slaughtered by the sochet. He escapes onto the dirt streets and alleys of Chicken Hill. Most of his playmates are African-American. The boys play such games as marbles (Norman just watches) and ‘kick the wicket.’ Norman connives to enter the prohibited grounds of The Hill School. However, his resourcefulness fails when he tries to make ice skates. Norman believes his mother intentionally seeks ways to embarrasses him. When all the other boys have knickers, Yetta keeps Norman in short pants. When “white ducks” are the fad, Yetta refuses to buy them for her son.

Chapter Eleven Pottstown

With Rose’s death in 1923, the Cohen family moves in with Adolph. Relations between father and daughter are strained. Meanwhile, the Royal Shoe Store continues to struggle. During the 1920s Pottstown enjoys its share of unique characters, including alcoholics, notwithstanding Prohibition. A Pottstown mosaic reveals both the patriotism of Decoration Day parades and the onerous presence of the Klu Klux Klan and latent anti-Semitism. The family only thinks the best of the eminent Doc Porter, the town’s leading citizen, despite allegations he is a member of the KKK. Sports are big. Abe continues his fervent addiction to baseball. Radio makes a tremendous impact on culture, including coverage of the World Series and big boxing matches. Medicine shows and carnivals provide easy opportunities to fleece the gullible and prove there is a sucker born every minute.

Chapter Twelve Bocher

Adolph remarries. The Cohens move to a large house on Franklin Street. Norman is a gifted student but ill-inclined musically. After school and on weekends, he assists his father at the shoe store. When not in the store, he pals around with friends or attends services at shul and Hebrew School. He learns little from a string of mediocre chedar teachers. The most outrageous teacher, a scheming con artist, abandons the Hebrew School boys during a one week outing in New Jersey. Under the auspices of Rabbi Farber, the synagogue forms a Boy Scout troop. Yetta’s attempt to embarrass her son in front of the troop fails. Norman becomes troop leader. Norman prepares for his Bar Mitzvah but is incapable of chanting the readings. Rabbi Farber reassures him. Shockingly, Abe and Yetta do not attend his Bar Mitzvah. Norman performs well. However, his paternal grandmother whom he did not know was in attendance, rebukes him, probably, he suspects, for not chanting. Norman is crushed. The next day Rabbi Farber visits his parents. He reprimands them for not attending their son’s Bar Mitzvah.

Chapter Thirteen Sunerling

As Norman turns thirteen, his father becomes sick. Norman covers for him in the shoe store. A cash shortage one day sends his sick father into a rage, as does an improperly cashed check. In the store Norman listens to adult conversations but does not join in, even when he has something to contribute. In school though, teachers begin calling on the reluctant Norman. With his Bar Mitzvah gift money Norman opens a savings account. The summer after his junior year, he works in a Reading shoe store and places his earnings in the account. Soon after, his father surreptitiously empties his son’s account. That year, Norman’s parents make their annual $250 pledge to the Jewish Agency, an amount sufficient to send Norman to college for at least a year. Norman’s dream of going to college is punctured. Norman’s request for $2.50 to have his high school yearbook photo taken and obtain a copy of the yearbook is denied. Neither his picture nor name appears in the yearbook. His parents do not attend his high school graduation. Afterwards, Yetta receives a blistering phone call from the mother of Norman’s best friend, a widow with thirteen children.

Chapter Fourteen The Depression

With the Stock Market crash, Abe loses his shirt. Unaware of her husband’s dalliance with stocks, Yetta is furious. The Great Depression catches up with Royal Shoes. Few customers enter the store. After graduation Norman intends to return to his old job in Reading. His mother has other plans. She tells Norman he will work for her cousin, Aaron Weiss, in Wilkes-Barre. Numbed by her order, Norman does not protest. He labors in various small town shoe stores until injured in a freak traffic accident. After recovering, Norman finds work in a Philadelphia shoe store. Meanwhile, his parents accept bad advice from Yetta’s cousin, Sam Fuerman, and file for bankruptcy. Norman returns to Pottstown to manage his father’s new (inferior) store. Problems at home continue. Norman’s brother Russell is rebellious and constantly in trouble. Norman finds escape in horses. War in Europe begins September 1, 1939. With his induction into the army, Norman entrusts his gold coin collection, accumulated with his hard earned savings during the 1930s, to his father. Incredibly, Abe again accepts guidance from Fuerman. The collection is turned over, Norman is swindled.

Chapter Fifteen The Army

Norman departs for his army induction; his parents do not see him off. Stationed in Pine Camp, New York, Norman returns on weekends to assist his father in the store. Abe continues to exercise poor business judgment and Royal Shoes is burdened by a lack of inventory. Despite wartime rationing, Norman succeeds in getting difficult-to-obtain inventory. This assures his parent’s prosperity. Norman enters Officer Candidate School (OCS). During maneuvers Norman injures his hand. Norman’s unit receives orders for Europe. Because of his injury, Lieutenant Cohen is washed out. He does not go with his unit. Every junior officer from Norman’s outfit is killed in Europe. Norman receives his army discharge in 1946. He considers his options. His parents press him to return to Pottstown. Against his better judgment, he does. He works for his father for five years then opens his own shoe store in Harrisburg. His store shows commercial promise. Abe asks his son to come back and take over Royal Shoes. An attractive High Street building is available. Now married, Norman, once again, is torn. Should he return?

Chapter Sixteen Redemption

Norman decides to return to Pottstown. He takes over the store and makes a success of the business. He keeps Abe on the payroll until his death in 1972, nine months after Yetta’s death. Norman then discovers his parents never used the deposited funds. They left their savings to him.

Epilogue

It is 1997. Norman, 82, wonders if he had been foolish to return to Pottstown. Has it been so many years since Adolph, his grandfather, arrived? Since he played with a paper bag football behind the shul? Norman thinks back. There is one more task he must do. In fact, he has already done it. He has registered to take classes at the local community college. But as Norman looks over the tranquil valley of Pottstown, he never answers his own question. Did he do the right thing?

Postscrpt

Norman’s children never learn whether their father has come to terms with his past. But with the cards dealt him, they agree Norman did okay. Against long odds, the Royal Shoe Store survived over eighty years. It is quite an accomplishment. By the time the store closes for good after Norman’s death, downtown Pottstown has been irreversibly transformed, arguably for the worse. Gone are all the businesses which gave the town its texture. Chicken Hill has changed little however. It is still home to Pottstown’s immigrants, although none are peddlers.


Lawrence Cohen
12834 Fantasia Drive
Herndon, Va. 20170
703 437-7881 C: 703 297-0505
Chickenhill99@hotmail.com