I Remember Grandma
Lately, I’ve been thinking about my late maternal Grandmother, Lee Steinfeld. She passed away right around now about 22 years ago. She was my “longest serving” grandparent as everyone else passed away either before I was born or when I was a little kid. Some of the “longevity” was due to her having my mother at 21 and my mom having me at 24.
Grandma Lee was a unique character in so many respects. Her father (for whom I’m named) came here alone at 16 before the turn of the 20th Century from the town of Iassy, Romania and so my grandmother was born here in the U.S. in 1913. My Great-Grandfather Harry Schwartz (known as “Big Harry” because he was a strapping 6’1” at a time when most immigrant Jewish men were 5’2”) was by all accounts a highly charismatic figure who made a ton of money during Prohibition manufacturing distilling equipment for the Jewish Mafia. He did so well that he built a house for his family on Laurelton Boulevard in Long Beach with all cash and had a Packard limousine with a chauffer.
My Grandmother as a consequence grew up with money and comfort at a time when most newly arrived Jews were barely eking out a living shlepping pushcarts or working horrendous hours in the needle trades. She was also very slim and pretty (throughout her life) something that was always very important to her. I used to joke with her that she was one of the very first Jewish-American Princesses and one of the prototypes upon which succeeding generations of Jewish girls would be modeled.
With all these advantages, my Grandmother married well. Her father made a shiddach (match) to a young, successful Romanian-Jewish attorney, Lewis Steinfeld, who would become my Grandfather. They set-off on a month-long honeymoon tour of Europe and what was then British-ruled Palestine in 1931 and even took home movies of it. They had three daughters, one of whom is my mom.
Life wasn’t completely charmed by any means however. My Great-Grandfather suffered from the repeal of Prohibition and a bunch of bad real estate investments in Florida (the original “swampland in Florida” deals probably) and my Grandfather who also did real estate had some things go sour. He passed away at 63 when the average American man’s life expectancy wasn’t much more than that, leaving my Grandmother as a widow for 26 years, most of which she spent in Manhattan.
Like many of her generation, my Grandmother was not what I’d call very physically demonstrative. She loved people deeply and expressed her feelings in the kitchen. Born with a natural gift for cooking and baking, every meal was a work of art and a taste-bud extravaganza. Dairy dishes were awash in cream, butter, sugar and milk. Meat dishes spared no expense of chicken fat. She was exacting and persnickety when it came to buying meat, poultry, cheese and produce. Only the best quality stuff would do. Hours would be spent preparing even an average dinner and from the first bite you could always tell. She was so acclaimed for her cheese blintzes that for a few years Zabar’s in Manhattan actually sold them. I haven’t had a blintz since she’s gone that is its equal. Amazingly, in spite of her belt-busting cuisine, she never was heavy, owing to her French style of eating – very small portions of very rich food. We didn’t eat small portions though.
She also could be a lot of fun, enjoying beer or cocktails out at restaurants. She loved popular culture, in particular she had a longstanding crush on the singer Tom Jones in his 60s and 70s heyday. A religious reader of The New York Post and watcher of the Channel 5 News at 10 (“It’s 10:00 p.m., do you know where your children are?”), like most New York Jews she was avowedly socially liberal and staunchly Democratic. A huge fan of former Mayors John Lindsay (for his good looks) and Ed Koch (for his no-nonsense policies) she was paradoxically a big fan of the late Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin and a real right-winger when it came to Israeli security issues as she felt that anti-Semites should be taken at their aspirational, genocidal word. She loved the art of conversation and political debate and at the same time chic outfits, great restaurants and nice things. Her home was always spotlessly immaculate and her living room was sprinkled with bowls of candies and treats.
At the end of her life she was hit with cancer that could not be vanquished by the medical technology of the day. Over many years I would go to her home for dinner quite often when I was living or working in the City. She loved cooking for others and preferred that to going out. A couple of months before her passing, as I was leaving she uncharacteristically reached out and gave me a big hug and told me that she loved me like a son and got all misty-eyed, which was not her style. Trying to cheer her up, I told her, “Now, Grandma, you know you’re not supposed to be hugging people, what’s this all about?” I told her “You can’t leave until you see great grandchildren from me.” This was not to be as she passed soon after. She was one of the few women in my life (and for most people there aren’t that many) who loved me unconditionally and unreservedly. I miss her whenever I make her chicken soup recipe, see blintzes or eat her Romanian eggplant salad that my mother still makes. I think of her during the occasional Ed Koch or Tom Jones sighting, when reading The Post, and of course when her yahrtzeit comes around.
It is said that people can achieve a kind of immortality as long as people remember them. Now, you have shared some of my memories, so maybe in this exponential way you’ll share with me in making her memory be for a blessing.