13 New Horizons
Martha majors in biology and
student-teaches at local schools. Graduating in 1941, she finds
a teaching job in rural North Dakota—and a role-playing identity
there as "Miss Ehrlich the Teacher." Joseph, assembling
George’s Scrapbook, suggests that his son might become an
engineer. George goes off to the University of Illinois in
1942; at the same time Martha returns to Urbana to teach junior
high. Visiting her classroom, Joseph always takes off his hat
and speaks in whispers, as though he were in a sacred place.
14 Left All by Ourselves
Joseph and Mathilda are on
their own for the first time since 1919. From the family back
in Europe they get letters that make Mathilda cry; then,
abruptly, the letters stop coming. Hungary, though a German
ally, holds relatively firm against Hitler’s Third Reich until
1944, when the Nazis take over and subject the Jews there to the
most methodical deportation and extermination of the entire
Holocaust.
Appendix F:
Jenő’s Family
15 A Strange Funny World
In 1944 Martha meets and
marries Murel Lewis, a sailor from Florida. Joseph decides
“even if it doesn’t last long, it’ll be a good experience for
her”; but he has difficulty understanding when Martha gives up
teaching: "I know your ideas are all different now and I hope
you get what you want, but we live in a strange, funny world."
George, drafted in 1943, serves in the Pacific as a radar
navigator. He returns to college in 1946 as an architectural
design major; on the same day that he graduates in 1949,
Martha’s daughter Sherry Renée is born in Miami. A few months
later Sherry’s parents break up, and Martha brings her to
Chicago.
Appendix G:
The Guthries, Chessers, and Lewises
16 The Little Princess
Readjusting to single life at
thirty, Martha goes back to Urbana. While she gets resettled
over the next year and resumes teaching, Joseph and Mathilda
enjoy their first chance to raise a baby without money worries.
Mathilda keeps a record of Sherry’s early life, and in 1953
translates Martha’s Diary from Hungarian to English.
17 The Little Postscript
In 1955 Martha marries Nick
Mlinarich; friends who predict the marriage won’t last four
weeks are proved wrong. George (after spending a year recalled
to the Air Force and another working as a computer draftsman)
begins teaching art history in 1954 at the University of Kansas
City. He marries Mila Jean Smith in 1956; a year later their
son Paul Stephen is born. Joseph and Mathilda can ask for
nothing better than to see both their children teaching for a
living, married and with children of their own.
18 Fortitude and Delicacy
In 1959 Joseph and Mathilda move
to St. Petersburg, Florida, their longtime vacation haven, where
Joseph tells people he is a retired teacher. The Mlinariches
and Sherry move to Mojave, California, in 1958; the elder
Ehrlichs regret the family is spread so far apart, but enjoy
occasional visits. George and Mila Jean have a second son,
Matthew Carleton, in 1962. Joseph is diagnosed as suffering
from Parkinson’s disease, stemming from his bout with influenza
in World
War One; he dies in 1963.
Afterward
Appendix H:
Mathilda and To Be Honest
Appendix J:
Martha and To Be Honest
Appendix K:
George and To Be Honest
Selected Bibliography
