Presiding over the Kohn family in Chicago were Samu bácsi
and Jenka néni, Uncle Sam and Aunt Jeni. Sam Kohn worked
as a tailor and “looked like a large leprechaun,” bald and
rotund, with a full white moustache and a little fringe of white
hair. He was a gentle and self-effacing man, “the universal
grandfather,” always making a lap available for youngsters to
sit on, always having stories to tell. Jeni was “well-educated
and of good family,” tiny and birdlike, with a solemn bearing
but extraordinarily active. She did fine quality embroidery,
such as handworked monograms on shirts and handkerchiefs, for
Marshall Field’s: the
department store in Chicago.
When the Ehrlichs—whom we shall start referring to as Joseph,
Mathilda,
and Martha—showed up on the Kohn doorstep, it turned out that
Jeni was back in Europe visiting her aged parents. In her
absence Sam asked the Ehrlichs to stay at the Kohns’s large
seven-room apartment until they got used to being in America,
and could find jobs and a place of their own.
“We accepted it gladly,” Mathilda would remark, “as we had no
money and we did not speak the English language yet. Our Uncle
Sam made us feel at home right away and told us we had to rest
at least one week before we should try to look for work. But he
took us all over to show us the city, and the first thing was to
teach us in the middle of downtown how to get to know which was
east, west, north, and south from in front of the Marshall
Field’s store on State Street, and how to get home on the
trollies or cable cars… It was an enjoyable time while it
lasted, everyone was wonderful to us and our cousins were
lovely.”
These were the same cousins Mathilda had met in Kolozsvár that
one time sixteen years before. They were all adults now; Sam
was already sharing his Irving Park apartment with younger
daughter Margaret
and her two sons. Mild-mannered and good-natured, Margaret had
married Markus Temmer, a quiet man in the laundry business who’d
literally worked his way from the ground up, originally
delivering laundry by carrying it on his back, then by
horsedrawn carriage. Marcus was to do quite well running a
laundry service for factories in Racine, Wisconsin, and later in
Kenosha.
The Kohns’s older daughter Rose and her family had their own
apartment in Chicago, and came over to meet the Ehrlichs that
same first Sunday. Rose was vigorous and energetic, and Martha
would say that “Rose rather fascinated me, because she was
always dressed to the teeth, all the flapper-type fashions or
whatever was current at the time, she was at the height of
fashion at all times.” She had married Béla Ruhig, a
talkative man in the Chicago fur business. His two brothers
were also furriers, but since the Ruhig boys could not get along
with one another, each had a separate fur shop. Rose, who
“could sell anybody anything,” kept her hand in at Béla’s.
Then there was Leo (born László), the Kohns’s youngest child and
only son. He worked at the Nash factory in Racine and lived
there with the Temmers for a long time. According to Martha,
Leo was so super-quiet you could forget he existed; but he
courted a woman named Evelyn for twenty years, and since she was
a Catholic and he nominally Jewish, “that was a scandal for
twenty years.”
The Ruhigs had two children, Evelyn and Ted, and the Temmers had
two sons, Ernie and Alex. All four were American-born and a few
years older than Martha, who was quickly taken in hand by her
little cousins “and you all got friendly together, even though
you didn’t understand each other,” Joseph wrote in Martha’s
Diary. “For Mother and me it took a bit longer, but the family
was so nice, and they talk Hungarian… We liked one another, and
we were sure we’d get along all right.” Rounding out the
Chicago family circle were Béla Ruhig’s sister Kati and her
husband Stefan Hoyer, a janitor who called himself a building
superintendent and whom everybody called “Hoyer.” They had two
sons, Bill and Ernie, the same age as the Ruhig and Temmer
children; Joseph would later give the Hoyer boys violin lessons.
This then was the extended family who welcomed the Ehrlichs to
America: a group all related by blood or marriage, whose older
generation had all been born in Europe, though most had come to
the United States while they were still quite young. Joseph
would never forget how welcome they made the Ehrlichs feel upon
their arrival, and afterwards. He was a proud man, determined
not to be a burden to anyone; though he’d already had to rely
upon relatives’s support in Kolozsvár, and here in the New World
it was absolutely crucial. The bolstering presence of friendly
family members was to be of great consolation in the days to
come.
“I fell in love with America the very first day there,” Mathilda
would say. When she and Joseph began looking for work, Mathilda
quickly found a job in a millinery wholesale place. “With my
European background and ability, I made good right away… I got
all the model hats to copy and could do them all with no effort
on my part.”
“We both found jobs,” wrote Joseph, “but not what we hoped for.
But this is America. Here it doesn’t count what you think or
what you are, as long as you take any job and can earn enough to
live on.” Despite these brave words, the heartbroken Joseph
“saw right away that I never could teach in these United
States. So I took the first manual job I was offered, and we
both went to work.”
He had come to These United States at the age of
not-quite-thirty, thinking of himself as a cultured and educated
gentleman. He found to his horror that in Chicago, Hungarians
were disparaged as “Hunkies” or “bohunks”—crude, uncouth,
qualified only for unskilled labor. “A teacher with no trade of
any kind to fall back on was very hard up,” Mathilda would say,
adding that Joseph felt “miserable, he had no experience other
than teaching school, which didn’t keep him back from trying any
and all jobs that were available, though nothing was suitable
and nothing that paid fair wages.”
For Joseph and Mathilda everything was strange in their new
surroundings, but
Martha seemed to adapt to her new home straight away:
1923 November 29. …You like it very much that here
we have several nice rooms to play in. As I mentioned before,
in Europe we lived with Aunt Fáni and all we had were three
rooms for the two families together. You like it better here
which you tell us often enough. Surprising how little you
mention the family we left behind, but if I start talking about
them and name names, you start to cry and we can hardly quiet
you down. We have to even keep our mail away from you, and
read it when you don’t see us. Otherwise you cry just to see we
got a letter from home. Although when we don’t mention them you
seldom think about them
and don’t seem to miss them at all… [Joseph]
Martha was left at the apartment with the Kohns’s maid and the
Temmer boys. “Mártuka, you certainly are a good pupil to them,
they taught you to be just like a boy, which we don’t like, and
we can’t recognize our little ‘lady’ daughter anymore. You are
just as noisy and boisterous as they are.” Joseph and Mathilda
would leave for work early in the morning and not come home
until just before suppertime, and their Princess who always used
to be “watched over all day long didn’t think of doing things
you shouldn’t. But now you too can upset the whole house all by
yourself.”
The maid was supposed to look after Ernie and Alex and take care
of Martha too, but she neglected them and Martha had to dress
herself. “We find you occasionally dressed all wrong, your
socks the heel where the toe should be, and the left shoe on the
right foot. I could cry when I see that, thinking you had to
walk that way all day without anyone noticing and correcting
it.” Martha also had to wash her face alone, but “you are very
proud that you can wash all by yourself, and you wanted to show
us how you do it. You found a tube of toothpaste and squeezed
it all out and smeared it on your face, and were so happy how
nice you smelled. I have to tell you that every night we find
you looking so dirty like a chimney sweep that Mommy has to dunk
you in the bathtub before we can have our dinner, and can hardly
scrub it off before she puts you to bed. But you love to have a
bath, we have such a nice bathroom here. So to make it easier
all around we bought you too some coveralls, just like the boys
here wear. This way at least your knees stay clean.”
Martha was quickly picking up genuine Chicagoese from the Temmer
boys, and “some of the words we hear you say we aren’t too happy
that you learned… But I have to admit it, dear, your English is
getting better each day, and we will try as soon as we possibly
can to send you to school somewhere. So far you are too young,
and must stay at home with your little cousins.”
Joseph and Mathilda wanted to find an apartment for themselves,
“knowing that our Aunt Jeni would be coming home and they would
need our room again soon. Besides, it was time for us to start
out on our own once more.” (Not least so they could reteach
Martha to be a well-behaved little lady.) The Ehrlichs spent
some weekends looking at apartments nearby, but discovered they
could not afford them.
Around December 1923 Kati Hoyer helped them find a place near “a
nice-looking small park, and the place looked freshly painted,
and we put a deposit on it. The Hoyers lived a few blocks away,
and we thought we did the right thing. We didn’t want to be a
burden to our relatives, as we’d promised before we came to
America that we never would.” The Ehrlichs’s new home was on
the West Side not far from Humboldt Park, several miles
southwest of the Kohns’s apartment, and “we were surprised when
Uncle got very angry at Kati. He said she was wrong, and he
didn’t like for us to live in that neighborhood. But it was too
late to change it then.” Joseph had not asked for Sam’s advice,
not wanting to “burden” him even in this way.
Extracts from Martha’s Diary, translated from the original
Hungarian:
1924 February 10. Our wish came true, we have a
home of our own for the last two months now. We have a
five-room apartment on 2603 W. Chicago Avenue on the second
floor, and you have a room of your own which makes you very
happy. It didn’t take too long till we made enough money to buy
nice furniture and live by ourselves, although we both had to
work very hard and save all we possibly could. But we did it,
and now when we look around in our apartment, and see how well
we did in such a short time, your Mother and I, we are kind of
proud of ourselves and say, “It was hard, but we could do it.”
The only bad thing is that we have to leave you in a day nursery
every morning. This is one place you can’t get used to, and you
are left there each day crying your little heart out. But what
can we do my dearest, we must do it for a little while yet, as
we both have to work to pay rent and food. After we leave you
start to play OK and there are some children you like but you
would like it better if you didn’t have to take a nap after
lunch. When Mommy calls for you about five o’clock, she always
finds you standing apart from the other children, just watching
them but never playing with the crowd. I feel so sorry for you,
my dear, but it won’t be too long. I hope Mother could stay
home soon with you all day.
You love it so much when all three of us are together at home.
Then you play and sing and all is just fine. Too bad I have
such little free time to play with you, I’m always busy and have
a lot on my mind too. We hope your Aunt Fáni and Uncle Jani
will be here soon, it would be so much easier all round. They
would live here with us and look after you and the apartment,
then you wouldn’t have to go to nursery school. Hoping we can
help them by next summer to come. Your Aunt Margit with Bébi
and Uncle Imre from Paris, France, are also trying to come to
America, but it takes time and a lot of money before they can.
It’s started to be harder for people to get into the U.S.A. It
seems that there isn’t a thing we can do to help them, but we
still are hoping.
Your English sounds fine, now that all day in school you don’t
hear anything else but English. Even when you talk in your
dreams it is only English, no more Hungarian except with us at
home. Sometimes you try to teach me too but I am very slow to
learn the language. Even Mother is learning faster than I do.
I used to learn in school German, Latin, and French, all at the
same time, and don’t remember if it was ever this hard like now.
You are again the nice quiet little girl everybody loved at home
in Kolozsvár. You speak softly and don’t whine for no reason at
all like you did when we lived with our relatives. You seem to
live from Saturday to Saturday. All week, every day asking me
when will Saturday be? Because we work just till noon that day,
which is a real holiday for all of us to be together. Your eyes
are not as they should be, so I took you to the eye doctor to
see what can be done to help. The doctor gave you eyeglasses
[again] and said you’ll outgrow it. Good thing that you don’t
mind wearing them, and we hope they will help you.
Now we are living a well-regulated life. It is true we work
every day and work hard, but at least we can enjoy it because we
don’t have to be afraid of anyone, not even of the policeman.
No one is bothering us here, none of them come around to
blackmail us and say nasty words, or demand money to let us live
here. We live a comfortable life and we are happy together, we
can even save part of our earnings, and don’t have to be afraid
the government will take it away in taxes. All our family from
Kolozsvár would like to come to the U.S.A. too, but it’s gotten
to be very hard now, they’ve gotten so strict about giving visas
or permits for emigration that hardly anybody has come since we
got here. It seems after us the U.S.A. closed their doors to
all except the people who have lots of money.
And you my little daughter are hardly ever talking about or even
mentioning anyone from home, not even Janika you loved so much.
You love to hear me talk about our old home and relatives, but I
see each day you remember less and less about things. Except
when you were three years old, you fell in a washbasin of water;
that you still remember. I guess soon all will be forgotten,
which is really very sad. We still remember very well, it isn’t
easy for us, and it takes time to adjust our life to our new
country, but we are trying.
[Joseph]
Joseph and Mathilda had taken English lessons in Europe, “but
they weren’t enough… naturally anyone who doesn’t speak the
language feels lost.” At the hat factory Mathilda would write
down every new English word she heard, adding to her vocabulary
by continually glancing back at the new words while she worked.
For his part, Joseph would read his daughter the Sunday
funnies. “Not knowing English did not daunt him a bit,” Martha
was to say. “One of my favorites in phonetics was ‘tsook,
tsook, shäry.’ Translated, we find a familiar phrase found
often in Orphan Annie—to
whit—‘tsk, tsk, sorry!’ Truly a man of imagination and
resourcefulness.”
1924 June 20. You can see, Mártuka, how long it’s been
since I have written in your diary. No other excuse but the
usual: I didn’t have the time. Our life has changed drastically
since we are here… When I leave for work you still are
sleeping, and at night when I get home too you are already
asleep, so we hardly ever see one another. One morning I kissed
you while you slept and woke you up, which made you very happy
and you said to me, “Oh Daddy, we saw each other now, didn’t
we?” And you always are looking forward to evenings, but when
we come home we have to clean house, cook our meals, and anyway
I am dog-tired from my unusual work and can’t play much with
you, which makes you a very sad little girl.
All week you are counting the days till Saturday and Sunday,
because those days we all are together and we always find some
time to play or tell stories. But Sunday afternoon already is a
sad time, because tomorrow is another workday, and you also have
to go to the nursery school which you still don’t like.
Although now that you can talk with the other children you don’t
mind staying to play. Have a few special friends you like
better than the rest. You are complaining that some of them are
teasing you because of your eyes…
We are moving to another apartment soon, and we think if all
goes well next winter, you will have a new baby sister or
brother to play with. You were so happy when we told you, and
already you are making big plans about what you’ll do, and told
me to tell the stork to be sure and bring a little girl, but he
could bring both a girl and boy too…
You hardly ever talk about the Old World, and even your beloved
Uncle Jani is forgotten. But their letters are still full of
love and yearning for you. They were hoping to come after you,
but I don’t think it can be accomplished anymore. Immigration
is tightened up so that hardly anyone is getting the needed
permit to enter the U.S.A. Your English vocabulary is getting
so good we are amazed, and sometimes you talk so fast we have to
laugh at you. There are even some Hungarian words you can’t
remember anymore…
[Joseph]
The Ehrlichs had arrived in America none too soon. The new
Immigration Act of 1924 was sponsored by Congressman Albert
Johnson, a strong believer in the “superiority” of northwestern
Europeans; and it not only cut back immigration quotas from
three to two percent of each country’s nationals residing in the
United States, but shifted the base year from 1910 to 1890,
before the great influx of southern and eastern Europeans.
Around August the Ehrlichs moved a few blocks north to 2607 West
Division Street, closer to Humboldt Park, and Mathilda began
staying home with Martha all day, enjoying “more free time than
ever before since we got here.” She made a few sample hats and
opened a small millinery shop in the new apartment: “It doesn’t
bring much yet,” she wrote in the Diary, “but we hope when
people get to know us better we will have more work and can make
a go of it. It would be so nice if we could live without
worry.” Rose Ruhig gave Mathilda a used hemstitching machine
which “helps a lot, as this kind of work is new and very stylish
on many different things, and it also brings more people to get
to know me.”
On September 27th Martha’s fifth birthday was celebrated, in
considerably different surroundings than her fourth had been
aboard the Constantinople. Her parents “made a birthday
party for you, twelve children were invited and everyone brought
a gift for you, which made you terribly happy.” Mathilda was
surprised at “all the practical gifts—a woollen dress, a
sweater, silk socks and even underwear, which really is a lot
more usable,” but “in Europe it would have been an insult—a gift
was flowers or a lot of candy, never
clothes.”
1924 October 25. …We are getting anxious to get
our new baby, if all goes on as it should it’ll be here in three
months’s time. You always talk about it and are pestering Daddy
to tell you about the stork. I am enjoying listening too, he
can talk by the hour and has to invent the story as he goes
along… We always enjoy when we hear how you plan what you will
do for the baby, and ask all sorts of questions, sometimes hard
to answer. Lucky that you still believe the stork brings them…
You hardly ever mention people from Kolozsvár, but if I ask you
where you would like to be, here or in Kolozsvár, you proudly
answer without hesitation: “In Kolozsvár.” If I ask why, you
say, “Because I had there Ily, Bébi, Manci, Korcsi,” and start
to name all the rest of your cousins that you had there to play
with. We have nice cousins here too, but nobody has time,
except Sundays, to visit with them. Yes, my dear baby, I get
homesick myself very often and get lonesome for my big family in
Europe. But have to be satisfied just getting a letter from
them now and then. Who knows if we ever will see each other in
this life? We hope sometime we will be able to go for a visit,
but it will be a long time
because it costs a lot of money, and we are in America only one
year… [Mathilda]
1924 November. We are in American only one year now, and we
think we really did quite well for such a short time. But at
what price?… [Joseph]
Notes
