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Israel Cantor
Family Society
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Millie's Eulogy To three little boys growing up in California, Aunt Millie and Levittown were always part of our family. In the late 40s and early 50s, when long distance telephone calls were an expensive luxury, the importance, the constancy of the close, warm relationship between my mother and her sister was reinforced by stories, snapshots, and the occasional cross-country train ride. Stories of family…always stories of family…anecdotes told with warmth and humor about interesting, important people —important because they were family —important because they had character or were characters —important because they were from Brooklyn, home of my beloved Dodgers. Because of that close sisterly connection, Aunt Millie was the most important of these people. My older brother Lanny remembers at age 5 being at Millie and Herb's wedding in 1946. He remembers the color of Millie's dress. I don't. I do, however, remember precisely where I was when my mother told me of Millie's stillborn first child. That was my first impression of death. Millie was ever-present in our home. Because I was convinced that my Aunt Millie was the woman on the SunMaid box holding the basket of raisins, she sat prominently at our little-boys' breakfast table. Because Millie and Edie's mother, my grandmother, known in the early days of air travel as Trancontinental Tessie, alternated living at our two homes, Herb and Millie's growing family was described with affection and lots of superlatives. As I got older, I began to see differences between our two households. In Levittown, Millie and Herb's morning tableau included ritual readings from the New York Times. In Oxnard, the Press-Courier was an excellent beginning to any papier-mâché project. The humor in my home was extended storytelling with Yiddish accents and Borscht Belt punch lines. In Levittown, it was Uncle Herb's sly one-liners and unexpected winks. My house was seemingly ever on the edge of what we called adventure, but was probably chaos. There was a lot less yelling in Levittown. I saw Aunt Millie as organized, efficient, and completely in control. She had unbelievable retrieval of an impressive inventory. If a hard line drive just ripped through the webbing of your favorite glove and you needed a piece of rawhide cord for repair, Aunt Millie would ask how thick and what color …and then she'd go right to the box in the garage. Imagine how much better Washington would have functioned with Millie as a Cabinet Secretary…Defense or Agriculture, probably not. Better Education or Health and Human Services. Some family lessons are easier to learn when they come from outside your own home, when they are taught by aunts and uncles. By watching how Millie loved and honored her mother, I learned how to love and honor mine. By watching how she loved and honored her children, I learned how to love and honor mine. From Aunt Millie I got advice. I didn't always ask for it. I didn't always take it. But I was always aware that it was probably right. Sprucewood Drive was always open to me. When I was sent home with mononucleosis from a camp counselor's job in Maine in the summer after my freshman year, Millie took me in and nursed me. After my divorce, when I would come East to be with my young daughters, Millie was an additional, unconditionally loving grandmother to them, and her home with its dress-up box of clothes was where they frolicked and I healed. She held me in her arms when I was little and held me in her heart every day she was alive. She was my favorite aunt. I will hold her in my heart forever. |
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