Sylvia
Sylvia Lemanowitz Strauss
Sylvia Lemanowitz Strauss was the first born child of Jake and his first wife, Hannah. The official records indicate that she was born in December 1905--a bit earlier than was later reported. Sylvia married Bob Strauss and they had three children, Ann Shirley, Diane, and Stanley. Stanley and Ann Shirley reminisced about their mom:
Stanley wrote: Well, G-d must have been looking out for me, when Sylvia Lemanowitz Strauss, of West Philadelphia became my mom. I think I had one of the best childhoods that anyone could have asked for.
There was always a game to get into on Osage Ave. Thousands of kids of all ages, playing together, having more fun than it was legal to have. Until that sound of "Stanley, come home!" I would keep playing. I could not leave the game. But as dinnertime arrived for the rest of the kids on the team, their moms would call them back to their row house for dinner. Eventually, I wandered home, and my mom would never be upset with me that it took me so long to get there.
As good as I was at playing, running and jumping, that's how "bad" I was, or so it seemed, at school. I stuttered through first, second, and third grade, suffered through severe hyperactivity in fourth grade, pulled the fire alarm and emptied the school out in fifth grade, where Miss Moon decided I wasn't going any further. I was condemned to fifth grade till further notice. There wasn't one teacher in Hamilton Elementary School who had a good thing to say about me. Into this situation entered my mother, who knew that G-d did work in mysterious ways. She was 4'11", black hair, overweight, Coke bottle glasses, who truly believed that her prodigal son could do no wrong. And she was there to defend every infraction. No teacher could say that it was I who was the problem. My problems were from other energy sources that had infiltrated my body. That at the core of this little guy was a beautiful, darling boy.
My family did not own a car. As a young boy, I remember going with my mom shopping at Lit Brothers in downtown Philadelphia where Aunt Esther worked. To get there we had to walk four blocks to the #42 trolley which would take us from 57th & Spruce, to 8th & Spruce. Looking back now, I have to give my mom credit. The trip was long and slow, and probably not very comfortable for her. I remember that she would tell me that she had worked at a department store near Lit Brothers called Frank and Cedar. My mom seemed very well-educated to me. I believe she graduated high school and had gone to business school where she learned typing, shorthand and making copies with mimeographs. She was a great speller which is something that I did not inherit.
I'm not sure when she married my dad because my parents were not real big on celebrating anniversaries, birthdays etc. I at least knew my mom's birthday was December 6 and that she was happy Pearl Harbor wasn't bombed on her birthday. Which year, I never knew. My mom and dad got along very well together. I really only remember one argument when we were living in West Philadelphia. It was a whopper, because I do believe my mom would have killed my dad if she just could have lifted that heavy glass vase high enough. I don't know what it was about, but I do know it never happened again.
I don't think my mom ever truly recovered from the loss of HER mother at a young age. There was always a piece of her heart missing. She never stopped telling us how lucky WE were to have our mom, and she was right.
My mom and her sisters were a close-knit group, who taught us that family is so important.
-Stanley Strauss
Ann writes: My mother, Sylvia Strauss was born between 1909 and 1911. I’m not sure which year because she was always sensitive about her age. She was the oldest of six daughters, the others in order being Annette Hersh, Sally Glazer, Esther Fellman, Beatrice Kauffman and Gladys Westle
My mother’s mother, Hannah, passed away when she was only 32, soon after giving birth to my Aunt Esther. My mother at that time was probably only about 6 or 7 but she remembered her mother well and my Hebrew name is Chana, after my maternal grandmother.
She didn’t tell me much about her childhood, but I know she missed her mother very much. My mother told me that she was the favorite of her father’s mother, because she (Sylvia) spoke fluent Yiddish. My Aunt Esther told me how amusing it was to see my mother as a little girl having long conversations with the grandmother who couldn’t communicate much with her other granddaughters because they couldn’t speak Yiddish.
My mother went to a business school and learned typing and shorthand and was an excellent speller. I don’t think she was employed in the business world very long because she rarely spoke about it. I know she worked at Frank and Cedar’s Department store as a dress saleswoman. She seemed to have found her niche there because she told me she was their star saleswoman. I can understand that because my mother loved socializing and enjoyed the company of people.
She was married to my father, Robert Strauss, in 1934 at the height of The Depression. My father was a Russian immigrant who came to America via Ellis Island probably around 1927. As fate would have it, he lived around the corner in West Philadelphia and I think that’s how they met. I have no wedding pictures. I think they were married in my Grandparent’s house. I don’t even know what month. I know times were hard for them. I think they had a fruit store and later on after I was born, they had a candy store in South Philadelphia, somewhere around l2th and Porter Streets. My brother, Stanley and I were born there.
We moved to 5750 Osage Avenue when I was about 5 because I remember going to kindergarten at the Hamilton Elementary School at 57th and Spruce in West Philadelphia. My grandparents lived in the neighborhood on Larchwood Avenue and I visited them often. They owned a candy store and sold ice cream, candy, comic books and other items. I loved to read and would sit in a booth and read comic books to my heart’s content. Also, Aunt Gladys and Aunt Esther lived there and I enjoyed visiting them. My sister, Diane, was born when we lived on Osage Avenue.
My mother was a full-time housewife and chores took up most of the day in that era. She washed clothes in our cold, dark cellar where the washing machine stood. I would watch her and sometimes help as she put the clothes manually through the ringer and then began hanging them on clotheslines in the back yard. On inclement days, she hung them in the cellar. Almost every day meant a trip to the Kosher butcher because most people didn’t have freezers. Living in this era is much easier.
I remember many visits to Aunt Sally and Uncle Al where we got together with our cousins, Herbie and Eddie, who lived on Warrington Avenue. Although we were Jewish, I remember exchanging gifts at Christmas time. I guess first generation American Jews wanted to be assimilated.
We lived in West Philadelphia until 1955 and then moved to Levick Street in Oxford Circle. I went to college at Temple University and married in 1962. Stanley married in 1963 and Diane married in 1970. Each of us had two children. My father died of cancer in December of 1972. He was 61. My mother had a stroke and died in 1983. I think she was 75. I regret that my father died when 4 of his grandchildren were very young and two of them were not yet born. Diane’s children were born after his death. My mother died when 4 of her grandchildren were in High School. My daughter, Jodi, who was 17 at that time and my son, Marc, who was 15 were pallbearers at her funeral.
I think in another time and place my mother would have made a good social worker because she was very interested in people’s problems and ways to help them. It was not unusual for her to talk for a half hour to a wrong number. My parents weren’t able to give us much in material items. We got the basics: Food, clothing, shelter, and yet we didn’t feel deprived because we were loved and valued and listened to and cared about. We miss them very much.
-Ann Shirley Goffman
