Where is Ellis Island When We Need It?
white families on our street and we all got along
just fine. We all kept up our homes; no one on
our street locked their doors. My mother would
take pies and cakes to all of the neighbors and had
an open house on Sundays and we would never
know who was coming. I never remembered being afraid, I would go on errands for my mother
and take streetcars with no problem. We were
actually one of the last families to move. I was
happy there. I never recognized the difference in
color between people. We were all just people. In
fact, my best friend in school was a little black
boy, who protected me in the schoolyard. We were
inseparable.”
“Before coming to America, I had never even seen
a black person. I remember this one great experience involving my best friend in school when I
was in the Americanization Room. There was
this young black boy who sat in front of me. I
don’t even know why he was there exactly. Anyway, I would look at his neck and I found the
color of his skin so interesting. Then, one day, I
took the little hankie my mother would pin to my
dress, and wet it with my mouth to try and clean
off his neck, because I thought it was dirt! He just
laughed and we became very good friends. We
were always at each other’s side. When the girls
would start pulling my pigtails at recess, my little
friend would come over and stand up for me.”
“I graduated from high school at about 15 or 16.
My mom wanted me to take music. My mother
always
stressed
education.
She would
say,
“Dochka”
(which
means
daughter),
you have
to do
things to
put some
glory in
your life.”
“My
mother
worked
extra jobs
ironing,
cleaning, and
42 Woman
The County
Magazine
“During this time, we were very active in the
Russian community in our area. My mother was
known as a “prima donna” in the Russian colony,
which was very large. We went to big concerts
and balls. We had to learn Russian dances and
the mandolin. I sang and my momma sang. She
was in Russian plays and I did puppet theatre,
which was very big in the Russian culture.”
“We lived on Dearing Street in Detroit, Michigan,
where most of our friends were Russian. My parents belonged to a ‘fancy’ club, which really were
just 13 families who got together once a month
for a meeting. ‘High class’ Russians, is how they
thought of themselves. But the truth was, it was
just a good excuse to have a great Old Russian
party that lasted all night long!”
“I think that I got “Americanized” very fast. I was
somewhat confused. I never really quite knew
what I was doing. I was told to do this and that,
so I did it. I was always being told what I HAD to
do! I was told I had to come to America and then,
later, I was told I had to go to New York to study
with a Russian professor. They made me do it,
because they thought I had great talent.”
cooking. She wanted to earn extra money for my
music lessons and to buy a piano. Both my sisters
and I had lessons, which cost twenty-five or fifty
cents. I found that I had a natural talent for music and a good voice. My momma always thought
that my older sister, Nadia, would be the one with
the voice, but Nadia did not want to learn and apply herself. She was more interested in boys and
later ended up being the worst to my mother.”
“My mother saw my natural talent and sent me to
Cass Tech. It was a great school where you could
major in music while taking college grad courses.
You had to take 3 instruments, learn orchestration and all of that. Cass Tech always had a girl’s
trio and I was picked to join this group of girls.”
“We named ourselves the ‘Novelettes.’ Oh, we had
great fun. We made our own arrangements and
got summer jobs with bands. We sang really great
songs from groups like the Andrew Sisters. Then
we decided we needed to learn other instruments
so we could earn more money. We learned the accordion, the guitar, and the string base. I was always getting solos and won many contests. After
Cass Tech, I went to Wayne University, majoring
in music and singing.”
“I met my first boyfriend while I was singing at
a Russian Ball in Detroit. He was an aeronautical engineer from Russia studying in Ann Arbor,
Michigan. I think I might have married him if I
had not had been ordered to go to New York. He
was tall, blond and very handsome. He would
come over to the house and bring Russian records
and we would sit and listen to them for hours.
He would arrange for weekends in Ann Arbor and
would take me to play tennis and go to the wind
tunnel and other very romantic places. It was very
nice but also very proper. He wanted me to trans-