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Tag Archives: working

June 1, 1936 – Trudel Moves to the Seneca Hotel

Trudel continues to translate only brief summaries from her letters, “diary style,” she calls it. In the coming months there are a few few full length letters so keep watching.

Rose LaMarque

6/1
I finally moved in with Mrs. Rose La Marque at the Seneca Hotel, after being sick for a week and in bed.

I am working for Sully only now at her hat shop, which is also in the Seneca.

The Seneca Hotel

Sully

Sully’s Hat Shop

Saw a nice movie “The Golden Arrow” with Bette Davis.

http://http://lgrossman.com/trudel/8q1

November 7, 1936 – ” I went to a Halloween Party in a sack. . . .”

07 Nov

Trudel continues to translate only short snippets from her letters. Although she mentions a typewriter, a copy of the typewritten letter she refers to has not survived. My mother was a very practical woman, in her way. When she finished translating the letters that had been written in German, which she had held on to for about 60 years, she threw away the originals. She thought she had translated the most interesting and important parts, and now she was clearing away clutter. There was no one left, she thought, who would be able to or want to read them in German. She never suspected how wonderful it would have been to have them to fill in blanks or to clear-up misunderstandings that may have resulted from her translation.

But as Thanksgiving approaches, I must express my gratitude that in her mid-80s she undertook this project at all, and that we have what we have.

11/7/1936

LJG’s Desk

In Leonard’s office, for the first time in several weeks, I discovered a new typewriter and will use it right away to start this letter.

I went to a Halloween party dressed in a sack again as a witch. Saw so many German Jews I know.

Like Trudel’s?

Since, because of the election business was very bad all over, I got myself a job again in a very elegant store on Michigan Ave, as the only milliner.

Michigan Avenue Shops

None of the candidates or parties supported by LJG won in 1936. FDR won a second term, Big Bill Thompson lost his last campaign. The “Progressive” wing of the Republican Party began a precipitous decline. The Democrats consolidated their control over the City of Chicago which continues to this day.

When I was growing up I found “No Third Term” buttons in my father’s memorabilia but I have it on good authority that in 1944 he saw the light and voted for Roosevelt. There was no going back.

2 Comments

Posted by Leonard Grossman on November 7, 1936 in Chicago, diary, immigrant experience, Letters

Tags: Chicago, Halloween, hats, Lake Michigan, politics, working

Jan 23, 1937 “Hope I have answered all of your letters.”

23 Jan

[I have discovered a couple of letters that were not posted in order. Here, from January, 1937 is is the first of them. Later it will appear in the correct place in the order of letters but for convenience here is a link to the letters that appeared before it in January, 1937. LAG]

Jan 23 ‘37
Hope I answered all your letters. Now I have a whole big stack of mail to be answered.

I bought some black wool material and will have a winter coat made from it. Madge, my sister-in-law, sent me a lovely watch for my birthday. It is to be worn on the lapel of a suit.

Have gone to bed very late every night this week.

Monday I finished a hat for a friend, Tuesday as usual with Trudel Batzner, Wednesday delivered a hat to friends and had dinner with them, and the 4 of us went to a movie, and then back to their house for something more to eat.

Trudel Batzner

Thursday met a niece of Engelbert Hriss with whom I had been trying to get together for one year.

Leonard had to go to a political meeting and Trudel B, that girl [the niece of Englebert Hriss] and I visited together until midnight. Last night, Friday, Aunt Flora, Leonard’s favorite aunt who lives in Indianapolis, was here in town and invited us for dinner. She was staying with Leonard’s cousin on the far south side, all wonderful people.

I took home a couple of hats to be remodeled. Glad to have a good reason to go there again. Since his divorce, Leonard had withdrawn from all his relatives and friends. He wanted all of them to be friends with his ex-wife and daughter and he did not care about himself.

Trudel

The price for hosiery is between $0.65 and $1.25. But in the summer I wear only knee hose which is about 35 cents a pair. Besides I wear a lot of “footlings.”

Ernale please write me a letter describing exactly what you do at work, in English. Maybe Aunt Flora can help find a job for you here.

Love,
Trudel

Trudel Batzner (later Nachmann) became my mother’s closest friend and they remained close the rest of their lives. Oddly, there is no account of their first meeting in any of Trudel’s letters. LAG

2 Comments

Posted by Leonard Grossman on January 23, 1937 in immigrant experience, Letters

Tags: hats, letters, movies, working

August 27, 1937 – Lunch in the Park by the Lake

27 Aug

August 27, 1937
“Le Shono Tauwo.”

I will go to the German services for Rosh HaShona.
[Rosh HaShana was on September 5 in 1937.]

Hebrew-German Machzor

I have changed jobs again, much nicer place and nicer people. I managed to get a job for Trudel Batzner there too, and we are working together since Monday. We eat our lunch sandwiches in the park by the lake, across the street, as long as the weather is so beautiful.

Trudel and Trudel – not on a lunch break

Thirsty

Trudel and Trudel go out.

Lunch in the park

Enclosed are more photos.*

Saw a very good movie on Saturday: The Wandering Jew with Conrad Veidt. [Scroll down for a clip from the film.] Then to Old Heidelberg Rathskeller for dinner. They play and sing only German songs there.

Old Heidelberg Dining Room

So sorry about Erna’s appendix. Good riddance.

Love
Trudel

*Many of Trudel’s photographs from Summer 1937 were included in earlier posts. However, Trudel’s album has a page with a few scenic few photos taken that summer in Ottawa, Illinois. Here is one of them.
Ottawa, Illinois, 1937
The notes in Trudel’s album do not indicate why she was in Ottawa. But it was at about that time when her husband, my father, began to work on the Radium Dial Poisoning case in Ottawa. See the Case of the Living Dead Women for newspaper stories about the case. The case consumed their lives for over a year, which may be one reason why Trudel wrote only a one or two more letters in 1937.

LJG to Represent Living Dead.

Trudel's Truth

Tag Archives: working

June 1, 1936 – Trudel Moves to the Seneca Hotel

November 7, 1936 – ” I went to a Halloween Party in a sack. . . .”

Jan 23, 1937 “Hope I have answered all of your letters.”

August 27, 1937 – Lunch in the Park by the Lake

The Wandering Jew (1933)

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