$1,000 Down, $9,000 To Go

Congratulations to Walter Barry, the first grantor to Maggie:INK. Maggie:INK is more than my blog: it has a double mission to publish works by new writers (the elderly, the working class and those without a "name") and to spread the idea that writing brings serenity and peace to the writer. 

Mindy and Walter

     Walter has been in my life for more than 65 years, during which time he has enjoyed several extraordinary careers, the first as an international representative for the United Electrical, Radio & Machine Workers of America (UE), one of the first of the burgeoning CIO unions. When McCarthyism hit, Walter became an "egg man," purchasing cracked eggs in South Jersey, freezing them and selling them to bakeries. About that time, my husband, Ernie Thompson, suggested to Walter that he get into the housing business, which led to Walter's being involved in rehabbing 1500 housing units in Hoboken, changing it from a slum, which had become a source of ridicule, to a much desired residence, especially for young people working in New York City.

     So thank you again Walter for the grant. That's $1,000 down, $9,000 to go. We are eternally grateful. It would be great if our first book were to be your memoir. Are you writing?

Do all the good you can.

Meeting Hannah: How My Life Was Changed

The First 18 Years: I grew up on a small farm just outside Chippewa Lake, Ohio in a very small town southwest of Cleveland. There were no Jews. Total contact: Zero.

College Years: I attended Muskingum College in New Concord, Ohio, a Presbyterian school of about 800 students. No black students were in attendance during my four years. Furthermore, I never encountered a single Jewish student or professor. I rather think I would have learned if there were any because in my freshman year, I started a campaign to admit blacks and was at once called into the office of the Dean of Women and threatened with immediate expulsion. If there had been any Jews on campus, I like to think they would have supported the campaign, which died aborning. Total contact: Zero.

1941: I went to work for the YWCA in Charlotte, North Carolina. I soon met Hannah Malkin, a native of the state and a social worker. We became friends and she taught me not only about the labor movement but a whole new way of thinking about history and society in general.¹ It was war-time and we were soon separated, but she so influenced my life that I was never again the same. We are still friends. Total contact: One.

Hannah told me a joke that I still enjoy. When taking a sponge bath, you wash down as far as possible, then you wash up as far as possible and then you wash possible. 

1942: Just after the Christmas following Pearl Harbor, I met Cliff Hunter, like me a white Protestant. He had grown up in a small town in Florida where there was one Jewish family. Their name was Kushner and they owned a store where Cliff sometimes worked during high school. When his father’s orange crop failed and Cliff could not return to college, the Kushners contacted their New Jersey nephews, house and sign painters, and had them offer him a job and a place to live. Evenings he was able to attend the famous 92nd Street Y to continue studying painting and sculpture. This went on until he was drafted in 1941 and sent to an army camp near Charlotte. Fate stepped in. We met through friends and married in June 1943. Great information!

1944: Cliff was transferred to the Army Air Corps and became a bomber pilot. When he went overseas, I went to New York to visit Hannah, but very soon contacted the nephew who had been most helpful to Cliff, Meyer Kushner. It was love at first sight with Meyer, his wife Shayna and me. I moved from Central Park West to West New York that week to a room they found for me next door. We remained close friends for the rest of their lives. Jackpot! Wonderful personal contact.

1945: My husband was killed in action in March after his plane was damaged in a bombing run over France, forcing him to crash land in the English Channel. His co-pilot was thrown out and Cliff went to rescue him and drowned in the attempt. I was alone and broken-hearted. I had resigned my job in Charlotte to be with Cliff for a year while he was in pilot training. Now I had to find work. Hoping to help the war effort, I applied at the local electronics factory. It was not hiring, but the Electrical Workers Union (UE) was looking for a secretary. I had had half a year of typing in high school. I figured I could do the job. I applied and was hired. My boss was business agent Jules Paris.² He was Jewish. He taught me a good deal about the labor movement. Joe and Ruth Fischer rescued me from my solitary room and I lived with them for several years, for which I am eternally grateful. Learning and many good relationships resulted.

I now live at Daughters of Israel in West Orange, NJ, which
offers wonderful views of the South Mountain.

1946-50: In succession, I worked in UE locals in Union City, Bayonne and Jersey City and then District 4 in Newark. When the rival IUE began to raid UE locals, our lawyer, Morton Stavis, fought back by filing lawsuits. He needed evening and weekend help; I had just bought a house in Orange and needed money. Late in December that year, I began working with him full time. It was the beginning of an association that lasted 42 years. He had been a Yeshiva boy, was graduated from Columbia Law School before his 21^st birthday and had to wait to take the bar exam. Unable to find a job as a Jewish lawyer in New York, he became one of FDR’s bright young men and had a brilliant career with the federal government (his first work being to prove the constitutionality of the Social Security Act), turned to labor law, conducted a general practice for many years, became involved in civil rights struggles here and in the South and was a founder of the Center for Constitutional Rights. How could I help but learn? And all of it good.

Mitten derinen: I began to acquire Jewish relatives. My second husband was Ernest Thompson, a brilliant union organizer and the first black to be hired on the UE national staff. Our daughter Mindy married a young Jewish writer, Michael Kaufman. From that marriage came Molly Rose Kaufman, my beloved grand-daughter, who received her Master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. Dena, an adopted daughter of Mindy and Mike, became and remains Jewish. Her daughter, A’Lelia (or Lily, as she likes to be called) will have her Bat Mitzvah in December.

The Hoboken years: After Ernie’s death, I moved to Hoboken to facilitate commuting to the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York City where my boss then concentrated his full energies, having given up his private office. My job ended in 1992 with his tragic and untimely death from a fall. Hoboken is a lively place, but it was not my place. My family and friends and my Unitarian Universalist Church were in Essex County. After several years, I wearied of “riding the rails” (NJ Transit) between Hoboken and the Oranges. I decided to move back. By a stroke of luck, I learned of the Village Apartments in South Orange, run by Federation. I applied on a Monday, was accepted the following Thursday and moved in on Friday (the 13^th!). I was there for four years, until I became ill. I am now living at Daughters of Israel on Pleasant Valley Way in West Orange. Once again, Jews are changing my life and, as always, for the better.

¹And new ways of acting, as well: she and I joined and worked with the NAACP in Charlotte.

²While I knew him, Jules’ first son was born. His side of the family had a favorite deceased uncle they wanted the boy named for; his wife’s side of the family had their candidate. Jules wanted him named for a union organizer named Jerry. The son received his formal names but was always “Jerry.” There is a Jerry Paris listed among the credits on some Hollywood films. Is it my friend Jules’ son?

Do all the good you can.



SAS Shoes

One of the things most of us hate with a passion is having our feet hurt, so it was not that long ago--could it have been in the 1950s--on an annual visit to my sister in Tucson, Arizona that I was introduced to blessed relief from such punishment. It came in the form of SAS Shoes (San Antonio Shoes).

This ergonomically crafted footwear for women is made in San Antonio, Texas. It is designed in good taste, made of fine leather by experienced cobblers, in conservative but attractive styles, and best of all, holds up under long hard usage without showing wear. It is the ideal lifetime shoe at a price most American women can afford.

A typical pair of SAS walking shoes.

When I traveled in Europe in the 1960s, I would sometimes spot "my" shoes on a fellow traveler. I would tap her on the shoulder, give her a warm hello and share a few minutes of joy with her over our lucky find in having comfortable feet for our trip.

Every year, there was the joy of shopping in the West for a new pair of SAS Shoes--I remember once I treated myself to three pairs--but it was still a relief when I moved to Essex County and found them at Futter's in Millburn.

I now have two pairs that will last the rest of my life. If you wear a size 6 1/2, get in touch. I have some dressy ones worn a time or two that I will happily pass on without charge.

Do all the good you can.

Thank You, Susan

I want to say heartfelt and sincere thanks to Susan Sarandon for coming out so forcefully in favor of the uprising, Occupy Wall Street. She is a person of conviction, clarity and courage. We need her leadership and example. Thanks, Susan.

The Lucky Sixpence

One of the most fascinating coins ever produced is the English sixpence. It was first issued by Edward VI in 1551 as a hammered coin that was struck with a hammer. For many years, the sixpence was made of silver and was produced wherever the British flag flew, including all England's territories and protectorates. It was equal to six pennies or pence. I'm sure it was a useful coin--imagine our coinage without the nickel!

In 1947, under the reign of George VI, the composition was changed to copper-nickel alloy. The last sixpence was minted in 1967 during the reign of Elizabeth II except for a proof issued in 1970. In 1971, all coinage became based on the decimal system and the sixpence was revalued at two and a half pence. It was demonitized in 1980.

Why do we care about the sixpence? Because it is the single most lucky of all the coins. Everyone should carry one in his wallet. But even more important is its role in marriage. My theory is that the fact that 50% of U.S. marriages end on the rocks is that they never get a proper start.

Every U.S. bride knows from kindergarten that at her nuptials she should wear "Something Old, Something New, Something Borrowed, Something Blue," but how many realize they have fallen short because they have omitted "And a Lucky Sixpence in Her Shoe"? The union may not be doomed from its inception but has a serious shadow over it that only unfailing and total devotion by both parties can overcome, and how often is that achieved. 

If only the couple had looked ahead and taken out insurance with a Lucky Sixpence!

Do All The Good You Can.

Don't Call Them Girls!



Until I moved to South Orange four and a half years ago, I did not know who had staff, who hired maids or who had servants. Once I arrived at the Village Apartments, I had to learn because these are senior apartments and many of the people who live there could not exist without assistance from their "help."



There has been a remarkable book published, and I hope by now most of you have read it or seen the movie.  It is called The Help, and it reveals how disgracefully many of the servants in the South, black servants, are treated by white families, particularly by white women because they do the hiring and supervision.



I found there wasn't a day went by at Village Apartments that someone didn't talk about "my girl"--it could be a good thing or a bad thing. Now, many of these women have accumulated ages endowing them with great respect. They are in their fifties, sixties, or in their seventies. Sometimes, they are in their eighties, and they are still working because they need to work.

They are not girls. They are women in every sense of the world: highly intelligent, experienced and deserving of the greatest possible respect.

Please stop calling them girls!

Do all the good you can.



90 Year Old Joins Occupy Wall Street from Bed in Nursing Home

The book, which I wrote last year when I was 90, called From One to Ninety-one: A Life, was published this summer. It ended with a plea that our people join hands to end the un-American, undemocratic atmosphere of greed that characterizes our society and poisons our lives today. I quoted Langston Hughes, who said:

                  Not me alone...
                  But all the whole oppressed...
                  Must put their hands with mine
                  To shake the pillars of those temples
                  Wherein...the rule of greed's upheld...
                  That must be ended.

We are at a time when our corporations are placing profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality while they control and stymie our government. But thanks to a few progressive forces, organized as Occupy Wall Street, we have reached a remarkable point and the possibility of change for the better. Though it originated as a small group of young people camping out at Zuccotti Park in lower Manhattan, it has ballooned to include virtually all the major religious denominations, as well as labor, the unemployed and the marginalized. When protesters were threatened with eviction, Move.on stepped in with a massive e-mail petition and labor stepped up as well, sending members to the park early Friday morning. There were no evictions!

Each of us must stop living in the four walls of his house. We must live in the community, in our society, and push for changes which will save America.

This was my first blog, from a nursing home where I have terminal cancer, and I plan to continue to share my thoughts with you on politics, the magic of chocolate, poker, bridge, the English sixpence, my family, SAS shoes, Marcel Marceau and your thoughts on a myriad of topics we may enjoy together.

And speaking of family, this is the birthday of my daughter, Mindy Thompson Fullilove. We use this occasion to congratulate her and celebrate the splendid life she is building.

Do all the good you can, as long as ever you can.