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.