N
ELIZABETH APPLEBAUM
AppleTree Editor
of just any chocolate
sauce would do. It had
to be Fox's U-Bet. The
seltzer came straight
from a blue-glass bottle. And who
knew from low-fat milk or skim
milk back then? No, the only
thing that would do was the real
McCoy: rich, thick, makes-your-
mouth-water-just-to-think-about-
it cream. Mix them together and
you had an authentic egg cream.
Egg creams were Granny's spe-
cialty. She loved fixing them and
her grandson, Henry, loved drink-
ing them.
"Oh, yes," he says now, wistful-
ly, when the subject of egg creams
comes up.
Today, that same Henry is Dr.
Henry Sonenshein of West
Bloomfield. And his new book,
Silverware Grew in Her Garden,
celebrates not only the egg creams
of days gone by, but the corner
baseball games, the dried raspber-
ries that were supposed to lower a
temperature, the neighborhood
where just about everyone was
your pal and the noisy synagogues
of New York, filled with the smells
of tobacco and Bay Rum after-
shave and snuff.
In his self-published text, Dr.
Sonenshein, a retired specialist in
ear, nose and throat, and head and
neck, tells about his life in
Brooklyn in the 1940s through
1960s, and of the boy's love for his
grandmother.
The doctor says he and Granny
were very close. "And she was such
an interesting character" that it
wasn't difficult for him to write an
entire book filled with stories from
her life.
Granny's real name was Sarah
Fergeson (her last name, Dr.
Sonenshein says, was the result of
a misunderstanding when Sarah
and her husband passed through
Ellis Island in New York Harbor).
She was born in Poland and immi-
grated with her husband, Abe, to
the United States, settling in New
York.
Sarah and Abe lived for a time
with their daughter's family, includ-
ing Henry, and for a time at a near-
by apartment. Their grandson was
with Sarah almost every day.
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ranny never gave
in if an argument
was not going
her way. She
ended it with statements like,
"You don't agree with me?-.So
sue me," or she'd shrug and
walk away saying, "Go fight
city hall!" Arguing with her
was like klopping der kop in
der vant, which means "beat-
ing your head against a wall."
She was not a proficient
counter puncher but she
never went down for the
count, either.
She refrained from person-
al curses. The words "He
should drop dead!" or "Go
to hell!" never were spoken
by her or allowed in her pres-
ence.
I remember one day we
went with Granny to the fish
market and an argument
ensued when she caught Mr.
Bender the fishmonger with
his thumb on the - scale as he
weighed her fish order.
"Mister, how much cost
the fish and how much is the
thumb?" she shouted.
He denied that he cheated
and called her a fishwife. She
did not offer a curse in
return but simply answered
him by saying, "Your
mamma would be ashamed
of you," as we stepped out of
his shop.
Her special curse, held in
reserve for people guilty of
truly heinous acts, such as
desecrating the synagogue,
cursing the Chosen People,
committing murder or wish-
ing harm upon her family,
she chanted like a mantra:
"All his teeth should fall
out but one, and in that
tooth he should have a
toothache."
Dr. Henry
Sonenshein: A
neighborhood
long ago, with
memories of
garlic and
a loving
grandmother.
6/14
2002
95