DECEMBER 16 • 2021 | 39

ARTS&LIFE
BOOK REVIEW

I

t is 1924. The Soviet Army had drafted 
two of the sons of widow Gellis, and 
then sent notice that the boys were 
dead. She was not going to let the army 
get another of her sons. By the time David 
Gellis reached draft age at his 16th birth-
day, she had arranged a plan 
for him to escape. He would 
hide in the concealed closet 
in the basement. On that 
birthday, when the soldiers 
searched, they would find no 
trace of David Gellis. 
That night, they would post 
a guard at the only door to the house, but 
she would distract the guard with fresh 
meat knishes (the Russian guard would 
call them piroshki), and with sympathetic 
questions about the guard’s family back 
home. Meanwhile, another brother would 
give the secret signal and David would 
jump out the back window. 
Thus, begins A Stitch in Time (available 
on Amazon), written by Dr. Michael Gellis 
in loving tribute to his father. 
David Gellis escaped on foot, then by 
train and then by wagon across southern 
Poland from Dynov to the home of his 
Uncle Sol near Cracow. Uncle Sol greet-
ed him warmly, and David spent a sweet 
Shabbos with his family, but he had to keep 
running. 
Uncle Sol gave him money and train 
tickets to the port of Gdansk, at the north 
edge of Poland. From there, David had a 
chance to try to find work on any ship sail-
ing toward America. His goal, after getting 
away from Poland and the Soviet Army, 
was to find his older brother, Joseph, who 
lived in Flint, Michigan. 
But how could David get work on a 
ship? What could he do? Well, he already 
knew how to sew. His late father, his 
mother and his brothers all worked as 
tailors and, even at 16, he was an expert 

tailor. Fortunately, the purser on the first 
ship desperately needed a tailor. David 
proved himself an invaluable addition 
to the crew, repairing worn uniforms 
and torn tablecloths. When a passenger 
burned her husband’s new suit, David 
did a particularly difficult feat, invis-
ible reweaving, perhaps saving her 
marriage and certainly establishing David’s 
reputation with the purser. 
The ship went from Gdansk to England, 
from England to France, from France 
to Portugal and Spain, and then across 
the ocean to Cuba. At each stop, David 
met helpful strangers and resourcefully 
learned new skills. On a two-week lay-
over in France, David worked at a factory 
making bridal gowns and learned new 
tailoring skills. The owner, fortunately, 
spoke Yiddish. In Cuba, David found a 
Yiddish-speaking factory owner who made 
leather goods. David learned new skills 
and invented new uses for the scrap leath-
er. He even learned the skills of managing 
the factory. 
During his years in Cuba, David never 
abandoned his plan to get to his brother 
in Flint, though the United States had 
new immigration laws designed to keep 
undocumented immigrants out. In 1927, 
David had saved enough money to risk 
paying a smuggler to sneak him into the 
U.S. Good to his word, the smuggler did 
bring him to the surf near the island of Key 
West, but then, at gunpoint, sent him over-
board. David did not know how to swim, 
but somehow survived to wash up on the 
beach. 
And the story continues with adventure 
after adventure as David went north to 
Brooklyn, met the woman who would 
become his wife (making him, finally, a 
legal immigrant), served in the U.S. Army 
during World War II (where he did not get 
shipped overseas because his commanding 

officer’s 
daughter needed a wedding gown). 
Eventually, with help from his brother, 
David moved his wife and two children to 
Flint, where David set up a dry cleaning 
and alterations shop. 
Michael Gellis tells his father’s story in 
chronological order, in the style of a young 
adult novel. He shows us the thoughts of 
some of the characters and reconstructs 
dialogue as it might have occurred. Each 
of the 75 chapters takes only a few pages. 
In four or five pages, the author takes the 
life of David Gellis forward, often from a 
difficult situation toward its safe resolution. 
At crucial moments, David Gellis meets 
helpful strangers. The hero of this story 
shows impressive resourcefulness, learning 
new skills at a moment’s notice, and 
remarkable determination, never losing 
sight of the goal, even when he learns that 
his family in Poland has been murdered. 
Michael Gellis did extensive research 
to prepare to tell his father’s story. 
Interviewing his father’s friends and 
relatives, the author establishes the exact 
dates of all sorts of events. Researching 
the realities behind the story, the author 
has his characters explain aspects of the 
politics of interwar Europe, as well as 
how to sew with satin and how to set up a 
steam-press. 
This is the life story of one man, but 
it parallels the stories of millions of 
Jewish people who tried to escape from 
increasingly hostile Europe to someplace 
safer. 

Michigan writer tells his father’s 
story in new novel.
A Stitch in Time

LOUIS FINKELMAN CONTRIBUTING WRITER

Michael 
Gellis

