Every day in my email I get an posting from a Jewish funeral home in the Detroit area of funerals that day. One caught my eye this morning, a neighbor from Fairfield Avenue in Detroit. The Rosins. Mrs. Rosin passed, the last of the original people on that block. They had a beautiful home about three houses from the corner. We were several houses to the north. Mrs. Rosin was 99. And so it goes. Shiva will be at the house on Fairfield, which means either the daughter is still in the house, Ilene that is, or she is getting ready to close the house up as I did my grandmother's in 2004. Just seeing that obit made me sad. We had a great neighborhood. beautiful homes, the University District, the University of Detroit being my alma mater was a mere mile from the house. I walked there, weather permitting. Our home at 18975 Fairfield was a Tudor style home with a great back yard and we had a swimming pool in the backyard for a number of years (above ground). We had "maid quarters" on the third floor, bedroom and full bath. We actually had a live in maid, Myrtle. My grandmother, sainted woman that she was, paid her social security so that when Myrtle could retire she had a stream of income. Dorothy, my grandmother, was like that. She did so much for her younger brothers and sisters. Friday nights, the sabbath, was a feast and festival of aunts and uncles for me. The bad mommy was in bed and the family had a great meal and I was the recipient of a great deal of attention. I loved Fridays.
So Mrs. Rosin's passing made me sad in a number of ways. Like the final chapter in a long mortality (mortality) play. I remember summer afternoons, hiking to the end the block where Mischa Mischakoff gave violin lessons in his home and the music coming from his home was intoxicating.
I almost found it odd that Mrs. Rosin still lived on the block. When the riot hit in 1967 we had major white flight the following year. My memory of the first year of high school was a racially mixed class that by the time I graduated was predominately African American. Still we stayed in that house, as Mrs. Rosin did in hers. The last of the last. I thought my dad might have been the last original soul on Fairfield but, no, Mrs. Rosin was.
I don't know where I am going with this. Somewhere down memory lane. Just seeing her address in the email made me nostalgic for the Fridays, the High Holy Days, the family always gathering at our house, until the riots, that is. Then the Aunties didn't like to stay past dark and instead of coming for dinner they dined at a quaint "tea room" Ann Sayles, on 7 Mile Road. Then to our house for a rousing game of Canasta. Soon my grandmother, unable to live in her own home with my demented mother signed the house over to her only daughter and my grandmother moved to be closer to her sisters. My mother was proud of her new house but could only entice the Aunts to come during hte day for a ladies' luncheon and more Canasta. Home before dark. Mother wanted to show off her house, the new touches she and my father added but folks didn't want to come to Detroit. When my dad passed in 2004 the remaining Aunties came and sat Shiva with me one night, delivered by their driver as neither aunt could see well enough to drive. After the funeral we went to their building and had a post game meal in the dining room. Which I ended up paying for and for which my rat bastard cousin Don told me not to tip so much but I just didn't care, and what care he as it wasn't his money and he got a decent meal out of it. So there was some of the Epstein grandstanding, as usual, to contend with.
And so down the rabbit hole of memory I go.
As an aside, the library's west wing, where my office ism is currently sans water due to a water main break yesterday. Only four toilets for each gender in the building. Lots of good fun and lots of foresight needed to plan a bathroom run. My secret: Go to the one on the forth floor. No lines.
Here is something I can write without getting my panties in a bunch over politics. I hope you have enjoyed.
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