An Unforgettable Character
The first time I met my husband’s family I was invited for dinner. I was 16 years old. My inlaws had a very unusual living place. They had a 10 room apartment on the grounds of Queens General Hospital! I was both excited and nervous to meet the family. Everyone was sitting in the dining room and I was given a seat next to the man who would be my father-in-law some day, Dr. Isadore Bobrowitz. All through dinner, he said NOTHING! He did however, grunt. It seemed to be in a code that everyone else in the family understood, “Daddy wants the salt, Daddy wants water. Daddy wants more! It was bizarre. He didn’t avoid looking at me, but he never said a word. My future mother-in -law however was the opposite. She was warm and friendly and talkative. She loved to cook and the food was fabulous. They had a maid who cleared the dishes between courses and brought out the new dishes. Intimidation doesn’t come close to the way I felt.
I went home and told my parents that I was never going there again. Sort of the same feeling I had the first time I met my husband.
I did however go there again and eventually became a fixture who would join in other meals and activities. After a while, my father-in -laws strange vocal behavior just became normal to me.
After a few years being a guest in the house, perhaps when we were engaged, my father-in-law sustained a pinced nerve in his neck. He was quite uncomfortable. I can’t remember the circumstance but for some reason I was in their apartment and they had all gone to the doctor with him. They returned and had a contraption with them. It was a traction unit, and he needed to sit in a chair backing an open door. His chin was strapped into this gizmo, and then a cable extended from the back of his neck, over the doorway and down the otherside of the door. A large plastic bag of water was to be hung from hooks attaching it to the cable.
All they said to me was to put water in it. No one said how much, so I filled the bag and could barely carry it over to the door. The bag was attached and I was told to let the bag of water down. There was so much weight in the bag that when I released it the weight of the water bag caused my father-in-law to come out of the chair and straight up the door hanging by his neck! Obviously we unattached it immediately but my father in law was convinced I was trying to hang him. It was scary but funny at the same time. After he uttered the words, “Are you trying to kill me?” he too started to laugh. That broke the ice and he spoke to me from that moment on. We became friends.
He also , and I have no recollection how it started, decided I was his personal barber. He bought appropriate scissors and it became a monthly thing. When I protested that I didn’t have a diploma as a Barber, he created one.
Shortly after he retired, he started taking classes at Iona University in New Rochelle where they lived. He was interested in comparative religions. He always joked that he never had a Bachelors Degree, because in those days you went right into Medical School. I called the University and arranged a surprise for him. At the next graduation, he was invited to walk with the graduates and they presented him with an honorary Bachelors degree. He was 86 at the time.
We even had a dinner celebration for his graduation.
