Goodbye, Jerry

An old poem

The following is posted by a new author of this blog, Jasper Davidoff.

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I was looking around my email and I found an old poem that Grandpa Jerry sent me. Maybe because I live in Illinois or just cause it was special to him.  He told me that it was the first poem he memorized. These are his exact words:

What follows is, except for nursery rhymes, the first poem I memorized. I think I was about eleven years old.

 

You will enjoy the poem more if you look up two words:

portentous

and

dreadnaught.

 

I remember, way back in 1941, reciting the poem at Lincoln's house when I went to Springfield with my mother, my father and my brother. 

And here is the poem:

Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight
(In Springfield, Illinois)
 
IT is portentous, and a thing of state
That here at midnight, in our little town
A mourning figure walks, and will not rest,
Near the old court-house pacing up and down,
 
Or by his homestead, or in shadowed yards         
He lingers where his children used to play,
Or through the market, on the well-worn stones
He stalks until the dawn-stars burn away.
 
A bronzed, lank man! His suit of ancient black,
A famous high top-hat and plain worn shawl  
Make him the quaint great figure that men love,
The prairie-lawyer, master of us all.
 
He cannot sleep upon his hillside now.
He is among us:—as in times before!
And we who toss and lie awake for long,  
Breathe deep, and start, to see him pass the door.
 
His head is bowed. He thinks of men and kings.
Yea, when the sick world cries, how can he sleep?
Too many peasants fight, they know not why;
Too many homesteads in black terror weep.  
 
The sins of all the war-lords burn his heart.
He sees the dreadnaughts scouring every main.

He carries on his shawl-wrapped shoulders now
The bitterness, the folly and the pain.
 
He cannot rest until a spirit-dawn  
Shall come;—the shining hope of Europe free:
A league of sober folk, the Workers' Earth,
Bringing long peace to Cornland, Alp and Sea.
 
It breaks his heart that men must murder still,
That all his hours of travail here for men  
Seem yet in vain. And who will bring white peace
That he may sleep upon his hill again?

--Jasper D.

Jerry's grandson

John's Eulogy for Jerry

A while back, I published a link to a PDF download of my eulogy for Dad.

Since then, my brother, John Davidoff, published his eulogy on the blog for his business, Davidoff Communications in Chicago.

This is a link to John's eulogy. It's accompanied by a great photo of Dad and John, shown below.

Some of what John wrote:

Hi Dad. It’s John. “Big John!” as you bellowed out my whole life...

I have been taking stock of my own life, in relationship to yours, and reflecting on where I go from here … in carrying out the part of your legacy that is mine now to move forward.

Dad, I thank you. You were a warrior of the heart and an amazing romantic and dreamer. I will never forget when, just ten years old, you led our family all the way to Paris, to the Louvre, to stand below one of the most celebrated sculptures in the world -- the Winged Victory –- that all powerful feminine tribute to a sea battle…where you, Dad, told Doug and me of your wish that we would see “her … the Victoire” every morning on our way to school such that we would grow up to be strong and confident men. What an impression that has made on my life … still, here and now, almost forty years later.

It was a good eulogy, John.

— Doug Davidoff

Another Photo: Jerry at Mid-Life, With Family, in England

I haven't posted too many photos yet of Jerry at midlife. This photo, which became our 1977 holiday card, was taken somewhere in southern England in August 1977 when the family joined me after my summer at New College, Oxford University. I had just met Amy, who traveled with us and took this photo. Dad was 51 in this photo — one year younger than I am now.

I'm standing in the sunroof of our rented Ford Grenada (the European version, not the American version). Note Dad's bent left leg. I'm glad he enjoyed sitting on top of the car like that!

— Doug Davidoff

 

The Cross-Country Trip, 70 Years Later

This coming summer will mark the 70th anniversary of the famous cross-country driving trip taken by Jerry and his brother, Paul, and their parents, Bernard "Bernie" and Mildred Davidoff. It was the summer before Pearl Harbor. The trip began on the hot and humid midsummer afternoon of Thursday, July 31, 1941. Jerry had turned 15 years old at the beginning of the month. Paul had turned 12 on Valentine's Day. They stopped to say goodbye to Uncle Milton Davidoff on their way across Manhattan to New Jersey.

My cousin Carla Davidoff of New Paltz, New York, the second of Paul's four children, found in her family papers a diary of the trip apparently kept mostly by Jerry (his handwriting is quite distinctive, even at that age) but occasionally by the other members of the family.

I propose to use Google Maps, Wikipedia, photos, and other tools to help us imagine that famous trip. I consider the diary of this trip to be one of the most important artifacts we have of Dad's life (and Paul's, for that matter) as the cross-country trip must surely have been formative in developing a sense of the American idea for both boys, and eventually for their children and grandchildren.

While no one alive today was on the trip, I think the trip is important to us all because it could not have helped but break the family out of the New York enclave in which they lived. Of all the many, many trips Mildred and Bernie took throughout the world in their lifetime, I think none was more important than this motoring trip across America with their sons.

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DAY ONE: THURSDAY, JULY 31ST, 1941

View Larger Map


Map Key: A=Long Beach, B=Midtown Tunnel, C=Holland Tunnel, D=Plainfield, N.J., E=Easton, Pa., F=Bethlehem, Pa.

4:00 p.m. (E.D.T.)
Long Beach, L.I.

Left Long Beach, weather cloudy and overcast. Back and Front seats crowded to the filling point with baggage and Davidoffs. Hit Midtown Tunnel at 5:00. Out at 5:02. Made Holland Tunnel at 5:44 after taking pictures down town and meeting Milton. Out of tunnel at 5:47. Now we're out of N.Y.C..

Sky still overcast, but it is hotter and more humid than at the beach. Had dinner at Howard Johnson's, Plainfield, N.J., at 6:25.

Hit into thunderstorm at 8:20 — Stopped to keep out of rain at 8:40, started at 8:50 —

Passed through Easton [Pennsylvania] at 9:00

This is a boom town or anyway at present it is booming.

It was almost ten when we hit Bethlehem and stayed at the Hotel Bethlehem. Did 110 miles today.

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I love how Bernie and Mildred drove through the evening to make sure they were out of Metropolitan New York before hitting the hay for the night. Maybe they had a reservation in Bethlehem and were determined to get there before stopping for the night.

Does anyone know why this trip would have started in Long Beach, Long Island, rather than from Sunnyside Gardens in Queens? If Mildred and Bernie and the boys stopped to see Milton in Manhattan, might they have seen other relatives in Long Beach? Who lived there? Perhaps they swam on the south shore beach before heading into the city and across New Jersey to Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley for the night. Please provide answers in the comments.

There is still a Howard Johnson's on U.S. 22 in Plainfield, New Jersey. Cannot tell, but it looks like a mid-century lodging entrance in the photo. The town is also the home of the First Unitarian Society of Plainfield, where my partner, Rev. Marta Morris Flanagan, served as an intern minister. She was ordained by the congregation there 22 years ago. 

And a surprise history relic, right off the bat: The Hotel Bethlehem lives! It's been restored and even has an eight-minute introductory video for you to watch.

The video contains a shot of the plaque on the hotel (shown below) relating the founding of Bethlehem as a Moravian community. I wonder if Jerry remembered this plaque and history when he encountered the Moravian traditions again in North Carolina, especially in Winston-Salem?

Here's the plaque, Count Nicolaus Ludwig Zinzendorf, Christmas Eve love feast of 1741, and all:

 — Doug Davidoff