RUTH DROPKIN ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney, and today is May 25th, 2016.  I'm here in Brooklyn, New York, with Ruth Dropkin.  We're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project.  Do I have your permission to record?  Do I have your permission to record?

RUTH DROPKIN:  Absolutely.        

CW:  Okay.  Great.  Well, we're mainly gonna be talking about someone that you are sort of related to, through marriage.  How would you introduce Celia Dropkin to someone who didn't know anything about her?

RD:  I'm assuming that -- have the live Celia Dropkin or some book?  Which -- 1:00which Celia?  Well, as John himself capitalized, he said, "An eminent (laughs) Yiddish poetess."  I'm translating it literally.

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CW:  Well recognized in her lifetime?

RD:  Yeah.  So much so that when I actually did meet her for the five minutes that I'm telling you about, I mentioned it to my mother, who read everything, and she said, "Oh, yes, I've read Celia Dropkin."  She said, "Tsu erotish [Too erotic]."  (laughs) She was a very sophisticated, but Victorian, type, my mom.  (laughs) And so, it was this name that was well known.  Yeah.

CW:  And can you explain your relation to her?

RD:  I married her son, who had been widowed, and I widowed a little earlier.  And so, that even though she was no longer alive -- this was a year after she died -- officially, technically, (laughs) a daughter-in-law, right?

CW:  So, can you tell me about this one meeting you had with her?

RD:  Yeah.  So, it was the summer I was widowed.  I was up in what we called a bungalow colony, which you may know.  It should be part of every history of anybody who's written.  And it was also a center of modern Yiddish writers at a local hotel.  It was called Maud's Summer-Ray.  And in this colony, I had a 3:00cottage with a sister, and the Dropkin family had a cottage somewheres.  And one day I'm walking along a dirt path, and there is John Dropkin, who I'd met, of course, a little bit earlier.  And, he introduced me to this woman.  "This is my mother."  That was one introduction.  And the same day, I went down to the swimming hole that we all enjoyed, and she's sitting on the banks.  But I do not recall any conversation.  But I know that she knew that I was widowed, because, first of all, she looked at me very intently.  And, I caught a piece 4:00of conversation that her -- oh, what's the word in Yiddish?  It's only in Yiddish.  For the mother of your children's --

CW:  Mekhuteneste [Daughter-in-law's mother]?

RD:  Mekhuteneste.  And that's a wonderful word.  See, that's the value of Yiddish, that there are a good supply of that kind of (laughs) language, right?  Yeah.  And I heard this mekhuteneste saying to her, "You know, she's just been widowed, she has two little kids."  And so Celia was looking at me.  But I'm trying to recall -- it was a very darkened look, that's my recollection now.

CW:  What was --

RD:  Intense and darkened.  Yeah.

CW:  And what did she look like?

RD:  She didn't look anything, to me, like the wonderful photograph that's in 5:00the frontispiece of that book, which John took when she became a grandmother.  That was 1940, that picture.  He took it with his little Brownie camera.  And she had a big smile in that picture.  She never smiled again (laughs) in any picture.  I think that's the only time she was caught smiling.  She had a very dure quality.  Yeah.

CW:  Anything else -- your first impression of her?

RD:  That's it, really.  Yeah.

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CW:  Well, I want to ask you a little bit about Celia, just her life.  And if you don't know some of the details, that's fine.

RD:  Yeah.

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CW:  Do you know where she was from?

RD:  I know that she comes from a major, major center of Jewish life, Bobruysk, that's now in Belarus, but was part of the tsarist empire, and that she was born 6:00in 1887, same year as my mother, and that we uncovered that date from going through a mishmash of papers, in which I located her graduation from -- she'd gone to a gymnasium.  And I said, "Well --" this date was in front of me, 1887.  It'd been 1888, I think, something.  And so, we changed it on all the documents since then.  Yeah.

CW:  And do you know anything about her family, her parents?

RD:  No, all that I heard from John or his sisters -- that her father died when she was -- and her kid sister -- were very young, and that immediately, as in the Jewish tradition, of Eastern Europe, anyway, they would pull together the 7:00mother and the two girls into the home of a rich relative who could afford to take them in, take care of them.

CW:  Do you know if she comes from a religious family?

RD:  I don't think so.  The father was a lumber merchant, and I think [Gallaudet?] -- something like that -- family.  And took them in.  But definitely a bourgeois, upper-middle class.  I think they really were Russian speakers, too.  That's the impression I get.  That their basic language of Yiddish was, you know, maybe kitchen Yiddish.  Interesting.  You see, they were educated and they were probably trying to assimilate.  So, there was more 8:00Russian in her background than Yiddish, growing up.  That's my impression.  Yeah. 

CW:  Yeah.  I read that she started writing in Russian, actually.

RD:  That's right.  That's more or less proof that she -- yeah.

CW:  Do you know -- are there any stories about how she started writing?

RD:  All I can remember is that Gnessin, who was a prominent writer in Hebrew, interestingly enough -- because her growing up coincided with this slight flair of interest in -- Let's get back to Hebrew.  Forget about Yiddish.  Forget about Russian, Polish.  Hebrew.  And he was a published Hebrew writer.  And, he had come across something she either had published or he read it -- whatever it was; that I'm not sure of.  But he was definitely encouraging her.  And he 9:00must have been very attractive, because he had a lot of girls after him.  And she fell in love with him.  This is what I came into.  And he was honest enough, at least, to tell her that really, with his advanced TB, there wasn't much sense for her to hang around, and he encouraged her to quit Bobruysk and get to centers of culture, Warsaw especially.  Yeah. 

CW:  And do you know anything about Bobruysk?

RD:  About Bobruysk?  Not too much, except that -- interestingly, you fast-forward decades, I'm in a car -- a private car service, not a taxi -- and a guy who's driving it is from, obviously, Brighton Beach, from his accent, et 10:00cetera, et cetera.  And I said to him, "Well, where are you from?"  And he said, "Bobruysk."  "Oh, that Jewish city."  You see?  So, it was all very -- kind of a bit like New York or Chicago in Jewish life, you see?  Lots of Yiddish speakers.

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CW:  So, then she did leave Bobruysk, and do you know sort of --

RD:  Yeah.  I don't know how old she was, actually.  Probably in her early teens, I'm --

CW:  And do you know much about -- you said the gymnasium.  Do you know much about her education otherwise?

RD:  Not too much, no.  Except my mother went through it, too.  Never particularly referred to it, except that she read all the great classics in the 11:00original, and as one of my relatives told me, her bedroom -- she had her own room, interestingly enough, and it was just wall-to-wall great big photos of all the -- Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy -- (laughs) Yeah. 

CW:  This is your mother's room?

RD:  That's my mother's side, yeah.

CW:  Nice. Can you tell me a little bit about your mother?  Where is she from?

RD:  Well, she's from a very important area, in terms of revolution history, from Smorgon, which is not far from Vilna.  And a center of revolution.  And, in fact, she was jailed at sixteen, because she was carrying some leaflets in her ample bosom, and the cops spotted it.  So, she was jailed a couple of 12:00months.  But she went ahead and married the love of -- I hate that expression, "the love of her life" -- my father, who was non-revolutionary (laughs) and had just gotten his certification as an Orthodox rabbi from the seminary, local seminary.  Yeah.

CW:  And he was also from there?

RD:  Well, he was from Kovno.  A real shtetl [small Eastern European town with a Jewish community] outside of Kovno, Jonava.  But she was from -- well, a pretty advanced city, for the Russian Empire.  And they had lots of unions, trade unions and revolutionary groups, Socialist, and probably Bolshevik groups too.

CW:  And when did they come to the US?

RD:  They arrived in New York at 1915, 1916.  I was the first to be born 13:00here.  Yeah.

CW:  And you're --

RD:  I have two sisters ahead of me.

CW:  And can you briefly describe what your home growing up was like?  Where was it, and what did it look like?

RD:  Well, I was born at home.  And I think I was born on Christmas Day, because there was a definite marker on my certificate.  My mother, very shrewdly, said, "Let's make that the 26th."  (laughs) Very smart.

CW:  And after whom are you named?

RD:  Hm?  I'm named for my father's mother, also Shayna Rokhl.

CW:  There's a bit of a story about that name?

RD:  That name?  Of course.  Because once I had to apply -- at kindergarten 14:00registration, my big sister got to it to do that, and she said, "Oh, that's not an American name.  We have to give her an American name.  Ruth."  So, I was renamed at that spot as Ruth.  (laughs)

CW:  And what were the languages that you grew up with?

RD:  I heard some Russian.  But it was all mostly Yiddish.  If I heard Polish, I wouldn't have recognized -- too close -- I wouldn't have known much difference.  But, we had some German relatives.  Berlin was considered the center of the civilized world at that time.  So, I may have been -- but it's largely American English and Yiddish.

CW:  And in what part of Brooklyn were you living?

RD:  East New York.

CW:  And what was that like when you were growing up?

RD:  Actually, even though I revolted against it, couldn't wait to get out (laughs) into Manhattan, it was a wonderful neighborhood, in the sense of community feelings.  You knew everybody.  And a mix of one side of the street were one- and two-story private homes facing tenement apartment buildings.  So, you got this sense of class very early.

CW:  And what was your home like?

RD:  We were in a two-family that my father purchased a few months before I was born.  It was right at the end of World War II.  Yeah.  And he had --

CW:  World War I.

RD:  -- just created his own synagogue down the block, on the next street.

CW:  What was it called, the synagogue?

RD:  Hm?

CW:  What was the synagogue called?

RD:  Well, it translates as "friends of the rabbi."  (laughs) Which was literally.  He was very ambitious at that time, and he got together some comrades, and they bought a lot on the other side of the rail-- well, the subway had just come through, as an elevated -- as part of the New Lots line, number two or three, I'm not sure now.  And literally built their building as -- they were friends of the rabbi.  So, he was there thirty years.

CW:  So, was your home observant then?

RD:  Of course.

CW:  Your mother adapted to that?

RD:  Oh, yeah.  She was very, very careful, very meticulous.  Yeah. 

CW:  When you were a kid, what was your favorite yontev?

RD:  My favorite what?

CW:  Yontev?

RD:  Mm.  I suppose it was Hanukkah or Passover.  They're all important.  I'm trying to remember which holiday we were sent to the home of Mrs. Goss, about four streets away, because she was a very skilled dressmaker.  And we had our whole wardrobe made up for us.  So, it couldn't have been Passover, 'cause I remember spring -- yeah. 

CW:  Was it a Jewish neighborhood?

RD:  Mostly.  The few streets I was allowed to move around, I would say it was 18:00almost all Jewish and all for immigrants.  So, on one level, we were all alike.  But lots of eccentric characters that emerged fairly early.  You recognized strange relatives.  (laughs) But they stood out, because there was constant intermingling.  'Cause you lived part of your life, actually, on the street.  Now, in that sense it was a great neighborhood to grow up in.  And wonderful, wonderful public schools, each and every one of them, including the climax of senior high.  Yes, once I finished with senior high I moved out of 19:00the neighborhood, went to Brooklyn College, which is another part of Brooklyn, another world.  Yeah.

CW:  Near where you were growing up, was there a center where you would do grocery shopping, where there were little stores?

RD:  Well, if you went down to the corner, about a third of the block -- we went down to the corner.  One of my chores was to take the aluminum pail, with a cover, and fill it up with milk.  That was one of my chores.  And so, you had a neighborhood butcher who was obviously Orthodox.  I still remember the beard, the shirt, the apron.  I remember the kosher butcher store.  I remember the first Fortunoff store, of everything.  (laughs) In fact, they were our next-door people, next-doorniks.  Yeah.  At the same time, you have 20:00connections with the outer world, the wide world, through the fact that one of my sister's best friends had uncles living with us, bachelor uncles, who had a shop, a bookstore, in the Village, in Greenwich Village, which we called the Village at that time.  And through that one little connection, I was launched into (laughs) modern lit -- modernism, really.  Yeah.

CW:  Can you describe the shop?

RD:  Huh?

CW:  Can you describe the shop?

RD:  I never got to the shop.  You see, I was so little, and by the time I could get into the subway myself, it was gone.  But there were constant books circulating.  Like, I just -- D.H. Lawrence, for instance, 1920-something?  I 21:00still have the Modern Library edition.  Though my sisters left -- opened that door for me.  Yeah.

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CW:  So, you started reading at a young age?

RD:  Oh, yeah.  I was an early reader.  And I was just -- I loved school in general.  I really -- I couldn't bear the weekends.  I mean, I really just -- it was a perfect family school, the kind they're always talking about and never achieving, where they knew exactly who you were, and you were surrounded by siblings or other relatives.  And even though -- maybe one Jewish teacher, 'cause the name was Cohen, and run by a German principal.  The welcoming atmosphere of that school just worked for all of us.  Yeah.  That's elementary school.

CW:  And you also had a Jewish education?

RD:  Somewhat, yeah.  I went to standard kheyder [traditional religious school].  My father's synagogue had -- the whole basement area was arranged so that the kids could come there.  So that helped me in the Yiddish later on, that I -- I retained the alphabet enough.

CW:  Were there other girls there?

RD:  Oh, yeah.

CW:  Together?

RD:  Yeah.  See, it was a modern Orthodox for that time.  And my father, in fact, was a Zionist, which was not standard for most Orthodox rabbis.  He was very active in the Zionist movement.  Yeah.

CW:  Were you exposed to any Jewish literature when you were growing up?

RD:  Only through stories, and overhearing constant discussion and arguments 23:00about what B.Z. Goldberg said today in the "Tog."  It's like saying, Well, what did Paul Krugman say (laughs) today?  Or --

CW:  So, you got the "Tog" at home.

RD:  Oh, yeah.  And, in fact, my father started out -- his first English-language newspaper was the "Herald," or became the "Herald Tribune."  He was a Republican, and it wasn't until the New Deal was well underway that he switched to becoming a Democrat.  Yeah.

CW:  What do you remember about the Depression?

RD:  A lot.  (laughs)

CW:  What images come to mind?

RD:  Well, even though we were on home relief -- I don't know if you know that term.

CW:  Not really.

RD:  It was a very smart use of public monies.  And it's, if you had a child 24:00who had a degree -- which my sisters already were well on their way to getting.  My older sister had just graduated from Hunter College -- and you applied for relief -- because my father, at that point, was making ten dollars a mon-- a week.  (laughs) That was his salary at the shul.  And she became an investigator for the Department of Welfare, and her salary, in other words, kept us going.  So, that was a very smart use of relief money, don't you think?  I think it was a very impress-- so I remember that, but I don't remember feeling oppressed.  I was aware that -- all of us were in the same boat, you see.

CW:  What images come to mind?

RD:  Uh -- some pretty horrible.  Yeah.  Some awful images.  But I think the -- the happiest image I have is of getting out after the erev Shabbos meal and walking up, mostly alone, up a couple of blocks to what would be the main street, where the big shops were in this section of East New York.  And, on every corner there was a soapbox or some form of it.  And one version or another of socialism.  (laughs) You could really get a complete education if you took notes.  And I must have done that for quite a number of years, because the episode that remains with me is, I'm a freshman at senior high -- so I was 26:00already thirteen -- twelve, thirteen -- and there's one of the kids in my class.  I mean, he couldn't have been much older.  And there he is standing on some kind of carton and orating about Marx, Lenin -- oh, the works.  And I went up to him, and I said -- I still remember his name: Bernard John Paul -- I said, "Bernie, (laughs) how did you get to this position?"  He said, "I make it all up."  But it was a wonderful feeling of the excitement.  And you're never alone, the streets are full.  And it's that ideas matter.  They're interesting.  They're fascinating.  Yeah.

CW:  What was Friday night like at your home?

RD:  Friday was a very special occasion.  By two o'clock Friday afternoon, my mother had scoured the house -- she did get help.  I don't remember that I did much.  And (UNCLEAR) my sisters.  But it was definitely ready for the Sabbath.  She had made a meal for Friday night, for Saturday afternoon.  Sunday was off.  She had taken off her apron.  And then she marched around the corner to the local cinema, (laughs) only it was called the Supreme.  And for five cents -- or ten cents, something like that -- you got at least one or two features.  And she did that religiously.  (laughs)

CW:  On Friday.

RD:  She was that organized.  See, so I'd never felt oppressed or kept back, because she had such a sense of management of money, of people, that I have actually never spent a summer in New York City.  It was always either Rockaway Beach or some country place.  And that's the way I landed, (laughs) decades later, to meet John Dropkin.

CW:  So how did you meet --

RD:  I was always in step.  I never thought of spending a summer in the city.  I wouldn't know what to do with myself!

CW:  So, how did you meet John?

RD:  So, that was the summer of great tragedy for me, because in June, the beginning of June, my first husband died, after twelve years of marriage, and 29:00two little kids, four and seven.  And one of my sisters was gonna be -- had already rented a place at this colony, and she said, "I'll find a spot for you, and you come up with the kids.  And, she found a room in one of the cottages that I could rent.  And that was the summer when he took his wife --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

RD:  -- two daughters, and his mother-in-law -- mekhuteneste -- to another cottage there.  And that's how I met him. 

CW:  And --

RD:  And the next year his wife had died.  She'd had cancer.  And we were married, I guess, about two and a half years later.  Yeah.

CW:  And what was your courtship like?  How did you get to know each other 30:00after that?

RD:  What was my courtship like?  It was interesting.  'Cause he was already a professor of physics.  So mostly, I was taking lessons in physics from listening to him.  'Cause I was out there with English and American lit.  You know, it's another world.  And he was genuinely taken by my kids.  It didn't phase him.  His daughters were fourteen and seventeen at that point.  But it took a long time for me (laughs) to come to the conclusion that we were married.  I'd been widowed about two and a half years, and he about a year.  Yeah.

CW:  And had you known -- I mean, you said your mother recognized Celia's name.

RD:  Oh, yeah.  She had -- well, Celia was published in the "Tog" and especially the journal that both my mother and father agreed on, the "Tsukunft."  You see, that was their meeting point.  Otherwise they were at each other, hammer and tongs.

CW:  Had you known about her before?  Celia?  You, personally?

RD:  Not at all.

CW:  So, what was it like getting to know the family, sort of joining that family?

RD:  Oh, it was very interesting, 'cause each and every one of them are brilliant, interesting people.  Yeah.  And my kids certainly enjoyed them.  And their descendents -- you know, like Elizabeth and others -- yeah.  Very 32:00different.  Yeah.  What can I say to sum it up somehow?  I ended up with one of the few achievements I can point to in my life.  John was the firstborn of five or six, and one of his sisters turned out to be Lillian Weber, who's a major, major, significant person in American education.  I don't know if you're aware enough -- do you remember the term "open classroom"?  All right.  It came out of her theorizing and her actual putting into practice her ideas about early education, public education.  And I got so involved and intrigued by them 33:00that I was able to use a job I had at the time to have her produce a book called "The English Infant School."  It was based on her studies of England.  And it was really much a bestseller for an education (laughs) textbook (UNCLEAR).  It was her study of how the English, in the rough time after World War II, when England was really down, the empire had gone, how they managed to create an ideal education setting for their working-class kids.  She said, "If they can do it -- I have to figure out how they did it.  And we've already had the setup 34:00here.  We can adjust."  Well, it takes a lot of training.  It got a lot of attention, her ideas, at first.  It got publicity.  But it does take a lot of training.  And so, it's dissipated.  But I always felt very proud of the book I enabled her to get out.  It's her book, but -- and I got it out and helped edit it and got it to publishers.  Yeah. 

CW:  Was --

RD:  So that's my one major connection with John's kid sister.  (laughs)

CW:  Right.  Was Celia talked about?

RD:  Uh, somewhat.  Yeah.  I wouldn't say it's a major (clears throat) significant part, but -- I remember Lillian saying to me at one point she 35:00announced to Celia that, "Oh, yeah, I think I want to be a teacher."  She'd started out as a sociology researcher, you see.  And at some point, she got excited about teaching.  And Celia turned to her and said, "A teacher?"  You know, with that kind of quizzical "really" that's sort of down.  (laughs) I remember that.  Celia was a babysitter for all her children, somewhat -- some more -- I think Elizabeth had it most.  But Lillian's kids remember her that way too, the babysitting.

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CW:  What was your sense of her personality?

RD:  Lively.  Dramatic.  One kid sister told me once, "I'd be home --" the 36:00youngest, as it happens -- "and I'd have a couple of boyfriends around, and in walked Celia, and says, 'Listen to this poem!'"  (laughs) And another remembrance, Lillian telling me -- 'cause I asked her so many times -- "Oh, I'd come home from school, and stuff burning away on the stove, the dishes not done, and there's my mother, at the kitchen table, writing."  Sort of not so approving, right?  And then, a third remembrance -- this is Elizabeth's mother -- is walking with the father and the mother, and she notices the mother's -- Celia's ahead of her, and her slip is showing.  You don't understand, that slip 37:00-- in those days, everybody had a slip, right?  And she turns to her father and says, "Oh, why does Mama walk with such a sloppy slip showing," you know?  And he stops her right in the middle of the street, and, stentorian voice, says, "You are never to criticize your mother.  She's a genius!  I don't ever want to hear a word of criticism about her."  In so many ways, he was a great support, especially the financial end.  I'm not talking about that's -- so great; it was good enough.  But he actually appreciated her difference from others, so.  So those are things that I picked up along the way.  But I wouldn't say that -- it was more curiosity, I think, about him, because she had 38:00said something -- Celia -- that she would do a biography of him.  He was one of the founders, a very active person, in the Bund movement.  And he had to really run for his life.  That's why he came to America to begin with.  He came here just before John was born.  Yeah.  So, they were always wondering why there wasn't -- what did he do; where did he come from?  They didn't have that much information about him.  And Celia was herself, I thought, rather distant from -- when you look at her collection of poetry, there may be one or two mentions of her kid sister, a wonderful poem about her mother, and a couple of mentions of her father.  And I think those connections are significant.  Yeah.  So, 39:00there wasn't that much -- I think one of John's sisters did get to the Soviet Union at one point and tried to see if they could dig up information about the sister who stayed.  There's a certain la-- well, I shouldn't call it laxi-- everybody can't be great archivists.  (laughs)

CW:  So, how did you first get to know the poetry, Celia's poetry?

RD:  Well, once I went back to Yiddish and started reading it, and we both did it at the same time, so we would read aloud.

CW:  Can you explain how that came about, that you wanted to do that?

RD:  It was because there are very attractive courses at YIVO, and it was easy for me to get to and from.  And it was just a challenging experience for me at one point, a curious -- yeah.

CW:  How did it connect to where you were in terms of your Jewish identity?

RD:  Well, of course, it's all post-Holocaust, and we were all reacting in some way, whether we knew it or not.  I think that was it.  Yeah.  Yeah.

CW:  So, who were your teachers at YIVO? 

RD:  At YIVO?  If you gave me the names, I would probably recognize it.  41:00There were two women.  And I also met Leo Greenbaum.  But that was peripheral.  It wasn't connected with that.  It was through a third party.  And he's been very helpful, and we set up an archive for Celia, such as it is.  Yeah.  See, one of the problems -- this John's sister Esther revealed.  Esther is Elizabeth's mother, okay -- is that she wrote a lot, Celia.  She didn't rewrite or revise.  That's always intrigued me.  Had to come out; it's out.  But she was part of a circle of -- each and every one of them -- starting with 42:00Molodowsky and -- who was the other great one?

CW:  Anna Margolin?

RD:  And I'm sure they got together a lot.  They must have read through -- they must have.  See, but I have no record, nobody talking about, no recollection of hearing -- but I'm sure it was a piece of it.  Yeah.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:  Can you hold it up and just introduce it?

RD:  Oh, yes.  It's a beautifully produced book --

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

RD:  -- I think it's a wonderful addition to Yiddish culture that John Dropkin produced.  He really worked at it, and involved so many people. 

CW:  And when was this --

RD:  So, this was done about a year or two after we got married.  The first edition, tiny book, came out in '35, '36.  You know, you self-published.  We 43:00were all, almost all, self-published.  We're back to that too, nowadays, but that was standard operating procedure.  Yeah.  And John located people who had known her very well and who were literary, and they relished all the short stories, odds and ends of pieces.  Yeah.  And I spent a lot of time on my own, and I knew enough librarians and others who would say, Oh, I came across this Celia Dropkin translation.  And at one point, before -- way before this bilingual, I must have had about twenty-five to forty specific translations.  Then, I found her in anthologies.  I have a number of them.  So that I got 44:00interested in what she was saying, or trying to say.  Yeah.

CW:  How would you introduce her poetry or describe her poetry?

RD:  Someone who is very sensitive and aware and constantly responding to all kinds of cues, from very immediate personal physical, to feelings, to impressions, to experiences -- and has to get it out.  Has to express it.  That is a tremendous energy.  And I think what comes across -- and I think that's what draws so many young people who're starting Judaic Studies, that kind 45:00of thing -- is, Oh, you can say that in Yiddish, which they've heard about, dimly.  Not so heavily.  And she's also talking about a lot of intimate things, like sex.  And in her own time, when my mother dismissed her, it was because it was hardly done at all.  It was mostly political, right?  So-called proletarian.  I mean, there were a lot of great poems there, but she really stood out for -- though when you think of Margolin and Molodowsky, they also wrote in that vein.  They were very -- I've often thought -- this is one of my fantasy assignments if I had a class, you see.  There are six or seven great writers in American English, starting with Edna St. Vincent Millay.  Women, 46:00right?  And there are six or seven (laughs) in Yiddish, living at the same time, '20s and '30s.  And a study should be made of those two.  That would be something for the Yiddish Book Center to subsidize.  It's interesting, huh?  Well, it's history.  Yeah.  So, I think people are responding to that upsurge of -- really feminist upsurge in general.  That's why she's appealing today. 

CW:  What is the form of her poems?  Is there a typical form?

RD:  Not really.  Not really.  You can't say she's of this-and-that school.  No.  No.  But then, you see, I don't know enough about Yiddish poetry -- poetry in Yiddish -- to categorize her.

CW:  So, about this book -- what else do you remember about how it was put together and sort of --

RD:  And -- yeah.  And then, we just sold it.  Yeah, here she is, looking at John's first child.

CW:  Her first grandchild?

RD:  First -- so it's her first grandchild, 'cause he was the first to get married and have kids, actually.  And --

CW:  But she didn't look like that when you saw her.

RD:  No.  Very rare.  And I've not seen it used -- I was very disappointed that they didn't use it in that -- they used something that -- probably closer to her real disposition, but --

CW:  Could you --

RD:  See, now, this is a very American kind of face, in the sense of a smile, right?  Happy.  Everything (laughs) has to be -- the pursuit of happiness, this is the place, right?  But you don't see it in anything else -- in her work, particularly, or in her photos.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

RD:  And Esther looked most like her. 

CW:  Great.  Thanks.  So, who were the people that worked on this book?

RD:  Well, I remember Mr. [Delorne?].  I think he really put it all together.  He wrote the introduction.  And, you know, it takes a lot of arrangement.  And then, I had a friend of mine, Ezra Jack Keats, go over her work, and we picked out what we could -- we couldn't afford all of it in color, 49:00but we got some of it.  He helped me.  He's a prominent artist.  He thought she was a very brave -- (laughs) I remember that expression.  He thought she was very brave in her art.  Yeah.  Oh, there was a big connection between John and Celia.  At one point when she was -- I think already had stopped writing.  The last few years she didn't write.  But she was doing these particular ones on that wall.  And one of them won a very prestigious award.  And it was in the gallery in Manhattan.  And John arranged to have -- "Oh, let's get together for lunch, Mom."  He met her and walked her into this gallery.  And there it 50:00is, with an award.  That's the third one.  It's really a great -- or whatever it is.

CW:  And the kids all sort of collaborated on this book?

RD:  The kids weren't involved at all.  This is 19-- let's see.

CW:  I mean, Celia's kids.  So, John and the others?  Or just John?

RD:  Oh, yeah.  They all contributed to it.  It's an expensive job.  So, this is 1959.  All right?  I've been married to him for a couple of years.  And they all signed it -- John, Esther, Lillian, Henry.  Now, Henry is named for Gnessin, but you can't get along, and in public school, with the name of Uriel without suffering.  (laughs) So, very early on he became Henry.  And 51:00E.B.  Yeah.  So, they all signed this acknowledgment to the mother, yeah.

CW:  So, you were reading her in Yiddish as well as in translation?  You personally were --

RD:  Yeah.  Oh, yeah.  I could read.  It takes me fore-- a while to get back into sync, but I can read it.  And I still need a dictionary for some words, yeah.

CW:  Are there any poems that stand out in your getting to know her that were sort of --

RD:  Yeah.  I think the poem she wrote to John, who -- "Tsu mayn zun, ver hot mir geshenkt koraln [To my son, who gave me gifts of beads]."  That's a very 52:00significant poem.  The one she wrote to Esther, also.  I'm surprised that they left it out of the bilingual.  Um -- what is your question?  That I --

CW:  Well, poems that stood out when you were getting -- starting to get to know her work?

RD:  Yeah.  Yeah.  As her descendants were getting married, we decided to make reading a bilingual reading.  John would read the Yiddish, 'cause his accent was perfect, (laughs) and I would read the English version.  So, we ended up doing our own translating for a number of things.  And I do remember the first time it happened, I started going through this, and I said, "I have to get a poem for a wedding!"  Not many of these poems fit a wedding.

CW:  So, what did you choose?

RD:  So, I finally got a very, very romantic, adolescent poem to -- the spring scene kind of thing.  "A Summer Sonata."  "Zumer sonata."  Well, that actually translated.  (laughs) But I had a relative go over it.  I wasn't sure of it.  I couldn't be.  So --   

CW:  And what do you know about this book, and were you involved in that at all?

RD:  Yeah.  Well, I know that it was (laughs) sitting on Yale University Press for too long a time.  Oh, yes.  Here's another translation I did.  Yeah.  I 54:00didn't remember reading that.  Well, there were three kids who also got involved with Yiddish in an odd way.  I think they were first attracted to the language.  Just the language is fascinating.  And I don't know what -- one of the three is an actual poet, in the sense that she's published, and that's what she does.  And they were so heartfelt in their insistence, and it's hard work.  And they -- far apart geographically, so it wasn't easy.  And they 55:00stayed with it all the way through, so I'm really admiring the persistence and the energy.  I think they could've been luckier with a printer or publisher.  It's too bad that they had to end up with a very, very primitive, amateur group.  But it's there, and I think there'll be others.  I'm sure there'll be other translations.

CW:  Would you mind reading this one?

RD:  Hm?

CW:  Would you mind reading this one?

RD:  Which one do you want me to read?

CW:  Well, both, if you wouldn't mind.

RD:  You want me to read the Yiddish?

CW:  If you wouldn't mind.

RD:  Okay.  "Tsu mayn zun velkhe hot mir geshenkt hel-bloye koreln.  Es kiln 56:00mir dayne koreln un ikh fil zikh modne yung.  Ikh veys nit tsu ikh volt makhn vern vider yung."  And my vision is bad.  "Nor mir iz dakh az ikh ken nokh gefeln a yingl fun nayntsn vi du.  Ot azey vos ikh trog di koreln mit a shmaykhl fun hel-bloye ru."  Now, see, hear this rhyme?  There're other poems where there's not a trace of rhyme.  See?  That's why you asked in answer to 57:00your question.  It's hard to pin her down.  And yet, it seems so simple, and yet, you come across this line where she says, "Huh.  So, I'm still attractive to a boy of nineteen."  You see?  There are layers and layers in Dropkin.  And that's another part of her appeal too.  Yeah.

CW:  Would you mind reading the English?

RD:  Oh.  "To My Son, Who Sent Me Bright Blue Beads."  "Your beads cool me, and I feel myself oddly young.  I don't know that I want to be young again.  But I think, if I can still please a lad of nineteen, like you, why then, I 58:00shall wear these beads with a smile of bright blue tranquility."  I remember puzzling over that "ru."  (laughs) It was hard.  And I think it's -- it's in the -- let's find it here.  "To my Son."  I don't know --

CW:  Oh, here it is.

RD:  -- what they did.

CW:  It's very small type, but --

RD:  Yeah.  Yeah.  Yeah.  1930.  See, they weren't even dated, half of them.  You had to puzzle them out or -- occasionally there was a date.  This is her way of dealing with it.  Would've been useful, right?  It's not 59:00absolutely essential, but -- yeah.  So, it's -- this translation, which I think I did, or John: "Why then, I shall wear these beads with a smile of bright blue tranquility."  And here I have, "It's good to look lovely for a young man of nineteen.  My beads, my smile, calm and light blue."  You see?  This is (laughs) not a poet.

CW:  Did you enjoy the translation process?

RD:  Oh, it's tricky.  Yeah.  Oh, yeah.  I'm a great admirer of translators.

CW:  How did you go about it, you and John?

RD:  Huh?

CW:  How did you and John go about it when you were translating?

RD:  Well, we got the assignment to read a Yiddish poem.  We knew it would 60:00have to be bilingual.  So, at that point I didn't come across anything that I found in print, particularly, for that pantoum -- that "Summer Sonata" poem, especially.  And I'm not sure I used that -- maybe I did, for some wedding.  That could've been.  So, we just sat down and sweated over.  Yeah.  So, I have another couple of relatives who are Yiddish-speakers and quite literate in Yiddish, so --

CW:  What does Yiddish mean to you?

RD:  It means the source of a fantastic civilization (laughs) that I think is 61:00just easing its way out of history, yeah.  'Cause I always think this group that came out of tsarist Russia in the 1880s and came into this countryside -- and there's still remnants of it in more recent immigrations -- have made fantastic contributions, especially in literature.  But certainly in the arts.  The ones who stayed behind in the '20s in the Soviet period, the artists were -- we've never matched those abstract -- the first abstract people.  So, there was someth-- I think the source is Yiddish.  Yiddish inflects -- yeah.  62:00And even among the Polish Jews -- I don't want to exempt them.  Like Bruno Schulz; do you know his work?

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

RD:  And I guess I have a sentimental attachment.  And I certainly enjoy the expressions, like mekhuteneste, right?  But there are so many others, idioms that are incomparable.  Yeah.  So, how do you -- how do you keep it alive unless you're actually speaking it?  (laughs) But I think your work helps.

CW:  Thank you.

RD:  I'm sure it does.

CW:  Is there another poem that you would want to read?  Another favorite poem that you have that you might want to read?

RD:  Oh. 

CW:  Of hers.

RD:  Well, I think it's definitely in this collection.  I once marked up one 63:00of these.  This isn't the book I've found that I marked up, but -- "Tsu a tokhter [To a daughter]."  I think that's it.  Eighty-three. 

CW:  Yeah.

RD:  "Ikh hob dir haynt in gas getrofn. [I met you on the street today]."  See, she has a wonderful way of picking up the rhythms of thoughts.  "S'iz mir geven dayn kol, dayn halts geven tsum kaltn veter ofn.  Ikh vil keyfn dir a 64:00shalekhl fun vol. [I saw your voice, your throat open to the cold weather.  I want to buy you a wool scarf.]"  And then that's repeated at the end.  But I thought that was a very powerful poem.  It was 1940.  It was a political poem too, because you're getting to -- these nutty, anti-communist scares were just starting up again.  (laughs) And -- 1940.  And Esther was a leader in some parts of that.  And it must have been a rough day for her.  And out of that very simple, mundane situation, that comes this -- yeah, perfect poem.  Yeah.

CW:  And what happens in the rest of the poem?

RD:  Hm?

CW:  What happens in the rest of the poem?  Do you remember?

RD:  Well, she says, "I know you're having a lot of troubles, and constant -- you know, your neck is open, your throat.  You're gonna get sick, you're gonna catch a cold," (laughs) that kind of thing.  But it's more than that, of course.  And her solution is just classic mother: "Well, I can't change history; I can't change the events.  I'll just go out and get you a woolen scarf.  I'll do something."  I -- it's very powerful, this poem.  I keep this 66:00nearby, (laughs) either in my bedroom or here.  And I dip into -- and now with the translation, it's helpful.  Yeah.

CW:  When do you find yourself reaching for it?

RD:  Well, I've -- (laughs) this is part of my guilt-ridden affect with -- connection with my father, the rabbi.  That a part of every Shabbos, (laughs) I spend some ti-- like, about an hour or two -- reading.  It could be Celia Dropkin.  It could also be Walter Benjamin.  That's when I'm very, very (laughs) energetic.  Yeah. 

CW:  So, that's your Shabbos ritual?  Part of it?

RD:  Yeah.  Well, and I'm thinking of trying to put that in words, how -- I mean, there is something about the Sabbath that still stays with me, so that it 67:00is still a special day, even though I don't observe it in any other form or way.  But I know that's that the day that I'll have to (takes breath) take a deep breath and stop.  So, I -- this is an assignment for me, just to keep in touch a little bit. 

CW:  And when did you start writing yourself?

RD:  Oh, well, I started very early.  I was very precocious.  'Cause I was a sickly kid, so I'd be in bed a lot.  And my mother had three other kids and a husband who was (laughs) the most demanding, as you can imagine.  And she was also the rebbetzin.  So, there she's all those positions.  So, I had to amuse myself.  And I still remember -- I must have been in the first grade or -- I 68:00knew about notebooks -- well, maybe got that from my older sisters -- and pens, and pencils.  And I sat down, and I just sat up in bed, (laughs) between aspirins or whatever it was, and wrote something.  And next to being a rabbi, a writer was the most revered model you could have in my family.  "Oh?  So, somebody's scribbled an article."  So, I got -- latched onto that.  I also got a little attention that way, you see.  That didn't hurt.  And it was a very busy, fluid household, people coming and going.  'Cause you're living in the public, essentially.  And my mother really -- first of all, she'd brought all 69:00her siblings.  She was the oldest of eight.  She arranged for them to be sent over before the terrible things.  So, they were in and out of the house, right?  It was very busy.

CW:  Do you want to --

RD:  I wrote something about my mother.  Yeah.  Finally.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:  So, when did this start?

RD:  Well, it's a year after he dies.  He dies in 2007.  And I wanted all the kids and grandkids and great-grands, you see, who were situated all over the globe.  I arranged for a conference call.  And we all got up there to the phones and talked about him.  And I had written something about that year.  70:00And it got such a warm response from those kids that I said, "Well, I really ought to sit down and write about the rest of the relatives for them."  So that came out of that.  So, I have something there about my book.  And I actually had one or two of them published in "Jewish Currents" and a feminist journal.  Yeah.

CW:  Hm.  And this is also you.

RD:  And that's something I've written since then.  Yeah.  And I'm still trying to write some more, but -- this is not family so much as --

CW:  Um-hm.

RD:  Yeah.  Also self-published.  Though I have a rejection slip or two.  (laughs) The "New Yorker," of course.  Yeah.

CW:  So, what is -- I mean, this -- you didn't know her personally, but what is your relationship to Celia?

RD:  Relationship of what to what?  To the book?

CW:  Well, you to her.

RD:  That's an interesting question.  I think I was affected by whatever contact I had in the last few years.  For instance, that -- the first line of the poem to Esther: "Ikh hob dir haynt in gas gezegent [I met you in the street today]."  And I think it fired off my first line when I started thinking, I have to write something about John for the kids.  And I said, "Well, I haven't met you yet in the street."  And I thought to myself, That rhythm came out of that poem.  So, she's been a major influence.  Of course, Emily Dickinson 72:00counts for me too.  Yeah.  I think she's the best we have done (laughs) so far.  Yeah.  And also a similar type, in the sense of dashing off -- I don't think Emily rewrote or revised either.  (laughs) Yeah. 

CW:  Well, is there anything else you want people to know about Celia or -- that you haven't said yet?

RD:  Well, John was very grateful to her for including him -- not only with this poem, but she would take him to the Café Royal, and he was a very good-looking escort, attractive escort.  And he had vivid memories, and I kept 73:00asking him, as I got to know names, and he knew so many of the greats.  He remembered them very vividly.  They were very intertwined group.  Yeah.  And the last night before he died, he was in that room, in hospice -- under hospice, more or less -- and he suddenly sat up, swung his legs over his hospital bed, and a son-in-law says, "Now, John, tell us about your father."  And out came the most coherent stream of history, of the Bund (laughs) getting started.  And the picture emerged of this very courageous, tough, hard-as-nails guy came 74:00out.  Yeah.  And, of course, of John too, as a result.  But not Celia, you see?  It's interesting.  Yeah.

CW:  Yeah.  Um, did you want to just show me this too, before --

RD:  Oh, yeah.  You can even have it.

CW:  Okay.

RD:  I happen to have some extras.  But --

CW:  Great.

RD:  -- when he died, I set up a memorial at his university.  A hundred people came.  And I'd invited certain specific speakers.  And this stuff was so interesting, I said, "I'll have to publish this."  So, this is self-published, but it's all -- each page is another aspect of the Dropkins.  And it was enough 75:00-- maybe a touch, too, of Celia in it.  That's why I brought it out.

CW:  Great. 

RD:  You might want to go through it and keep it.

CW:  Yeah.  Thank you. 

RD:  They interpreted the kids interestingly.  This is the grandkids -- interpreted the fact that they moved -- it's a lot of movement almost every year.  But, they don't know the historical fact about New York City housing, that during the Depression, if you moved every year (laughs) you would get a month's concession, it was called.  And so, it wasn't that she was a sloppy housekeeper -- which she probably was indifferent -- but that that was the thing to do.  You got out, you had your place painted, your new place, clean, new.  Yeah. 

CW:  Right.

RD:  But that's their recollection, the grandkids, you see?  Oh, she didn't care about that at all.  But -- yeah.

CW:  Do you think she has readers today?

RD:  Say that again?

CW:  Do you think she has readers?  Celia.

RD:  Do you know that this -- "Acrobat" is sold out.  And there's some discussion, but it's so -- again, geography and age.  The main translator, Faith Jones, who negotiates most of the technical things, lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.  And so, it would be wonderful if it could be reprinted and really marketed properly.  But we sold out every copy.  And I think it was at 77:00least a thousand.  And I think possibly with a redoing typeset and whatever, it would have an audience, yes.

CW:  And why would you say that people should read her today?

RD:  What (UNCLEAR)?

CW:  Why should people read her?

RD:  Well, it's a voice that's worth hearing.  It's a voice that should be heard, of a woman coming out of tsarist Russia, coming into the US, finally, and 78:00expressing feelings about being a female, of being a lover, being a mother.  And a daughter.  And these are expressions that are right to the point, exactly to the point.  And that's what poetry should be already, any good writing about yourself, to tell it as you feel it, as you know it.  And I think that's what comes through for the kids, freshmen or sophomores, that this is the way it 79:00really is.  This is worth feeling.  Yeah.  And I think the more they get of Yiddish, the more they can appreciate her work.  It's true, you need to study the language, right?  Yeah.  So, I'm glad you're doing that for Yiddish.

CW:  Well, I want to thank you.  A hartsikn dank [Thank you very much].

RD:  Oh.  (laughter) A hartsikn dank, yeah. 

[END OF INTERVIEW]