In 1959 we lived on Manchester St. in the North End of Hartford and Harold and Barbara Richman lived on the Boulevard near Quaker Lane in the South End of West Hartford. Our paths crossed at Temple Beth Israel in that year as we and they attended the L-Z High Holy Days services and sat near each other. As well, we continued sitting in the same section at Shabbat Services. Eventually we exchanged social visits.
By 1961 the Richmans had built and moved into a house at 1 Kirkwood Road in West Hartford. We were beginning to think about and plan our move to West Hartford. One Sunday afternoon we were at the Richmans and talking about our hopes. Harold pointed to the empty lot directly across from their house and said it would be a good place to build. A short time later we bought the lot, and in March 1963 we moved into our new house, #4 Kirkwood, opposite the Richman home.
We each had three children. Our middle child, Lisa, and their oldest child, Lauren, though a year apart in school, became good friends and playmates. Their middle child, Jenny, was a classmate of our youngest child, Robert. We the parents used to watch them huddled in conversation on the wall in front of the Richman house talking about we knew not what! Harold sometimes said that if Jenny and Robert got married, we could build a house for them in the empty lot he owned behind his house. When Jenny married Jeff Toder, Seymour said to her in the wedding receiving line: “Does this mean you’re not going to marry Robert?”
All our children attended Beth Israel Religious School through Confirmation. The boys were Bar Mitzvah there and the girls would have become Bat Mitzvah if that had been an option in their years. Lauren and Jenny were married at Beth Israel under a chuppah that Harold had had built at the time of Lauren’s wedding and then donated to the synagogue. (Chuppot had not been used before then at TBI weddings.)
Jonathan, the youngest Richman child, was a freshman at Brown Univ. when Rob was a senior. Lauren and Jenny both did college programs in Israel where they met up with Lisa. Now all our children have scattered, except our oldest, David, who remains in Connecticut; Lisa to Israel, Robert to San Francisco, Jenny to Los Angeles, Lauren to Boston and Jonathan to North Carolina. In recent years we have managed to have all of them, with their spouses and children, arrive at Kirkwood Road during the same week in August. The 10 grandchildren intermingle at games, and on one night we have a grand cookout, usually at the Richmans because their back lot, still devoid of another house, serves as field for the intergenerational softball game. During that week in August, both houses, now largely empty for most of the year, are overcrowded!
Through the years we have shared joys and sorrows, dinners, carpools and house watching. We have always appreciated the beautiful landscaping that each home presents to the other. We have mutual interests that bring us together (without “cooking in one another’s pots”) and diverse interests that take us into other circles. In these 35 years we have been to each other the best of neighbors and more: a caring, loving family.
