The Meyer siblings, Leonard, Frank, Jerome, Mildred and Norman, racked up 313 wedding anniversaries among them. Yet three of them were divorced once. Jerome was married at age 17 or 19 to Teresa King. They were divorced after a year or two and he married Bertha Rosenberg. At the time of his death in 1993 they had been married 59 years. Mildred was married to Harry Lipsitz at an early age. Again the marriage lasted only 3-4 years and they divorced. She married Robert Gabriel Eskeles and at this writing they have been married 56 years. Norman was married to Sylvia Shultz for 35 years. They divorced and he subsequently married Romayne Snuckels. At the time of his death in 1997 they had been married 22 years.
This is the story of Mildred’s gett, the document of Jewish divorce.
On November 28, 1993, three months after my mother, Ruth’s death, I was cleaning out a filing cabinet drawer at 210 El Dorado Drive. Among the various manila envelopes in the drawer was a free-floating small letter-size envelope with a return address on it: Rabbi M.R. Charrick, 122 Aisquith Street, Baltimore MD. There was no stamp, postmark or addressee, only the circled words in Ruth’s handwriting, “Mildred’s Get.”
Inside were two sheets of paper. One had a letterhead for Rabbi M.R. Charrick, in English and Hebrew. It was dated January 1941 and had seven lines of Hebrew writing. The second sheet was dated Jan. 10, 1941 and read: “Received of Mildred Ruth Meyer the sum of $10.00 to cover expenses of trip from Richmond to Baltimore, Saturday, January 11, 1941, and I will arrange to be present at the home of Rabbi Charrick, 122 Asquith Street, Baltimore, Maryland, 12:30 P.M., Sunday, January 12th, 1941.” It was signed “Harry Lipsitz.”
I called Aunt Mildred and asked, “Why would this be in my mother’s effects?” Mildred was shocked (something she rarely is and if she is, rarely shows it!) Then she started to remember. “I gave the get to Ruth a few days before I married Bob to hold until the ceremony. [They were married in Ruth and Leonard’s house at 4419 Monument Ave., Richmond on December 10, 1941.] At the ceremony, Ruth was supposed to show it to Rabbi [Nathan] Kollin. Came time for the ceremony she couldn’t find it, couldn’t remember where she’d placed it. Rabbi Kollin took Ruth’s word that the get existed and performed the ceremony.”
For 51 years, Mildred said she hasn’t known where the document was but about once a year she thought about it. Why Ruth never turned it over to her is a mystery. Ruth must have come across it from time to time, especially when they moved from Monument Ave. to El Dorado Dr.
Lesson: Ruth mislaid many things but she never “lost” anything because she never threw anything away!
When I told this story to my son, David, he said: “See, that’s where I get it from. I never lose anything either though I often can’t find things I’m supposed to have.”