Mr. Monday and other tales of Jewish Amsterdam

MY YIDDISHE GRANDMA

IVIy grandmother Gittel earned a living for herself and five small children with just a pushcart and some oranges. That was not an easy task because you have to be sharp as a razor in the pushcart business. Eager to get every last cent of profit.

You have to be tough as nails to push that cart around for twenty years through the rain and wind and send your voice climbing up the housefronts. And you've got to be an optimist to believe that people will leave their snug and cosy houses just to buy a few oranges or apples from you. Grandma Gittel was never bothered by false modesty. "Let them imitate what a poor widow has done," she would say proudly.

She herself came from a family of seventeen children. Fourteen died before they were five years old. Grandmother never knew most of those sisters and brothers, yet she said: "We came from a very strong stock. My mother was ninety-nine, and if she hadn't fallen down the stairs, she would still be alive.

If anyone reminded her of the fourteen from that strong stock who apparently had not been so sturdy after all, she would say, "Oh well, sickness does happen."