Ellen Rosenblum was a woman of many names - daughter, wife, mother, grandmother, and many more. But my favorite name for her is great-grandma.
Born on January 16th, 1922, Ellen Rosenblum (nee Hoffman) was raised in southern California. She would go on to graduate phi beta kappa from UCLA with a degree in chemistry - one of only eight women at the time - and, in 1944, she married Larry Rosenblum, the love of her life. By the time she passed away, she was the mother of three children, grandmother to three grandchildren, and great-grandmother to four great-grandchildren.
Throughout her long life, she shared many of her stories with her family - in between demolishing us at many brilliantly-played games of Scrabble, of course. I was lucky enough to be able to collect her stories and write them down. Through doing so, I learned a lot about her life, as well as what it was like to grow up during the Great Depression and WW2.
The house itself was too small to call cozy, especially after we converted part of our already tiny living room into a section of the store. After that, we only had the kitchen and two bedrooms. My parents took one room, leaving Mark and me with the other. That arrangement lasted until I was a teenager and my parents decided it wasn’t appropriate anymore. At that point, my mom and Mark switched so that I shared a room with my mom, and Mark shared his room with our dad.
The Library
My path to the library went down the street and around the block, which meant I had to go through the “colored section" of our neighborhood. My aunt always warned Mark and me to be careful there, because we could never trust “those colored folks." And yet, I never minded them. As I passed by, I liked to look at the people sitting on their porches, soaking up some of the hot California sunlight. I always wondered about them and their lives. Did the man reading the paper want it just for the business section or did he enjoy the comics too? Was the woman reading in her chair enjoying her book? Did the little boy chasing his sister around their yard enjoy his school? Random thoughts, but I couldn’t help but wonder about them; these people who were supposedly so different from me, and yet seemed so similar.
Religion
When I was about six, I came across a beautiful book at the library. Immediately interested, I checked it out and brought it home to my parents. Showing it to my mom, I said, “I found the most wonderful book! It’s a beautiful book, and it’s the story of…” I paused, squinting at the word and trying to figure out how to pronounce it. “It’s the story of ju-eh-sus.”
Looking over my shoulder, my mom chuckled. “Ellen, honey, that’s JE-sus!”
“Oh,” I said, looking back down at the book. “I guess that’s not for me, then.”
I returned the book to the library the next day, though I’m sure my mom was still telling the story for laughs years later.
My Favorite Poem
The Purple Cow
Cooking, Cleaning, and Everything Else Housewife
One time, when I was still a young girl, my mother was out of town. This left me in charge of dinner. Having never cooked anything before, I decided to make potatoes. I threw them in the oven for a few minutes to warm, and then served them to my brother and father raw! I don’t remember their exact reactions, though I’m sure they were both counting the minutes until my mother came back home!
My Brother
One of the things I remember most was his little tricycle. He absolutely loved the thing and was constantly out riding it up and down the street. I would sometimes join him on my roller skates, though he rode it even when he was alone. One day, there was a big vacant lot right down the street from our house that filled with water after a big rainstorm - a rarity in hot, dry California. Mark was out riding his tricycle on his own when he somehow fell in. Luckily, he was pulled out by another boy who brought him back home and, when I opened the door, asked me, “is this your little boy?”
Even years later, I still shudder to think about what might have happened if Mark hadn’t been lucky enough to have been rescued by that boy.
There was about a 5 year age difference between Mark and me, which meant we didn’t often do things together. I did enjoy helping him with his homework, - he grew up to become a nuclear physicist - though that was about it. One day when I was about 14 and he was about 10, we happened to be walking to the movies together. All of a sudden, I decided that I really liked him. After that, I worked at becoming closer to him and from that time on, we were best friends.
The Military, Men, and Mathematics
I attended UCLA as a chemistry major in 1940 and was one of only 8 women in the program at the time. It was there that I met one of my life-long friends, Aria. After graduating, she and I worked together at a lab in the city.
I first met Larry Rosenblum at a party hosted by some friends of my parents in 1942. He worked for the military, but being color-blind, he wasn’t allowed to go overseas - something that always made him feel like he wasn’t doing his part for the War effort. From the time I met him to the time we married and I moved to Arizona so we could live together, we wrote hundreds of letters to each other, sometimes sending two per day.
Larry enjoyed hunting with his friends at the base. One time he wrote to me about a hunting trip for Wild Boar when he first became an officer. They didn’t end up finding any Boar, though they did kill four rattlesnakes, which they counted as their good deed done for the day. Larry also mentioned in the letter that he had been very surprised when the captain offered to fill his pack for him. A few hours later, he opened it to find more rocks than ammunition in it. He said that they all got a good laugh at that.
When Larry proposed to me, I knew that I loved him. However, I still wasn’t sure about getting married. I told him that I would think about it over the weekend and then tell him my answer. I’m sure he was very nervous waiting for my response, though of course I said “yes” in the end, and I never regretted it!
Married Life
One of the big lessons I learned from being married was that not everyone was a cook. I moved to Tuscon with one cookbook and no knowledge of how to make anything. My dinners never tasted very good, although Larry told me that he liked them. However, I did enjoy baking. Larry and I would bake together on the weekends, making different types of cookies from the recipes that my mother-in-law sent me.
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140,165 Literary Works • 673,032 Reviews
Hey there! I'm gathering it's too late to help you edit this for your competition (sorry!) but I wanted to pop by and give this a review anyway, and it was enjoyable to read too.
I think from a structural perspective, you don't necessarily need to include the different headers as each piece of the narrative flows together quite well and it's easy to tell what you're talking about as we read through. I think it would be stronger to let the themes of family, religion and the others you touch on come through throughout the piece rather than feeling like you need to have sub sections for each.
I also felt like you did a good job of capturing what felt like the voice of someone older, but after reading the end it did seem like the two voices were very similar. I'm not sure if that was intentional to show the closeness and how one influenced the other, but it meant that the only thing that made me sure I'd switched back to the original voice was the lack of italics. Possibly just something to think about in future writing.
Overall though, this was a lovely read and I'd love to know how you did in the contest!
Happy Sunday
Icy
Hi Icy,
No worries about the late review, I'm always grateful for any suggestions I can get for my work! I thought what you said about the two voices being similar was very interesting - I didn't intentionally have the two voices be as similar as they are, but my great-grandma had, and still has, a big influence on my writing style, so it does make sense. Props to you for pointing that out, since I'd never really considered it before!
Thanks as well for the suggestion about the different headers. I'll definitely go back through and look at bringing out those different themes throughout the piece, instead of just in their specific sections.
Thank you for the great review! I hope you have a happy and healthy week!
~ thePoet
Hey there, Alice here to give a review!
MY TOUGHTS
Thee is nothing much to say, as it wasn't a story, it was bout your memories with your great grandmother. Her life was beautifully conveyed! I was taken back to the times when my grandma used to tell me stories and when movies were still 'pictures' XD. There was almost no grammatical mistakes. Th sentences are well structured and you gave really good descriptions about he situation and the sceneries.
TINY-MINY NITPICKS
lives should be lived I believe
The name should be Gelett Burgess
Tuscon must be Tucson
here the sentence would be to get the chance to be
These are just some small errors we all make, don't stress on it! Just edit them out and it will be fine
MY SUGGESTION
Maybe this title could be modified to something else, maybe Domestic works or Things people expect a housewife to know. You know maybe think of something else.
OVERALL
Overall it was warming to get a peek at your great grandmother's life. She was a great lady as far as I have learned after reading this. You did an awesome job writing this, it was very well organized and perfect! And I am really sorry that you didn't get feedbacks earlier cause I read you are going to give this in a competition. I really hope you still have time. Lastly keep writing! You are good writer, tat I know after reading this! Enjoy being on YWS!
Bye!