Curious about my maternal grandmother's long and productive life, I tried on numerous occasions to record her recollections. Sadly, I was never able to get her to chronicle her life story in full, perhaps because memory tends to be so selective and non-linear.
In her latest New York Times bestseller The Boston Girl (Scribner), author Anita Diamant (best known for The Red Tent and a member of a Reform synagogue) introduces us to a fictional grandmother, Addie Baum, who tells her inquiring 22-year-old granddaughter, "I've forgotten a lot more than I like to admit," and then proceeds to remember her entire life with amazing detail.
Diamant told me The Boston Girl is not autobiographical. "Addie Baum is a composite of a number of historical characters, and her story mirrors that of many Jewish immigrant women of Eastern European backgrounds who were told by their parents that their futures consisted of marriage at an early age and having many children."
Central to the book's theme is the granddaughter's question: "How did you get to be the woman you are today?" It's a question that could be asked of many women of Addie's generation.
The youngest of three sisters, Addie was born in 1900 to Jewish-Polish immigrant parents living in Boston's North End. At that time, most women in America didn't finish school, couldn't vote, and worked at low-paying jobs until they were married off to men they likely didn't choose for themselves.
At the age of 15, the bookish Addie was invited to join the Saturday Club, a library program sponsored by the neighborhood settlement house (part of a reformist social movement at the turn of the century in England and the U.S. to help integrate the immigrant poor). One day, Addie was asked by Mrs. Chevalier, the club's organizer, to recite from memory all 13 stanzas of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem "Paul Revere's Ride" in the presence of a professor who had come to present a lecture on the poet. Mrs. Chevalier informed Addie that she was chosen for this honor because, "I believe that girls need gumption…in this day and age. I believe you are a girl with gumption." Addie recited the poem flawlessly and recounted years later, "That's where I started to be my own person."
Addie learned about Rockport Lodge, a vacation house for women, from some of her reading group friends who had frequented it. Knowing that her "old-world" immigrant parents would never agree to pay for what they would regard as a frivolous activity, she took on odd jobs and saved enough money to spend her 16 th birthday at Rockport. Not wanting her family to worry about her absence, Addie left behind a note in one of her sister's shoes. Rockport Lodge, which existed until quite recently in a Massachusetts seaside town, is central to the story both as a setting and as a symbol of Addie's quest for independence.
With the encouragement of friends and driven by her intellect, Addie found herself on a road of self-discovery as a woman. Along the way, she coped with family tragedies, joined a variety of activist groups, and found love.
"Addie's career sort of found her," Diamant explains. "One day, while working in a shirt factory and not having enough to do, Addie began reading a newspaper. She became interested in everything from real estate and the Red Sox to fashion and high society. After meeting a high-society columnist, it occurred to Addie that perhaps there was a way into that world for her. Just the idea of her name appearing in print for all of the city to see changed the way she viewed herself and the possibilities that were opening up for her." That is how Addie became a newspaper writer.
Much later in her life, after interviewing women at Beth Israel Hospital for a newspaper story, Addie decided to change career paths from journalism to social work. "She discovered," says Diamant, "the many losses women endured in silence from miscarriage and stillbirth, and wanted to ask them questions that resulted in answers that usually did not come out unless the questions were asked in the right way." To learn how to ask in the right way, Addie enrolled in Social Work school.
As Anita Diamant draws us into Addie Baum's story, we come to admire her independence and laugh at her awkwardness and witty sayings. And we join Addie in a journey through the 20th century that reminds us of how far American women have come in claiming their rightful place in society - and how much we owe those who paved the way.
Rabbi Robert Orkand is rabbi emeritus of Temple Israel of Westport, CT. He now lives in Boston.
