My Mother’s Bubbe - Galetta Kutcher Dubin

In 1904, many of the Jewish men were being inducted into the Tsar's army. Moishe decided to immigrate to the United States to avoid the draft. Moishe left his wife Galetta and their three children behind in Elizabetgrad as he made his way to the United States by way of Liverpool England. He arrived in the Port of New York on the S.S. Lucania on October 14, 1904. His destination was Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Galetta and the children remained in Elizabetgrad waiting for Moishe to send for them. They waited two years. Finally in 1906 they departed for the United States on The S.S. Oldenberg by was of Bremen, arriving in the Port of Baltimore on February 6, 1906. Their destination was Philadelphia where they were to meet Moishe. He had changed his name to Morris Dubin.

Life in America was a struggle for the family. To survive, they all had to work. Galetta took in boarders, Morris ran the tobacco business and the three older children found jobs as soon as they were old enough to work. Anna went to work as a milliner at age 11. The Philadelphia 1910 census lists Anna (age 13), working as a milliner, Louis, age 16, a barber, and David at age 15, a cabinet maker.

In 1912 the family left Philadelphia for Los Angeles where Morris heard that it was easier to ake a living. He and his sons went into the fruit peddling business. They did well enough to purchase a property that had three rental units as well as their home at 130 S. Breed St. When America got into World War One in 1917, the two older boys, David and Louis became soldiers, and Anna became A Farmerette (women who were recruited as farmers while the farm boys went off to war.) When the war as over, Anna went back to work as a milliner until her marriage to Milton Hoffenberg in 1919. Her brother Louis became a florist and liquor store owner and Avid and Al (Abraham) became firemen for the City of Los Angeles.

Galetta and Morris' children had the follow offsprings: Louis had one daughter, Vivian. David had two daughters, Doris and Carole. Abraham adopted a son, Michael. Anna had three daughters, Joyce, Shirlee and Charlene and one son, Donald.

Galetta told the following story to her granddaughter Joyce Hoffenberg Donchian when Joyce was fourteen years old:

Galetta's father was a well educated and important man. Visitors from everywhere stopped at his house in Elizabetgrad and were welcome. He evidently was successful financially because he had another home in Odessa by the sea where the family spent their summers.

Kelman Kutcher believed in education and encouraging women. He expected them to marry for love. Galetta's two sisters had fallen in love and married shortly after finishing gymnasia. But Galetta didn't want to get married. I was having too much fun. I didn't want the responsibility; she told her granddaughter.

However, when she was eighteen her father told her she was too critical and she should be more serious or he would have to arrange a marriage for her. She didn't think he would do that because her sister had love matches.

When her nineteenth birthday approached Kelman told her she was to be married to Madame Dubinsky's son Moishe.

Galetta carried on I told him I would starve myself to death. I would not leave my room. I would not have a shiduch but they went ahead with it. The Dubinskys came to the house on a Thursday after four days of my hunger strike. In the meantime my deenst was bringing me food so I wasn't starving. I could hold out.

My mother came to the door and tried to get me to go downstairs but I wouldn't When she went back downstairs I sneaked down. I was going to denounce them. The dining room door was open a crack and though it I saw the most handsome man I had ever seen. So I sneaked back to my room. That night I went down to dinner. I let them think they had won.

My earliest memories of Bubbe were as a haven of comfort and protection, a physical presence that was soft and huggy, and I loved to be held by her, and rest my head against her soft ample bosom. She sat with me in a bog leather rocking chair, and hummed and sang softly to me as we moved gently back and forth., I looked up at her face sleepily and soothed by her warmth, gently reached up one hand and touched her necklace. She always wore a beaded, crystal necklace and diamond earrings in her ears. Sometimes she let me touch them. They sparked little fires when the light hit them right like the chandelier of big crystals that sparkled elegantly in her dining room above the table with the lace cloth that later as I grew bigger I would hide under. I adored her, she was to me very beautiful. She had soft, curly white hair, worn pulled up in a knot in the early years of may babyhood, later cut in a bob of the twenties, but always wavy, with soft tendrils that escaped around her face. She always wore glasses, unrimmed, and her nose was flattened across the bridge. It was a face I knew from always. It was a welcome faceCand yet I can't remember the color of her eyes behind the glasses. To this day, my heart feels happy and beats stronger at the sight of older, white haired ladies in glasses, especially if they had bridge flattened noses and wore white hats. Bubbe had an elegance about her in my memory. When she went somewhere I remember white hat and gloves, and always the beads, either crystals or sometimes pearls. Always, the earrings, and I would grow up also always wearing earrings everyday, and most frequently necklaces.

How lovely it was to be rocked and sung to by her. She always sang AEila loo loo, Baby.@ She had a lovely, mezzo soprano voice with a slight vibrato to it. My parents also sang Loo Loo Baby, and my mother sang in Russian too.

My Bubbe wrote many letters to people in Russia, (the Ukraine) who she had left behind, and spoke of them often. We were all recreated visions of dearly loved people left behind, or in other cities in the United States. My Bubbe was well educated and read and wrote both Russian and Yiddish. I was told I looked like her, and also resembled Chana Zippa, a much moved youngest sister of my grandpa Morris who we called Zaide. My blonde hair, tow head, white made me look like her soft white hair. The person I most remember that she corresponded with was called Ruchel, and also she loved, and wrote to someone who was always spoken of as AChavid, a great beauty.@ I think she also wrote to an Esther but Ruchel and Chavid where her favorite correspondents.

There was a picture of a young man, with blonde hair and beard, that I particularly loved to look at. He was dressed so gorgeously, and had an elegant jacket, and cravat, and watch chain on . I really loved to look at him because he was so handsome, and had blonde hair like me. I used to go look at his picture regularly, especially after I heard about his story. When I was still quite young I decided he was the man for me, that I would find him and marry him. In my mind he looked like a young prince.

One day I took the picture to my Bubbe and told her I wanted to marry him when I grew up. Bubbe began to cry softly and said with much pain in her voice, ANo, No, my child, you can never marry him. He was killed in the pogrom, a young, clever, a boy still and his life was ended. He was the reason we all left for America. So much promise, and the Cossacks (curse) killed him, wasted his young life for nothing.@

Then she told stories of the pogrom, how terrible it was. How she had hidden her jewels and some money sewn into their clothing. How they had to leave everything behind. On the day of one of the pogroms by the Cossacks she had no where to go with her three little children. A neighbor who was not Jewish hid them all in her cellar. My Bubbe was terrified my mother would cry, so she put her hands across my mother=s mouth and kept her quiet. She put food in the mouths of the others. They cowered in terror. Up above they could hear the Cossacks talking to the neighbor, a Christian lady who was known for her religious devotion. She heard the Cossacks ask if there were any Jews in the house, and she wept in gratitude when she heard the lady swear on her icon and cross that Athere were no Jewish in her house.@ She kept them in her house until the Cossacks left the neighborhood. My Bubbe always wept when she told that story. My mother Anna always remembered her mother keeping her mouth shut with a handkerchief and she struggled, feeling like she was going to be smothered. She remembers her mother saying AKeep Quiet! If they hear you, they will kill us all.@ and she knew she had to keep still.

My grandmother brought her Sabbath candlesticks with her to America, and she also had them with her in the cellar. The Christian lady would take nothing for hiding them in payment. She was very ashamed of the Cossacks behavior to the Jews in Elizabetgrad. I've always been very grateful to the unknown Christian lady who saved us from destruction, and somehow felt I was there too.

My mother told me of long cold Russian winter evenings when as the big oven cooled, they would put feather beds on top of it, and the warmth of the coals would keep them cozy on top of the oven for hours. The children would snuggle into the warmth and hear stories of the Babba Yaga, and different Tales. I was never sure where the oven was. The stories were told by a maid I think, or the milk mother. My mother said the milk mother sang to her.

My mother had a wonderful voice, and sang many songs in Russian. I learned some songs by rote from her, and can sing in Russian, even though I don't believe I ever spoke more than a few sentences which I picked up from listening to my mother and grandparents who spoke fluently to each other when ever their real feelings would be expressed.

Some of her people settled in Philadelphia and I believe she would have been happier near the rest but her husband came to Los Angeles and she followed.

Bubbe Galetta died in August, 1938 when I was only eight years old so I have fewer memories of her than my sisters. When I think of her, I remember a well groomed, elegant Lady with snow-white hair and diamond earrings. She was a zestful, loving woman, with a big smile, a good word and a hug for everyone.

We had a game. She would squeeze, I would squeal. She was a zoftig woman, so when she pulled me into her welcoming arms, she literally smothered me with enthusiastic hugs and kisses, and say, Ah!. A Mekhaye. Es zayer Geshmact! I may loose something in the translation but it mean, Ahhh! Wonderful! It tastes so delicious!. Indeed it was.

Galetta Dubin, Joyce Hoffenberg Donchian and Sossee Hoffenberg Gomer