Recollections of Cousin Iris Lerner McIntyre...

As one of "the very oldest cousins", I remember Marvin, Leon and I used to play together. We used to play in something like a little shack outside with Bubby lived, around Western Avenue someplace. We'd play Monopoly by the hour. I remember one time when Zadeh got furious! They had a boarder, and we used to taunt, "Ha, Ha, Mrs. Hakenflach," and we repeated it over and over. Grandma got so mad and told Grandpa to go out and hit the boys. So Marvin and Leon got hit because of that, but he never touched me, ever. Nobody every touched me! I felt so bad. Grandma egged him on to do that....

I also remember when Grandma and Grandpa Lerner would take me downtown with them on Fridays to the Million Dollar Theater. I used to be fascinated to watch Grandma get into her corset. She wound herself into that thing. Then we all went downtown to the Grand Central Market where we did all the shopping for the week. And then we would go to the movies. We saw a movie and then there was live entertainment. There were vendors that would go up and down the aisles selling things because theaters didn't have a concession stand in the lobby in those days. I was so fascinated. To this day I love the Grand Central Market.

Zadeh worked all the time and was up at all hours. So when he was home, the minute he'd sit down, he would fall asleep in the chair in the living room.

Grandma was such as forceful, dominant person in the family that everyone else faded into the background. I remember her vividly, up until she died. I especially remember her in the home around Western Avenue. One of my earliest recollections was when she Ben Schlect (lighting the Sabbath candles). I would sleep on the couch in the living room, and then we would go downtown together. It was always the three of us. I was her first granddaughter, her little girl.

I remember going to their place for Passover and I always say in The Other Room with the kids. I resented always being shoved into The Other Room. I couldn't wait to be in The Big Room with the grownups, but it never happened.

Grandma and Grandpa celebrated all the occasions. Grandpa made a kind of whiskey and he would put whole cherries in it. We kids would eat the cherries and get drunk. In the backyard he built a succah when it was Succoth. I remember another time they had apples and flags for some occasion at the temple. And they would take me along with them.

Grandma’s food was terrible- absolutely terrible. The only thing I liked was her honey cake and some other cake-I think it was sponge. She usually burnt them on the bottom but they still tasted good.

My mother, "Big Auntie Bess", went back East with Grandma and Grandpa around 1937. They went with my Mom when she went to by a new car in Detroit, I suppose because Zadeh wanted to go back to Montreal. They drove both ways, the old car one way, the new car back. You can't imagine the stories she had to tell when she got back home. The escapades they had sounded like the Katsnjammer Kids.

First of all, they wouldn't go anywhere that wasn't kosher. Go find a kosher restaurant all the way driving back East! One time Grandpa couldn't find his glasses; he looked high and low-they were right on his forehead the whole time! I can clearly remember how glad Mom was to get back home. We kids (Nessa and I; Sue wasn't born yet) were treated royally by my Dad (Moe) and Grandpa Coleman, so we didn't even miss her. One time they took us to MacArthur Park and Nessa fell in the pond. Daddy had fallen asleep and I had to go and wake him to tell him that Nessa was in the lake.

I remember another time my Dad took us on the milk route in his milk truck without doors; he stopped at the dime store and bought us books. We took off again and I promptly fell off the truck while reading my new book.

I adore Uncle Lou. He was the epitome of everything wonderful. We used to go to the beach and I used to lay on his stomach and we would sing, "It's much better to give than to receive," and we would go on and on. He gave me my first camera and my first binoculars. I still have them and wouldn't part with them. He was on a pedestal and I looked up to him. Uncle Lou would take me and my daughter Kathy to the ball game. First we would go the most marvelous restaurant; from there to the ball park. "Do you want a hot dog, a pennant, peanuts, popcorn?" "Uncle, we just go done with dinner, a marvelous dinner, how much more can we eat?!" I also worked for Uncle Lou in the office for several years. He was always very fair to everyone who worked for him. He was just a wonderful person, and I just loved him, that's all there was to it!

Uncle Nat is such a giving person. When I was going to buy my house in Panorama City and the money hadn't come through yet, Uncle Nat loaned me the money...no questions asked, no signing anything...just a genuinely nice person.

It was impossible to change Daddy (Uncle Moe). I can remember over the years Mamma would tell Daddy to put the teaspoon in the saucer rather than on the tablecloth. No matter. He always put it on the tablecloth. He was oblivious. He didn't like to be told what to do. Come to think of it, I don't think any of the Lerners like being told what to do. I think they're all the same.