{geni:about_me} . Ida Levin was born in Yekatrinislav, Ukraine in 1884. She was one
of a large family. Her mother's name was Zelda. She had two sisters and
a brother, Shifrah, Harry, and Sarah, who after coming to America, lived
in Buffalo, N.Y., and four other brothers who remained in the Ukraine.
They were Abram, Nathan, Frederick, and Aaron. After marriage, the
youngest child, Sarah, moved to Rochester, N. Y. The family who came to
America stayed in touch with each other and visited each other as often
as they could. Their children also kept in touch until twenty years ago,
when the older cousins started to die. The family gatherings were very
warm and cozy. There were sufficient love and good feelings to go
around.

Ida supposedly had an affair with a cousin of hers who left her and
so three weeks after a meeting with ëShiya they were married on the
rebound. He was a baker and she sold bread in the town square. She was
two years older than her husband. Within a short time Ida was pregnant.
The deteriorating state of safety concerning Jewish life and welfare at
that time was a catalyst for her and her 20 year old husband to decide to
go to America to start a new life.

They went to Buffalo where her sister Shifrah, and her brother Harry
were living. Their first child, Alice was born only a few months after
their arrival in America. There was no work for him as a baker, so within
a year the three of them moved to Brooklyn and rented a room in a woman's
apartment. Her daughter, Alice, contracted childhood Polio which ended
up being debilitating. This became a source of skewed family dynamics for
the family in later years. They moved into a small apartment sometime
later when Lee, and then Freda were born. Ida was pregnant once again
but didn't want that child so she aborted herself with a hanger. The
girls were each two years apart but their only son, Max, was born four
years after Freda.

Her daughters went to school but soon had to drop out because they
had to go to work to help support the family. Only Alice continued in
school and went to all girls' high school. Alice also had piano lessons
for a dime a week but she had to teach her sisters how to play the piano
whether they wanted to or not. Sibling rivalry erupted, with Lee being
jealous and angry with Alice most of her life.

The family lived in a tenement where there was a small store on the
first floor and they lived on the third or fourth floor.
There was no family around them in Brooklyn so after many years, in
1925, they decided to move to California together with their friends.
Even though their friends changed their minds about the trip, they
proceeded. Her husband joined the Bakers' Union, even teaching and
apprenticing her son-in-law, David Ginsburg, in being a cake decorator.
They socialized only with other Union members. The couples of the Union
got together often socially and the women hung onto each other. They
tried to live near each other and became each other's extended family,
even though they had a few family members here. Her husband worked hard
and was an honest humble good-natured man.

Ida lived a quiet life as a homemaker and sewed on an old Singer
sewing machine - making clothes for her children and grandchildren. Ida
knitted as well as making clothes for the winter and crocheted doll
clothes, tea towels, things to cover tables, etc. She was an excellent
cook but did not share her recipes nor did she teach any of her daughters
how to cook. She used to make lots of food and always sent food home
with Alice.

I remember their home in East Los Angeles on Alma Street. The
"Jewish" place for school and meetings, the Menorah Center, where the
"Arbet'ter ring" met, was diagonally across and down the street. My
grandmother took my hand and slowly walked me to the butcher shop when I
was three or four years old. We would buy a fresh chicken for the
evening's meal. I remember that she was greeted warmly, and so was I, by
the people in the shop and along the way. When they moved to Rose
Avenue, in Venice, my grandfather held my hand and walked me to the store
at the beach to buy me rock candy or a bag of pine nuts. He used to sit
on the benches "at the front".

I can't recall my grandfather's voice but I remember him as being
soft and Buba Ida as being hard. She was the definite boss of the house.
She was clean and neat, and expected the same from her children. She was
inclined to "nervousness", with her husband receiving the brunt of the
outbursts! At the same time, I really remember her laughter. She
laughed a lot and told many jokes. In fact while she was undergoing
surgery for breast cancer she was telling my husband Herb, and me, a
dirty joke but told us not to repeat it to my mother because she would be
shocked!

After Grandpa died, Grandma came to live with my parents on
Spaulding Avenue. She brought all of her own bedroom furniture with
her. After my father became so ill, she went to live at the Goldstein's
"Old People's Home".



Recorded by her granddaughter,
Sandra Ginsburg Oberman, September 1998