MEET PETER'S MOTHER,
REBECCA SOYER BEAGLE

6/27/2006 UPDATE: Rebecca Soyer Beagle died in her sleep just after 8 PM on June 24, 2006, at the Salem Lutheran Home in Oakland, California. She was 100 years old. Rebecca is survived by her two sons, Peter and Daniel. Messages of condolence should be sent to Peter c/o Conlan Press, 2565 3rd Street, Suite 306, San Francisco, CA 94107. Peter requests that any donations in Rebecca's memory be made to the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California. The easiest way to do so is to click here.

Rebecca Soyer was born on Christmas Day in 1905, in Borisoglebsk, part of the Russian oblast of Voronezh (an "oblast" is very roughly our equivalent of a state). Borisoglebsk is located on the left bank of the Vorona River, near the point where it joins the Khopyor River. It's 161 miles from the border of the Ukraine, 377 miles southeast of Moscow, 1750 miles east of Paris, and a heck of a long way from the Bronx, where Rebecca wound up spending most of her life. Today the population of Borisoglebsk is 70,000, about the same size as Santa Fe, New Mexico. Back in 1905 the city was a good deal smaller, and around fifty Jewish families had been given permission by the government to live there. The Soyers were among them: Avrom Soyer, his wife Bayla, and their six children (in order of birth — the twins Moses and Raphael, Isaac, Fanny, Rebecca, and Israel).

The family emigrated from Russia to the United States around 1913, when Rebecca was 8 years old, and settled in the Bronx. Once there the Soyers adapted quickly to their new home. Moses and Raphael picked up English as fast as possible, embarrassed as only smart teenagers could be at having been placed in elementary school classes with little children until they learned to speak like everyone else. Along with their younger brother Isaac they went on to study art and became moderately famous as modern realist painters. Today their work hangs in museums all over the world.

Rebecca focused on academics, eventually graduating from both the Hebrew Teachers Institute and Hunter College. After graduation she became an elementary school teacher.

In 1932 she decided to take a five-week trip back to Russia, traveling by cruise ship. Soon after boarding she met another immigrant New Yorker who was taking the same trip: a quietly-charming 30 year-old history teacher named Simon Beagle. Despite the differences in their backgrounds — Rebecca's people were Russian Jews with a history of academics; Simon's people were Polish stetl Jews and semi-literate, with Simon himself likely the first person in his family ever to read a book — the two hit it off. By the time the cruise ship made dock back in New York they knew they were in love, and almost immediately on their return they were married in a small synagogue in Manhattan.

Rebecca and Simon first set up together in a small house near Columbia University. This is where their first child, Peter, was born in 1939. Two years later they moved to a four-room apartment on Gunhill Road in the Bronx, where Rebecca gave birth to the family's second child, Daniel. It was a melting pot community, a mix of Jewish and black and Puerto Rican, and just a block away lay the vast green expanse of Woodlawn Cemetery. All of these things would deeply influence Peter as he grew up, but nothing shaped him as strongly or as deeply as the home environment created by his parents. In the Beagle home there was always something to stimulate the mind and the senses: rich conversations with artists and teachers and intellectuals, some of them family members, some of them friends; paintings, drawings, lithographs, and watercolors on the walls; and books, everywhere books.

Peter loved growing up there. "I most clearly remember that books were talked about. And I don't know of any other house where I could have gotten away at the age of 11 or 12, and currently in love with the works of William Saroyan, with reading a chapter aloud from My Name Is Aram in the middle of dinner just to show how I wanted to write."

Today Rebecca ("Rebbe") Beagle is 100 years old. She is effectively blind, can no longer read, and is suffering from steadily-worsening congestive heart failure and a host of other ills. Peter visits her every day while he is at home in Oakland, and offers the following:

Peter: "As she says herself, it's not always good to get so old. She feels she has outlived her life, because except for her most immediate family she has lost everyone she ever loved. Inevitably blindness and near-deafness isolate her. We've recently gotten her a new hearing aid, which seems to be helping a good deal. And I read to her, because in some ways the very cruelest thing to happen, for her, is not to be able to read. I sometimes think that if she could still read on her own she'd live forever. Her short-term memory is largely gone. I've been there in the morning to visit, and then had her call in the afternoon to ask when I'm coming. On the other hand, her long-term memory is sometimes remarkable.

"Last year at this time I was convinced she was going to die any day, what with issues of heart and lung congestion and other matters. But most days now she is stable. She sleeps better. Her condition is well-monitored and the drug and treatment regimens are generally effective, so I don't panic the way I was. And, remarkably, her weight is the same as I always remember it being, around 118-120 pounds.

"You know, she taught me how to read. In my kindergarten years you weren't supposed to arrive already knowing how, but thanks to my mother I did, and my kindergarten teacher was really pissed and let it be known. If my mother hadn't started me so early I wouldn't be the person or writer I am today, and I think about that often, as I read to her."

Indeed, Rebecca indulged and encouraged Peter's imagination in every way that she could. Doing so came naturally, for it was how she was treated herself, growing up in her large and loving family.

When she was 90 years old, Rebecca wrote essays about her father and her grandmother. They are reproduced here for the first time.

 

My Father, Avrom: A Character Sketch

by Rebecca S. Beagle, March 1995

"Sir," said the judge. "You seem to be an intelligent man. But you've been in this country a long time, at least ten years, and you still can't speak English properly. Now you are applying for your citizenship papers, but your English is terrible. I don't think I should grant your citizenship. How come your English is so bad?"

"Your honor," my father replied, "I have six children...I say to myself , 'should I take care of myself or should I take care of my children? Send them to school, see that they become good students and good citizens of this country?'

"I think to myself: I am an old man. How much more time do I have? I am not important. My children are young. I want them to be good, important citizens of this county. I love this country. I want my children to be good Americans.

"So I work hard to make a living. I teach. I write. Not in English. I am very busy all the time. I have no time to learn English."

The judge was impressed, and Avrom Soyer became a citizen of the United States . That was my father. He was never lacking in words. He had an answer for everything. How he could talk like that, when he barely knew the language, was beyond me.

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We lived at that time on the upper floor of a two-story house. The owners lived below us. One day a terrible fight broke out between the husband and wife — the voices grew louder and louder, they were going at each other in a terrible way. It wasn't just an ordinary family quarrel. It was something that could lead to violence and we became frightened.

"Go downstairs," my mother said to my father, "and see what you can do. Try to make peace." He went downstairs. We heard him knock, we heard the door open, and then we heard my father's voice, low and calm, and there was quiet. Then we heard, each of their voices, telling him their side of the story. He answered both of them gently, and gradually they calmed down and began to talk to him and to each other. The fighting was over, and peace reigned again.

My mother looked at me and smiled. "See," she said, "I knew he could do it."

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Avrom was a short, slight man with a head of thick, prematurely white hair. He had enormous, dark eyes with black, thick eyebrows, a wide forehead, a thin dark narrow face that tapered down to a pointy chin, covered by a pure white Van Dyke beard.

He made a living teaching and writing. He wrote articles and stories for the Yiddish and Hebrew newspapers and magazines.

He taught at Yeshiva College, in the Bronx, a four-year school that specialized in training students for the orthodox rabbinate. It also had an education department where my father worked. His subjects were Hebrew literature, creative writing, grammar, Jewish history and pedagogy.

His students loved him, and looked upon him as a father. He was especially interested in any student who showed a talent in art. He would encourage them and urge them to bring samples of their work, which he would show to his artist sons for their advice and opinions.

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When he died, his children established a scholarship in his name at Yeshiva for a graduate, who, aside from academic proficiency, showed a special artistic gift. The sculptor Chaim Gross created a bronze medal with Avrom's likeness on one side, and a beautiful design on the other, representing the Fine Arts Department of Yeshiva College. This medal was presented to the scholarship winner every year at the graduation ceremony.

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As busy as he was, he still had time to spend at home. He would sit under one of the large rubber plants and read or he would lie on the couch and read. He was interested in what his children were doing. He was very proud of his artist sons, and was always ready to pose for them. He was proud of the rest of us, and said he never had to worry about our school work and didn't need to see our grades. He trusted us, he said.

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Avrom was a very absent-minded man. You could tell, just looking into his large dreamy eyes that he was in another world most of the time. We were usually amused at the crazy things he did, like the time he put his clothes on top of his flannel pajamas, and then was so hot that he was sure he had a fever.

But there were times when it wasn't so funny.

He was especially pleased that I was attending the Hebrew Teachers Institute, which was a department of the Jewish Theological Seminary and which I attended at the same time that I was going for my BA at Hunter College.

I enjoyed my four years at the Institute. My teachers were all scholars and poets, writers and historians and psychologists. I loved the language. I also made some wonderful friends that I have kept to this day.

Soon the four years at the Institute were over. Graduation was to take place one evening. It was a serious and important event, and our parents were invited.

Dressed in my cap and gown, I was very excited. I knew I was getting a prize, and I could hardly wait for my parents to arrive.

It was still early when I saw my father coming toward me, alone, his eyes large with worry.

"Where's Mom?" I asked.

"We came to the station," he said, "both of us. The train came. I walked in. The doors closed. I look, and Mama's still on the platform. I will go back right away and get her."

"Yes," I said, "but I'll call her first."

I reached her on the phone, at home. "Don't make papa come all the way up here to get me, and then down again. You'll graduate without me."

"No," I cried, "I won't graduate without you. I must have you here. Papa will come for you. There's plenty of time. Just be ready and please hold on to him, and don't let him go. Don't lose him again."

Finally, they came. I was so happy to see them both, and everything went smoothly after that. They were very happy to be there. I'm sure that mother was especially glad to be there and watch me get my prize. I know that Avrom was happy and proud to see me do so well in the language that he loved, and was also relieved that he hadn't absent­mindedly "lost" his wife.

The thing about Mom was that she hardly ever traveled alone. It was always with Avrom, or with one of us. It wasn't that she couldn't if she had to. I recall that when my youngest brother had to have his tonsils out, it was she who took him down to the hospital by subway and brought him home.

But that didn't happen too often. She was very busy keeping this family going in a large household of six children and with a very dreamy husband, so there wasn't much opportunity for her to be out and about in New York .

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It was at this time, to the great shock and sorrow of the family, that Mother became seriously ill and on the advice of the doctors, had to be placed in a nursing home. So Avrom was alone, and he came to live with me and my husband.

He taught until the mid-'30s, then retired. He seemed tired, slept later in the morning, rested more, and seemed glad not to have to get up and go to school any more. He was happy to sit and read and rest as much as he wanted to.

Every Saturday, he went to the little neighborhood temple. He had become acquainted with a group of men who came on Saturday morning, before services, to read and study the weekly Torah portion. Avrom joined this group and soon became the leader of their discussions. That was about as much as he could handle at that time, and we were grateful for that.

Avrom died in January, 1940 at 72 years of age, mourned by his beloved students, his family and his colleagues.

 

 

"Baba Dobe:" A Memoir

by Rebecca S. Beagle, March 1996

We called our grandma Baba Dobe. Baba is "grandma" in Russian, and Dobe is short for Deborah.

She was wise to select our family to live with when Grandpa died. It was a good match. We were the largest in number — there were six of us children — and the poorest financially. My father was a Hebrew teacher and a freelance writer in that language, and that sort of work did not create a great living. So our mother had to be especially careful and ingenious in running the large household with what little she had.

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Baba Dobe was tiny. She had a small round head with small dark brown, shrewd eyes, small nose and mouth. She was small­waisted, then spread out at the hips, and with her long skirt dropping down to the floor, she looked like a small pyramid as she moved around the kitchen. She might not have been so tiny if her legs were straight, but they were bent and curved inward toward each other because of her arthritis.

We accepted Baba Dobe into our family as a matter of course, as though we and she instinctively felt that she belonged with us, even though there were four other uncles and aunts on my mother's side. Grandma knew that she would be happy with us; it would be lively with all these kids. Also she knew that her son-in-law was a gentle and scholarly man, observant in the laws of the Jewish religion and that was important to her.

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We lived on the upper floor of a two story house, on a short block in the South Bronx. The area was still undeveloped, and wild with empty lots and woods around. My sister and youngest brother and I would go into the woods and uproot some wild roses and transplant them into our little garden. Sometimes we'd meet goats and deer in our wanderings around the area, and that thrilled and excited us.

We had eight rooms in our upstairs apartment. Grandma's room was right on the landing at the head of the stairs. It was small but very pretty. It had pink wall paper, a single bed with a pretty spread, a dresser, a rocker, and a closet. My room, which I shared with my sister Fanny was also on the landing, opposite from Grandma's.

Baba Dobe was not the kind of grandma who baked cookies or told stories or took us places, or got us special gifts on birthdays or holidays. It was the other way around with us. When I came home from school, it was my job to take her for a walk. We were afraid to let her go out by herself, afraid that with her bad legs she might fall. So she waited for me every day.

I would take her down, holding on to her, and we would walk around the block. We talked as we walked. I asked her questions about the small Russian town she came from, where she and Grandpa had an inn — they sold liquor to the soldiers and peasants.

My brother Raphael, who was a big tease, would laugh and say "liquor mixed with water, right?" She'd laugh and say, "'so we did them a favor. They were less drunk that way."

"But wasn't that cheating?" Raphael would ask with a sly smile. She'd laugh and brush him off with a push.

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There were things about Baba Dobe that greatly aroused my curiosity, like the way she dressed. First she would cover her head with four or five kerchiefs, one on top of the other; then four or five blouses, one on top of the other, and finally, two or three petticoats and then two or three skirts on top. I would watch her dressing with wonder and amazement and finally, unable to contain myself, would ask:

"Babe Dobe, why do you wear so many skirts and blouses?"

She'd look at me with gentle contempt and say, "what then, I should be half naked like you kids and freeze to death?"

I never asked again, and accepted her way of dressing without any further comment.

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Baba Dobe had no feeling for art which was quite amazing considering the grandsons for whom she was partially responsible. She felt that their painting was just shmearing — a waste of time. They should get full-time jobs and make some money. How would they ever make a living scribbling and shmearing like that? Who would want to pay money for pictures?

And so she never would pose for them, even when they asked. She'd laugh it off and say it was silly, just to sit while they shmeared away. But one day Raphael got her into a conversation. She loved that — loved to talk and answer his questions. But as they talked he quietly pulled over the sheet of laundry paper that was lying on the table and began to sketch her. She didn't even notice, didn't seem to see what he was doing and the result was a wonderful portrait of her which hangs today in my house, on my bedroom wall. It looks just like her — not just her likeness, but her character, her personality, her soul — it is Baba Dobe! It has hung in many exhibitions and has always been singled out as a great piece of work.

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Grandma was healthy except for her heart. We had a very devoted physician who came regularly to check on her. My parents were concerned about her health, especially when a Jewish holiday came around and she insisted on following all the rules.

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the most important holy day on the Jewish Calendar. It is the day all Jews of sound mind and body were supposed to fast. My father would spend the entire day in the synagogue, but he came home at noon to make sure that Grandma did not fast. He explained to her that according to Jewish law a person's health was of primary importance, and any Jew who had any physical problem like a bad heart was obliged to eat. And so he would stand over her while she ate and had a glass of milk. Then he would go back to his prayers.

So Grandma had good medical and home care. Her one big trouble was insomnia. She would fall asleep during the day, just sitting in a chair. But when night came, and she was in bed, it was different. It was hours and hours of tossing about, back and forth, and finally a few hours of sleep. She'd get up in the morning and say she hadn't slept a wink.

But one night she really didn't sleep. I was coming home late one night and I noticed Baba Dobe's light was on. I looked in and when she saw me, she looked greatly relieved.

"Hi, Baba," I said. "What's wrong?"

"Oh, thank God you're here. I can't sleep. I'm going crazy! I don't know what's wrong with me! I don't know what to do!"

I sat down on the side of the bed. She was very agitated. Her cheeks were flushed, her eyes were wild.

"Sh, sh," I said. "I'm here. I'll stay with you." I patted her, I talked quietly. "Sh, sh. I'll be with you until you fall asleep. Everything is all right. Just close your eyes and go to sleep." I talked to her and patted her, like a child. She calmed down, and as she was falling asleep, she said, "Close the meat."

"Grandma!" I said, "what are you saying — this is a door."

"Yes, yes, close the door."

I was frightened by her crazy talk but I blamed it on her agitated state and as she quieted down I felt better and thought no more of it.

When she rose in the morning she seemed fine and I put the incident of the night before out of my mind.

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The next few days were going to be very exciting in our family. My brother Moses who had been in Paris for two years on a thousand- dollar Art Scholarship was coming home with his wife and their three-month old son David, and we were preparing for their arrival.

My mother had gone shopping and loaded the table with all kinds of goodies. The table looked beautiful, flowers in the center, surrounded by cookies and candies and nuts and raisins, and all kinds of wonderful fruit.

The atmosphere was tense and filled with suspense — we all waited impatiently for our guests, for our parents' first grandchild, Baba's first great-grandchild and our first little nephew.

The bell rings — here they are! We rush to the door! Who looks at the parents? It's the little David we all want to see! We gasp at his beauty. Adoringly, first one of us takes him, and then another, and then another. Everyone wants a turn at holding him. David is in danger of being too adored. Mom comes over and quietly takes him away and puts him on the sofa in the dining room, puts chairs all around so he won't fall and he goes peacefully to sleep.

Baba Dobe is glowing! Her eyes are shiny and smiling. She is wearing a new navy blue dress, with the pink stitching which her daughter Pauline had ordered for her. It fits perfectly and she looks lovely. Her hair is pretty, no kerchiefs on her head.

Now we are all sitting in the dining room, on the sofa and around the table, eating and drinking and questioning the young couple about Paris .

"How did you like it? Where did you live, what did you do, how did you like the Louvre? What was your favorite painting? What else did you see, and who were your friends?" and so on, on and on.

Grandma sits and listens and doesn't understand much of what they're saying and what they're talking about, but the atmosphere is so warm and everyone looks happy and she is too, watching her grandchildren busy and friendly and hearing their chatter and their laughter. She goes into the kitchen to get herself a glass of tea.

In the midst of the talk and the excitement, a crash is heard. Mom and I rush into the kitchen. Baba Dobe is bent over, a broken glass in her hand.

"Baba, what happened?"

"Mama," my mother says "I'll get you another glass of tea. Come, sit down. "

No answer. Grandma doesn't hear. Can't move, can't speak. The talking and the laughing and happy chatter has stopped. It's quiet. Wonder and sadness now fill the house. Baba is carried from the kitchen to her bed. The doctor is called. A stroke. The party is over.

Baba Dobe lies in bed. She doesn't speak. Her eyes are empty. She doesn't know anyone, can't hear, can't speak. There is a nurse, night and day. Every morning I go into her room, and say, "Baba, do you know me? Baba, who am I? "

Baba doesn't answer. I think maybe some morning she'll wake up and answer me. But it doesn't happen. After three months of lying this way, she dies.

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I had a date that night, a little party at a friend's house. I'm in a daze, I say to a friend: "My Baba died today."

"Then why did you come?" he asks.

"I don't know," I answer. I wander around the house for a few minutes and go home. I go up the stairs. The house is quiet. I pass her little room, and I think I see her there.

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— Introductory text by Connor Cochran, March 2006