My first letter was an introduction of myself, my family, school and personal activities. The letter took one month to get to Cape Town by ship. Annie wrote back. She and I had grandparents in common on my mother's side; her mother, Hoda, and my mother were sisters. Her letters were like a daily diary. She enumerated every activity from morning 'til night: where she went, what she did, which family members she saw. She described her brothers and sister and what cousins she visited from Monday to Sunday.
Waiting for her replies was always exciting anticipation. Even the mailman smilingly announced the arrival of the letter from such a great distance. As we exchanged letters and the years went by, we sent many photos of family members. It got so that when I wrote and had some photos in front of me, it was as though I was expressing my thoughts to those cousins directly through Annie. She had a brother about my age named Bob, who became ill. When he died, I personally looked at his picture and mourned his passing. At that age, I had never encountered a death of any member of the family in the United States. My mother was an aunt to Annie, and she grieved because she hadn't seen her sisters and brothers since she left Europe when she was about 15 years of age.
Annie's continual diary of letters kept encompassing more family names until I realized I had more relatives in South Africa than in all of the United States. She gave me Jack Miller's name, and I developed another pen pal. His letters weren't diaries but everyday talk: politics, business, welfare of his cousins in the United States. He had a well-established men's and women's furnishing store in the Strand, a resort town 30 miles out of Cape Town, near the Pacific.
My mother always dreamed that maybe someday she'd get to see her sister again, but what could one do when, in those days, my father had a neighborhood kosher butcher shop, and my mother worked in the store with him. I assisted on Thursdays by "flicking chickens." Everyone had to help.
Years went by and the correspondence continued knitting the family together on both sides of the Atlantic. It was during this period that I found out that my father had a brother in Johannesburg, and I picked up an address and started corresponding with Solly Josset, my father's nephew. In tying the two families together I discovered that my father and mother were first cousins. Their fathers were brothers. The Cape Town group was my mother's side and the Johannesburg group was my father's. The two groups knew of each other but were 400 miles apart and personal contact was at a very minimum.
In 1940, I got married. I had my own butcher shop, but war broke out and I couldn't get enough meat to keep the store open. I closed it down and got a job at the Bethlehem shipbuilding company, where I was assigned to the outside mechanist crew, diesel and steam engineering. I studied practical diesel engineering when I couldn't afford to go to college. After three deferments for my work, I was drafted even though I had a four-year-old son. Fortunately, I was assigned to post compliment in an engineering outfit. They made me a mechanic on radio-controlled target planes. I lived off-post with my wife and son, and never left the States.
Now that the letters were coming and going by air, the rate of correspondence increased. I was writing to three people: Annie, Jack, and Solly. When I was discharged, I worked for my in-laws' business and I had a typewriter handy. In order to simplify my writing duties I would start the letter with news about personal matters, my sisters, other cousins, business, and any subject of general interest to all. I would leave the greeting blank. When this was done I would make copies on the copy machine, and, as I directed a letter to each individual, I would complete each letter with information pertinent to their questions and personal items related to them. Off would the letters go in different directions. Today, in 1997, I mail letters to South Africa, Israel, and Australia. God bless the copier!