The kind people who assisted us in these important matters form a group
by themselves in the gallery of my friends. If I had never seen them
from those early days till now, I should still have remembered them with
gratitude. When I enumerate the long list of American teachers, I must
begin with those who came to us on Wall Street and taught us our first
steps. To my mother, in her perplexity over the cookstove, the woman who
showed her how to make the fire was an angel of deliverance. A fairy
godmother to us children was she who led us to a wonderful country
called "uptown," where in a dazzlingly beautiful palace called a
"department store," we exchanged our hateful homemade European costumes,
which pointed us out as "greenhorns" to the children on the street, for
real American machine-made garments, and issued forth glorified in each
other's eyes.
With our despised immigrant clothing we shed also our impossible Hebrew
names. A committee of our friends, several years ahead of us in American
experience, put their heads together and concocted American names for us
all. Those of our real names that had no pleasing American equivalents
they ruthlessly discarded, content if they retained the initials. My
mother, possessing a name that was not easily translatable, was punished
with the undignified nickname of Annie. Fetchke, Joseph, and Deborah
issued as Frieda, Joseph, and Dora, respectively. As for poor me, I was
simply cheated.
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