Lee writes of the photo: "Mamie Herman Seligman [Nana], wife of Lee Leo, Mother of Mervin & Margaret [?Oct 1887-23Dec1952]
She was my Grandfather Seligman's mother. There is a photo of her holding me (which I will post another day). Unfortunately, I don't remember her at all as she died about a month after I was born.
I do know that my mother had very fond memories of her and told me that she was a very special person.
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Nana was a strange lady, kind of understandably so ... her sister Gertrude ["Gertie"] was married the Lewin Burkhart, Deputy Chief of the Baltimore City Fire Dept. He was severely injured, stepping into a vat of acid while fighting a major fire [he only responded to multi-alarm fires [3 or 4 or more I think] ... the City had a special notification system installed at his home to notify him of the number of alarms. He was said to have a photographic memory, knew the mechanical specifics of every major bldg. in B'more, and could instantly figure out how much water could be pumped into a building before it would begin to collapse. Anyhow, he died [I think in the early 30s about a year or so after the accident ... I know that your Grandmother took Gertie to NY on one or two buying trips after Lewin died, but shortly after his death Gertie committed suicide ... your Grandfather and Grandmother, who lived and worked in B'more then, discovered her body. MMS and DTS were particularly close to Gertie, maybe more so than to his Mother. Anyhow, when Uncle Lewin was buried the procession drove past every fire station in B'more and each one rendered him honors as the cortage passed. Earlier, Nana's daughter Margaret [your Great Aunt], who had been born with a heart defect [I think] had died at about 14 and -about 6 months [Feb '21 I think] later her husband died. Dad quit collage [Wharton?], in part because Mamie went off the deep end, locked herself in her room and would not come out or speak to anyone for over a year. The other reason Dad left school was money. His Father was wealthy ... big house, multiple servants, country house on the Patuxant River ... his contract at Bernheimer's called for a big salary and a percentage of profits; however, investments, cash, and jewelery were kept in a safety deposit box at the bank and when Dad and his attorney went to get the QUARTER OF A MILLION in NEGOTIABLE BONDS and othe stuff, the box was empty ! The only signature on the card between Lee Leo's death and the opening of the box was Isadore Wolff's, his cousin [owned a big piano store of the department in Bernheimer's ?] and brother of Clara King, Blanch Rosenstein's Mother [confused enough ???]. Of course he denied taking the funds, but when he died he left a trust fund for Clara and Blanch, who lived in style off the interest for over 50 years. When Blanch died, Louis -her son- received the corpus of the trust ... well over $2,000,000.00. When Isadore died, Dad's best friend in B'more since youth, ? Tichner, son of the owner of B'more's main Reform Jewish undertaker, called him and they went to the hospital to pick up the body and embalm it ... when Dad got home -he and my Mother had been secretly married [so they say, but I also think she was pregnant with your mother]- he was crocked ... combination of scotch and embalming fluid fumes ... and the only thing he said before passing out was "I had the pleasure of sticking the last needle in that son of a bitch !"
More later ! ... but your mother was never particularly close to Mamie that I remember, she was close to Gertie and Lewin.
Mamie later ran the "Temple Garden Apartments" Tea Room and Restaurant in the Druid Hill Park are of B'more [Clara & Blanch and John Putzel and his wife live in this building and Aunt Beck and Uncle Melvin, Mitzi and Marjorie, and later Henry and Harvey, lived around the corner, as well as Annie Summerfield, Mamie's friend] until she fell and broke her leg and came to live with us on 16th St. in '42 or there abouts.
Wow - either you have a really good memory or there is a lot of "stuff" written on the back of that photo.
Thanks for the information. Maybe now I know where I get some of my "weird" tendencies from.
Anyway, I wish I would have known her - she looks like someone I would have loved.
All memory, Kiddo, all accursed memory ...(;o} ... my sons will not play "Trivial Pursuits" with me; they claim I cheat and memorize all the cards ... NOT TRUE !
Anyhow there is more ... when she ran the restaurant at Temple Gardens she had a black chef named Ernest ... don't remember too much about the place, but Ernest used to pull me around the dining room in a big turkey roaster ... my memory of him is limited to that and that I seem to remember he looked just like the black chef on the Cream of Wheat package !
When Nana came to live with us a lot of her stuff went down in the loft of the garage ... trunks full ! At some point after a couple of years Dad asked her about the sterling silver, because Mother didn't have any and this was a service for 12 of Steiff Rose [Gertie had Steiff Carnation ... why do I know that, since I never knew her ?] ... she had had it hidden in a box under her bed !!!
She and I would go out to dinner [usually at Scholl's Cafeteria on 14th St almost every Friday night and then to a movie at the Savoy or at the Tivoli. Sometime on Saturday we would go downtown to lunch [again always at a cafeteria, Ewart's or Scholl's] and to a movie on F St. ... one of the really big theaters [the Capitol had an orchestra pit on an elevator ... years later I saw Judy Garland in her "comeback" concert there; additionally there was Keith's (on 15th St), the Earl (at 13th and D) the Palace, and the Metropolitan (both on F), an "art" theater, the Little on 9th St. Then we would take a street car uptown, have dinner and go to another movie ! From there we'd take a street car to the terminal and then a bus home ... every bus driver on that late Friday and Saturday run knew us and would stop directly across the street from the house [no stop] to let us off and walk us across the street !
She sold Avon products all over town ... when we went to the movies downtown she would sell/deliver to the women in the ticket booths !
She was a trip.
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