Guess Who knew I was Artist before… 🤭

Mama didn't have many friends…she was too busy with us 3 kids and papa. Cooking, cleaning, shopping and even helping him in his small shop.

Also, she had her sister, Esther, her large brood of their 6 children, with their spouses and children. They lived around the corner from us… on Watkins Street.

But one of mama’s oldest girlfriends was Yetta. Yetta & mama were childhood friends from Toronto, Canada.

Somehow, they met their mates in Brooklyn, got hitched, and settled there… for the rest of their lives. They made a point of living near each other all through the years of my Brooklyn childhood.

Mama, Papa & their dear friends, Yetta & her Maurice often visited each other.

Sadly, this couple was childless. I once overheard Mama telling Auntie Esther, “Yetta had “some women’s problem” that prevented her from having children”.

As I recall so many years later, Yetta was petite trim but with a slight pot belly. She wore wireless spectacles, her thin hair combed to the side of her head, held with a lone, little girl barrette. My mental image of her has her in a blouse, with a cardigan and shapeless skirt. She was plain but lovely to me.

Maurice was a European immigrant who spoke with a raspy accented voice. He was lanky with a black bushy head of hair. His shaven beard was so thick, that his jaw had a bluish hue to it. He smiled a lot causing his whole face to crinkle like a “Cabbage Patch Gramps”.

He and Yetta paid a lot of attention to me… I took it all in…being the ignored middle child in my family. 😊

Yetta was an artist who was into a flat Chinese style of painting. That was popular in those 1940’s days. It was she who painted my parents their wedding present picture. It was of 3 old-fashion costumed Oriental women. Colored in soft muted pastel colors of mauves, pale blues and lavender.

It was sweet in a bland sort of way…like Yetta. 😶

Maurice got interested in oil painting, encouraged by his wife. He took a few evening courses.

🤫 Mama whispered to papa, “Maurice became a better artist than Yetta”.

He painted lush landscapes…from his memory, or (fantasy) of “the old country”.

Still only a youngster in elementary school, I remember his vivid pastural green fields, with miniature peasants farming. Straw-roofed homes with a chicken or 2, maybe a cow, a horse.

It was always Summer, …the trees were full of leaves & fruit, in his paintings of Russia. (For me, a kid living in a deary city tenement world, the places he painted, seemed like Nirvana). 🤗

My parents would take me along when they visited with Yetta & Maurice.

There were odd miniature wooden chairs with triangular seats that fascinated this little girl. Yetta allowed me to carefully sit on them.

Maurice put out a dish of candies & one with Fig Newtons, which I would eat with relish.

Yetta knew I loved to draw, so she’d hand me sheets of paper. 📄📄📄📄📄

Candy & being able to draw without my younger bratty brother bothering me was a treat. 😂🖋🖊🖌🖍

Because both of mama’s friends were artists, they’d critique my childish drawings telling her, “Rosie, Sam when Dee-Dee grows up she’ll be an artist”.

I beamed with joy…that was always my dream. 🥰