Grandpa Abramovitch was a successful merchant and the family was well off. There were five boys and one girl in the family, Pop being the oldest. Theirs was not a happy home. When Pop was about seven, the baby of the family died in an accident and Grandma blamed Pop for it. After that she wouldn't have anything to do with him and he was sent away to school. When he was older he went to Germany to study engineering but, before he had progressed far, his Dad had him change to business in Czechoslovakia because he thought it promised a better future. (Pop liked engineering much better which probably accounts for his dismal work as an accountant.) He became proficient in a number of languages including English. When he was about 93 brother Arnold visited him with a German friend and the two had a conversation in German. It was the first time in years that Pop had a chance to use the language.
Pop might have made a good theoretician, but definitely not a practical engineer -- if anything in our house needed fixing, Mom did it. Pop was a dreamer. If I had remembered one of his ideas when I became an electronic engineer I might have been one of the early computer engineers; he dreamed of an underground delivery system that included a binary switching scheme to steer the vehicles to their destinations. He also talked about a "lazy Susan" that would have helped at our large table.
Pop was marvelous with numbers. As an accountant he would check the bookkeeper's figures by moving his finger rapidly down the columns, much faster than anyone could enter them into a calculator. He would do number tricks too; for example, he would ask us to give him a list of 50 numbers and would then ask where we would like to have him start and which direction he should go in repeating them from memory. He tried to teach this to Ben, the oldest of my siblings, but Ben was having other problems and came close to a nervous breakdown in the process. Pop was a good accountant, but he never became certified and the moving around that we did -- and his dislike for business -- probably kept him from being successful.
We had thought that Pop had taught himself to play a couple of tunes on the piano, including an impressive "Humoresque", but learned from an interview by Jerry (recorded in Jerry's car while he was bringing Pop to our house one Thanksgiving) that he had lessons from a girl at one of the houses he stayed at as a student -- but that stopped when Pop became infatuated with her and ran away!
Grandpa Wilder was not very practical but did well working as an overseer on a farm until oil was discovered and the farm was sold. During the good years he managed to buy an exemption from compulsory military service for Uncle Harry who obtained a university education and became an accountant and skilled linguist. When times became difficult, Mom became a dressmaker and made dresses for wealthy ladies.
About 1900 the increasing anti-semitism in Rumania made life difficult for both families. Pop's family left in 1902, taking Harry Wilder with them as his language and accounting skills would help in the new country. They ended up in Winnipeg, Canada because it was portrayed as the "Gateway to the West" which was then opening up.
Soon after, Pop, for some reason, enlisted in the U.S. Army but after a few months decided he had enough, pretended to be deaf, and was discharged. He was definitely not the soldier type! After this adventure he returned to Winnipeg.
In 1905 Harry sent for his family and shortly afterwards Pop and Mom were married. Sister Rose said that Grandpa Abramovitch opposed the marriage because he thought Mom was too good for Pop while Emily says Pop's sister Rozelle told her that Grandpa asked Mom to marry Pop. I suspect both were correct -- that Rozelle's version happened when Grandpa was near death and thought that the marriage was the only way to ensure a reasonable future for Pop.
Pop's brothers A.J., Nat and Harry went into business. His sister married Abe Koodlach, a Russian immigrant who became one of the foremost violin repairmen in the U.S. Many of the great violinists of the day took their instruments to him for any needed work. As a youngster in Los Angeles I was impressed by the autographed photos of the great violinists of the day that hung on the walls of his shop.
Abe trained his son Ben and another young man in the work, but the young man was killed during WW II and Ben was too much of a playboy to take the work seriously (he was kicked out of high school after putting a tack on the principal's seat.) Ben learned enough to work on some famous violins, so I tried to talk him into making a violin, but he wasn't interested because he "couldn't possibly compete with the great violin makers" -- but he wouldn't hesitate to rebuild a "Strad".) Ben was good enough to be kept on a retainer by an eastern industrialist to care for a number of fine cellos that he had loaned to the students of the Masters (Ben made a trip to Russia to "be there" during a contest in case the cello needed attention.) He told us that he had installed a new bridge on Heifetz's violin and was told that it had never sounded so good -- but Ben was mad about it because he was never paid -- Heifetz considered work for him was an honor so it didn't need payment! Ben died fairly young, I believe of cancer.
Mother's family was more diverse. Uncle Harry became the editor of a Jewish newspaper and ran an orphanage. Uncle Joe became a pharmacist and later manufactured and sold, by mail order, a stomach powder for heartburn. Uncle Alvin became a Vice-President of the Sealy Mattress company (his "Sleeping on a Sealy is like Sleeping on a Cloud" was the slogan of the company for many years); he and his family were socialists. Uncle Sam (Ed) was involved in the installation of the first automatic telephone exchange in Cuba; unfortunately he contracted malaria there which led to his early death. Uncle Sam, by mail, encouraged me in the direction of engineering -- I'm not sure I needed much encouragement. I visited him in Milwaukee during my travels to Ohio State before WW2. Brother Jerry reminded me recently that Sam once suggested that I might completely lose myself in my work, so much so that I might even have food slid to me under the door, or could lose some of my shyness and become a more normal member of society -- I guess I have been somewhere in between.
Uncle Jack owned a profitable store. We visited them in Vancouver but wasn't impressed -- they had plastic over their furniture to protect it. Aunt Mary married a pharmacist, Aunt Molly's husband, (an accountant?) worked for someone.
Uncle Joe's start in pharmacy was interesting. He was first a newsboy and then got a job in a pharmacy. After a little of this he decided that there wasn't that much to the job and was determined to own his own store. He asked a visiting salesman if he knew of a drug store for sale and learned that a pharmacist was having health problems and would have to quit work. When Joe went there he found three men he knew out front and the pharmacist in back having a severe asthma attack. Joe helped him and then asked about buying the store, but found it had been sold to the men out front. He knew their interest in pharmacies was primarily as an outlet for their liquor (Canada had prohibition then, but liquor was being sold by prescription and druggists, for a price, could get doctors to sign blank ones.) They agreed to let him manage the store as long as he agreed to sell only their liquor; it later became his store with very little money exchanged except for the liquor transactions.
The longevity of the family is mixed. Both of my Grandfathers died before I was born (Emily is named after Grandpa Wilder -- Emanual -- she says that her naming was delayed for about a week while he was dying.). Both of my Grandmothers lived to about 93. Grandma Wilder was an active and happy woman; she died while helping Mom get ready for company -- she said she was tired, sat down and never got up. We didn't see much of Grandma Abramovitch and didn't miss it, but I understand that Pop saw her regularly in the years before she died.
Mom died in 1953, aged 68, of leukemia. In 1959, when our daughter was born, we were going to name her Anne, after Mom, but sister Rose said it would have to be Suzanne -- seems that only Rose knew that when Mom was small her teacher had said that Suzanne was too much for such a small girl, so she had became Anne.
When Pop was about 80 he walked about a mile and became very tired. He tried to get a taxi to return, but wasn't able to and was so worn out when he returned that they hospitalized him and he was placed in intensive care; we were talked into authorizing a pacemaker; we are certain now that he never needed it. We wonder if he even needed to be hospitalized! He was just very tired.
When Pop left the hospital he became active again, taking long walks and the many steps at the Palisades in Santa Monica. When he was about 93, sister Rose received a call from the home very early one morning; his heart rate was so low (40) that they didn't think he would last until morning unless the batteries in his pacemaker were replaced. Knowing his wishes (he wasn't interested in prolonging his life -- he was almost blind and quite deaf) Rose didn't agree, nor did I when they called me later. He was fine the next morning, but undoubtedly had a low heart rate then too. He lived to 98 (without an active pacemaker). He would probably have lived longer if he could have kept up his exercises and continued to be interested in his surroundings but his poor hearing and eyesight (due to glaucoma that wasn't recognized until too late and later a burst blood vessel near the center of his retina) prevented it. While the oldest in his family he outlived all of his siblings. When they died he would say "why them, not me"
Pop died shortly before I left L.A. for San Luis Obispo where I was to become a "Lecturer" at Cal Poly. At the time I was at the Canoga Park Hughes Aircraft facility which was convenient to the rest home he was at and I visited him frequently. I suspect that my leaving might have precipitated his death (he choked on something -- he had lost his dentures so had problems eating in his later years, but he had died during the night.) Ben, who lived near San Luis Obispo, had been looking for a nearby place for him, but Pop died before it happened.
Uncle Joe, Mom's brother, died in 1992 the last of his generation of our family. He was still active at 93 (or was it 22 -- his birthday was February 29 so he was eight years old at his first real birthday). We last saw him in 1988 when we visited Winnipeg for his Grandson's wedding. When he was in his eighties he went to school to study creative writing and afterwards had two small books published. The first book, "Read All About It" was about his early days as a newsboy in Canada, the second about his life as a pharmacist. He installed a model of an early pharmacy in the Museum in Winnipeg. After entering a retirement home he edited their newsletter and continued to contribute to a local paper.
I was one of eight children, with five remaining in 1994. Rose died of emphysema at 85. She had smoked too much (a doctor had suggested it after she had much of her stomach removed because of ulcers); her husband died from the effects of diabetes and she had nursed her younger son back to health from the effects of poliomyelitis. Sister Molly died in her sixties, the result of an overdose of a prescription medicine -- apparently her husband's; there was a considerable amount of confusion in their home. Lillian died at five as described below. The rest of my siblings are in good health.
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