by Richard Kelisky (son)
by Richard Kelisky (son)
Sadie Aronoff Kelisky
1897 - 1997
I have come here on behalf of my brother and myself to celebrate a life and a journey. This is a journey taken by Sadie Aronoff Kelisky that began about 1910 in Mustetchka-Rakishka Russia, now Lithuania, to Norfolk, Virginia, to marriage to Sam Kelisky, to Chicago and a first son, Maury David, to St. Louis and a second son, Richard Paul, and finally to Lubbock, Texas in 1937. Here, as the 15th Jewish family, our parents put down deep roots into this community for nearly 60 years. Think of it, nearly 60 years in Lubbock --- then a small town, and now a city which has grown from the 32,000 people and 15 Jewish families in 1937, to its present remarkable size and makeup today.
During these 60 years Sadie Kelisky raised her family and learned to economize in a way, she remarked, she never had to do as a young working woman in New York. She was widowed in 1971, after more than 45 years of marriage to Sam. It was a happy marriage with displays of affection such as hand holding and hugging and obvious care for one another. It served as a model for me, and in all good ways my marriage emulated that of our parents, just as I hope that my marriage will serve as a model for my son's.
In those years in Lubbock our mother was active in both the Jewish and non-Jewish communities until, to her great regret, her health no longer permitted her to do the volunteer work she loved. I say "to her regret" but our mother was not one who voiced her regrets except, perhaps, to me ---- and even then, only rarely.
I know she greatly regretted only two things: that she did not have a college education and that she did not have sufficient means to give to charity as she would have wished. Other regrets, if any, she held to herself.
During those 60 years she also became a grandmother four times and within the last four years a great grandmother. These have been sources of much happiness in her life.
Sadie Aronoff was the youngest of eight children. By the best guesses I have ("guesses" because all written records were lost in a fire in Russia) our mother was born in 1897, possibly even earlier, in a small town in Russian-speaking Lithuania called Rakishka. She never knew her father who died when she was about a year old. In about 1910 when she was 13, she and six of her brothers and sisters left Russia and emigrated, some by circuitous routes which took them via Warsaw and South Africa from Rakishka to New York and finally to Norfolk, Virginia. The eighth sibling, already married, remained in Russia. Mother never saw her oldest sister again though she often spoke of her as gentle, intelligent and talented.
Our mother was profoundly influenced by her own mother's very strong personality. She described her mother as literate in several languages at a time and from a place in which pious Jewish women were not usually educated. Our mother's mother spoke, read and wrote Hebrew as well as Yiddish and would read the Sabbath prayers to the Jewish women in the community who could not read Hebrew. Mother's mother was also extremely charitable --- possibly even charitable to a fault. Family legend had it that when our mother's father complained that his wife had given away all the pots and pans and dishes in the house to poor families, he was astonished on getting into bed that night to find it full of pots and pans and dishes concealed beneath the feather bed. Thus did his wife convince him that she had by no means exhausted the family's goods by her acts of charity, and that she still had plenty of utensils for her family --- as well as to give away. This tradition of charity must have made a powerful impression on our mother because I learned --- not by her words but by being witness to her deeds --- that no one was ever turned away from her door --- whether at 22nd Street and Avenue G where we first lived or later at 32nd Street and Avenue T. I think that among the poor passing through Lubbock word was out that there was a lady who never refused a request for a meal, and I clearly remember men seated on the back steps eating whatever Momma had on hand.
I also learned that every joy had to be celebrated by putting coins in the blue and white "pushkie". And she showed, again by deed, that pleasures were to be shared. The cakes she baked were divided with friends. A stranger at the schul must be invited for a meal, and many long lasting firm friendships grew from such encounters. Sellie Shine referred to our mother as The Statue of Liberty because she beckoned to and sought out the strangers who came to the Temple on Avenue Q and 23rd Street. These people were not strangers to our mother and father; they were instant and honored guests and friends to be invited for a meal and to a home away from home.
For all her generosity and a lifetime of giving, or perhaps because of it, our mother found it very hard to "take". Indeed, getting her to accept a gift had to be approached with considerable skill and sometimes a little deception. How often have I heard her say "Oh, I feel so selfish taking that. Give it to someone else." In general, getting something for her, especially in these last years, had to be handled as a fait accompli. She had to be told "it" was non-returnable. Mother simply could not accept gifts gracefully, and her friends and my brother and I just had to live with that, circumventing it at times as best we could.
So, we have come together to mourn the end of a good life and an honorable life but only in the sense that coming together in this way is an act of mourning. In fact, I think "mourn" is not at all the right word. My mother lived a full life, which, like all our lives had its joys and sorrows. But, these last few years she felt she had lived long enough because she no longer contributed anything useful to the community. Many times during these past months she told me it was time for the Good Lord to take her. She had lived long enough, she often said, and it was time for her to go. She often asked me why the Good Lord did not call her, and I would reply that he was busy with other clients and she would simply have to wait her turn. Momma would laugh a little at my answer and then sigh as if to acknowledge there was some truth in it. And, although Momma really wanted to leave this world she also did not wish to be a burden to her sons. She wasn't going to go lying down if she could help it. She announced to me that she did not intend to be carried through the Pearly Gates. It was her intention to walk in, and in a certain sense she did because Momma refused to be bed-ridden except for the very last few days of life.
Our mother lived her last years with dignity, and, as she wished, she died with dignity in her own apartment in her own bed and watched over by her loving and caring companions. Although mother slowly lost her independence over these last few years, she lived with dignity through the loving and thoughtful care of four extraordinary women: Geneva Threet, Mary Beard, Diann Johnson, and Susan Truhlicka. I cannot adequately thank these wonderful people nor can I thank sufficiently Mother's devoted and caring physician, Dr. Brad Snodgrass, for the care all of them gave her.
The death of one's mother is severing of perhaps the closest of all human ties. It is such a profound sundering that even if there be a spouse or children the person whose mother dies suddenly realizes that he or she stands alone --- bereft of a parent who gave unquestioning love and constant concern for the child's well-being. For one's mother one is "always" a child --- although I am 67, my mother never ceased to worry about my well-being. On our last visit, five days before her death, mother voiced her deep distress that I have not remarried, and she again urged me to find someone "to take care of me". How characteristic that was, how typical of my mother and all mothers for their children. With the death of the last parent, subtly but unmistakably, the mantle of "the older generation" falls on the shoulders of the children. And with new clarity and understanding I perceive there is no longer an older generation between me and death.
I know that our mother did not want people to grieve for her, but I cannot promise that I do not grieve for her. And yet, because her life was not cut short it is a different kind of grief than the grief following the death of a loved one with many years of companionship or promise unfinished. My grief for Momma is my reaction to the absence of her voice, of not being able to talk with her of our shared pleasure in green and growing things, of not being able to share with her the "naches" that comes from her grandchildren's accomplishments, of no longer enjoying her sense of humor, of missing keenly her common sense and, perhaps most wrenching of all, of no longer receiving directly her freely expressed, deep and absolutely unquestioning love.
Farewell, Momma. We have been shaped by you in more ways than either of us realize. We rejoice and take pride in your long and giving life of charity and unselfishness.
And so ... the long, long journey has ended.
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