Lisaye

Lisaye

Lisa as a young woman

from Irving Tabershaw: I knew your grandmother, but I must admit, she was out of my class = the most educated, sophisticated woman I had ever met. I remember encountering her in front of a a window clothing shop on Fifth Ave. She was smoking a cigarette. I never before had seen a woman smoking (in those days ) -never in public. She was a vey gracious lady but we were not in her class.

from Judy Claps: I remeber at age two walking up stairs, down a long hall and climbing on Pa's lap. The feeling was if surrounded by white, fluffy cloud-beard. Mud (a corruptionof the GErman Mudda) would come to the apartment and once in a while sit by my bed and tell me a fairy tale- usually Blue Roses which she wrote (very cynical). She and my father would always argue about her hats. She pinned them on with long hat pins and refused to remove them in the house which seriously annoyed my father. Around the age of twelve I tried unsuccessfully to learn to ice scate and would go to Rockefeller Center on Wednesday afternoons. I would then take the subway to Mud's aprtment - always meet her in the lobby. She wouldn't let anyone upstairs at the end of her life - and she would tkae me to the automat for dinner. After she died, we found out that she hadn't thrown anyting away for motnhs, including garbage. My mother cleaned for weeks. She had told a neighbor that she was Catholic and to call a pries if anything happend to her.

Here is a letter from my father's cousin Hilde about life with Lisaye and her family in Vienna: Hilde's Letter.