We had chosen our wedding for the 29th of June, 1940. Our family doctor offered us his apartment for the occasion and he also asked a well-known rabbi to perform the ceremony. We appreciated this very much as we were quite alone in New York, having arrived from Germany in 1937 without our parents.
On the evening of the great event, my brother-in-law, his wife and the groom left their apartment for the trip downtown to the wedding location. My sister-in-law’s mother and I would follow by subway and taxi a little later. As soon as the trio entered the subway, the groom noticed that his brother was not wearing the correct suit, (he was wearing a navy one instead of his good black suit). At the next station, he returned home to change suits. The groom left the subway to go to his future apartment to pick up my coat. This left my sister-in-law all alone on the train. She did not have the address or telephone number of the doctor’s apartment; however, she knew which stop to get off the subway.
In the meantime, her mother and I left her home and arrived uneventfully at the right location. When we got there, we learned that my sister-in-law was not yet there. All the other guests, however, were there.
I was separated from them and was sitting in a separate room, but I did worry about where my sister-in-law was. I also was very upset that my dear mother was still in Germany and could not be there. My father had perished in Buchenwald four weeks after Kristallnacht, in December 1938.
My groom’s parents and sisters and husbands and children also were not there as they had moved to Holland to try to escape from Germany.
After a while, the rabbi arrived, but still no sister-in-law.
She did arrive eventually. Her story was that even though she left early, and got off the train at the correct station, she walked all through the area hoping to recognize the house. Finally she went to a telephone book, looked up the phone number and address of the doctor. Since she, too, had only arrived in American less than three years before and thus was not familiar with how to find addresses, it all took a long time.
Finally after all these complications, the ceremony started at 10:30 p.m., which was hours after its original time.
In spite of all these delays, we were married 49 years, before my husband, Alfred, died at age 81.