My daddy proposed to my mama during Thanksgiving at his parents’ house in Daly City, November 1936. He waited until her mouth was stuffed with food, he says, “so she couldn’t say `no,'” and then popped the question.
Somehow she managed to say “yes” and they set the date for two months later, Jan. 24, 1937.
At the time, my mother was working in the advertising department of Weinstein’s department store in San Francisco. When she announced her engagement, her co-workers wanted to be helpful. Someone told her there was a wedding gown and veil that had been modeled on the cover of Vogue and she could wear them at the wedding.
She decided the gown needed a train and hired a seamstress to sew one onto the back of the dress. When it came back, the dress fit like a sausage casing and the train was sewn onto the bottom edge of the gown and flared out in all directions. Mama had to walk with tiny, shuffling steps down the aisle.
Flowers are a challenge for a winter wedding and it had been a particularly rough winter. There were no fresh flowers, so the synagogue was decorated with tissue paper flowers on the bimah.
Under the chuppah, Sammy married his “doll face,” Ida, and the family sent them on their honeymoon with warm wishes and shouts of “mazel tov!”
The newlyweds drove down to Los Angeles. On the road, Sam was tooling along in his baby blue Packard, going faster than he should, when a policeman pulled him over.
“Let me see your license,” the cop demanded. Thinking fast, Ida quickly answered, “Do you want to see our marriage license? We just got married!” After a pleasant conversation, which included congratulations to the newlyweds, the cop let them go without a ticket.
That was the beginning of a 60-year marriage of love and respect that lasted until mama died on June 11, 1997. She was daddy’s “doll face” to the very end.