Last update of this page 2022.JAN.05.
Dora Simon was born February 6, 1910.
This photo shows a young Dora:
A party was held for Dora’s engagement. This note was in the Wilkes-Barre Record, January 4, 1934. Flora Iskowitz may have been Henry’s mother. The S. & B. was a kosher restaurant.
This is Dora’s wedding photo.
This is the newspaper announcement of the wedding. The wedding was January 21, 1934. The surname was later changed from Iskowitz to Ibsen.
This photo shows Dora with Henry and the Levy family of Binghamton. This must be about 1938. Two of the people have not been identified.
World War II was tough on the family. This shows Dora with sister Ruth and brother Abe. This is likely 1943.
This letter, dated September 28, is mostly likely 1942. The letter goes to Dora’s brother Nate. It indicates that Henry served in the war as a cook. Contact with a congressman was involved in getting this assignment.
There is mention of Ruth’s husband Harry. The Maurice in this letter is Nathan and Ruth’s son, whom everyone knew as Maury. The abbreviation W.B. is for Wilkes-Barre. The “cute Jesse” is likely sister Ida’s son. Mallery Place is a street in Wilkes-Barre.
Dora and Henry had no children, but their nieces and nephews from Wilkes-Barre were frequent visitors in their home.
Dora passed away on October 3, 1965. This notice was published in the Wilkes-Barre Record on the following day.
Below are Gary Simon’s thoughts about his Aunt Dora, written in 2016.
Clean. Reorganize. Make space. Sort. Throw out. We are engaged in an unending battle to control our personal possessions. We engage in this battle to simplify our own day-to-day existence. Now that we’re getting older, we realize that our possessions must be logically arranged for the benefits of our descendants. Our children will one day get this accumulation. We want them to have whatever might be meaningful to them, and we also want them to cherish links to the past.
Can we ask them to cherish a past to which they have no personal connections? Is it perhaps unreasonable to ask for their emotional commitment to large objects, to small keepsakes, and to memoirs?
In the most recent skirmish in the battle with our accumulations, we found the wedding picture of my Aunt Dora. The photo is an eight-by-ten in a quality picture frame. Dora was born in 1910, and her wedding was in 1934. She is a young bride with a radiant face.
She and Henry had no children. Dora died in 1965, and Henry died about twenty years later. Why do we have this picture?
Perhaps this picture ended up among our treasures because my wife Judy and I seem to have become the family archivists. It’s a burden to keep these material objects, but keep them we will. But what is the eventual fate of this picture?
Aunt Dora was a sweet and lovable woman, adored by her many nieces and nephews. My father was one of seven siblings to reach adulthood. Four of those lived in the same small Pennsylvania town. These were my father, Uncle Nate, Aunt Ruth, and Aunt Dora. With no children of her own, Dora lavished affection on her nieces and nephews. She was a frequent host for family holiday gatherings. We were often guests in her home on non‑holidays too, and she made sure that we always had good things to eat. Frequently the good things meant cookies and candies that we did not get at home.
One of Aunt Dora’s specialties was the crescent cookie. These were high-butter shortbread cookies, rolled into crescent shapes about two inches long, and dusted with powdered sugar. I consumed a great number of these delicious little gems.
Aunt Dora also made a dish that I had never had before. Decades later, I can say that I’ve never had this food since. She made shlishkes, her style of European dumplings. Shlishkes can be identified with Jewish Romanians, but it exists over many groups of southeastern Europeans. Our family has no connection to Romania, but perhaps Henry’s Hungarian family provided the link.
The ingredients are simple and few, but the technique is complicated. Grate potatoes, mix with flour and salt. Knead the mixture, knead it again and repeat several times. Roll the potato-flour mixture into finger size tubes. Boil those tubes to slightly firm. Yes, this resembles the Italian preparation for gnocchi. Heat a mix of oil and breadcrumbs. Fry the tubes until covered with breadcrumbs and darkened. Presto: shlishkes!
This recipe involves starch, salt, carbohydrates, and oil. That means delicious. We loved Aunt Dora’s shlishkes.
Aunt Dora had loving relationships with her extended family, and she was loved in return. Alas, she also had strong relationships with cigarettes and coffee. She was only about 55 when she died. It is plausible that nicotine and caffeine contributed to her death.
So now what’s left of Aunt Dora besides the memories of a few people? Even in our large family, there are probably fewer than a dozen people who can recall her. The youngest of that group is well over sixty.
As I look at her picture, I am pleased to reconnect to her memory. I am sad that she’s gone, and I am sadder that recollections of this wonderful person will fade to nothingness.
Gary Simon
2016.FEB.10
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