From Beyond the Pale to Park Avenue Continued...

Of the four sisters, my mother was the most beautiful. Freda, on her right, the next. Belle, on the left, was hit by a bicycle when she was about 7 years old, and the family did not have enough money for any sort of treatment. Belle was left with a permanent limp.She was married twice, the first time when she was very young, and her husband's parents were not happy that their son married a cripple, as one could say in those days. They had the marriage annulled. The second marriage was many years later, to Henpecked Harry as we called him. He divorced Belle and married a good friend of hers with an identical limp. Belle and Lottie always lived in Brooklyn, though not in the tenement. My grandmother lived with Belle and never really spoke very good english. She referred to the Poles and Germans as "Chazzers", and she walked around their apartment with a rag under her foot  constantly polishing the floors. We used to visit them in Brooklyn, but more about that later.