Seventeen years old - Faye woke up and remembered that she was now living in the United States.  The linoleum tile was cool as she got out of the iron frame bed, but it was better than the creaky house she lived in in Belgium and England.  The windows never shut tight there, and the cracks in the wooden floors let the cold air inside.

Faye was looking forward to what would be new this day in her new home in Jacksonville, Florida.  Her father had immigrated to the United States through the port of Fernandina Beach.  She had no idea where that was.  The boat that brought her to New York rocked so much in the winter weather.  Now, she was in Florida.  Her Mom, Anna, told her that it had never snowed here.  He found a home on Stockton Street just outside of town.  So many black skin people lived around there.  They carried knives and appeared dangerous.

What is my life going to be like now?  I am so far away from my old home.  Everyone speaks English, but in my old neighborhood, we only spoke Yiddish and sometimes Flemish.  She used to be known as Faigl or Fanny Jakubowska in Belgium.  Now, she wanted an English name.  The family changed their name to Jacobs, and she changed her name to Faye Leah.

Nineteen years old – Fay was worried.  Life in the United States was hard.  Her father lacked ambition and stood around his peddler’s horse and wagon, arguing politics with his landsmen from the old country.  Meanwhile, his wife Anna milked cows and sold the neighbors’ eggs.  They had such great ideas for their new country.  It seemed like everyone in the United States only thought of themselves and how they could be millionaires.  Her younger brothers and sisters went to school, but Faye had to find odd jobs, supervise her brothers and sisters, and help her mother at the store Anna had opened.

Things were changing in America.  In Jacksonville, Florida, Jewish merchants started opening up stores so large that they had many different floors and many different departments.  The largest was Cohen Brothers.  It was four stories tall and took up an entire city block.  It also required a lot of employees since it had doors at the front, sides, and back.  Best of all, Faye got a job in the Cosmetics Department at the front door.  She was young, attractive, and blond.

Despite her looks, she felt it hard to date young men.  They were all looking for women from affluent and educated families.  Additionally, she was still the family caregiver.  Her sisters married at the first chance they got.

Thirty-four years old – Faye knew something was wrong.  Her youthful looks were fading.  She had lived through the Roaring Twenties, which had been so much fun, but a deep economic depression followed it.  No one in her age group had an appetite for marriage, and everyone was scrambling to survive.  She tried other occupations, but her father developed a heart condition that kept her close to home.  She could walk to Cohen Brothers, which always had a job for her.

She married Joseph Young in 1940

He said it was the day he was at the Western Union office across from Hemming Park in downtown Jacksonville.  There were two important places businessmen went each day.  One was the bank, and the other was Western Union.  Western Union had designated boxes similar to post office boxes.

 

One of his relatives was also inside.  He told him that there was a single Jewish woman working at the perfume counter by the front door of the Cohen Brothers Department Store.  My father was about thirty-nine years old and still a bachelor.  I am guessing that he looked wistfully out of the window of the Western Union building at the large department store across the park.

“She’s a blonde.” It was whispered.

My father walked across the street and saw a smiling blonde right in front.  He was looking at her so hard that he walked into the glass door and stumbled.

She never stopped smiling as she told him to whom she was related.  She was a Jacobs and Lassks; he was from the Jacksonville Portnoys and Dwoskins.

A Cohen Brothers floor walker, Mr. Powell, approached and told her that she could not be socializing at the front counter.

My father, Joseph, was beside himself.  He began to wait at the side entrance when the employees left for the day so he could talk to her.  Then he walked next to her as she went across the Riverside Viaduct to her home on Jackson Street.  Then, it was spending time with her on weekends.

When it came to physical attractiveness, my father felt he was marrying up.   Faye was not as educated as my father, so there was a natural attraction.

My mother and father married and rented on Post Street.  They decided to buy a house in the suburbs on Planters Road.  It was just outside the city limits on Beach Boulevard.

Next door lived Mr. and Mrs. Powell.