‘Lillian Singer’

David Summerfield’s photo art has appeared in numerous literary magazines/journals/and reviews. He’s also been editor, columnist, and contributor to various publications within his home state of West Virginia. He is a graduate of Frostburg State University, Maryland, and a veteran of the Iraq war. View his work at davidsummerfieldcreates.com

Lillian Singer

Clement Street, San Francisco, 1968

I have long been convinced that the Staszow Ghetto* lives on -- perhaps in rudimentary form -- at the northwest corner of Seventh Avenue and Clement Street in San Francisco.

It is here that Lillian Singer brings her shopping cart filled with old books, dolls, clothing, and other items she has collected. Dressed in her babushka and frayed coat she sells her wares which amazingly people buy, though she never completely sells out. Some books and a few items are usually left over at the end of the day.

It should be remarked that Lillian Singer remembers little of the Staszow Ghetto which her family left in 1938 for New York, then San Francisco. Perhaps pessimists have better survival instincts or are just more realistic.

Since Lillian Singer lives near where I work, I have on more occasions than I wish to enumerate, driven her to Seventh Avenue and Clement Street. She seems to wait at the bus stop just about the time I get off from work. She stands there waiting patiently, her shopping cart filled with sundries.

Need I say that fellow employees have criticized me for “getting involved.” Perhaps this is because Lillian Singer does not have blonde hair, blue eyes, and is not long legged. A more acceptable choice to drive somewhere.

Nonetheless I have driven Lillian Singer to “her corner” at Seventh Avenue and Clement Street. I’m not sure how she manages on the bus. The top layer of her cart is indiscriminately placed and Lillian Singer has a tendency to spill. Also she often has a shopping bag full of other additional items.

I have to admit that I am always somewhat annoyed at the way I have to jostle the cart around to get it fit in the back of my car. It seems to have a mind of its own. Sometimes it fits in sideways. At other times, it fits straight in or on its side. This is because I am always trying to maneuver it so that the least number of items fall out. Books and clothing spill anyway. So why do I bother? Yet it really does seem that one position would be less disastrous than another, for Lillian Singer never packs her cart the same. Items are always to one side or another. The weight is not evenly distributed.

Lillian Singer gets in the car and says something like, “For me you shouldn’t have done this.” Yet I have; and she has accepted the ride nonetheless.

Lillian Singer has a tendency to talk about her sister and her mother. Her sister teaches school and the kids don’t pay any attention.

“Kids these days, I’m telling you.” Her mother lives with her sister and they don’t get along. Her sister charges her mother too much rent.”

“For such a mother she should be grateful.” And on.

“She shouldn’t charge her any rent. Besides an old woman on social security shouldn’t have to pay rent.”

I couldn’t but agree with that.

“For such a mother,” who foresaw it all. Who demanded that papa bring the family to New York from the Staszow Ghetto when Lillian Singer was still in kindergarten.

In the Staszow Ghetto papa had worked as a kosher butcher, but in San Francisco he worked among Germans, and Italians in San Francisco’s Butchertown. Breaking up hogs, steers and even horses.

“What papa wouldn’t do to survive.”

“For the kids. For mamma.”

Papa had died young. At thirty five.

“He shouldn’t have worked in the slaughterhouse.”

“But what other trade did papa know?”

Mamma got a job as a buyer for Grodin’s Clothing Center in the apparel market. Without a complaint she worked sixty hours a week, putting the kids through school. Finally Lillian and her sister graduated from San Francisco State College** when it was on Laguana Street.

Their paths ran parallel for a while, both teaching primary school, then they went their separate ways.

Lillian Singer began holding garage sales.

“For this mama worked? For this papa died?”

Lillian Singer moved to a room in the basement. She began selling here and there in the City, finally fixing on Seventh Avenue and Clement Street.

I’ve never asked her why. But there’s a lot of foot traffic, obviously reason enough.

Lillian Singer has given me a poetry book, e. e. cummings, 50 collected poems.

“There was no buyer for it today.” Surely there might be one tomorrow or the next day.

“You are a poet. You need this.”

I took the book.

Again, I have given her a ride. I have picked Lillian Singer up at Thirty-Sixth Avenue and Judah Streets, muscled in her cart with accouterments: lopsided with books and dolls hanging out.

“For this mama worked. For this papa died?”

Lillian Singer climbed in next to me.

“Will people buy these?”

Lillian Singer doesn’t know yet. She always seems to sell what is on hand, though not as much as she’d like.

Then, too, there is her work registering voters for the Democratic Party. She sits in front of a card table, wearing a straw hat with “Democrat” pinned on it. She’s paid by the number of signatures she gets. This “booth” is also at Seventh Avenue and Clement Street. She has rapport with the neighborhood.

I stopped at Seventh Avenue and Clement Street. I pulled out the cart while Lillian Singer steadied the dolls with her small boned hands. She pushed the cart over to the Athletic Shoe Shop and began to set up shop. Which consisted of spreading newspapers on the sidewalk and folding the clothes in neat piles on top of them. She put the dolls on the clothes, their backs leaning against the orange tiles of The Athletic Shoe Shop. They were the right height for children to see. One was a Raggedy Ann Doll. She had a big smile.

People walked by. Lillian Singer smiled her wistful smile. A woman in a business suite browsed, thumbing through a few books. She bought Danielle Steel’s “Season of Passion” novel for a quarter. The dolls and doll clothes remained. Would they sell?

For such a mother. For such a father.

From the Staszow Ghetto.

Now located at Seventh Avenue and Clement Street. Where Lillian Singer sells books and dolls.

Already there was a little girl looking at the dolls.

From the Staszow Ghetto -- in rudimentary form -- they smile. They wait at Seventh Avenue and Clement Street. -- The Staszow Ghetto Annex. Where Betsy Yang sells shoes at the Athletic Shoe Shop. Where Max the saxophone player across the street plays “Misty.” Where Bear the Lakota Indian drinks Midnight Express.

They wait. For such a mother. For such a father.

---

* Prior to the Holocaust Period the part(s) of a city where Jews congregated were called shtetl, though they are now popularly called ghettos. Officially, the Nazis established the Staszow Ghetto in June 1942.

** Now San Francisco State University.

Erich von Neff is a San Francisco longshoreman. He received his master’s degree in philosophy from San Francisco State University. He is well known in both French avant-garde and mainstream literary circles. In France, he has won awards such as Prix 26, given readings at the Cafe Montmartre, and published over 1295 poems and 289 short stories. In 2023, Editions Unicite published his book, 6 Affaires rèsolues par Frieda et Gitta: notre duo de charme de la police parisienne.