Bebe's story from Rhoda

Someone forwarded me Rhoda "Bebe Story" so thought I'd post it up for you all. Rhoda, if you want changes, just let me (Tracey) know. First set of changes brought to light by Pat are added now.

Bebe Ciglen's Story

Bebe, Bella Litman was the youngest daughter of Litman Footeronsky & Fagel Footeronsky. Fagel's mother was Pesha and Pat is in fact named after 2 grandmothers, Fagel & Pesha. The Footeronsky's emigrated from a small village Pudjinka in (Russia-Ukraine) about 20 Kilometers from Kiev. In 1911 when the she was 5 years old her mother and siblings Ethel, Gordon and Rose gathered their belongings and made their way to Kiev, stayed a few days with family and began their journey to Canada to join Litman and the two older boys Jake and David.

Most immigrants sent the working members their family over to America where they worked and saved enough money to pay for the rest of their family to join them.

Pasha’s families were dairymen and Litman was a scholar. She was 15 when they wed and he was 10 or 15 years older. By the time she had had their 6th child she towered over her diminutive 4’10” husband.

Pasha and her kids traveled north to the Bering Straits where they boarded a boat for England. Bebe was very sick. In London they rested and ate bananas for the first time, then took the “Lusitania” to America. If not for a bad fire in their village that delayed their departure Bebe and her family may in fact have been on the Titanic.

Jake & David both trained as mural paihters in Kiev before they came to Canada...maybe thats why there are so many artists in the family.

The family took on Litman as their last name when they came to Canada. The first home was on Kensington Avenue. Later as everybody worked and saved they were able to buy a house the 174 Palmerston Ave. Jake became a billboard painter, David, and Gordon and Litman worked in a shirt factory, Ethel worked in a dress factory, Pasha took in borders and Rose and Bella were sent to school. Ethel was a fine seamstress and made all the clothes for the girls.

When Jake married Bessy, their daughter Esther called Bella .. “Bebe” and it stuck.

Nana has stories about her youth...
Bebe loved sport and took gymnastics at the Community centre St Christopher’s house. at the Grange..Years ago when you worked at Panda on Wellington....that building had been a community centre.

Buba Pasha never learned to read .. but every night after dinner, Zeda would read to her from the Jewish News. AS a teacher, he studied the Talmud, explained to his children the dietary laws and the reasons for them.

After grade 8, Bebe left school and took a secretarial course and went to work at a Milliners factory. She proved to be a better hat maker than she was a secretary and was soon promoted to designing very fine hats.

Sam Ciglen was a country boy from Meaford. He had stayed an extra year in high school and learned bookkeeping. When he came to Toronto to University and Law school he was able to make money by doing the books for all the immigrant shopkeepers. He was a great hockey player and played with the team that was to become the Toronto Maple Leafs. He met Bebe and fell in love. He and Bebe loved to skate in the winter.

After Buba Pasha died at 48 years old, when Bebe was 18.. Sam moved into Palmerston as a border. Bebe and Sam were secretly married when she was 22 and he was 24.

Sam & Bebe moved to an apartment on Bathurst street near St Clair when Pat was born and later to McNairn near Yonge when Ina was born. The depression was in full swing and rents were too high in Toronto. Dad moved the family back to Meaford and he commuted each week. He practiced law in Toronto from Monday to Friday and Saturday and Sunday worked for a Meaford Lawyer.

Nana played badminton and learned to play golf. She learned to make great jams and pickles. She made a lot of good women friends, but she was not a part of the community, which was centered around the church. She had her Mother-in-law, but her own family, sisters and brothers were all in Toronto. She was lonely. In 1934 a year and a bit after Rhoda was born they moved back to Toronto to 165 Lawrence Ave W. Sam made a giant ice rink of the whole back yard. A funny thing remembers Pat, since daddy Sam was a hockey player, we girls had boys black high skates and he taught us to skate backwards, like hockey players.

Mom continued to Golf all summer and would take us to the farm next door to the golf course while she played at Fairmount Golf club on Bathurst north of Lawrence. On weekends, in the winter when the river was frozen Dad a would take us skating at the golf course.

In the summer of 1937 there was a lot of polio in the city.. Mom took us up to lake Simcoe until late September when the epidemic had slowed down. I (Rhoda) was three and learned to swim.

In 1939 we moved to 1125 Avenue Rd. - a new house. We kids went to Allenby School.
Mom worked one day a week at the community centre. St Christopher’s house or the “Y” with retarded kids. She sent us all to art classes at the Art gallery on Saturday mornings.

I can remember Mom waving to the bus driver as he went up Avenue Rd. On his way back going downtown he would pick Mom up at the corner of Roselawn Avenue and Avenue Rd.

Mom was always a great knitter and sewer and made many of our clothes. It was wartime and there were shortages of everything. The old Hunt Club at Roselawn and Avenue Rd had been turned into an Air Force barracks. My cousin Fran Biderman (16) was staying with us and would talk to the boys there and the chefs would give her pies for us. We didn’t have garbage bags. We made them out of specially folded old newspapers. Everybody helped. Tin was recycled for the war effort. Newspapers not used for garbage were recycled. When Mom sent us to camp in 1942 she packed our clothes in big Cardboard Canada Bread cartons. At camp we used orange creates for storing our clothes.

Mom always had her hands full with me(Rhoda) I was the one with asthma... I was the one who broke a leg peeking into a window... I was the one with whom she laughed a lot... At services we would sit upstairs in the gallery and count the bald heads and then if someone tripped on the steps, we’d giggle away. When daddy fell asleep and gave a snore we could hardly control ourselves. She always had little risqué jokes about steam baths or golf and had a good laugh when I came home from camp with stories about outhouses and farts.

The war ended in 1945 and Phyllis was born on Nov 5th 1945. By this time we had moved to 24 Whitmore Ave. (now Forest Hill Rd between Hilltop and Park Rd.) The Forest Hill Golf Course had been sold and the members joined Oakdale. The house was very unassuming but had a pool table for Dad and a side centre hall with a main floor bathroom and an ensuite off the master bedroom. Mom had always watched the decorating of rooms at Eaton’s and Simpson’s and loved antique shops. The separate living room was 13 x 22 with a fireplace and bookcases at one end. Mom bought a baby grand piano (which she hoped her daughters would play) and when Phyllis was born found a little platform rocker, which she had recovered. It sat by the curve of the piano beside the black and white TV. With a new baby, mom decided to add an extra bedroom and breakfast room. Pat and Ina shared the new tandem bedroom that walked through my room. The breakfast room had a curved glass block wall so you couldn’t see the garden and was always cold. (The picture by Franz Johnson now over the sofa in Nana’s apartment was bought for that room) I was very close to Phyllis being only 12 years older and when she was 3 or 4 Mom had matching pleated skirts made for us in brown I think and we wore similar sweaters - I loved it. I took her and our dog everywhere.

OH the dog - Dad came home with a great dane that was sent from a friend in Winnipeg. Mom was scared to death of this 70-LB pup which was just as scared and immediately sat down on the sofa beside her. I loved the dog. Mom would cook horsemeat and mix up a stew for the dog (remember we were still on rationing) and she ate like a horse.

Mom had teenage daughters and on a trip to New York with daddy bought each of us a dirndl skirt and blouse. On the next trip we each got a cashmere sweater. One day someone asked me if I were jealous of Ina because she got more shoes than me.. I explained that I got more medicine. That was mother’s philosophy. When I was little and wanted to come home from camp she’d say “what will you do at home? there is no one around to play with.” One time Ina was dating a very homely (ugly)short boy who was rich and very much in love with her. Mom said very casually "If you marry this boy, you can never wear high heals again?" She ruined Ina’s taste for the guy. When I was 16 I had a crush on a 21 year old boy. Mom wouldn’t have it and I thought it was unfair and wrote a poem about it. We didn’t fight. She gave each of us support where we needed it individually.

Dad loved his work and Mom took up golf with a vengence. She was out from April until November. Made herself warm sweaters and gloves for those cold days and hardly missed a day. She didn’t golf weekends except occasionally when Daddy wanted her to join him and then she said “he always cheats”. I know what she meant. Women play by the rules. Men bend them to suit themselves. They don’t take themselves so seriously. Mom was loved by all the women around the club and played in many outside tournaments. Mom had a lot of golf buddies but didn’t play cards and didn’t seem to need too many girlfriends. Maybe that’s why everybody loved her - she never got into fights.

When we all grew up and got married, Mom took art lessons OCA at nights. When she got into a life class she didn’t know which way to look - she was so embarrassed.

Mother’s talent for knitting and crocheting has been appreciated by many a new mother - her baby clothes and blankets were beautiful and her sweaters were always original. Later she made afghans for everyone in the family. She would look at the colours of their room and design a blanket to match. She didn’t read patterns but could walk behind someone wearing an expensive sweater and go back home and copy the design. One year she made herself a mohair coat, a coat of many colours and a skirt to match (all in fall colours). She got into doll making for the grandchildren. These knitted dolls were all different and loved by all the kids. Mom’s golf hats were so good that I wore them sailing and took orders for some for her.

As a mother and a grandmother, as an aunt and a friend, she was available she was there for each of us - a good listener, a good observer, a positive attitude, she didn’t judge, and believed that you catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar and that if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything at all. It is better to say nothing than to hurt someone, but she will still tell you what she thinks, give advice but again she doesn’t stand in judgment - just as well.

She is a great lady - not an outstanding women of the world, a great doctor, or actress, or “an artist the very smartest.” but a human being who has lived a good life and made the world around her a better place because she is there.

Family members still around.. Fran Biderman, Rae Newman, Alan and Jimmy Newman, Freddy Phillips, Freddie Litman, old friends, Edie Creed, Marvel Koffman