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THE ROLLER COASTER OF LOVE THE ROLLER COASTER OF LOVE  My father David Goldberg was born in 1917 on the lower east side of New York City. His father was a streetcar motorman. My father grew up working for relatives on Coney Island and the nearby docks. My mother Hilda Schneider was born in the industrial slums of the lower east side. Her father Isaac abandoned the family and her mother somehow managed to support her six daughters working in the garment industry, mainly millinery. My parents met at a party in 1936 and after my mother graduated high school they were married in 1937. Now all of this is rather mundane and I would not bore anybody if there were not more to the story. At this time my Father’s Aunt Molly (yes there really was a Molly Goldberg) was the owner of The Thunderbolt Roller Coaster on Coney Island. I have photographs of my father selling tickets to the rides in 1932. Underneath the roller coaster was the house my Aunt Molly lived in. If you have ever seen the Woody Allen film “Annie Hall” you have seen the inside of my Great Aunt Molly’s home. My father would have dinner there with his brother and two sisters. My Aunt Yena told me the inside of the house was “very elegant.” My father’s Aunt loved him deeply and wanted to give him and his new bride a proper wedding present. She was also a practical business woman in the middle of the Great Depression and wanted a tax deduction, so a contest was arranged and the couple that could kiss the longest, (whatever passed for a passionate, nonstop, lip locked, face sucking kiss in 1937), while riding the Thunderbolt Roller Coaster would win a two week vacation to a deluxe resort in the Catskills. What a surprise it was when the unbiased judges chose David and Hilda as the winners. On their “wedding day” the newspapers and radio stations were notified, my Uncle Harry (he owned four rides that he would take on a carney circuit every spring and summer) dressed up in a suit and was listed as a “Justice of The Peace.” and a “marriage” was performed. My mothers five sisters made her wedding gown. After the publicity photographs were taken both of my parents went home and took off their wedding clothes and two weeks later they were married in a Synagogue. On their Coney Island “wedding” day my parents stopped by the “Photo Memories” concession on Coney Island owned by Uncle Moses. They posed on the Honey Moon and the photograph above was taken with a 5x6 wooden Speed-O-Graph camera with flash powder for illumination. This was a wedding gift to my parents from Great Uncle Moshe. Please note the high fashion model pose my mother struck. |
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These are the kind of blogs I enjoy reading. Something with a story behind it that makes this cynical, weather beaten, old face break into a smile. Thanks. Alfie...  .
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10/17/2009 2:11 pm |
These are the kind of blogs I enjoy reading. Something with a story behind it that makes this cynical, weather beaten, old face break into a smile. Thanks. Alfie... .
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10/17/2009 3:31 pm |
I guess you could say I was spinning when I was just a sparkle in my Dad’s eye.
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10/17/2009 3:33 pm |
Thank you for your kind comments.
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10/17/2009 3:34 pm |
My dear friend Meri. Thank you for your warm thoughts. I just wish all the pills I take would give me better colors.
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Your Mother is a beautiful woman! Dad is very handsome! Great looking couple!! Love the story. Someone has to work Coney Island and it is fun to have someone in our SFF family be able to tell a first hand story from there. I chuckled at the mock wedding, going home and taking their clothes off then having a real wedding two weeks later.
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10/17/2009 5:55 pm |
Your Mother is a beautiful woman! Dad is very handsome! Great looking couple!! Love the story. Someone has to work Coney Island and it is fun to have someone in our SFF family be able to tell a first hand story from there. I chuckled at the mock wedding, going home and taking their clothes off then having a real wedding two weeks later.
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10/17/2009 5:57 pm |
You should hear the horseback riding story from the honeymoon.
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10/17/2009 7:19 pm |
A most entertaining and delightful story ... truth is far better than fiction What a handsome couple they are posed on the Honey Moon - a photograph that's a real treasure. Thank you so much for sharing it - I only wish I had a similar treasure to share. Sandy Happiness is where we find it, but rarely where we seek it. J. Petit Senn
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10/17/2009 8:41 pm |
Wonderful photo and story. Your mother was gorgeous. She reminds me of Margaux Hemmingway, the "Babe" cosmetics model of the 1970s.
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10/18/2009 6:58 am |
I enjoy reading these family histories. Were your granparents immigrants?
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10/18/2009 8:09 am |
wonderful ~~ streetcars are tram cars around here but suprisingly after 125 years tram drivers are still called motormen , this comes about as opposed to stage coach horse drivers called horsemen tram car motormen would wear with great pride the large round brown badge stating Fleetwood tramways motorman and the tram conductors or guards as they are known here in Fleetwood and Blackpool the badges were in use untill approximately WW2 and then replaced by the national green and white for conductors ceramic p.s.v. public service vehicle badge the old brown enamal badges fetch good prices at auction on the rare occassion they come up for sale ~ check out fylde transport museum and blackpool tramways
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10/18/2009 1:55 pm |
I enjoy reading these family histories. Were your granparents immigrants? Grandpa Charlie was an educated man when he came to America. He had attended Gymnasium and University. He was a “chemist” or as we know them today a pharmacist. He, and most of my family, had to flee for his life from one or another of the great pogroms. Russia did not want him as a Jew but they would not allow him to leave as a chemist. This sort of official frenetic schizophrenia led to so many “under the hay wagon” immigrant stories that are so common in Jewish culture. On my mothers side Marsha Schneider was from one of the Prussias. They were always squabbling in protest of Frederick the Great’s unification and I do not know which little principality or dukedom she was from. Grandpa Isaac Schneider started off in Germany proper and left about 1894. He looked like a true Teutonic Night. Grandpa Isaac was a man without a country, as were several of my relatives who had to flee. He served in the Black and Tans in South Africa and fought the Boers and was then stationed in Ireland during one of the “Times of The Troubles.” He came to America as a British Citizen.
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10/18/2009 2:04 pm |
wonderful ~~ streetcars are tram cars around here but suprisingly after 125 years tram drivers are still called motormen , this comes about as opposed to stage coach horse drivers called horsemen tram car motormen would wear with great pride the large round brown badge stating Fleetwood tramways motorman and the tram conductors or guards as they are known here in Fleetwood and Blackpool the badges were in use untill approximately WW2 and then replaced by the national green and white for conductors ceramic p.s.v. public service vehicle badge the old brown enamal badges fetch good prices at auction on the rare occassion they come up for sale ~ check out fylde transport museum and blackpool tramways To the day he died you could ask how to get somewhere in New York City and Grandpa Charlie could tell you the train to take. His daughter my Aunt Yena (these are real names I promise) told me that he would ask children riding how they did in school. If they showed a good grade he would have a nice thing to say or maybe a bit of candy. If not he would scold them with “Perschonick. What do you want to do? Grow up to be a bum?
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10/18/2009 2:05 pm |
Thank you for sharing. You may have an “under the hay wagon story” in your family too.
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10/19/2009 4:58 pm |
You are very welcome.
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