B’nai Jacob Golden Book

Eulogy for Jennie Bogomolny, given by her daughter Brenda Enchin on July 18, 2006

For many of us in this room today, it’s very difficult to imagine our lives without my Mom here with us. Jennie was the centre of her immediate and extended family. She was a magnet for the many friends she attracted over her lifetime. A very significant piece of our past is gone and our present and future ache with a gaping hole.

During the past week while my Mother grew weaker each day and death became more imminent, I found myself watching this woman, who had always seemed fearful of dying, exhibit an amazing strength and calm. I witnessed the deep love and respect that her children, grandchildren, nieces, nephews and close family friends offered as they phoned or came running to the hospital to share precious last moments. I listened carefully as my Mother used every ounce of her strength to make sure that her honest thoughts and hopes were voiced to the family she so dearly loved. She said her poignant goodbyes to each of use and we were blessed to have the chance to tell her through our words and actions how much she meant to us. I told her there was a big crowd eagerly waiting for her where she was headed as there was a crowd here wishing she didn’t have to go! The impact that she has had on four generations was clear and commanding. With great pride, I embraced the tangible legacy that is my Mom’s. My heart broke to let her go but a healing peace surrounded me. I knew as I watched the many interactions of the past week that she had given us the tools to continue and to be okay.

My Mom was born in Sokolow, Poland on January 2, 1920 and arrived in Niagara Falls, Ontario in November of 1928. Called Yenta at home, her Polish alias Yenyinka became Jennie upon her arrival in Canada. I always had a sense that my Mother did not really experience much of a childhood. The second of five children brought into this world by her parents, Moishe Avner and Feige Bracha Greenspan, she was their only daughter. She accepted the many responsibilities placed upon her. Not well off during her earliest years in Poland, her joys came from simple pleasures like licking salt off all the pickles that her mother sent her to fetch at a nearby farm. That story made it easier for me to understand why, in her later years, notwithstanding her serious heart condition, the saltshaker and my Mom were inseparable friends!

On my Mother’s first day in Niagara, a few of the young Jewish girls, whose families welcomed the Greenspan clan, offered her a banana. Jennie had never seen a banana before and tried to run away. Her delightful hosts pinned her down on the bed and shoved the banana in her mouth. As my Mom described it, she threw up, and to her dying day, she never ate a banana and despised any food with a banana flavor. In my adult years, I read that David Lewis had a similar experience upon his arrival in Canada and we chuckled that Mom had something in common with this prominent Canadian statesman. My Dad was actually the staunch NDP supported and I suspect he figured that the banana story was the only thing my Mom had in common with that political party!

Jennie was an exceptional student in her adopted country and excelled throughout her school years in Niagara. She carried the Greenspan gene for public speaking and won many awards in high school oratory contests. Education was already a high priority for my Mom and she wanted to impart her love of learning to others. Upon graduation, she headed off to Normal School in Toronto to become an elementary school teacher. Her parents only let her attend because her big brother Joe was studying in Toronto. At the age of 18, in 1938 and on a strict budget, she followed a daily regimen that allowed her the opportunity to fulfill her career dream. With fifty cents a day in her pocket, she spent five cents each way on the streetcar and fifteen cents at lunch for a grilled cheese sandwich and hot chocolate. With the remaining twenty-five cents, she was able to to buy the soup forshpice and dessert at a favourite kosher restaurant in the Spadina/Kensington area where she lived. She longed for the main course, but that was beyond her financial means. It always made me marvel that she only had one skirt, two blouses and one sweater to carry her through the school year. It was indiicative of how my Mother never really needed material acquisitions and spent money very sparingly on herself.

It think my mother’s only risqué behavior occurred in the summer of 1946 when she sent to visit her cousins in Halifax, driven to her destination from Niagara Falls by two very attentive men who were charmed by this bright, attractive, eligible woman. On December 29th, 1946, four days before her 27th birthday, Jennie married Abe Bogomolny who was ten years her senior. She chose him over her other suitor, Red Sorin, and two generations of her offspring always felt she made the right choice.

My Mother loved being a teacher. Her first Grade One class at Memorial School in Niagara had 28 students, many of them from homes where English was not their first language. With a sense of awe and pride years later, she would recount to us that she was so excited that by December she had taught them all how to read. In those days, Mom was required to resign from teaching when she married. After I was born and then Howie, she had her hands full. One afternoon, as she stood on the corner of Main and Ferry Streets waiting for a bus with her two toddlers embroiled in tantrums, her former principal, Mr. Zavitz, passed by. “What would you prefer, Jennie, 48 of ours or 2 of yours?” he called out. But she stuck with the Mom thing and Howie and I are certainly glad that she didn’t trade us in.

Mom returned to teaching after her brother Joe died suddenly in 1957. She was devastated by her loss. Teaching was not only a joyful diversion from her deep grief, but a way to earn her own money to help her beloved widowed sister-in-law Emma and her nephews and niece. As the years progressed, my Mom’s love of teaching never wavered, nor her need to help her extended family through difficult times. Along with her desire to meet her students’ individual needs and to help them to reach their potential, she wanted them to all learn the values that would make them honest, caring, kind and respectful human beings. Upon her retirement, the Jennie Bogomolny Citizenship Award was established at Battlefield Elementary School to be given to the student who best exemplified the values my Mom had nurtured among her students during her career. As I reflect on my own classroom teaching career, I know that I have gleaned many of my strengths from my Mother’s example. To this day Mom still had students and colleagues who kept in touch and honoured her for the difference she made in their lives. I can only hope that I will be so blessed when I reach my eighties!

Mom cared deeply about her Jewish community and was an ardent supporter of Israel. She devoted much time to her executive roles in the Rose Dunkleman Chapter of Hadassah WIZO and the Sisterhood of the B’nai Jacob Synagogue. She was a skilled leader with exceptional organization and people skills. She lent her talents also to other pursuits in the general community and was a wonderful liaison from the Jewish community to her non-Jewish neighbors.

Mom loved to be surrounded by people and our front door was never locked. Family and friends would appear at all hours of the weekday evenings and weekends. It seemed there was always a party around our dining room table and our cupboards and refrigerator were packed with all kinds of goodies. She was known far and wide for her sesame cookies and coffee cake. When I married Jerry and we returned from our honeymoon, I remember remarking how quiet it was in our little apartment. The crowds I had grown up with had disappeared! It was always a joy to go back home to Niagara for visits and holidays. The steady stream of visitors magically reappeared.

One of the best decisions my parents ever made was to purchase a condominium at Century Village in Deerfield Beach, Florida. They developed strong new friendships and opened their doors to family and friends for over twenty five years. My Mom now made the walls stretch in her small homes in the north and the south. Hospitality was her second name! When Mom and Dad left Niagara and moved to Toronto in 1995, Mom reconnected with friends from Niagara and Florida and even from her Normal School days. She actively developed new friendships in her apartment building, through Maj groups and in Carmel Chapter of Hadassah.

Life changed for her when my father died seven years ago, but as difficult as it was to be by herself, she fiercely guarded her independence and learned to do many of the things that had previously been my father’s domain. We were proud of her adaptability. She showed us then, and she has through many losses of close family and friends, how to move forward.

My Mother was a consummate worrier and always knew how to fling a healthy dose of Jewish mother guilt at her children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews. These were integral to her character and gave her loved ones opportunities to sharpen their skills at subterfuge and repentance.

Mom’s greatest joy was her family, both her nuclear and extended family. When I married Jerry and Howie married Cheryl, my parents’ two children automatically became four and our extended family grew incrementally. Until the day she died, even the children and grandchildren of her lifelong friends remained on her regular contact list. From A to Z, everyone important to her was recorded in her personal phone diary. My Mother loved nothing better than to chat on the phone, to catch up with everyone’s lives. Always a nighthawk and an early morning riser, the phone rang at both ends of her day with family and friends checking in. She watched over everyone, kept in touch with everyone and made certain that not one family member lacked for anything. She embraced each of us and spent hours making certain that everyone was okay. Her generosity knew no bounds. She never missed acknowledging special occasions and accomplishments or being there when we needed our spirits lifted.

Mom’s Friday night dinners were famous. There was enough food to supply three times the crowd gathered and a favourite dish for everyone at the table. Along with our growing family, visitors were always welcome. Three and a half weeks ago, Mom, although not feeling 100%, cooked Shabbat dinner as usual for our family. She insisted on having eighteen of us around her table because her youngest granddaughter, Claire, was going to Israel for the first time. We never imagined that beautiful Shabbat evening that cancer would take over her body so quickly. This past Friday night, we gathered around her hospital bed to welcome the Shabbat, knowing that it would be our last with her present. As we each gathered our emotional strength to recite the blessings, my mother was a peace. Propped up in her bed, and in clear voice, Mom made a last request to her clan. “After I’m gone,” she said, “I want you to continue being together every Friday night. It will be hard (translated…only I can cook for a crowd every week) so take turns at each other’s houses. She paused and then added, “It will be hard to get together once a month!” To the end, always trying to make our lives easier!

I asked her as she faded last week, “What do you like most about being a Mother?” Her answer….”Loving and being loved.” “What do you like best about being a grandmother?” Her answer…”The same, only deeper.” Adam and Dayna, Josh, Samara and Jacob, Laura, Katie and Claire and of course Jonah and Natasha… … you were Baba’s sunshine and the respect, love and fun times you have always showered on her are a tribute to her memory. I know how very sad you are that her physical presence is no longer with you and how deeply you will miss your own personal experience with her. She told you jokingly last week that her only regret in life was not winning the lottery. She knew implicitly that though you were her million dollars and that she was a winner of great riches. She will always watch over you and I know that you will imbue yourselves with the wisdom of her teachings and cherish the special moments that enriched your lives. Nineteen month old Natasha’s last words to her great grandmother, “Hi Baba Hi Baba I lubboo, I lubboo” and three year old Jonah’s amazement that Baba can be in two places at once…in the sky with Zaida Abe and “right here in my heart” as he points with certainty, assures me that her love and her memory will be strong for yet another generation.

Illness didn’t stop love

The Editor:

Several years ago I had the opportunity to care for a Jewish Gentleman by the name of Hymie Bogomolny. He had suffered a stroke, which paralyzed him quite extensively.

When I took the assignment, I had a few misgivings. After all, I was German — and deep down I wondered how the family was going to accept me. However, my worries were totally unfounded. In the Bogomolny family I have encountered the most delightful and loving people.

As of Hymie I can only say one thing:  I am very fortunate to have met him. For even in his illness there was an unusual quality of serenity about him that never ceased to amaze me. When my life was burdened with many difficulties and heartache it was Hymie who caressed my cheek and assuredly said, “good, good, good.” It was on these occasions that I felt a twinge of shame about my lack of courage, to carry on with the hardships of life.”

And when Hymie experienced an especially difficult day of his illness — and my assignment called for enormous patience and loving understanding, it was Hymie who would kiss my hand in gratitude. He was a gentleman in the truest sense of the word.

Hymie Bogomolny, was a revered man in this community. Always very religious, he lived and practised the teachings of his Jewish faith in his everyday life. His generosity and goodness was well known.

I felt an unexplained urge to write this letter for I believe that after Hymie suffered the ill-fated stroke, many did not realize his incredible intelligence beneath it all. There was a certain life force that defied defeat! His memory will always be with me. If there are any regrets at all it would only be one — since he was such an exceptional man in his illness, oh, what an extraordinary human being he must have been before.

Frances Mergl
7619 Wilson Crescent,
Niagara Falls.