My parents, Lou and Meriam Cole, got married in 1932 in Cleveland during the Great Depression, a small Jewish wedding, with family and close friends. My mother was twenty-three, and my dad, thirty-one. I found the wedding announcement in the Cleveland Plain Dealer when I was doing research for my new book in the historical archives in Cleveland. Dated December 4, 1932, it read:
Mr. and Mrs. Simon Mandel of E. 91st Street announce the marriage of their daughter, Meriam Allen (sic), to Mr. Louis Gerald Cole, which took place Wednesday evening at 7:30 o'clock in the Sisterhood Parlor of the Euclid Avenue Temple. Rabbi Barrett R. Brickner performed the ceremony. The bride wore a Chanel gown of white crepe trimmed with milk (sic). She carried a muff of gardenias. Mr. Cole was graduated from Western Reserve University and Ohio State University Law School. The couple left for a wedding trip to Bermuda and on their return, will reside at 2822 E. 132nd Street.
Compared to the announcement that preceded it of a wedding at the Cleveland Hotel with 700 guests and a long list of bridesmaids, also officiated by Rabbi Brickner, my parents' wedding sounded modest. I loved the lines of my mother's simple gown, though was surprised that they could afford Chanel trimmed with, I believe, mink. I'm guessing it was used, or maybe they splurged on the gown along with the honeymoon trip to Bermuda. I laughed, thinking how important it would have been to my pretentious mother for the Chanel name to be in the announcement.
They got married on November 30th, and must have traveled the next day to New York to board the ship, perhaps leaving on December 2nd. I imagine their excitement, staying over in a hotel in New York and then embarking on a week's cruise to tropical Bermuda from bustling New York harbor. The ship, the Monarch of Bermuda, was brand new, a high-end luxury liner built in 1931.
I picture them on deck, aglow with their good fortune, gazing at the New York skyscrapers as they sailed out of the harbor. I imagine their heady dreams for the future, many of which they attained. They didn't yet know the tragic end when Dad would die so young, in his fifties, leaving my mother a widow in her forties, which, though she tried valiantly, she couldn't handle, and her worst impulses took over.
I loved learning about the time before Dad died, before his health gave out and he had tax troubles, before my mother became a darker version of herself. I loved imagining them with their heads held high, and the future golden.
If you'd like to learn about my sailing adventures with my late husband and young daughter when we followed his lifelong dream and sailed away, leaving everything behind, go here.