Twists and Turns Chapter 1: WEBBED FINGERS

 

Claire LeBrint Metzger at age 80,
the age of fictional Claire, narrator of the book
Twists and Turns  There Once Was a Dream

I was born with webbed fingers.

 I write this frightful six-word sentence and identify my condition the way they did in 1914 when I was born. Today in 1994, close to the end of the twentieth century, now that I have reached the august age of 80 years old, I announce publicly this deformity as my own. The medical term for this birth condition is syndactyly, a term I learned somewhere along the way. It is used to identify when a child is born with two or more fingers and/or toes connected by skin, fused one to the next.

 I was the fourth child born to my young immigrant mother in six years. Her eldest two daughters, Mary, four years old and Rose, three, were finally able to watch out for each other. But her only son George was not yet two.

 I was born at home, in our cold-water flat in Chicago’s Jewish West side. The midwife must have announced, “It’s a girl!” My mother was probably disappointed that I wasn’t a second son and might have been thinking, What do I need another girl for, I already have two, and this girl now, so soon after George?

 But at least I was healthy, wasn’t I?

 The midwife must have done the customary counting of fingers and toes. My tiny hands might have been closed into fists and if so, the midwife would have gently opened them and seen webbed fingers on both hands. Even if the midwife was familiar with this condition, she most likely would not have said it out loud to my exhausted mother. I imagine that the midwife quickly washed me, wrapped me up in a blanket and handed me to my mother and figured that the awful truth would come out soon enough.

 Of course, it must have come out when my mother held me for the first time, looked me over and saw for herself. On my left hand in place of a pinky finger was a tiny round nub of skin and then three tiny fused fingers. On my right hand, all four fingers were fused. Did she wrap her hands around my little deformed hands to hide them from her sight, only to start shuddering at the feel of all those bones connected by skin where my fingers should have been? As I write these words, I shudder imagining what it might feel like if I were the one instead of her holding my poor little hands.

 My earliest memories are from age four and by then my fingers were separated and the only thing that seemed strange to me was the little round nub on my left hand. I didn’t think anything much about it. Neither did my siblings and the neighborhood kids. We were too busy playing and fighting and running and taking care of our many brothers and sisters, and staying out of the way of our overworked parents. Important stuff like that.

 I was a bright little girl with older siblings and at age four I already knew how to count to five, which was an important number on the day that Ma took me aside. That day I felt special – I was one of five children by then and never got time alone with Ma. She pointed to her fingers and then to mine. I looked closely and saw that on each hand Ma had a thumb and four fingers, five all together. On one of my hands (the left one) I counted out loud three fingers. I didn’t count the pinky nub. Ma then pointed to my other hand and I counted five, a thumb and four fingers, just like she had.

 The fingers on my right hand are funny looking: four crooked fingers, all of them shorter than normal and two do not have finger nails. But at my young age, I didn’t know what Ma was showing me. I could tell she was upset, angry and sad when she pointed once more at my fingers and told me that the evil eye gave her a child like me to punish her, because as she said, “I left my dearest most loved mother, your grandmother, in the old country to come to America. I didn’t want to leave her all alone. She cried and I cried buckets of tears but she insisted I must go to get away from the pogroms.”

 I looked at my fingers more closely. They looked normal except for the pinky nub. I didn’t understand “evil eye.” The whole concept of evil was beyond me and I didn’t know the word “pogroms,” but I remember to this day the bad feeling I got that somehow I was to blame.

 Eventually as I grew older and learned more, I understood that the “evil eye” was a superstition Ma brought with her from the old country, and came to appreciate why my grandmother insisted Ma go to America to get away from the danger and death caused by the pogroms perpetrated by the Russian Cossacks and the Russian peasants who joined in.

 My parents never talked about when my fingers were separated, and I never asked. Why would I? During my childhood my fingers worked fine, so there was nothing to ask. At some point (I don’t remember when), I understood that the reason my fingers looked the way they did was that they had been fused when I was born. But even as an adult I never asked Ma or Pa about this because I knew it would open up old wounds and sad memories

 Surprisingly as early as 1902, doctors performed surgery to separate conjoined fingers and toes and they determined it was best to do the surgery on children between six months and two years old. Most likely my surgery was done before age two. However, before then I imagine Ma being reminded of her punishment every day when she bathed me and had to open my little deformed hands to wash them and when I perhaps learned to hold a bottle awkwardly or not at all. I imagine her horror, shame, sadness, and anger. And though she may have had women friends to go with her when I had the surgery, I’m sure during that time she missed her mother horribly, dreadfully. Ma’s closest female cousins lived in Philadelphia, too far away to be with her and I’m sure Pa was working extra hours to pay for the surgery. No health insurance in 1914-1915.

 Surgery was done, my fingers worked okay and Ma never mentioned them again after that one time. Maybe I’m making this up, but it seems to me that during my entire life, Ma treated me differently partly because of my fingers. Or maybe it was me. I tried always to be somewhat removed from her, not interacting if I could get away with it, even during the many years as an adult when I lived with her and Pa and my younger sister Perle. I can say this now after years of pondering my place in our family that I was trying to keep away the feeling that I was at fault for Ma’s sadness and anger. 

END OF CHAPTER 1

DID YOU LIKE CHAPTER 1 of Betsy Fuchs' imagined memoir, Twists and Turns There Once Was a Dream, which is based on the life of Betsy's aunt Claire LeBrint Metzger? You can buy the book and learn what happens next to this most interesting woman. 

Paperback and Kindle versions are available from Amazon.com. Search in Amazon by entering book title: Twists and Turns There Once Was a Dream or author name: Betsy Fuchs Paperback is also available for purchase directly from Betsy. To arrange for direct purchase email her at  betsywfuchs@gmail.com    

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HIs Name was Arvid Lundberg**

Arvid Lundberg was a political cartoonist with the Chicago Herald, whom I met briefly in 1937 and then again in 1940 when I was 26 years old and he was 38. Soon after we started seeing each other exclusively. Arvid was my first romantic love. We dated for three years and our relationship ended badly. After that, I never talked about him, not ever.

When friends and acquaintance asked me if I had any serious boyfriends in my younger years, my stock answer was, “I dated around but there was no one special. There were a few possible guys but I always found something wrong with them or they found something wrong with me.” This answer seemed to satisfy and they didn’t ask any follow-up questions.

But curiously over the years my older sister Rose, the family gossip, had dropped hints to her daughters about me dating a cartoonist when I was young. While I was working on this memoir, one of Rose’s daughters asked me innocently enough, “Aunt Claire, what stories are you writing these days? Have any of them been published lately?” 

I was always writing stories. Some got published so such questions were a usual part of our conversations. This time my answer was unusual. “These days I’m working on a memoir about my life as a single working girl and the adventures I had. Right now, I’m writing about a guy I dated when I was in my twenties named Arvid Lundberg.”

I expected a few follow-up questions, like “Who was this guy? How long did you two date?” or perhaps just a stunned “Wow, tell me more.” But I was flabbergasted at her response, “Was he the cartoonist who created the Little Lulu comic strip? Mom mentioned this but it was all hush-hush. She said you never talked about it because the guy was older and divorced and worst of all, he wasn’t Jewish and Grandma LeBrint broke the romance up and banished you to California.”

“Oh, your mom, she never was one to keep a secret, but I plan to spill the beans about the cartoonist in my memoir. Who knows if I’ll ever finish it, so for now I’ll give you the cliff notes version. I dated Arvid Lundberg from 1940 to 1943 when I was in my late twenties. He was a political cartoonist with the Chicago Herald newspaper. Years after we broke up, he became known nationally for his syndicated comic strip, not Little Lulu, but your mom was close. His comic strip was about a young girl named Pattie. Comic strips about adventuresome young girls were the rage in the 1940s and 1950s. Besides Pattie and Little Lulu, there were also the Little Debbie, and ‘nancy’ comic strips. Arvid was unmarried, not divorced, older than me and not Jewish. It would have been a shanda if I married him. So, my mother sent me to Los Angeles to get me away from him and that ended that.”

I added, “For the rest of the story, you will have to wait and hope that I complete my memoir, or at least the story of me and Arvid and the banishment” and I changed the subject.**

 

MY PURSUIT OF ARVID

1937 – 1940

I met Arvid Lundberg in 1937 when he gave at talk at my Northwestern University journalism class. He talked about Chicago and national politics and the impending threat coming from Hitler and the Nazis in Germany, illustrating his talk with a few political cartoons that he projected onto a screen at the front of our classroom. Looking at his provocative cartoons and listening to him, I thought, Here’s a man with great knowledge of politics and a wry sense of humor. He’s good looking in a dignified way and I’d love to get to know him. After his talk, I introduced myself and he said, “Let’s stay in touch,” or some standard brushoff. I took him at his word and over the next few years, I was casually persistent, sending him letters commenting on the cartoons I particularly liked. 

Today I’m looking at the Lundberg cartoons I saved, including one titled “Mayor Smelly’s Machine: And His Indispensable Team.” It features a cartoon representation of Chicago’s Mayor Edward Kelly and Cook County Park Chairman Patrick Nash. In the cartoon they are chewing on raw onions while looking at a statue of themselves standing on top of a large block engraved with the words “SOMETHING SMELLS ROTTEN IN CHICAGO.” A few little guys with different skin tones, half as tall as Kelly and Nash, are watching, looking dejected. They represent the Mayor’s constituents, the Blacks, Poles, Mexicans, and other Chicago ethnic minorities who propelled Kelly (and Nash) into power.

During the 1930’s and into the 1940’s, the Kelly-Nash Machine ran Chicago and built the powerful Chicago Democratic party which opened the door for the two Daley mayors (Richard J. and Richard M.) who ruled Chicago with a few interruptions from 1955 until today. Richard M. has a few sons so I expect the Daley dynasty will continue to rule for years into the future. Thinking about the Daley’s’ long reign, in the old-country Jewish manner, I am compelled to say out loud phooey phooey and pretend to spit, to express my extreme displeasure.

Paper clipped to the cartoon is a carbon copy of a typed letter from me to Lundberg, which reads in part, “Smelly is the perfect name for Mayor Kelly. Thanks for shedding a light on the arrogance of Kelly and of Nash who is the power behind the throne. They are gobbling up Chicago’s resources and forgetting about the little guys who put them in power. They smell to high heaven, and I hope they choke on the onions (I mean power) they are gobbling up.”

I figured he wouldn’t remember me from letter to letter, so I reminded him that we met briefly when he gave a talk at my Northwestern journalism class in 1937. As I did in all my letters, I asked if I could talk with him about how to get into journalism. Looking at the letter, I realize how naive I was about Chicago politics. You can throw one set of bums out and another set gets elected. Kelly and Nash out, then the Daley boys in. But in the 1930s how was I to know?

One day in spring 1940, to my surprise and delight, I got a reply from Lundberg. Ma saw the envelope first, and when I got home from work, she handed it to me and asked, “Nu Clara why are you getting a letter from the Chicago Herald?”  It was from Lundberg! His last name was handwritten on the envelope above the Herald logo. I may have blushed or had a small secret smile on my face but I kept my composure and answered, “I’m not sure Ma. Now and then I write letters to the paper responding to some article of interest to me.” She seemed satisfied with this answer.

These many years later I can’t find the letter, but I read and reread it many times. I remember it was handwritten and went something like this.

Dear Claire,

Thanks for sending letters now and then. It’s nice to hear from someone who understands what I’m trying to get across in my cartoons. You asked if we might get together so I could give you pointers on how to get into the news business. Sure thing. Give me a call at (phone number, long forgotten) and we’ll find a time to meet.

Sincerely, Arvid Lundberg

 He gave me his phone number! He wanted to meet me! The next day I called the Chicago Herald and felt very important asking the switchboard operator to put me through to Mr. Arvid Lundberg. She asked about the nature of my call. I replied proudly, “This is Claire LeBrint and Mr. Lundberg requested I call so we could discuss jobs in journalism.”

Arvid seemed pleased to get my call and asked a few questions: Where I worked. My answer: At my dad’s print shop on LaSalle Street, across from the Chicago Board of Trade. What was my job. My answer: Office work, girl Friday stuff. How did I like the journalism classes, to which I gave a very short answer, “I liked them.” He suggested that we meet after work, downtown. I answered formally, “Yes thank you. I would greatly appreciate meeting you.” Arvid suggested we meet at Eitel’s coffee shop in the Northwestern Train Station just west of the Chicago River on Madison Avenue. The station was across from the Chicago Herald building and not far from Pa’s print shop. 

**NOTE: These chapters are from my book now titled "Twists and Turns: An Imagined Memoir based on the life of Claire LeBrint Metzger 1914 – 2002." Fictional Clara, the narrator, is 80 years old and is writing her memoir in the year 1994. Claire LeBrint Metzger, of blessed memory, is my Aunt Claire and I have been working on stories based on her life for almost 10 years. Finally all the stories are done and  compiled in book form! I plan to publish "Twists and Turns" in paperback and Kindle versions sometime in 2024. Until then, I'll post excerpts from the book monthly on my blog. Enjoy!

To access all the stories I've written and posted on my blog about Claire/Clara, CLICK HERE