Ellin + Logan

see how they edited it. May believe it's not your grandson, and we'll tell it as it is, like we always do. Have that well, I tell it like it is, even when I'm objective. So I'm really looking forward to this. This should be good. This should be good. You know what, I don't think my life is any more interesting than anybody else's. I think everybody has all these stories. I just remember them. This is, of course my grandmother, Ellen

Bernstein Grodsky. Logan, this downless like daddy exactly. Your voice comes through just like his, but I better know hers, Nana. He is the most charming, the most intelligent, brilliant, sweet kind. There is nothing negative about Logan at all. Nothing. She uh always a very big presence in my life. He was gorgeous from the minute he was born. What listen, I'm his grandmother. What can I tell you at a

Jewish grandmother? Yet so well. I think there's two things that come almost equally, love of course, and then related. I think food is is very, very big. I definitely associate that with her. Logan is not a material person at all, and when you say to Logan, what do you want, nothing, Nana, It's impossible to get him a gift. It really is. We used to see a movie on my birthday and that was that was enough. I have some great books that my grandmother's got it me over

the years. That's always what it ended up being. There's a massive encyclopedia of the Confederacy that she got me, and I must have been very small when she got it for me. It's very dense and I remember loving reading it. He's been a voracious reader since he was very small, and an intelligent one. I mean, I would never insult him by getting him a child's book. You don't get into the ninety ninth percentile of the S A T. S if you're not very smart. I'm applying

to college right now. And she always tells me that any school would be lucky to have me, and that I should get into all these schools. And I keep telling her I really wish she was on the admissions committee. Believe me, if I was at the committee, you would be in a Harvard any First of all, he sounds wonderful. He's got such a lovely voice. And of course your magect is in the beginning a very objective, brilliant, gorgeous, which I'm sure he is. Ellen is, absolutely, he is. Absolutely.

I'm not even gonna question your Mine aren't such geniuses. They're just nice, good, normal kid. But okay, you're entitled. You're a Jewish grandmother. I have seven grandchildren, and two of them, I would say, are really in the genius strata. But all of them bring something to the table. You know, you remind me a a friend of mine who's got a very smart water and also genius. There's a couple of geniuses in this world. But on Stein, maybe Bill Gates,

Logan Grotsky. Okay, I'm given to you, he's a genius. Whatever. You're alla malus, which in Jewish means all good things, right, right, Okay, the producers just gave me the titles. So here we go Part one. I know from grandparents, and I have a feeling that I know what this is going to be about. Grandparenting is is wonderful because it's parenting without the responsibility. She always responds to my text messages. I can always call her up. Occasionally I'll call her up

and ask her for a recipe. Very very available, as it's all retired. Grandparents should be one thing i'd ever do. Has said to myself. Yeah, I can attest. Were you close to your grandparents? Unfortunately my grandparents died when I was too young. I remember more of my father's parents. I think you have to tell the story of the steamshift New York. Oh well, that is our famous family story.

My grandparents emigrated from Russia to England, and they met in London, and my grandfather left for the United States and left my grandmother in England, and she discovered she was pregnant, and he worked very hard to make money to send her a ticket to come to America. And the ticket was on the maiden voyage of the steamship New York. And she was of course in steerage. But up above there were parties going on because it was a maiden voyage, and the Vanderbilts were on board and

the lower group just stayed below decks. And about two days into the trip, my grandmother went into labor. One of the women who was down in that area with her went up to the ships to actor and she said, there's a young girl down there in labor, and they

brought her up to the ship's infirmary. And it became known on the ship that my grandmother was about to have a baby, and so Mrs Vanderbilt and Mrs Hoosie Tusie and Mrs Lutzie Luzzie all took turns sitting with my grandmother while she was in labor, and eventually she

had the baby on the ship. Fast forward, my grandfather arrives at Ellis Island and everybody gets off the ship except my grandmother, and he is frantic, and in his very broken English, he goes over to some man and he says, my vibe, I was supposed to come on this boat, and I I didn't get off from the boat, but I know she got on from the boat. And

he said, what's the name? And his hold her and he says, she's at long Island College Hospital, and they sent my grandfather in a carriage, and when he there, my grandmother was in the room piled up to the ceiling with gifts from all these fancy women on the ship. And the ship's captain was sitting with her and he said, Mr Bernstein, we're waiting for you to give the baby

a name. And my grandfather and my grandmother sat and they spoke in Yiddition, and finally my grandfather turned around, but his hands on his Jess goes the name for the baby is going to be Samuel Steamship New York, Benstein. And that was my uncle Sam's name, Samuel Steamship New York. That's always been a favorite story of mine. It actually made it into one of my my college essays. Such a remarkable story. And my cousin named her son Scott

York after her father. But you know, when you have a grandfather, it's it's a different kind of a relationship. We saw him, but he had a second vibe. I never knew that. I never knew Jennie. She used to say call me Godma, and my cousin and I used to say, we'll call you Jennie. I never knew that he had a second wife. Yes, I remember when my grandfather passed away, we went to the funeral and Jenny, Oh God, I'm gonna tell this story, and it's gonna

be out there permoctly. My mother said, you go over and you pay your respects to Jenny. So I walked over, and I remember I was wearing a navy blue dress. And I walked over to Jenny and she was sitting on one of those little stools because Jewish people when there in mourning, they have to sit on a little bench. And I said, Jenny, I want to offer my condolences. And she took the hem of my skirt in her hand and she said, hear us such a wonderful man. And she took my skirt and she dried her wise

with it. When we came home, I took the dress and I put it in a brown paper bag and I put it down the incinerator. I just couldn't stand those those tears. She was married to my grandfather for one year, and months later I was looking for something to wear it to something. My mother said, what about that blue dress with the white collar. I said, you know, mom, I don't know where it is, but I do see. That's a story I have never heard of. Okay, you

really hated it about me. I would be given it to the cleaners, and that I don't give away a good dress like that. I felt that it was so soiled rude, but I just could never wear it. That's a good. Oh my god, I don't want any to tell you the things I've saved. I'm very conservative that way, and it's something I'm gonna tell you own. You didn't have to throw away the dress, just have a clean ruta. I was fifteen or fourteen. I didn't know. I just felt so defiled by that god my skirt that I

had to get rid of it. San Steamship, your adorable story. You told me that story once before, but each time I hear it, I just love it. It's such an original story. And Logan loves that story too. I can hear all my grandkids love it. It's it's sort of you know, everybody saw Fiddler on the Roof and they see all these people coming over with the piano on their back or something, and actually these people struggled, it

would just struggle to pay for one ticket. So when my grandchildren hear it, I want them also to hear not only that it was a big funny story, but that this was the struggle that their family had to endure in order to get to America, and that they should be very, very lucky that they have this life that they do due to of those people. You know, it's funny that you said, because here's the people that

came over from Europe. They couldn't speak English, and the people at elis Ol and that resigning the men, they couldn't understand their language or their names. And we used to say, where did you get that name? They said, I don't know. When I came to Less Island. That's what they wrote down. That's good. Whatever they heard, that's what they wrote down today. And name, my god, the minute you find out you're pregnant, you're looking through the books,

you can't find the name good enough, different, whatever. When my kids were growing up, oh my god, it had to be like as an American as you could get. But today we're back to the Biblical names, which we used, the Hebrew names. We used the Hebrew names, which I love, which I love. Now listen, don't go anywhere. We're going to do a quick commercial. And I know you're gonna come right back, because we'll be looking for you. And

there's nothing like Jewish guilt. Part two, Rising above expectations. Well, we're a food family. My grandparents wet caters, and from the time that this one was a little taught, he always liked to cook. He always liked to help. He made mac and cheese. I think I've graduated up to more sophisticated recipes. Did you have any recipes that you know come directly from them? Well, definitely, the brisk it

comes from my grandmother. The chicken suit, the mats of balls, potato pancakes, So mostly I guess the most standard fair yes, well for us. So what was your first job? Oh, teach it I taught in Chinatown. Well, first I taught in bed Fitz Darvison and it was a fun place to work. It was lovely. You've also said that you didn't think that teaching was your passion. Would you say you don't regret it. I don't regret that I taught, but it wasn't my passion. I became a teacher because

my mother said that that's what I should be. I really wanted to be like my mother. I wanted to be an interior designer, and so once I had children, I started taking course as an interior design And do you ever wish you had gone into your second career earlier? Yes, I wish I had studied for it originally rather than doing it after I had children. And what would you say you are more passionate about food or interior design? Well, food, as I think that's the correct answer. I'm a retired

interior designer. I don't work anymore at that, but I work at cooking absolutely. You know, I create food every single night. Because your grandfather doesn't even know how to crack an egg to make it. So I think you'd agree that those creative channels very much are available to you through cooking, because you are really creative cook. I love to cook, as my grandmother used to say, Patrika

in the kitchen. And of course the fact that you love to cook and you did manage recipes out of your interior design clients, that you have combined those things successfully, I did. I did vodka source. I haven't made that for you yet, but my vodka source comes from from my clients. We've made we've made that together. Vodka source I made with you. Yeah, don't tell your mother. I didn't tell her. I didn't. Don't worry, I personally could

speak personally. Allen is an excellent cook, and she has a little cookbook that she puts out for the friends, which we all have. As a very little girl, I remember my grandmother being in the kitchen and I would stand next hour and she would say, give me from that part, and give me from this, and hand me that. The only thing is those old cone cooks. They never knew amounts. You take a handful, while you're a handful of twice it start to my innfol In the Yiddish,

that's called shipping gifts. It means just a minute where will be no it's s h I T T. I think ship. You throw it and you guess what all that drops like ships creak on the television today. My grandmother never never used the recipe. Part three Summer Camp. Nana suffers from an excess of lucid thought. She can draw a family tree if she wanted to, with great detail. Here is a story for the ages. When I was seven, I went to Camp Oh, the chicken pox story. It

was just wonderful. And the night of the banquet, kid in my bunk got chicken packs. During the night. I woke up and I felt very sick and very hot. They called my mother in the morning and my mother said, oh my god. We didn't have a car at the time. And as they were talking to me, a man came into the office and said, I'm he had to pick up my daughter shows chicken pox. So the camp mother said,

will you take this little girl with you? Oh? Sure, you know, he says, But we have to go right away, he says, because my wife is expecting a baby and she's due to give birth any minute. And they put me in the car and the man's mother was in the car. May she rest in peace. She smelled like chicken soup. So we were driving along and I kept on saying stop. All the way home. I was getting out and throwing up, and finally we stopped. In some time, he says, we've got to go. I can't keep stopping.

He says, I know a family and they're very lovely people and they'll take care of her. And he called my mother and he explained to her, and my mother said, okay, tell me where I'm going. So they bring me to this farm and this lady came out with a very heavy German accent. And this was World War two. Times I heard a German accent and I figured, he's leaving me with the Germans. And I was beside myself, thinking that Hitler was going to walk through the door at

any second. Finally, and I remember hearing the Murta de murte escape kimmen, the mother has come. And then my mother started to speak to them, and I said, when they help? Did my mother learn how to speak German? And I realized later on, of course they were speaking Yiddish. These were Jewish refugees who had escaped. They invited my mother for dinner. Everything was fresh from the farm, and they made me chicken soup and they put it in a bag and they gave it to my mother to

take with us. These things I still remember. And I was seven. Do you think in retrospect that you were really too young to be going away to sleep where I can No, I was a very independent child. You went to camp. I think I was eight or nine when I first went away to camp. I could not have gone to camp for the same reason. I don't think I could have walked into an office building and like done accounting work. I just don't think I could have done it, but you were very adult as a

little boy. Logan. Maybe I could have done the accounting work, but I couldn't have gone away to camp. That's very funny, look and very true. So there you go. I don't think I could have been away from my mother for that long that when he didn't tell me, you never told me. Came back to chick Camp and Chacob back. Those people were so good. And finally this old man came up and he scared me to death because I was sure that he was the head of the s S. I was positive, and he was carrying a rabbit, a

real rabbit. It was a farm, and he put the rap in the bed with me, and I finally fell asleep. I mean he infected them with the chicken pox and doing mother that was going out of the war. Can I you'd wear a mask. They wouldn't even let you in the house. Today. You hardly hear about chicken pox anymore. Oh you don't. I think we have to stop for

a commercial, so Poul little Nikki can go out. Should have gotten an apartment with a terrorist rita Okay, next up, Part four, A little bit of Brightness and I don't have a clue what this could be about. So how did you meet my grandfather? My mother's cousin belonged to some kind of a group in in her temple, and she had a very good friend there named Mary, and the two of them decided that I should meet Mary's nephew.

He called, and I thought he sounded terrible on the phone, and I felt I had to go out with him, because you know, I couldn't insult my mother's cousin that way. What about him sounded terrible? Well, he lived in North Carolina, so I figured I was gonna get a Southern gentleman with a Southern accident. And the phone rang, and well, you know, they live in North Carolina, and he's going to call you at eight o'clock. Eight o'clock, the phone rings, and I go hello, and he says, why is this Ellie?

So his early years. I guess we're in New York. You know, Peter doesn't get rid of anything. Unfortunately, the New York accident was one of the things that he m and so we went out. He said, you want

to just ride around a little bit. I said sure, and we were driving down Eastern Parkway, and there's a an island that goes down the center of Eastern Parkway, and right in front of our car was a little old couple and the cars were going on either side, and I remember my husband took his car and he turned it so that cars couldn't come down until these old people got across the street. And I looked at him and I thought to myself, I'm gonna marry him.

I did. One of my favorite things to hear about is your father and his experiences with the draft during the Second World War. Can you tell us about that. At those days, they used to have a radio program once a week and a judge would pick names out of a hat. They would pick numbers, draft numbers, and those were the men who had drafted. My father was never called. Never. About two years after the war was over, we got a phone call from a judge and he

asked for my father. He says, I was taking some suits to give away to goodwill or whatever, and in the cuff of the suit was this little piece of paper and it was your draft number, sir. That was the reason my father didn't go to World War two. I know my father, who adored him. He had been drafted or something horrible had happened, my father would have been a different person, and all the men who were drawn from that group was sent to the Baton death

March or something. I mean, it was one of those terrible parts of the war. I mean there was there was something divine that spanned him. I'll tell you what my mother did for the war rapid. This is funny, my sister and right. She would never cut our hair. We used to have two long braids, and every morning before school she'd get up, and we hated it and we cried, I don't want the brains coming. Well, they used to use human hair for certain known special instruments

or something. My mother, thank god, I shouldn't say thank God for the war, but she cut her hands. Fun it's a terrible thing to say, but we donated our hands and the war wrafic all right, thank god I found he got rid of those two long brains. I want you to know, girls, war, the war. I'll never forget that. He just took the car and he put it across two lanes that were coming down, and nobody could pass until these two little old people scurried across

the street. And now we are those two little old people. If we if we could walk right, got to be the wall. How can I tell you My first experience would Phil, which was who was also a blind date. He came into my house. I should have I should have known them. He was wearing a brown and white pinch striped suit but big pin stripe brown, and he was wearing blue Swayne shoes with a thick rubb up. Hell wasn't in his absence? I said no. The only time it made a good pick is when you chose me.

I used to buy us everything except his pants. I couldn't buy him pin paunch, pardon me. He had no tossas, so you don't all know what it toss is pant for falling down because he had no all Right. Last on my list, here's pot five. Family is everything, and truer words were never spoken. I think we were young longer. Less was expected of us. At an early age. There was an innocence that doesn't exist today. I think there

there's an element of countervailing forces there. They think that we are less adventurous, perhaps less independent, and we also have more responsibility, also have more possibility, and at the same time, perhaps our ability to go online has supplanted our ability to walk down the street, which is especially in this pandemic age, and it's kind of scary to some except but it is. Perhaps there are also our reality.

I will say I'm an old soul, so to some degree I possess a nostalgia for a time I never lived in. But also I don't have to worry about polio these days, so that's a boom. Yeah, but you have to worry that COVID. Yes, I do. That's true enough. Did you ever expect that your family would be this big? I never thought my family would be this big. No. Would you say that you have a strong relationship with all of your grandchildren and you're proud of where we've

ended up? You got to be kidding. I love it. They all have a charm. And I'm not saying it because I'm their grandmother, but of course i am, But but they are very charming children. They make me very proud. If you wanted to teach us one thing to prioritize in life, what would you say? It should be family. I want to teach you to love your family and

to care about your family. And I don't only mean your your brothers and sisters and parents, but I mean your entire family, because when push comes to shove, it's like when Poppy had his accident and I called my children and they rallied like nothing I had ever seen. It's times like that, the good times everybody wants to be in on, but it's times that you need your family that it's important to have that connection. That's what I would like to to leave you with that Without

your family, you really have nothing, you know. I think that's something that you not only preach, but that you practice. It's something that we've seen since day one with you, and I think it's something we're all keen to carry with us. You know, our familis had some tough moments, and I think at those tough moments, under your leadership and under your wisdom, we've come together to support each other.

And that's what it's really all about. I thought that was very profound thinking at the end of Logan's it's nice to hear what the young people think and how they feel about things, but there is a lot on the kids heads today and they and they have access to more things. That's it, Rada. They have instant access to the world. It's true it's true in their hand as they walk along, and they never lift their heads up. While I was always family oriented and so right or wrong,

I always say, don't stretch over the little things. Family forget it. Everybody's gonna make a little mistake here and there, but it's your family, they will be there for you. That's my philosophy. It all comes down to all your nata's love. In junior high school, I had a black felt skirt with a poodle on it that really existed, and you weren't over crinolins, and the crinelins had to be washed in the bathtub in sugar and water so

that they would stand out. Yeah. Of course occurred to me when I was older that I could have had ants crawling up my legs from all the sugar in that. But then we would take the wet horsehair of slip that went under the skirt and we would put it over an umbrella, and then we would let it sit in the bathtub. I remember so many times hearing my father's voice going, Mossy, We're gonna get the damn skirt out of the bathtub so I can take a shower. Are you kidding? A pudent skirt that I'm wear a

plute skart. I would look like a pineapple. I can't pick it. Call Your Grandmother is a production of My Heart Radio and Superb Entertainment. The hosts of the show are Me readA Ka and me Ellen Bernstein Grotzky. Created by Meryl Poster, produced and directed by Annistum, with producer Abuza far An, Associate producer Emily Maronoff, managing producer Lindsay Hoffman, and executive producers are Noo Poster, Nikki I Tore and Mangesh Hatika. Door music and mastering by Hamilton's Lighthouser and

Anna Stump. At least I don't have to watch anything in the bathtub. No, that's true. Please tell everybody you know about this, if there's a grandchild in your life, if there's a grandmother in your life, even if you're just sitting there alone and listening. This is something that the world needs now. So spread it around and another five stars wouldn't hurt