I have strong but limited memories of my great-grandmother Rachel Caplan Levinson, who died when I was 9 1/2 years old. My family visited her pretty often in the old people's home, perhaps once a week. I picture her sitting in a chair next to her bed by the window in a large ward. I also remember a row of lockers on one wall. She was always very happy to have visitors. The children understood that she had some senility, but we enjoyed our visits.

Grandma Rachel wrote her age on the bottom of her Kleenex box because she had trouble remembering it. Near the end, she once tried to eat soup with a fork, which we children took as both a sad sign and as humorous. The funniest story relates to a time when Grandma Rachel was in a non-Jewish nursing home (before moving to the Jewish Home for the Aged, where she died). She told my parents that some nice man came by and gave her a cracker and some wine -- she had unwittingly taken communion!

Howard Seltman

Return