GENEALOGY, UGH

 
The Western Reserve Historical Society is the Cleveland-version of the Church of Latter-Day Saints, minus the religion angle. The historical society has extensive genealogy records. When I walked out of the society’s library, I ran into a library-goer from Chicago. She said, “We just found out something really interesting about our grandparents.”

Genealogy . . . ugh. Get away from me.

This library encounter was pre-internet days. In the archives, I found out my parents had lived two doors from pianist Chick Chaiken on Kinsman Road in 1930. I didn’t tell the Chicago woman that, and I didn’t tell her that Chick’s brother, Bill, had been a major investor in The Graduate. But she told me some stuff about Chicago, unfortunately.

I like the concept of genealogy — like if your ancestors were pioneers in the Western Reserve, then learn about the Western Reserve, or if your grandparents were Polish Jews, then read Isaac Bashevis Singer. Look at the big picture. I don’t want to hear about how your grandfather — and everybody else’s grandfather — ducked the czar’s army to come to America.

On the other hand, you’re probably interested in my grandfather . . .

Albert Zalk (1885-1950). Photo probably 1940s.

My mother’s father, Albert Zalk, came over from Europe first-class. He grew up in Eishyshok, near Vilna, Lithuania. He went to Germany to study Torah. In Cleveland he made pomade for blacks during the Depression. He was in Mississippi in the 1920s, residing at first in a rooming house in Duncan, in the Mississippi Delta. Then he started dry-goods stores in Louise and Yazoo City. The Delta: birthplace of the blues. A lot of Jews settled in small towns. My wife’s family comes from Clarksburg, West Virginia. Bob Dylan: Hibbing, Minnesota. All these folks ran “Jew stores” — mom-and-pop hard-goods stores on the main drags.

After Mississippi, Albert returned to Cleveland, mostly fundraising for the Jewish old age home. He, himself, never owned a house.

I’ve donated some Yiddishe Cup memorabilia to the historical society. If you want to know when, and where, Yiddishe Cup’s first gig was, check out the Western Reserve Historical Society, Cleveland Jewish Archives. Or better yet, I’ll tell you here: our first gig was at the Mayfield Road JCC, Cleveland Heights, 1988.

Band genealogy? Don’t get me started.

share