It's just a fleeting memory now as I think of it, but summer was always a fun time for us kids. No school, fishing, swimming, and especially visiting each other. In summer everyone exchanged kids. The city kids came from Montreal, the Bathurst kids went to Campbellton, the Litwins to the Sand's, the Hutmans to Bathurst and Campbellton, etc.. Summer camp was at our cousins, and we all enjoyed the meeting, and getting to know each other.
I recall one summer when the Hutman twins Monty and Harry came to Bathurst. First of all Harry was a very finicky eater he only ate filets. We all were big fish eaters living on the Bay de Chaleur, Restigouche river, and all the little streams where Daddy went fishing. Salmon and trout were a mainstay of our diets, but Harry only ate filets. I recall my mother offering him everything under the sun to just taste, but Harry only ate filets. To this day we laugh about it when we meet.
It was once during the war time when they came to visit, and we all sat around the table, when just as we were served our food, Monty and Harry arose in a duet, raised their glasses in a toast, and said, "Some for Hitler". We were stunned to hear this and while our jaws were still agape, they repeated it "Some for Hitler". Only an explanation of the Yiddish word "SOME" or poison clarified the mystery and we all had a good laugh, joining them at future meals with the chant "Some for Hitler" of course meaning "poison for Hitler".
1944 was a bad summer for us, when my sister Shany, and myself were stricken with polio. It's pretty hard to describe the fear parents felt every summer in polio season. The theatres were closed to kids, radio warnings were constantly heard to keep your kids at home, daily reporting of new cases as they were discovered, and remember this was an incurable disease. I recall Shulika Tennenhouse was visiting in Bathurst at the time, and was immediately shipped back to Montreal when after the Rotary picnic we came down with polio.
We were completely crippled, being unable to sit, stand, or anything else physical. Our house had a large pink sign on the front door saying QUARANTINE warning people to keep away because there was polio here. Dr. Thompson suggested we be sent to Montreal to "The Childrens Memorial Hospital " where they treated polio cases with the new "sister Kenny" treatment which was the application of boiling hot packs to the afflicted limbs. We lay on a cot totally nude, next to a boiling cauldron of water, and the nurses with tongs removed boiling hot soaked blankets and applied them to our afflicted limbs.
Only the Lubavitcher Rebbe z"l brochos (blessings) saved my mother from a breakdown, constantly assuring her we would be okay, and so we were making a complete recovery, while at the same time two other kids from Bathurst who had also caught polio at the rotary picnic, remained crippled. I remember leaving Bathurst on the train and my mother had brown hair only to return two months later to find my mother a gray haired woman. That's what worry can do.
When we arrived in Montreal we stayed the first few days at our Babba (grandmother) Tony as she was called on St. Joseph blvd. I remember Srul Tennenhouse z"l coming by to bring us some sweets and our grandmother opened the window, and he through them in. People in Bathurst stopped buying in our store afraid of the disease, and worst of all they didn't allow Daddy to daven at the minyan in Bathurst for Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, he had to go to Moncton for Yom tov.
While in the hospital Uncle Issie z"l sent us some coloring books, and crayons which were duly returned to him by the hospital since we were in a ward with about twenty other kids, he promptly sent up cases of coloring books for everyone so we could have also. We never had visitors... everyone was so afraid it was contagious. I recall singing throughout our hospitalization period.
In September we were pronounced cured, and went back to Bathurst each of us with a pair of crutches. I'll never forget how mama cried on seeing us get off the train, saying, "This is cured?" I recall her saying in yiddish "Vay iz mein lieben, vee vell ich chasene machen a tochter mit crutches", woe is me, how will I marry off a daughter with crutches.
Little by little our limbs recovered and the Rebbe's brocho proved correct, both of us making a complete recovery.
