I guess you have to know a bit about how the shtetl (town) functioned in Europe to grasp the significance, and understand the nuances of things that happened in that society in those days.
The year was 1930 the Jewish community in Radauti, Romania was almost autonomous running its own religious and civil services. Zedaka (charity) institutions were abundant although they didn't have that much to hand out. Marriages, deaths, etc. required the Jewish community services, since the Hevra Kadisha (burial society) were in control of the cemetery, etc..
It was almost axiomatic that the fees charged for these services were in relation to one's ability to pay, and even more so, on one's charitable behavior during one's lifetime. The facts were that someone who was charitable during his lifetime was treated with respect, and the Vaad Haiir (city council) was understanding when his family needed a burial plot, 'Chuppa" (canopy)for a marriage, or any one of a number of services rendered by the community. Those who had been tight with their charitable donations during their lifetimes were forced to pay high prices for these services.
Our zaide Menachem Mendel z"l was a very respected citizen of the community, a member himself of the city council, a charitable man who spent his time doing chessed (loving kindness) for his fellow Jews. He would worry about providing doweries for indigent brides, food for the poor who were too proud to ask, and matan beseter (anonymous gifts) was his way of fulfilling the mitzva of zedaka. He was at this time also very prosperous, having four children in America who kept sending money home to their parents, Isaac, Sam, Morris, and Regina. The community of course thought he was a millionaire. He also had a successful lumber yard run by the family and needless to say all looked up to him. Among his many honors was a seat on the mizrach (eastern) wall at the synagogue, and all knew that he was the hospitality address for visiting rabbis and dignitaries.
My mother was the youngest of five daughters, and like today was probably her parents pet, being babied by her father, and mother. She had two younger sibling brothers Morris and Joe, but Morris was in Canada, and Mama being of marriageable age was the helper to her mother. She had seen three of her older sisters married to men with big yichus and/or money but no romantic love marriage had ever taken place as the choice of the sibling ,more likely it was at the prodding of the parents, and their marriages left much to be desired.
When Mama met Daddy, he was a handsome tall good looking guy, well versed in German poetry, a wonderful writer in his own right and best of all he was madly in love with mama. My zaide probably would have preferred a better yichus, but he had promised our babbe that he would not marry her off to anyone that mamma didn't want (so to speak against her will).
The courtship progressed favorably, and once when my Dad came to visit for a shabbas, he bumped into my mother on the street, in the dark at 4:30am on the way to the butcher when he was coming from the train station to her house..(They sure didn't baby their kids in those days).
Well to make a long story short, while at the shabbas table my zaide observed the young couple during the meal, and following the meal said to our babbe "Taube, this is going to be a shidduch (match)". How do you know asked our babbe to which my zaide answered "she gave him the first yoich (chicken soup) usually reserved for the father. For you who are unfamiliar with the world before diets, the first chicken soup was the fattest, and the best therefore reserved for the father just as was the first glass of milk with all the cream floating on the top.
It didn't take long until the families broke a plate, wrote tenayim (contract of intent to marry) and the wedding was set for Chanukah, December 21st 1930. My zaide immediately began the arrangements, setting up an apartment, discussing taking Dad into the business to run the lumber yard, etc.. Then without warning, never having been ill previously, our zaide died of a stroke, six weeks before the wedding at the age of 58. The family said it was from an ayin hore (evil eye) today we call it hypertension.
Uncle Joe went to take care of the funeral arrangements only to be held up for an astronomical amount of money by the hevra kadisha (burial society), and no amount of pleading helped. If you wanted a plot, they figured if you have children in America, you can afford it. No amount of reasoning was effective including recitation of the good deeds he had accomplished during his lifetime. They insisted, and the money was duly paid.
Uncle Joe was not one to take things lying down, and vowed to get even with them. They were already counting the extortion money they would ask for the huppa at the forthcoming wedding of my parents 6 weeks hence. A question to the Rabbis was answered with the reply that a wedding should not be put off under these circumstances, and all was planned to go ahead on the prescribed day albeit with a quiet celebration.
Joe began negotiations with the council as to the price of the huppa, all the while planning, and asking a Rebbe from out of the town to perform the wedding, and a tallis (prayer shawl) was planned for a huppa, and so it was. When the big day arrived, Mom and Dad were married under a tallis in spite of the wishes of the local council, and Joe got his revenge for the unfair treatment they had shown six weeks earlier at our zaide's funeral.
