Interview with Helen Freilicher Duke
(My Grandmother)
By Carie Goldberg
Helen Freilicher Duke, Born January 18, 1906, Brooklyn, New York
German/Russian, First Generation American
Helen married Lewis Duke on January 1, 1936 at a New Year’s Eve party. She did not know when she left that night for the party that at 1:00 a.m. she would become a bride and leave the party as Mrs. Lewis Duke. Her friend Jeanette went with Lew to get the marriage license and posed as Helen Freilicher. When Helen arrived at the party with Lew, her brother Norman, and her sister-in-law Mildred, there was a rabbi waiting there and her friends were singing “Here Comes the Bride.” At that point she knew that Lew had surprised her and was going to marry her right then.
When the two first got married, they both felt a lot of anti-Semitism. Helen worked in the Hanover Trust Bank. At the time, being Jewish made it hard for her to get a job, so she did not tell the bank and let them believe that she was just German because of her blonde hair and blue eyes. Lew felt it too. He just used his Italian/Austrian background on job applications rather than saying he was Jewish. Lew’s artistic talent was not being acknowledged, so he went into the lampshade manufacturing business with his brother Irving. At the time, the two patented the pleated lampshade. This allowed for Helen and Lew to buy their first home and move out of Helen’s parents’ house.
After three years of marriage, Helen and Lew had saved enough money to buy their first home. It was a brand new house on Avenue W in Brooklyn. They bought the house for $6,500 and paid $40 a month for the mortgage. The same year, 1939, Helen and Lew had their first child, Robert, and Helen quit her job. Lew felt that now having started a family, he needed to make more money. Lew began a window trimming business which he learned from Helen’s brother Norman. Lew finally began to feel that his architecture and artistic background was being seen. He was now making more than $60 a week.
In 1943 Helen and Lew had their second child, Leslie. Now with two children and Lew working a lot, Helen needed help with the kids. Lew was making a lot of money for that time, so he lavished Helen with a live-in maid, a new car, and a gardener. Helen’s parents, who were very cultured Europeans, baby-sat for Robert and Leslie when Lew and Helen would go out to dinner or go play cards with other couples.
Then in 1946 Lew started to get sick. Helen and Lew went to many doctors but came up empty-handed as to what was wrong. Originally the doctors had diagnosed Lew with rheumatism, a circulatory disease. Later, after visiting more doctors, he was finally diagnosed with sclaraderma and was told that they did not know how to treat it. The doctors suggested that the Duke family move to a warmer climate, hoping that it would help.
At the request of the doctors, Lew and Helen moved their family to Beverly Hills, California, in 1947. There they bought a house on Kings Road. To them, it was very important to maintain a strong and positive front for everyone. Lew continued to work while in California and was making over $10,000 a year. In the ‘40s that was considered a lot of money. They had live-in help and whatever the children wanted.
Then on May 14, 1950, Mother’s Day, Lew died, leaving Helen, a young wife, with an 11-year-old son and a 6-year-old daughter. Helen was now on her own having to raise these children without a father. The hardest thing Helen ever had to do in her life was tell her children that their father had died. She went to the school psychologist and asked, “How do I break it to my children?” Taking the advice from the psychologist, she lied to Robert and Leslie, which is still the biggest regret in her life and one that she still holds close to her heart. She told Leslie and Robert that she and Lew were flying back to New York because they had found a cure for his disease. In reality, she took him back to New York to bury him. She left her children with her cousin Molly. When Helen came back she told her children that their father had died while they were in New York. Helen’s parents came out to California for three months to help her get things in order and persuaded Helen to move her and the kids to Florida with them.
Soon enough, Helen had saved enough money and took a $4,000 loan from her brother to buy a house to raise her children in. Helen’s parents moved in with them and helped Helen raise Robert and Leslie. She still tried to maintain and establish refinement for herself, her children, and those she would meet.
In 1960, both of Helen’s parents died, leaving her alone again. Her children were now 16 and 21. Throughout the years, Helen took in boarders to help pay the bills, never letting on that they were having financial problems. She has vivid memories of milk in the refrigerator with different names on it. When Leslie left to go to the University of Florida in 1962, she was still not completely alone because Robert was living at home and working and going to school at the University of Miami. Robert lived with his mother off and on until 1967. Helen always kept up a great facade no matter how stressed or lonely she was for her husband or parents.
She increased her hours at work to six days and six nights a week. After work she would go out to a late dinner with the “ladies” or go for a cup of coffee or see what was playing at the cinema. Helen’s motto is, “You do what you have to do and that is the story.”
In 1970, by choice, Helen moved into her first “deluxe” apartment and sold her house. She was thrilled to move into the newly built apartment. She felt she did not need the house any longer because her children were now married and she received a lot of money for it. She started to travel more with her friends and her sister Bryna. They went to Mexico, the Bahamas, and Helen came to New York as often as possible. Leslie was now living there and was married and had a baby boy. When Leslie was first married, Helen was not happy with who her daughter had married. Granted he was a Jewish boy, but he was from the Bronx and that led Helen to believe that Leslie’s husband Sidney was not highly educated or well cultured, which were so important to Helen.
In 1989, at the age of 83, Helen went into “temporary retirement” because her boss, Mr. E, of 37 years, decided to retire. Helen just looked at it as a “change of vocation.” She began to volunteer at the South Shore Hospital on the beach a few days a week. She blames her health starting to catch up with her because Mr. E closed the store. It was not until 1988 that Helen started to get sick. That year she had a heart attack and this began a string of problems. In 1993 she had a pacemaker put in, a mastectomy in 1994, and cataract surgery in 1995. With all these health problems happening, she still found the energy and the necessity to buy her lotto tickets, go to the theater with friends, and attend charity balls for the hospital.
She and her “golden girls” take pride in boasting about their grandchildren and watching the changes on Miami Beach take place. Her family is her whole reason for living. Her life has not been easy but she “keeps on ticking” and “still has all her marbles,” as Helen likes to put it.
In doing this assignment I learned a lot about my grandmother and the childhood my mother had. It was upsetting to hear the story of how my grandfather died but joyful and commendable in the same respect about how much pride he took in keeping his family happy. I learned that my Nana does not like to talk about herself but rather her children, her husband, and all her loved ones. Having money and maintaining a strong front for her family was and still is important to her at all costs. Her integrity and strength is something I respect greatly. She is one of the most influential people in my life and a mentor in many ways. She is an inspiration not only to the women in my family but to the men as well. She is and always will be the cement that holds our family together.
Helen is reaching her 90th birthday in January and is still full of zeal as well as warmth. Some might think that she could have been very jaded and cold because of the life she had, but she exudes everything that is contrary to those beliefs.
November 28, 1995
Assignment for a college class entitled “Contemporary American Family”
[Note: Helen passed away in 1999 at the age of 93]