Irene “Iris” Weiser (née Feldman, born October 5th 1933, died March 22, 2021) was the youngest child of Molly (née Litwin) and Sam (Samuel) Feldman. She was the baby of the family coming after Morty (Morton), her brother, the oldest, and Bea (Beulah), her sister, the middle child. Her parents were Yiddish speaking Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire. Her generation was the first one that grew up as Americans and native English speakers.
She had fond memories of her own wonderful childhood and growing up surrounded by a loving family. Before she died, I recorded her telling some of her favorite stories. I transcribed that conversation, chose certain vignettes to focus on, and gently rearranged and edited down the transcription to form song texts. My intention was to share her stories in her own words.
Along with her brother, sister, and cousins Marlene, Irma, and Jeanie, she would buy penny candies and spend days at the movies. During the summers she would explore Coney Islands’ rides and beaches and eat at Nathan’s. The family had a knish store in Coney Island — Litwin’s Kosher Knishes — where her mother’s brother Joe would fry the knishes and nervously warn her to stay away from the hot oil. The family would spend the summers living in a single room behind the shop, bathing in the Russian baths. As a child she spent a lot of time with her mother, as well as her mother’s sister, her aunt Fanny.
At the end of her life, despite serious illness, she would always say how lucky she was to have had such a great life, to have had the opportunity to travel the world, and above all, to have such a wonderful, loving family. I would always tell her that we were the lucky ones because we had her.
