The Family Of Mark and Rebecca Sabel
My mother's parents Mark and
Rebecca (Becky-or as she preferred to be called Betty-) Wright were married in
1901, and their children were my mother Hannah (1902),
Mark (also called Marks by the family) was a tailor born in Vidzy,
Mark
and Rebecca Sabel at their daughter’s wedding on 27th July
1926
When my mother Hannah was about one year old, Mark wanted to try his
luck in
Rebecca was born in
On arrival in NY, Becky and
Mark lived in an apartment near their relatives but my grandmother told me that
she felt so homesick for London that she never really settled, and knew somehow
she would have to return to England. She also once told me how scared she was of
the violence in NY. She said that there were many instances of crime, and
gunfire was frequently heard. Once it was so close that she stayed awake all
night, but in the morning found that a bottle had exploded in her kitchen!
However, after giving birth
to her second child Sidney she and Mark decided to come back to
.
My mother the other Hannah Sabel met and
married my father Mark Freeman in 1926
They met as adults at a
family wedding. My father's mother was Mary Freeman (nee Berman) and she and
Becky Wright were first cousins. I was born in 1927 in
Rebecca Wright and her daughter Hannah
In those days, without television, a good deal of family visiting went
on and never did a week go by without visits afternoon or evening by family
members. Many were the times when I came home from school to find aunts in our
home gossiping and taking tea with my mother and grandmother. My mother's Sabel
cousins were all known to me, and often too when I was old enough to go out of
the house on my own, on the way home from going to the library or the shops if
I met family member from numbers 1 and 3 Gladstone I was invited in to the
workshop in the garden between numbers 1 and 3 and the staff there made an
enormous fuss of me, giving me sweets and chocolates and letting me show off
with my singing and dancing - aspirations for the acting career I was set on,
but unfortunately never attained.
My sister Marilyn was born
in 1938, and in 1939 when the second world war began, our lives became very
disrupted and after being evacuated twice and then returning home the bombing
began, and finally one night two bombs dropped in Gladstone Avenue. The first
bomb was a landmine, which fell on the opposite side of the road and demolished
the house I was born in - No. 74. (There is now a block of flats built on that
site) The second bomb fell in the doorway of No. 3 but did not explode and just
sat there. Everyone in the road was evacuated to a nearby church hall. Without
realising it however Auntie Leah was still in No. 3 and not knowing what stood
in her doorway managed to squeeze past the bomb safely! Our house had no roof
and no windows. We never returned there.
Instead, my mother's cousin
Jack and his wife Louise who used to visit us came to our rescue and found a
lovely empty house near to theirs in Hillingdon which we rented and lived in
with my grandparents and which they later purchased. I became very fond of Jack
(who was an ambulance driver) and Lou and their sort ' Clive who was a lovely
little boy.
Whilst living in Hillingdon
we often used to see Sidney and Betty Sabel who lived in Ealing. They would
visit us regularly and in those dark days it was very heartening to see other
family members on a fairly regular basis. The other family members who we saw
at that time were Harry and Gladys Sabel and their children and we were invited
to their home for a farewell party when they emigrated to
My mother's brother Sidney
was called up and spent the war in the army, but Morty was not enlisted and
carried on in the menswear shop in white chapel opposite the London hospital,
where he was later joined after the war by Sidney and my grandfather. Sidney
married Phyllis Cligman and had one daughter Valerie, and Morty was married to
Lily Raingold and had one son Malcolm married to Sheila and daughter Marsha.
Morty and Lily Sabel
Malcolm and Sheila Sabel
Sydney Sabel
The Sabel brothers menswear shop
in Whitechapel
My sister Marilyn married
Michael Eldon and have a son, Gary, who is married to Linzi and they have a
daughter named Hannah.
Marilyn and Michael
Eldon
Gary and Hannah Eldon
I married in 1949 to Harry Cohen who I met when he had just been
demobbed from the army after serving nearly seven years. He went on to study to
become a Chartered Surveyor and we had a son and a daughter. Sadly we lost
Harry to cancer in 1991.
Joyce and Harry Cohen
My children are both now
married. My son has two girls of 22 and 19. My daughter married for the second
time ten years ago after tragically losing her first husband to a heart attack,
leaving her with three young children two boys aged ten and seven and a
daughter aged three. However, she married again and now has another daughter
aged eight.
Looking back on the few short years I was lucky enough to have lived
close to my mother's family, I must say that I am very grateful for the many
happy memories this has given me.
Joyce Cohen
June 2004