We had 3 weddings over a span of 17 years in our garden at 1825 Knoxville Ave in Long Beach. That’s because our 3 daughters were widely spaced, the oldest and youngest were 14 years apart. Their weddings so reflect the social changes that occurred between 1968 and 1995 that they make a kind of cultural history of the fast-changing times we all lived through. There were a few things in common at all 3 weddings. One was that all the grooms were Jews and thus a rabbi performed each ceremony; very challenging in 1968, easier in 1980, and piece-of-cake in 1995. Another was that they all took place under a Chuppah of flowers which we created among the 3 poplars on the west side of our patio.
Heath, the oldest, went to Berkeley for her undergraduate degree, arriving in September 1964, just in time for the ‘Free Speech Movement’, an unexpected educational experience none of us were prepared for. I remember her getting a letter from someone in charge of helping Freshmen decide what to bring in the way of clothes. On the list were a cocktail dress and jacket, dressy heels and a hat. Does this sound like Berkeley??? We shopped diligently for everything on the list and I expect most of it was then stowed in the infinitesimal closet or the bottom drawer of the infinitesimal bureau in her tiny, overcrowded room. ‘Dress code’ became an obsolete term that fall, as the entire social scene in American universities underwent a revolution. Seeing her room, crowded with two beds, desks and bureaus, I could not imagine navigating it. (Three decades later I visited her daughter Phoebe, who was living in the same dorm, only by then the rooms had 3 occupants!)
With Mario Savio and the Berkeley student body leading the way, the FSM raced through the country’s campuses like wildfire, sweeping even the most naïve freshmen in its path. Heath met her future husband, Marc Schenker, in the dorm kitchen, where they both had menial jobs to supplement their very small allowances. And both were soon deeply involved in anti-war demonstrations, marches, fasts, and rallies in addition to their academic pursuits and developing love affair. (Someday I hope Heath will write about those tumultuous days, it is her story. (I just spent a weekend with her and we reminisced about that period in her life. She is not ready yet, but promised to do so for her own kids.)
Heath was a year ahead of Marc and when she graduated in the spring of 1968 they wanted to live together. Marc was almost 21 and wanted to wait til fall to get married so he would not need parental permission. They took an apartment in Berkeley together. (Heath remembers that she was extremely anxious when the had an interview with the landlady, as they were not married and worried that they would be rejected. They weren’t.) It was a time of great and fast-moving social upheaval, with new norms being imposed by the ‘hippies’ on all older generations. Looking back, I am rather pleased with the speed with which Eric and I adapted; we were more able to see the big picture than many of our friends, and we trusted our kids to make the right choices. But ‘living together out of wedlock’ sent randma Erika, Eric’s mom, and beloved by our kids, into a tailspin. She was partially reconciled by their wedding, but Marc’s Grandma had to be bullied by here daughter into coming!
The wedding took place on September 8, 1968. It was the date of my parent’s wedding, and that was appropriate because my Dad had died the previous spring and it felt good to do an upbeat celebration on that special day. But my mother was surely the saddest person there. It was a moderately ‘hippie’ wedding as all aspects were dictated by Heath and Marc. No relatives beyond the immediate family, no family friends, only theirs. These directives were not taken happily by their families, but I was secretly glad to have the wedding be small, as it was all to be home made. No photographer or wedding album. But a rabbi would preside, and that was not so easy. Seems almost all the rabbis in southern California would not perform a mixed marriage, a major indicator of the prevailing social climate. After much effort they finally found a Reformed liberal Rabbi whom Heath remembers as very eccentric, and I don’t remember at all!. I made the bride’s dress – twice. The first was short and blue (somehow we still clung to white as a symbol of virginity, not the case here) and Heath rejected it. The second one fared better, it was short, white and rather dressy. The wedding cake was clearly homemade and the icing runny – I was not into cake decorating. I created the tiny papier-mache couple that sat on top of it. The food was all from our kitchen; as catering was not deemed appropriate for a hippie wedding, and we were not too well off anyway. We constructed a Chuppah of fresh flowers between the poplars that shaded the patio, and rented chairs for the attendees. There were lots of flowers involved, and Eric, wanting to help, got to grinding stems down the garbage disposal. Result – complete stoppage of the downstairs plumbing. I was so furious he was in danger in my presence. (Heath says that added greatly to the occasion, having her parents not speaking to each other.) The only thing that saved the day was that the plumbing upstairs was separate, and working. So we all showered in sequence up there with pauses to reheat the water, and the ceremony took place on time. The rest is pretty much a blur in my memory but I do recall that a batch of Heath and Marc’s friends bedded down on our living room floor for the night. And there were dirty dishes everywhere. How we fed everyone or where they brushed their teeth I can’t recall. And Heath and Marc had their own very special wedding trip back to Berkeley. They spent the first night on the floor of Marc’s parents house in L.A. which had no furniture for reasons I cannot recall. Then they left in his little, foreign, fourth-hand car and broke down about half way north. They spent the night in sleeping bags under a windbreak along 101. Nevertheless, the marriage lasted 40 years and produced 3 marvelous daughters.
With no photographer allowed, there are very few photos and I don’t know who took them. Black-and-white prevailed and here are a few.
The 2nd wedding was Jenny’s to Bob Bernhardt in 1980. They met at USC in graduate school in the late 70s. Both were working on MAs; he in the conducting program, she in the instrumental (violin). They started living together in Silver Lake after a year or so, and no-one raised an eyebrow. When Bob finished his Masters he was offered a job with the Alabama Symphony. (Jenny still needed to do a recital and never did finish. It bothered her terribly but she managed a rich musical career without it.) They went south in 1978, bought a house together, and in 1980 decided to get married. We assumed it was family-starting time but were wrong; Alex did not arrive until the spring of 1983. Their invitations called it the ‘it’s-about-time wedding’ as they lived together for several years before deciding to do the traditional thing. By then I was commonplace to cohabit without marriage, a huge change from 1968. Some of the other traditions had returned to grace, so they did not plan the hippie wedding that Heath and Marc had.
I made the wedding dress – this time long and elegant and lace-trimmed – and the food was catered by Katella Deli and Bakery, including the 2-tiered cake. The search for a rabbi was much easier, reflecting the changing of social attitudes in the 12 intervening years. Again we created a Chuppah and did the other rituals that go with a Jewish wedding.(We kept Eric out of the kitchen and busy with non-threatening activities) The event went smoothly and everyone had a good time. There was enthusiastic dancing afterwards, including the Hora. Our skills were definitely improving. And someone took lots of photographs, maybe we even had a professional, I can’t recall. Here is a small album of the happy event.
The 3rd wedding was Lyle’s to Keith Topper in June 1995 and it was a great ending to the series. They married on a Saturday and next day got their PhDs at UCLA – a once-in-a-lifetime weekend. I don’t recall who the photographer was, but there are so many great photos I had a hard time culling them. So I didn’t
On the morning of the wedding I took granddaughter Charlie to the tern colony at Bolsa Chica with Charlie Collins to watch the banding of Caspian Terns. She loved birding adventures with me and I thought this would be a good one. Turned out to be memorable. We took a boat to the island and were careful to stay away from the cluster of birds incubating and caring for their young. But Charlie wandered around after the banding and got too close and was zapped on the head by a Caspian. It drew blood and she was upset but the banding team thought it was pretty funny. They gave her a stick to hold above her head and told her it she had just suffered an occupational hazard. She cheered up and was not hit again. She probably remembers this incident more than all the rest of their visit.
Lyle and Keith met at UCLA where they were both in PhD programs – she in Art History, he in Political Science. And though their disciplines were very different, they were on the same wave length in their approaches; ‘critical thinking’ having become a dominant player in many academic departments. In 1992 Lolly got a grant to pursue her studies in Europe and planned for a year in Paris. Keith’s Dad came through with funding for him and they set off in the summer of 1992, lugging two primitive, very cumbersome, and soon to be obsolete, computers in addition to a year’s supply of everything else. They absolutely LOVED their stay in Paris, and while Lolly was mostly doing research, Keith finished a seminal first chapter and broke the log jam he had been in. And their stay in France was close to idyllic. (Eric and I joined them the following spring for a week in Paris and then we all went by train to Spain.) On return they lived in Keith’s apartment in Culver City and both worked at multiple jobs to keep themselves afloat while writing their dissertations. In the fall of 1994 they realized that they could see the finish and decided to get married at the end of the academic year. Planning the wedding gave Lolly a great project to turn to when she needed a break from writing. They found a rabbi, a liberal woman and a lesbian, who added greatly to the ceremony. And a caterer who made memorable food. And a jazz combo with a great singer. Lolly’s dress came from a consignment store and Carol (our housekeeper) made the cakes. Knowing how Lolly loved chocolate she made a traditional white 3-tiered white cake supplemented by an all chocolate layer cake. We displayed them on a table and they were flanked by the dissertations – arguably a one-of-a-kind display. The weather was perfect as always, and the orchestra made dancing on the patio irresistible.
Here is a batch of photos, the best and the most we ever had of a wedding. Especially dear to me are the portraits.
The next day we attended the graduation ceremony at UCLA and watched Lyle and Keith process together and receive their doctorates. The first ones in the family, and still the only ones and it is now 20 years later. Alas, the speaker was dull and the audience unattentive. PHOTO
Still, the occasion was memorable and the attendees looked as happy as they did at the wedding.
