A Book To Outrun Hunger

Lynne Snierson 0:00

And what he said was, you know, I would, um, because I I would lose my I would take a book to bed with me. And I would lose myself in the book and so I could forget how hungry I was. Yeah. You know, and so, you know, people other other families would invite him over and feed him, and he never told his parents he ate in anybody else's house that wasn't kosher.

When Chosen Family Feels Real

Crista Cowan 0:24

Stories that live in us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present, and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America. Tales of immigration, migration, courage, and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us. So join me for season two as we discover from sea to shining sea the stories that live in us. Do you have people in your family that only later you discovered weren't actually related to you? I have one of those. There's this woman that my dad grew up with. Her and her family, they were in the same congregation his whole life. And after my dad married my mom, she and my mom became best friends. And so I called her Aunt Valerie the whole time I was growing up. And I think I knew we weren't related, related, but she was still just my Aunt Val. And that is really fascinating to me. This concept of how a chosen family oftentimes comes from the communities that we live in. It certainly did in my family. Well, today we get to visit the state of New Hampshire, and my guests are two people who come from a community of chosen family. And yet it's so intertwined with their real families that sometimes it gets a little hard to tell it apart. Nancy Kotz is a member of the Jewish Genealogical Society of Greater Washington, and she and I interacted at the Jewish Genealogy Conference last summer, where she told me this story about the oldest synagogue in the state of New Hampshire and its connection with her family. And I wanted to have her on the podcast to share that story. And she asked if she could invite her friend Lynn Sneirson. Now, Lynn is an award-winning journalist and she knows how to tell a story. And these two women, when you get them on camera together, you can tell that they are more than just friends. In fact, their families have been interconnected for generations. Enjoy my conversation with Nancy and Lynn. Well, ladies, thank you so much for joining me. Um, Nancy, I know who you are. Lynn, I don't think we've ever met, have we? I we have not. Okay. It's nice to meet you. Nice to meet you as well. So tell me how the two of you know one another.

Lynne Snierson 3:12

Oh, um, we're we are um fan we are very close family without any actual DNA.

Crista Cowan 3:21

Well, I'm gonna need you to tell me more than that.

Lynne Snierson 3:24

Okay, all right. So um my parents and uh Nancy's paternal grandparents were very dear friends. Oh, I love that. Okay, in fact, my father um met um Nancy's grandparents even way before he met my mother in the 1940s. And I believe if this if I remember the story properly, my dad was an attorney and later a judge in Laconia, New Hampshire. And um Morris and Ida Cohen um came to, they were involved in a chain of um discount department stores. They were um part owners, they had a partner and they owned a chain. And they came to open a store in my town, and apparently they were looking for a um an attorney. And um when Nancy's grandfather and my father met each other, it was one of those um we were brothers in 47 other lifetimes. I mean, it was just that immediate connection, and they were literally closer than brothers and stayed so um for as long as they were alive, as long as her grandfather was alive. And then um Nancy's grandmother, Ida Cohen, um, and my mother decided that they were both going to get pregnant at the same time because um I had a brother and Nancy's father had a brother, and they both decided they wanted a little girl. Well, my mom got pregnant. Um, Ida Cohen did not get pregnant, so I was always the daughter um whom she never had, and plus the fact um that she and I were extraordinarily close um for her entire life, and I always considered her not only just um a second mother, but like my my dear beloved, adored aunt who I could talk to and tell anything to, and uh things I would never tell my own mother, I Ida and I would talk about.

Crista Cowan 5:23

Oh, it's beautiful.

Lynne Snierson 5:25

Yeah, when I couldn't go to my own mother with with um with anything, I I could always go to Ida. I always knew that I was home with her.

Crista Cowan 5:33

I love that. So, Nancy, you grew up with Ida or with Lynn almost like an aunt to you, yes?

Two Families Intertwined For Generations

Nancy Kotz 5:38

Um, yeah, uh who was only uh not quite as old as my uncle was. Um and uh Lynn's description of my grandmother is wonderful because she was the grandmother that I could talk to about anything. Um we uh we always uh felt uh like she was such an open person. And so I completely uh understand why Lynn would say that as well. Uh and Lynn's parents were like second grandparents to us. Um my grandparents would spend uh the uh colder months in New York City, uh, where my grandfather had his office. And then in the summer, they would go to Laconia. And um, being the good genealogist that I am, I've been pouring over land records and city directories for the last couple of weeks uh in anticipation of our chat tonight, um, looking at all of those records. Uh and um so whenever we would go to visit in the summer, um, we would always hang out with Lynn's parents as well, uh, especially when my grandparents moved into uh onto the street. That was the last street they had property on in Laconia. Lynn's parents lived just down the street. Um, Lynn was off at college and doing all that stuff by then. Um, but she and I actually went to the same summer camp in Center Harbor, New Hampshire.

Crista Cowan 7:09

Okay, there you go. Well, Lynn, tell me tell me about your parents. What were their names and how did they end up in Laconia, New Hampshire of all places? That's not some place you think of as a settlement for for Jewish people.

Lynne Snierson 7:24

No. Um, so um my my father was Bernie, my mother was Muriel, uh, my mother was from uh a suburb of Boston. Uh my father was born in Laconia in 1913, and he was the only child in his family who was born in America. Um, his older brother, um, brothers and sister uh had emigrated with my paternal grandparents. Uh they came from um the Kovno governate in Lithuania, which at that time was part of the Imperial Russian Empire. And of course, being Jewish, you know, um they lived where where they were where Jews were allowed to live, which was literally that was beyond the pale. Um so um I think everyone uh is aware or should be aware of the um just um pervasive and horrible anti-Semitism uh under the czar and at that time the Russian Orthodox Church. And it was, if you've ever seen Fiddler on the Roof, that's my story on both my mother's um parents and my father's parents, that it just it became impossible to really survive and thrive uh under those conditions. So um they, you know, they got on a boat and they came in steerage, and um, I'm not really sure how they ended up. My grandparents ended up in Lakota. It was 1902. And um they got off the boat. They did not land in Ellis Island, they landed in Boston, and they got on a train and they headed north because I think that my grandfather knew someone um or had some connection somehow to somebody in New Hampshire. And perhaps when they got on the train going north, perhaps they were supposed to get off in Manchester, where there were Jews living already at that time. Um, but they kept going. And um, maybe because they didn't speak English, they didn't, you know, they were certainly not literate in English. They spoke obviously um Yiddish. Grandfather was being a rabbi was fluent in Hebrew, and of course they spoke some Russian, um, but not English. So they might have missed the stop. And uh maybe um the way the story goes, it the train came, uh stopped at the station in Laconia, New Hampshire, which is absolutely gorgeous. It's in the lakes, beautiful lakes region of New Hampshire. And maybe they thought, oh, it's it's pretty here, it's nice, let's just get off the train here. And my grandparents um are recognized as the first Jews, not only in Laconia, but north of Concord, New Hampshire, when they arrived in 1902.

Crista Cowan 10:06

Wow, what a legacy. I live in a western state where you know we drive three or four hours and we're still in the same state. But when you say they came into Boston and then went up to New Hampshire, like how far away is Laconia from Boston?

Lynne Snierson 10:20

Oh, it's um maybe a hundred miles if um it's if you get in your car and head south on the end now, there's an interstate. There wasn't when I grew up, but uh, you know, you head south, you can be in you can be in downtown Boston in two hours.

Crista Cowan 10:34

Okay. Yeah, so the distances are a little different. And so for them to take a train ride out of the city, it wasn't like they were crossing the country. No. Yeah. Okay.

Lynne Snierson 10:44

And they decided to settle there and make a life. Yeah, um, it was not an easy life, as you can imagine. Um, my grandfather was, as I said, he was a rabbi, um, which is pretty interesting when not having a congregation to minister to. Um, but uh there have been um some um scholars uh from Yeshiva University and from some other um uh Shabbad and some other places who um have written a book and they've included my grandfather because evidently um he was um a religious man, a rabbi um really of quite some note. He was a cousin of um the Lobovasharevi, uh Menachem Um Schneerson, who was considered to be the Messiah by the by Orthodox and Ultra Drive ultra-Orthodox Jews. And um he was uh recognized as a um, he had an honorific title as a man who is um in a prime Talmudic scholar. Um he was quite well known and uh apparently quite highly regarded. I unfortunately did not know him because um he died when I was two.

Crista Cowan 11:55

But your father then is their only child born in the United States and raised there in Laconia. How did your parents meet?

A Lithuanian Jewish Arrival In 1902

Lynne Snierson 12:05

Oh, this is great. So um my my father was the obviously the baby born here. Um all of his brothers and his sister um became uh very well learned. Everyone uh my uncle High was uh a doctor and a surgeon and a chief of staff um in a hospital. Uh great war hero, my uncle High, um, when he was fighting uh in World War II for um with in Patton's army. He was part of the Normandy invasion being a surgeon. He established, he was with the handful of doctors who established the first ever MASH unit. Wow. Yeah, he set up a sterile field in the heat of battle and was operating on the wounded um during the Normandy invasion, the highly, highly decorated as colonel. Um, and anyway, so um, and then you know, everybody was very accomplished. As I said, my father was a lawyer, but you know, a lot of Ivy League in the family. Um anyway, my aunt Dorothy, his his older sister, left Laconia um after she got her degrees, and she ended up teaching English, which is kind of interesting for someone who grew up with English as a second language or you know, third third or fourth language, um, in the Waltham, Massachusetts school system. Okay. That's where my mother and her family lived. So my Aunt Dorothy had um my Uncle Newell, my Aunt Bernice, and my mother as her students in seventh for seventh and eighth grade English. Okay. Now, um, my my maternal grandparents um were quite generous, and my Aunt Dorothy was what was in those days called a um a spinster, or you know, um, you know, not you couldn't be the cool bachelorette with the rose. I mean, you were a spinster, and she was living alone in, you know, in an apartment. So my grand my grandparents would have her come to their home for dinner all the time. They would come for Friday, Friday night Shabbat dinner. Um, she would stay with my grandparents on school vacations, and she would um spend those. My grandparents had a had a summer place um on the ocean. And um when my grandfather was working with in the store, my grandmother was there with her children. Aunt Dorothy always went and was a guest and would spend the summers at the beach, and she would say to my mother, um, one day I'm um she says, I have a very handsome, very charming, very brilliant, very adorable brother. And someday when you're ready, I'm going to introduce you to him. Okay. Okay, so fast forward, um, it's now in the um during World War II or just after World War II. My mother now is a young divorcee with a baby who moved home, left her husband, took my brother, moved home, and moved back in with my grandparents. And um and when my dad got home from the war, they were introduced. There you go.

Crista Cowan 15:12

Well, that's a delightful story. Thank you for sharing that. Nancy, I would love to hear about how your family, uh, like where they came from and how they made their way to Laconia.

Poverty, Books, And A Life Of Service

Nancy Kotz 15:25

Okay, well, uh, my grandfather and his family also came from the Pale of Settlement uh in a small shtetl called Nobla near Pinsk. Uh, and they also arrived at Boston Harbor in 1903. Um, and they had family in Vermont, in Virgins, Vermont, which is up near Rutland. Uh, so that's where they ended up going. Um, unfortunately, one of my grandfather's sisters was sent back to Russia because she was deemed uh feeble-minded. Um, and my big genealogy research project right now is to try and figure out how she ended up surviving living in France during World War II. Um, but that's a whole nother story. Um, but um my grandfather uh had uh many siblings. Um he had two sisters and a whole bunch of brothers. And uh two of his brothers, his brother Bill and his brother Sam, both had aspirations of going into the medical field. Uh, Bill became an internist and Sam became a dentist. We called him Uncle Doc. Um and um so my grandfather was the one who went to work to help uh them afford their advanced education. Um, and I was rereading last night, Lynn, your father's wonderful eulogy when my grandfather died. I was only 12, so I don't think I was paying attention to the eulogy then, but I have several copies of it. And one of the things that Lynn's father wrote about my grandfather was that even though he didn't have a formal education, he loved learning and did a lot on his own to learn and went into the business world. Um when he was a very young man, he took a job at the Brandon Inn in Brandon, Vermont. Um, and while he was working there, he affiliated himself with uh other uh gentlemen who were in sales and he became very interested in that. Um so uh he went into the retail industry pretty soon uh after that, and he had store, he was working with stores throughout the Northeast. And the story of how he and my grandmother met were that they were both invited to the same bar mitzvah in Saratoga Springs, where my grandfather happened to have a store. Now, the irony is my mother went to college in Saratoga, and so did I. So I've always been fascinated by our family history in Saratoga. And when my parents were dating, my father would go from New York City, where he was at Columbia, up to Skidmore in Saratoga to spend the weekends with my mother. Um, and my mother didn't stay in school. She and my dad got married right after her sophomore year. Um, my grandmother's family uh came before she was born. Um, they came from uh Kishnav, uh, which is now uh China saw in Ukraine, and um they came before the big pogrom in Kishnav. Um so they came in, I think, about 1901 or so, um, and they ended up at one of the uh Jewish farming colonies in southern New Jersey, one of the Barenda Hirsch communities. Uh, and so that's where my grandmother was born. Um, shortly after, well, a few years after she was born, uh, my her father took a job in Bridgeport, Connecticut. But because he was so instrumental in helping found a synagogue in uh the town where they lived in New Jersey, he was buried back in New Jersey. So my husband and I have actually taken the ferry from Cape May, from Lewis to Cape May and then driven to the cemetery where my great-grandfather uh is buried. Um, my grandmother ended up going to nursing school. Um, and uh she had a had a cousin who was in love with one of my grandfather's cousins, and they ended up at this mutual family bar mitzvah in Saratoga, and I actually have found their engagement announcement in the Saratogian newspaper. So that's that was pretty cool. Um, but that's the story of how they met and fell in love.

Crista Cowan 20:01

I love that. And so then, um, at what point in their marriage did they end up in Laconia?

Nancy Kotz 20:08

Well, um, Laconia happened to be one of the places where my grandfather and his business partner opened a store, as Lyd said. And um, as a matter of fact, I was on the phone with my stepmom not long ago, and Gail and I were talking about she loves to talk about family history with me, especially my father's side of the family. Um, and she mentioned to me that uh someone had ticked her off that the Laconia newspaper uh had a picture of the opening of the Landau's variety store in uh Laconia at Hanover and Maine, um from uh on the paper in their in their historical flashback column that they have. Uh and so I, of course, quickly went on to the Laconia newspaper website to try and find it. And I've actually been uh in email contact with the folks at the Laconia newspaper. Um, but um that was only about a week or two ago, and I mentioned I was going to be joining you this evening, and she was all excited about it. Um, but um Gail continues to stay uh involved and in communication with all of the members of my dad's side of the family, even though he's no longer with us.

Crista Cowan 21:25

That's good for her. That's amazing. So you then spent, was it summers in Laconia with your grandparents?

Nancy Kotz 21:33

Exactly. So every summer we would spend at least a few weeks in New Hampshire. Um, and uh even uh members of my maternal family would come and visit. Um, my both of my sets of grandparents were very close with one another. And uh my cousins on my mom's side even spent time there. Um, one of the photos that uh the four of us cousins took on the balcony of. The house that had this view, um, all are wearing uh overalls. And my brother was the only male of that on that side of the family. Um, and so it was the stair steps, my brother, myself, my cousin Pam, and my cousin Suzanne. Um, and Pam actually went to that same summer camp in Center Harbor called Robindell one year with me. And she actually we went together one year, and then she went by herself the next year because I went to a different camp down in North Carolina.

Crista Cowan 22:31

Well, there you go. That just sounds like an idyllic place to spend a summer.

Nancy Kotz 22:36

Well, one of the one of the other things I remember about our summers in Laconia was going out on Lynn's parents' boat out on the lake. Um, and we would uh go out for the day and bring a change of clothes so we could go across the lake over to Wolfboro, which was another town on Lake Winnipesaki, and have dinner. So we would literally spend the entire day on uh Lynn's dad's boat. Um, and Lynn's dad and my grandfather loved to go out fishing together. Uh and uh my brother, being the oldest male grandchild, even had his own little outboard. Uh, his name is David, and he called it the King David. Uh and one summer we filled my grandmother's freezer with white perch because we went out every morning to go fishing.

Crista Cowan 23:26

Well, so fun. I love that. So, Lynn, um, you, your grandparents settled there, but were you also raised there? Did your father stay in Laconia?

Nancy’s Family Story And Summer Laconia

Lynne Snierson 23:37

Oh, yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Um, my my father, um, every like I said, they everybody lived there. Um, my father was um, my father was movie star handsome and very charming and very athletic. And um he was, I mean, he he was beloved. I mean, my father died in 1988, and when people hear my last name, they still ask me if I'm related to him. And then they will tell me stories of all the um magnificent, wonderful, compassionate, kind things he did for them. And um, people will talk about how he practiced pro bono law for a lot of people before anybody knew what the term meant. And people will say, you know, you kept um you kept us from being homeless because you know, the government had denied my father got killed in the war, and the government denied my mother her benefits, and your dad got them, you know, and so got um all the you know, everything that we were entitled to, and we could put food on the table and and and never we refused to ever take a dime, you know. So I just hear these stories again and again and again. So um, because he was a child of Lacone, as I said, he came up through the public school system. Um he was um, you know, captain of the baseball team, captain of the debating team, class president, all these kinds of things. And and people, you know, as I said, people just they just gravitated to him. They loved him. So um, in fact, when he was at Harvard Law School, and and I mean he was, I mean, my grandparents were desperately poor because my grandfather um lived to be a rabbi and lived to um study the Talmud, and he um, you know, he would um slaughter, you know, kosher slaughter meat for people and and do these things. But he did he really didn't work. Um, so my grandmother scrubbed floors and we get up at four o'clock in the morning uh to go pick blueberries to sell by the roadside, and um, you know, it was it was a very poor existence. My dad said, you know, they grew up they didn't have electricity. And um um I asked him once um where he developed his deep love of reading and academia, um, because years and years and years and years done. I mean, he could still he could quote any soliloquy from Hamlet, you know, from Shakespeare, verb, I mean, verbatim. And he was so incredibly smart and so well educated. And what he said was, you know, I would um because I would lose my, I would take a book to bed with me, and I would lose myself in the book, and so I could forget how hungry I was. Yeah. You know, and so, you know, people other other families would invite him over and feed him, and he never told his parents he ate in anybody else's house that wasn't kosher, you know. But um, so anyway, when he when he graduated from Harvard Law School, he had multiple opportunities to join the you know big law firms. And my mother, um, even when she married him after he had his practice in New Hampshire, she wanted him to go to Boston. You know, she was a city girl, she was a Boston girl, she never liked living in Laconia. And my father wouldn't leave because I mean, it that was home for him, and it was where he was comfortable and frankly, you know, where people um adored him and he was able to stay there. He he was a founder of the Lakes Region Scholarship Committee because he knew what it meant for poor kids not to have money to go to college, like really bright, really talented, really amazing kids who never got to go to school because they couldn't afford it. He was so involved in and entrenched in and such a part of what Laconia is. Um, if I may, um when he died, we had to have um we had to have the funeral, which we had um in in Boston, uh, because he's buried in the Jewish cemetery there with my mother's family. Um so we had the big funeral in Boston. We had then have two separate memorial services to accommodate all the people who wanted to come. There just wasn't a place big enough to hold everybody who wanted to come. We had to do it twice.

Crista Cowan 27:50

Wow, he sounds like quite the man. That's amazing.

Lynne Snierson 27:53

He really, yeah, he was, he was, yeah. And and Nancy's grandfather was, I mean, as I said, they were they were soul, soul brothers. Um, and you know, my dad, Ivy League, you know, Cornell undergrad, Harvard Law, et cetera, et cetera. And Nancy's grandfather who didn't go, and my father always said that Morris Cohen is the smartest man I ever met in my life.

Nancy Kotz 28:11

And Morris Cohen never went to college.

Lynne Snierson 28:14

Right, exactly.

Crista Cowan 28:15

Yeah, and it's so interesting that they felt that affinity for one another because um academia, you know, like educated, uneducated, like that has a tendency sometimes to pull people apart. But the fact that they both overlooked that and forged such a deep bond and brotherhood is a really beautiful thing.

Lynne Snierson 28:34

Yeah, I mean, we we ate dinners together um often. Um, like Nancy was talking about how you know even her mom's family, like I knew her grandparents, Sam and Mary Winterberg, really well. Um, and at um at Ida and Morris's house, you know, right down the road on the lake, um, they had a big, huge dining room table. And I remember so many nights we'd all be gathered there, you know, having dinner, and it would be a lobster bake. And my brother and and Nancy's uncle would be out there, you know, digging the pit in the sand and you know, cooking the lobsters and the steamers and the corn and all that. And then um her grandmother would make it like a 22-pound standing rib roast for people who didn't like lobster. And, you know, and we'd just sit there and you know, we'd have these wonderful, wonderful dinners watching the sunset over the lake. Um, but even when it was just um my parents and Nancy's grandparents, after dinner, um the the men would go and they would sit, you know, together in the living room, like in, you know, in even in the cold weather, it might be in front of the fireplace, and they would discuss philosophy and theater and art and politics and literature. And I mean, they they were um they really were like if men can be soulmates, they were soulmates. They had such a sympatico, and they also had such a deep respect for one another and a true love for each other. Um yeah, I mean, my father was closer to her grandfather than he was to his own brothers, his own family. Wow.

Nancy Kotz 30:09

As a matter of fact, Lynn's parents were the ones to come get me at camp in 1974, and my brother went to a camp, the boys' camp close by, came and picked both of us up to drive us to Massachusetts when my grandfather died in 1974. And what Lynn was saying about the interfamily relationships, that was the year that my cousin Pam, my maternal cousin, was with me at Robin Dell. And she was very upset that nobody told her where I had gone. Because they didn't think that, since it was my father's father, that she would have any relationship with him. And to this day, even Pam talks about that whenever we're together.

Crista Cowan 30:55

That's um that's amazing to grow up in that kind of a community, right? Because that's really what it is, is is this family and this extended family and this community of people that was created in that time in that space. That's I I wonder if it's an um something about a bygone era or if it's something particular to the the shared background that your families came from. Do you know?

Lynne Snierson 31:22

Um, I don't know, but I I I do know that um my dad died very suddenly. Um he he had a massive brain aneurysm. So it was very instantaneous and completely unexpected, and um, you know, the whole thing. So, of course, the first the first person that my mother called was Ida. And Ida was living in Cleveland at the time. She immediately got on a plane, like, I'm gonna be there, I'm on my way, you know, and she um took us, took us all through that. And then when my mother died five years later, I remember we were sitting Shiva um at my mother's sister's house in Boston, and uh Ida pulled me aside and she said to me, I'm your mother now. And she's and she put her arms around me both and she said, You may ask of me anything that you would ever ask of your mother.

Crista Cowan 32:12

That is really beautiful.

Nancy Kotz 32:14

You're gonna make me cry, Lynn. I am crying.

Crista Cowan 32:18

Yeah. Um that that kind of depth of care for people within your community. Like, I just it's so rare to see that. And I think that's you're both so lucky to have had that. I think that's really beautiful. Um, as you think about your shared background, Lynn, you mentioned that your grandparents were the first Jews in Laconia. Um, but then Nancy, your family made their way there and this community starts to grow. Um, did your grandfather ever have uh a group of people to minister to?

The Synagogue That Held Everyone

Lynne Snierson 32:52

Yes, um, there actually were. He ministered to um really people in in the kind of north, you know, although kind of the northern central part of New Hampshire. And um yeah, he was um there was a very small, he was the spiritual leader of a very small group of Jewish families. He founded the synagogue Temple Bene Israel, that's still operating in Laconia, and uh he was its first rabbi. So um apparently he taught Hebrew school for um everybody in sort of south uh central and north central uh part of the state. Um it said he prepared the boys um for the entire region for their bar mitzvahs. Um he um provided guidance on keeping kosher and um he he was the kosher kosher butcher. Um he led the services and um when somebody would die he put together the minion, which uh is 12, but you have to do. And um, you know, his leadership did, I'm told, extend far belong, um far beyond Laconia. And he traveled to Jewish enclaves in the surrounding area um to, you know, uh he he would perform the briss for baby boys and um do all the special occasions, minister, you know, perform weddings, do funerals. Apparently he was he was the guy, apparently. Sounds like it. Wow.

Crista Cowan 34:22

So Nancy, when I mentioned that I was doing a series on the 50 states for America 250, and we were talking about New Hampshire, you immediately brought up the Laconia Synagogue as something of significance for the state of New Hampshire. What does that community, that organization mean to you?

Nancy Kotz 34:42

Well, honestly, I was never exposed to that synagogue or that community since I was just in Laconia in the summer. Um, my dad and his brother both went to prep school in Massachusetts, so they would be in Laconia in the summer. So um, if my dad and his brother were around, I would certainly be asking them lots of questions right now. Um but um the interesting thing that I found, well, the the reason I ended up on the synagogue website was that there are memorial plaques for both of my grandparents in the synagogue. And at first the two plaques were separated, they weren't together. So my brother and my stepmom and I uh helped to uh encourage the synagogue to change the placement of the plaques. So, of course, I got curious. And being the research fanatic that I am, um, I started poking around the website for the synagogue, and I noticed that there was this genealogy there. And of course, that's what sparked my interest, and that's why I mentioned it to you when we were at IAJGS this past year in Fort Wayne. And I also sent the information to Ellen Coet, who does the uh USA SIG for Jewish gen, um, because I thought those were records that people would want to see. And when I've gone through the records, of course, the first thing I saw was Lynn's grandfather, and I got all excited. But then as I read through the families, I noticed the Selig family was also there. Um, and this was a family that one of my grandmother's other very close friends, Peggy Selig, uh, married into. Um, and so I feel like I've stayed in touch with all of these original Jewish families of Laconia, New Hampshire in uh a 21st century way.

Crista Cowan 36:38

Lynn, as you think about that synagogue and that community in that town, um, you know, other than the connection to your grandfather, which is so foundational and critical, like what other role has that played in your life and the life of your family?

Identity, Memory, And New Hampshire Roots

Lynne Snierson 36:53

Oh, well, I grew, I grew up in, well, I grew up in that synagogue. But I mean, you know, I was brought there, you know, from the time I was an infant. My um, as I said, I have I have one brother who's um no longer with us, but he was bar mitzid there in 1957. I was five years old. Uh I don't remember it, but I of course had seen the pictures. Um, I remember going to Sunday school there. Um I remember going to Hebrew school there after regular school, which I absolutely hated, like all Jewish kids do. Um and, you know, um going that, you know, sitting there for high, you know, the services on high holidays and Passover and Seders and all, you know, I I mean, like I said, I grew I grew up, I grew up in the synagogue. Um, I did not go to, I went to um away to private boarding school instead of high school, so I kind of lost touch with it. And then of course I was off, you know, doing college and doing doing my thing. But interestingly enough, um two summers ago, um, through a uh confluence of of events, I ended up um being back in the synagogue for Friday night services. And I had not been there in for Friday night service since I was a teenager. Um and so got there a little early, and before everything started, um I snuck into the sanctuary um and I just took a walk through, and um, it's exactly the same. And um I I was noticing on on the wooden pews, there is um there was the brass nameplate on the back of everyone in the congregation, and it was all the families. I mean, those nameplates, the people have changed. You know, people have died, have moved, have, you know, with all the social mobility and and physical geographical mobility. I mean, there are new new families who belong in, but those nameplates from the originals are still there. And I went through and I looked at everyone and I read every, you know, read everyone, went through every pew, and just flooded back with with these memories of what it was and who it was, and just remembering, you know, everybody I grew up with. Because they weren't, you know, in our congregation when I grew up, it wasn't just Laconey, as I said, it was the whole county in outreach up further parts of New Hampshire. And there were only 40 families. You know, that so I mean we all knew each other. When I when I went to um when I went to elementary school and junior high school, um, I was the only Jewish girl in my class. Uh and of all the elementary schools in the city of Laconia citywide, I was the only Jewish girl. And there were two little Jewish boys who were in my same school because we sort of all lived in the same neighborhood. Um, but I mean, I was the only one. And um, so you know, the girls who were like a year ahead of me in school or a year behind me in school, like we would play together and we'd be, you know, go to each other's houses. And our parents always felt it was important for us to understand and to embrace our Jewish identity. Um, you know, which is a little interesting at Christmas time back in those days. It's like, yeah, you're the only one who's not of all my little friends. It's cool. I'm the only one who's not having Christmas. Um but um, but no, it was it was profound. It was it was profound.

Crista Cowan 40:12

Well, that's kind of amazing when you think about it. But and then when you think about it over the sweep of history, right? Your families escaping the pale of the settlement because of anti-Semitism, because of the persecution that they endured, finding their way to the United States and seeking a place of refuge where they could practice their beliefs and live their lives and make their choices that they wanted to make about their families and their community. And it sounds like from both of you, both of your families did that successfully and beautifully, and still maintained that deep connection to community and to faith. And I think that's a really beautiful thing. Well, ladies, thank you so much for sharing New Hampshire with us, for sharing your community and your history. Nancy, I would just love to hear a little bit from you, like as you think about New Hampshire, your family's connection to Laconia, the summers you got to spend there. What is what does that connection to New Hampshire mean to you?

Nancy Kotz 41:12

Well, I think for a kid who uh moved around a lot when I was young, it was stability. Um I knew every summer I'd be with my grandparents at their house and this beautiful on this beautiful lake. Um, and my brother and I really enjoyed taking our kids there back in 2011. Um, and I was just I found this background photo when I was going through my photos from that trip. Um, but my brother and I had so much joy taking our own children to all of the places we used to go when we went there in the summer, watching my daughter and my niece swimming in that lake, even though the duck isn't in the same place that it was when my grandparents had the house. Um, going into the boathouse that still had the water skis and the rafters that smelled exactly the same. Um, my brother and I were just lost in nostalgia uh in that June of 2011 for those few days that we were there. Um, and we took the kids down to the Weirs, to Weirs Beach, where we used to go uh in the evenings and get cotton candy and go into the arcades. And we took them to Keller House, which is this wonderful old store that has a make your own Sunday bar and a whole room with nothing but candy in it, and a whole room with nothing but stuffed animals in it, um, and a whole Christmas room, speaking of the good cross-religious holidays. Um, and we took them for a hike in the White Mountains. We drove them through Center Harbor and pointed to the road that went to our summer camps. Um, so it's a connection for me, really. Um, I didn't grow up there like Lynn did, but I feel like it's part of me, definitely.

Crista Cowan 43:04

It sounds like it is for sure. And Lynn, as you think about, like, I mean, obviously you grew up in New Hampshire. You've got these, you know, summer kids coming for the summer to invade town. Um, but but that was your home. And what does it mean to you to say, I'm from New Hampshire? I still live here. You do? Oh, I am still here. I saw Duke University and I just assumed you were elsewhere.

Gratitude, America 250, And Closing

Lynne Snierson 43:29

Oh, no. Well went up to school now. No, I don't live in Laconia, um, but I I live in southern New Hampshire and ended up here um for a job. And um people say to me all the time, well, why don't you like live in Boston or why don't you go to New York? Why don't you, you know, um my niece and nephew, my um my own or my surrogate children, they're in Southern California and they're like, come move here, come be there. But my New Hampshire roots run very, very, very deep. And um, you're not gonna get me out. Out of here. I'm a part of New Hampshire. New Hampshire's a part of me. You know, and I still support the charities that my my father was helped to found. And I'm still very tied to the community. I believe in um very much in the um Jewish um, you know, to come along, you know, make the world better than when you came in. So um, yeah, my roots are very, very, very deep.

Crista Cowan 44:27

Well, thank you both. Thank you for sharing your connection to New Hampshire. Thank you for sharing your connection to one another, and thank you for sharing your connection to your families and your heritage. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

Nancy Kotz 44:39

Thank you for having Miss Krista. Studio sponsored by Ancestry.