Lucy Glaser Merritt - July 8, 1991
New York
You were in NewYork for a couple months.
In a HIAS.
Living sort of by astring.
Yes. Yeah.
In sort of dormitorylike.
Yes. Mm-hm. And they did offer you food. And Ifound that there were free things you could get at the automat like pickles andthings they had laying there. You didn't have to die, you could get. And I sawa lot of New York. A lot of things to see, you know when you just walk around.
This must have been veryhard on your parents coming from.
It was very hard on my parents.
a genteel culture.
Yeah. It, it was the fractured dignity, I meanthere was this humiliation of being drive from your home, but then landingsomewhere else. To be poor. To be at the bottom of the heap. That's where wewere. And it's hard. Especially for someone like my father to whom dignity ismore important than anything else. There was a loss of dignity there.
Did you go to schoolwhen.
Uh, not at first. I didn't have any money. But thenI started applying and uh, then Wayne I only paid for one year. Wayne gave me ascholarship and I, and then a fellowship, so I went right through and didn'thave to pay because at that time there were no people in chemistry. You know,the war started in '42 and so they were happy to have me. So it worked out tomy advantage at that point. I was there at the right time.
You got a degree inchemistry.
Yes. Mm-hm. I worked on-I was a chemist for manyyears and then I taught. So for me, I really didn't lose out as much as myparents did. That generation lost out a lot because they never recovered. Theynever recovered from the loss of uh, finances or other social loss. Although hedid find some people in the Gemilut that he associated with, my father.
That drew him intoreligion.
Yes.
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