AUTHORS INTERVIEWING CHARACTERS: Mary Helen Fein

Conversation
Helen Breakstone, Sixteen-year-old heroine  of “Stitching a Life,” and author Mary Helen Fein

Helen and I met at Katz’s Deli on Houston Street in New York’s Lower East Side. Turned out we both love Pastrami sandwiches, and of course Katz’s is the best. It was easy to spot her in her long skirt and warm shawl, sitting and looking around from a small table for two. Her fashion sense from the early 1900’s looked just right in today’s New York.

Tell us about yourself, Helen

I’m new here in New York, and it is wonderfully different from the Old Country. I have no trouble getting used to the freedom. No Russian soldiers scaring us to death and spreading frightening lies about the Jews. In New York, it seems like everybody just got off the boat, or if they have been here for awhile, it’s not so long that they don’t remember what it is to be a newcomer. Irish people with red hair, German people, Jews from all over Eastern Europe. The word “melting pot” was actually coined describe how newcomers to America, who came from so many different cultures and customs, all melted together into into something new.

So what are your biggest challenges in this new world?

It’s hard for me to have left behind my family. I have spent my whole life in a little one room home with my parents, my sister and my four brothers. I miss them all terribly. But I have to be here and work and earn money. That’s because my biggest challenge is to save my brother Max. You know twelve-year-old Jewish boys are cruelly drafted, sometimes for as much as twenty-five years. Max is already twelve, although the false papers my parents bought for him say he is only eleven. They already came for him, but I was able to hide him. But it won’t be long. The only thing that is important now is to get my whole family over as soon as I can. It’s a chain of migration. The first link comes to American and works and sends a ticket over to bring the second link.

That sounds pretty hard on you. How are you earning money?

I am so lucky. My cousins were here before me, and they found me a great job sewing clothing. I make five dollars a week. It probably doesn’t sound like much to you, but a ticket from Europe to New York is only thirty dollars. So Max is going to be safe soon. Then together he and I will bring over the other boys before they turn twelve.

Well, I hope your life is not all work and no play?

Work comes first, but life is still very enjoyable. I love New York. It’s definitely the world’s best city. It’s got the Hudson a mile wide, shows on Broadway, and the beach at Coney Island only a subway ride away. And so many interesting people, if you are just open minded and ready to learn about other ways people do things.  My best friend has red hair and until this year, I had never even seen anyone with red hair!

Once your whole family is safe in New York, what do you want your life to be?

I hope to marry a handsome and fun Jewish boy and have a whole lot of kids!

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Mary Helen Fein was born in New York City in 1943. She attended schools in New York and began writing at the age of twelve when her mother died. Writing has ever since been an important part of her life, a way to understand and process life’s events. Mary Helen holds a BA in English literature from Temple University and an MS in computer science engineering from the University of Pennsylvania; she also studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, America’s oldest art school, for two years. Today she lives in Northern California, where she owns her own website design company, writes, paints, and teaches Insight meditation. In 2014, she published her first novel, Loss of Deliverance—the story of a young woman’s adventures in the drug trade during the 1960s.

Find out more about her on her website http://maryhelenfein.com/

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STITCHING A LIFE

It’s 1900, and sixteen-year-old Helen comes alone in steerage across the Atlantic from a small village in Lithuania, fleeing terrible anti-Semitism and persecution. She arrives at Ellis Island, and finds a place to live in the colorful Lower East Side of New York. She quickly finds a job in the thriving garment industry and, like millions of others who are coming to America during this time, devotes herself to bringing the rest of her family to join her in the New World, refusing to rest until her family is safe in New York.

A few at a time, Helen’s family members arrive. Each goes to work with the same fervor she has and contributes everything to bringing over their remaining beloved family members in a chain of migration. Helen meanwhile, makes friends and―once the whole family is safe in New York―falls in love with a man who introduces her to a different New York―a New York of wonder, beauty, and possibility.

Buy Link: https://bookshop.org/books/stitching-a-life-an-immigration-story/9781631526770

Tags: featured, women writers

Category: Contemporary Women Writers, Interviews, On Writing