Mike's Genealogy Site
Lenna first married an artist named Milton Gray in 1924, but it was not a happy union. They were divorced six years later. I don’t have much information about this, although I do have letters concerning a lawsuit about a physical altercation between Milton and his brother-in-law Dave.
Lenna then married her great love Sam Kramer. Sam was quite a character, from what I can gather. He was a performer - an acrobat - as well as a lecturer on health and diet. My cousin remembers him teaching the kids to do handstands. In the words of his nephew Lincoln Diamant (a published author):
“[Sam] was a fantastic character. Every family has to have one. He was left-winger from the word go. He came to the US and he got a job in a vaudeville act with a midget. He was a big blonde guy with a big sense of humor. He shaped my literary pretensions by giving me books – Joseph Conrad, Babook, Guy Andore, etc. This is Sam.”
Sam died in 1969. While Lenna eventually had another companion in her last years (Bernard Rosales), Sam had clearly been everything to her. She wrote many, many poems about him to deal with her grief, and I recently found a recording of her reading them. Below are a few selections - feel free to contact me if you want to hear the rest.
The poems are haunting and touching. Lenna never had children, but she is remembered by the few of us left in the family who had the chance to meet her. They say that you don’t really die until the last person who knew you is gone. Maybe a project like this will let Aunt Lenna live on a little longer than that.
-Michael Rothschild, February 2018
“Journey” - a poem about the trip to visit Sam at a hospital in the Adirondacks, where he was dying.
“To My Brother” - a poem dedicated to Lenna’s brother Dave Bloom, who drover her back and forth to visit Sam in the hospital in the Adirondacks.
“My Love in a Grave” - a poem about Lenna’s great grief after Sam’s death
“Delicate Silk” - a poem about Lenna’s joy in finding a strand of Sam’s hair months after his death.
“I Don’t Want To Play in your Yard” - Lenna singing a song from the 1890s