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Grandmother Lillian ¦ The Sherman Family ¦ Grandfather Leon ¦ Great Uncle Ben ¦ Great Aunt Frances ¦ Great Aunt Hannah ¦ Great Uncle Milton
Sherman Family Photos

Lily Nell Warren's Maternal Grand Parents

Lillian D. Sherman nee Levinson

Lillian and Leon Sherman

The family was nominally Jewish, though not religious. They were also very wealthy, had chauffeurs, etc. My mother talked about a White (manufacturer) car, and being driven to and from school. Samuel made his fortune as a luggage manufacturer in Connecticut and his offices were on Des Brosses Street on the Lower West Side, in Manhattan. The family had horses that they kept stabled at Prospect Park. They lived at 910 Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, and the house had a music room, and also one of those upstairs/downstairs kitchens with a dumbwaiter into the dining room. Dora, Lily Nell's great grandmother, would ring for the servers by pressing a button under the dining room table.

I think that in order to avoid income taxes, Leon's Father, Samuel took on a partner who cheated him. So he lost a lot of money. Also, he left Dora and the kids shortly after Milton was born. He had fallen in love with his bookkeeper, Margaret. He and Dora were divorced, and it was in the papers in Brooklyn as a big story, and I know it traumatized my mother, who absolutely doted on Samuel. Also, Samuel used to go to the fights a lot and he went to wherever the big fight was between Jack Johnson and Jess Willard (the Great White Hope). I also have letters from Samuel written in rather poor English (after all, he was a Russian who came here as an adult), mailed from California, and pleading with them to write to him. This is when they were in their late teens or early twenties. He said he didn't have much money, so this must have been the time between the fortunes Ruthe mentioned to you. I do know that Dora had to go to court for non-payment of child support/alimony. He was supposed to pay something like $10,000 a year in child support, plus alimony--I have the papers on this, somewhere--a lot of money in those days.

My father, Buddy, met my mother through Leon, who had a friend, Oscar Goldenberg, who brought my father along to a party at the Shermans' house. This was well after Leon was married. I think my father told off-color jokes which were enjoyed by Dora, but which embarrassed my mother. Anyway, the Sherman family, without Samuel, became sort of "gypsies," according to my dad. They moved from one place to another, and in order to make ends meet, they took in boarders. They also had rental property, so I don't think they were hurting that much, but it was sure a comedown from their former life.

Samuel married Margaret, and they had a daughter, Gloria. I know nothing about this. I think that Samuel died of a cerebral hemorrhage or stroke around 1940. I wasn't born until December of 1943, so I never knew him.

A side note: Max Rieser was a convert to Christian Science! He, too, lived in Brooklyn. He married a lovely woman named Esther, and they had three daughters, one of whom committed suicide. The other two daughters were Florence and Helen. Florence was a teacher at Washington Irving High School; she married Irving Schultz, an attorney; they had no children. Helen married Bob Sheller, also an attorney, and they had two children, Eleanor and Edgar. So Florence and Helen (both deceased), were first cousins to Dora and Samuel's children. Max had a hat store on Nassau Street in NYC called Best Hats.

All the Sherman men seemed to suffer from heart problems, and all of them had heart attacks before they were 50! Leon was very overweight, and he smoked cigars a lot. He also used a wonderful cologne, and I loved the way he smelled! He did put his cigars out and then light them again, which made a bad smell, but I didn't mind. He loved Willow (that's what we called the house, as well as the town), and enjoyed having us all there. He had roses (I know, because I grabbed one and got thorns), and berries and cherry trees and even a vegetable garden. He was, as I mentioned, meticulous about the property, and even put up ashtrays so that people wouldn't leave their cigarette butts around. He would police the premises, picking up any items he found on the ground that didn't belong there.

I think Leon went to Duke University either before or after his first heart attack, to be put on their then-famous rice diet. I know that he and Lillian went to Florida (with Ruthe?) so he could recuperate. Ruthe had a little wirehaired terrier, named Buttons, that she left with us for awhile. I loved that dog! But Leon sent letters to Ben from Florida, saying "Come quickly--Lillie is trying to kill me." I know there were several of these letters and cards because they were Photostated and in my mother's possessions. I do know that he had a stroke and that he was in a hospital bed in their eight-room apartment on Riverside Drive when he died. My mother was very upset, as were the rest of the family. She couldn't understand why Lillian called in a doctor from Yonkers instead of just calling an ambulance. This was preceded by Lillian's refusal to allow my Uncle Milton in the apartment to see Leon--he had to get a policeman to get into the apartment. I don't really know what all this was about. As I said, my mother did keep track of Ruthe and knew about your marriage and the birth of Lily Nell, and we even went to visit Lillian who was very bizarre and living at Willow (this would have been around 1969 or so, if my memory is correct). Lillian did raise Standard Poodles, and she said she even slept with them in the kennel sometimes. The house was a real mess. Sad. I remember the billiards room. Uncle Leon called it the Men's Room, because he didn't want Brian or me going into the room and perhaps damaging the table. So we would stand at the threshold and watch the grown-up men play pool. One time, my grandma, Dora, "reluctantly" agreed to play pool. The "boys" kidded her. She took the cue, cleaned the table, set the cue down, and never shot a round of pool again. They were all amazed.

Dora died of cancer--I think it was thyroid cancer--in January, 1953. She couldn't be buried right away, because there was a gravedigger's strike on. I didn't go to her funeral--I was given the choice of going to the funeral or to a Brownie meeting, and I chose the Brownie meeting.

When Leon died, and I went to the funeral home with my parents, I went into the room where Lillian was sitting. I was very self-conscious and not sure how to act. I remember Lillian crying out, "Oh, here's little Etta-Claire, come to witness the whole shebang!" I have no idea about the tone of her comment, but I certainly didn't think it was friendly, and in any case, I was mortified.

By the way, Leon was a member of my father's Masonic lodge, Clermont, of which my father was a founder. He was "raised" by my father, as was Milton; I don't think Ben ever was a Mason.

Barnett (Ben) Sherman

The next in line was Ben. He was close in age to Leon and very, very handsome. He also had a temper which got him into a lot of trouble, I guess. He ended up as a lieutenant in WW II and had some kind of breakdown after Normandy, where he pulled bodies out of the water. He was married before the war to someone named Muriel, I think. She had great plans for him to become an engineer, but he didn't have the will to do that. They were divorced either before, during or just after the war. He was in the hospital in Brooklyn for appendicitis and there met Eleanor David, a nurse. They were married and they had one child, Leonard. Leonard was/is six years younger than I. He was very handsome. But Eleanor insisted on training him to be a scholar, and I think that in some way he was emotionally abused. He was very odd--the kind of kid who you thought might end up as a serial killer, and you'd say, "He seemed so quiet...." Ben went into the luggage business--retail and wholesale--with Milton. Their business was Acorn Leather Goods, and they were at 742 Broadway, down near the Village. I used to hang out there a lot, especially when I was in high school, because both Ben and Milton smoked and didn't mind if I did--my mother was the only one of the Sherman kids who didn't smoke--and besides, their place was near the Village, which I'd go to after school. I always got purses and wallets from them.

Ben didn't do well financially. He and Milton got out of the business and I don't know what he did, but he had a fatal heart attack in 1963, when I was away at college. Shortly thereafter (like within the year), Eleanor remarried a man named Posner, a glazer, and then she and Leonard dropped out of sight.

Frances Abrahams nee Sherman

Next is my mother, Frances. She was the longest lived of the Sherman clan. She died just before her 81^st birthday, in September 1987, of a heart attack. She was a very elegant and well-read woman, and I guess had a real talent for the piano. She didn't go on to college after high school, but was a very fine executive secretary (I think you'd call it an administrative assistant now). She married Buddy (Herman -- Known as Herbert) Abrahams, relatively later in her life: she was 35, my dad was 48. I was born two years later, on December 25, 1943. We used to have Christmas parties every year and they were great successes with anywhere from 20-60 people in attendance. This even continued when my parents moved to Florida. I know that Leon and Lillian and Ruthe attended several of these parties. I got my BA, MA and PhD, all in English, from Michigan State University. Then I was offered a teaching position there, and I took it. I also was an administrator and was active outside the university as a crisis counselor and as a hospice volunteer, and later was into a lot of school activities because of our son. Jonas Benjamin Sherman Greenberg (whew! that's some name) was born on January 24, 1980. He'll be 27 in a few days. Like Lily Nell, he also was in The Nutcracker: first as a child at the party and a Bon Bon; then as Fritz; and finally for two years as the Nutcracker. This was the Lansing Children's Ballet Theater. He also took a lot of dance, but gave up on it in high school (the macho thing) but did do high school plays. He took a year off after high school and lived in San Francisco for a year (his half-sister, Denise, lives there). Then he returned and is slowly but surely (well, not so surely) making his way through college. He lives in Lansing with his girlfriend, Abby, an actress, and four cats. By the way, Herb has two children from his first marriage: Denise, who lives in SF, and Jeff, who lives in Seattle. Jeff is married to Alison Krupnick, a writer and former State Department official, and they have two daughters, Melanie (8) and Maya (6).

Buddy Abrahams, retired from Corn Products (now CPC International, maker of Mazola, Hellman's, et al.), he decided to help out Uncle Max who had cataracts and wouldn't go to a doctor--nothing like a convert! There are some funny stories that my father told. For instance, one time Max complained that his feet hurt and he was sure it was because he'd changed milkmen and that there was something wrong with the milk. My dad finally said, "Max! You have your shoes on the wrong feet!" By the way, Max and Esther had a summer home in Ferndale, New York, which is near Monticello. We would visit them occasionally.

Hannah Nascimento nee Sherman

Hannah's story is sad. She married late to John Nascimento, a Portuguese national, who was waiter and quite a bit older than she--I think there was a 15-year difference. They were married during the war. She was very heavy and a heavy smoker, as was John. Their first child was stillborn. Their second child, Johnny, is profoundly retarded and also autistic. He was institutionalized when he was 4 years old. He was four years younger than I. One time, when he was a baby in Willow, I gave him a Niagara Mint, and when Hannah saw that, she said to me, "Don't give him candy--it'll make him sick!" So when he was institutionalized and I was told he was sick, I thought, of course, it was my fault--a secret I kept for many years. Anyway, I'm the contact of record for Johnny who is in a home in Rome, NY. Hannah had a raucous sense of humor and was also very smart--another person who should have been educated. John, her husband, died in 1981; she died in 1983 of a pulmonary thrombosis. When my mom, my Uncle Milton and Aunt Helen went to the apartment in Brooklyn to gather her belongings, it was the first time I had ever been in the apartment, in which she and John had lived their entire married life! It was also about the third time for my mom and Milton! The place was black with the remnants of cigarette smoke--the dishes in the cupboards, except for the ones they used every day, were black. Also there had been a leak in the apartment above while she was in the hospital, and the ceiling had collapsed in the bathroom; and there was D-Con scattered around--I'm pretty sure there were rats there. Ugh! We hardly took anything, but we did take some papers and other memorabilia, which is why I have her journal.

Milton Sherman

My Uncle Milton was the baby of the family--about 15 years or so younger than Leon. He married Helen Beck, a nurse, before going off to war. They had one son, Brian Samuel, born January 15, 1943. Brian and I are just 11 months apart and have kept in touch over the years. Brian was just 64. He and his wife, Barbara, live in Atlanta. Brian earned his bachelor's degree at Cornell and his PhD from Harvard in sociology. He taught at Richmond, in NY, and at Oglethorpe in Atlanta, and for many years at Albany State, in Georgia. He retired about a year and a half ago.

Milton left the luggage business and earned a bachelor's degree and went into civil service in NY. He loved to sail. He was a smoker (later, a pipe smoker), and had a heart attack while he was in his 40's, but his devoted and knowledgeable wife, Helen, kept an eye on him. They traveled widely and had a wonderful relationship--I always knew they were in love. After he retired, they moved to Florida, Satellite Beach, where they had a house with a pool. When we drove down to visit my parents, we would stop on the way to visit with them. Unfortunately, Milton was diagnosed with lung cancer and died in 1989. Helen died of Alzheimer's in 2005.

So, now all that's left of the Sherman side of the family, as far as I know, are Brian and me and Johnny and somewhere, maybe, Leonard. At least as far as the offspring of the brothers and sisters.

Hope this helps fill some gaps!