Remember the movie Freaky Friday? The most recent version of this body-switch comedy was in 2003, starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan. In the movie, a mysterious fortune cookie causes mother and daughter to wake up in each other's bodies. Only a temporary switch, of course--by the end of the movie, each has been switched back and they now share a stronger bond of understanding.
My Freaky Friday wish is to switch places for a single day with a single ancestor: Leni Louise Winkler (1909-1997). Leni (Americanized to Louise after she immigrated here in 1941) was my 1c1r, a dear niece of my maternal grandpa Teddy Schwartz.
The day I would like to be Leni is her wedding day, a Friday, August 2, 1929 in what was then Ungvar, Hungary (now Uzhhorod, Ukraine). Leni was about to turn 20 and she was marrying Jeno Eugene Preisz (1906-1979), their surname later Americanized to Price. Leni's family gathered from far and wide to attend the wedding, including her great uncle Sam Schwartz, an honored guest who came all the way from New York City to serve as a witness. He returned home to New York City on September 4, 1929 (see passenger list from S.S. Homeric above).
As Leni in 1929, I would get to meet not only her parents and siblings and cousins but also her grandmother, Hani Simonowitz Schwartz (1858-1933). This would be a wonderful opportunity to celebrate an especially happy occasion with relatives and friends, people I know today only as names on a family tree.
As Leni in 1929, I wouldn't be aware that in the future, four siblings would be killed in the Holocaust, along with other members of the Schwartz, Simonowitz, and Winkler families. Happily, two of her brothers were survivors who submitted Yad Vashem testimony about relatives who were killed. Sis and I are in touch with a descendant of a Schwartz survivor, a cousin connection we treasure.
As Leni in 1929, I wouldn't yet know that with her husband and young daughter, she would leave Europe during WWII, obtaining passports in Marseilles in January, 1941, and sailing to New York from Lisbon. The three landed in New York City on Friday, April 15, 1941 and went on to build a new life--helping Leni's two brothers when they came to America after the war.
Well, for just one Freaky Friday, I wish I could stand in for Leni as she married on a special Friday in the presence of her loving family and friends. While I'm in Leni's shoes, she would be in mine, having my wonderful Sis show her the family tree and ask for identifications of old family photos.
