A Fire in New Hampshire

When my mother was a little girl, she went each summer to New Hampshire with her mother, my Nana Sarah. They stayed in a small hotel on a lake. This hotel was the only one in the area that allowed Jewish guests. Mothers and children stayed one or more weeks; fathers came up on weekends.

Late one night, Nana Sarah woke to the smell of smoke and sounds of people shouting. Someone had knocked over a candle, and a curtain caught fire. Nana Sarah grabbed my eight-year-old mother from bed and rushed down the steps into the night air. Eight women and their small children, all in pajamas and nightgowns, gathered at a safe distance. The hotel owner and several of his employees threw buckets of water at the blaze, but the wooden structure was not built to withstand fire. Windows exploded; the roof caved in and the building collapsed in the middle. Fortunately, no one was hurt, but it was a trauma for the women and children who witnessed the disaster and a tragedy for the hotel owner. Soot covered his face; his eyes were swollen from tears and smoke. He went to the huddled group of guests and pointed to a shed.

“There’s space for a few of you, but the rest will have to go to the other hotels and see if they have room.” They agreed mothers with the youngest children should sleep in the shed. That left three mothers and five children (including Nana Sarah and my mother) to find somewhere else to sleep.

The moon was bright, but the road was dark. An occasional owl’s hoot mixed with the sound of crickets. The walk felt endless and frightening to my mother. She thought she heard a wolf. Nana Sarah explained New Hampshire did not have wolves; my mother was not convinced. The closest hotel was nearly a mile away, and Nana Sarah knocked on the door. A sleepy man came to the door holding a lamp. After Nana Sarah explained their situation, the man scowled. “No Jews.”

He shut the door.

Three more hotels; three similar responses.

“We don’t take people like you.”

“Not allowed.”

“Would ruin my business.”

At the second to last hotel, a woman came out, stood on the porch and surveyed the group. “I, ah…” Then her eyes fixed on my mother and Nana Sarah. “Well,” the woman said. “How can I say no? I’m a good Christian.  I have room for two.” She pointed at my mother and Nana Sarah. “But only you.” Nana Sarah suggested more than one child could sleep in the bed and the mothers could sleep on the floor, but the woman shook her head. “No. Only you.”

The other mothers encouraged Nana Sarah to accept the offer. They would continue on to the last hotel and hope for the best. So Nana Sarah and my mother stepped inside. As the woman closed the door, she said, “What’s your last name?” Nana Sarah told her it was Goodman. “Well, while you are here, it’s Grant. Like the president. Did you ever hear of him? If anyone asks, it’s Grant. All right, come on.” The woman started up the stairs. My mother followed, eager to climb into a bed and go to sleep. But Nana Sarah pulled her back.

“No,” she said. “We won’t be staying here.”

The woman turned. “What? Why not?”

“Because my name is Goodman,” Nana Sarah said. “Come, Charlotte.” She took my mother by the hand and left.

My mother was exhausted and confused why they couldn’t sleep in “that nice lady’s room.”

“I’d rather sleep outside,” Nana Sarah said. They hurried in the dark and caught up with the other women and children. “Turns out the woman was wrong. There wasn’t room.”

My mother did not understand why Nana Sarah lied.

The group grew more bedraggled with each step. They reached the last hotel, and the owners welcomed them in. Only one small room was available, but that would do. The children slept horizontally across the bed; the mothers slept on the floor. In the morning, the owners provided food, clothes and access to a telephone. Several fathers drove up that day. They gave the owners money and gratitude, and everyone piled in the cars to go home.

Nana Sarah had many discussions with my mother about this incident. Years later, she talked with me about that night, and I asked if the last hotel took Jews as guests. “No,” she said. “They were all restricted, except for the place that burned. That’s how it was. But the owners wanted to help us because we were in trouble.“

So why didn’t she take the first woman’s offer?

“I realized she picked us out of the group because we were the only ones with blond hair,” Nana Sarah said. “And she wanted us to stay because it made her feel better about her own hatred. Terrible, but not even the worst part.”

So what was the worst part?

“That woman was haggling,” Nana Sarah said. “She’d give us a room if we denied who we were. And that I could never do.” Nana Sarah explained if she pretended to be a Christian named Grant, she would be teaching my mother the Jewish faith was something shameful. She would confirm another’s belief that Jews were lesser human beings. And if Nana Sarah’s decision meant she had to sleep outside with her eight-year-old daughter? “We had next to nothing in Russia,” she shrugged. “And we survived. One summer night under a tree in New Hampshire wouldn’t have killed us.”

Nana Sarah’s courage that night always impressed me. She saved herself and my mother from a burning building. And she refused help that was offered in exchange for bigoted pretense.

A bargain my grandmother was unwilling to make.

Laura F. Deutsch

This article first appeared in The Jewish Advocate, Boston, Mass.