Faye Mettle

Faye (Fanny) Greenberg was born February 28, 1917, and raised in Quincy, MA. Her parents were the late George (aka Gershon) and Bessie (Nemunaitski) Greenberg, who had emigrated from Poland in 1911. Mom had several siblings: her eldest brother was Samuel Sudalter; her younger brother was Philip Greenberg (deceased, WWII); and her younger sister, is Gertrude Greenberg Cooper. A third brother, Joseph, died very young from scarlet fever. Bessie contracted a rheumatic heart condition after caring for Joseph and died when Mom was 12 years old, Auntie Gittie was 7. Mom then helped raise her younger siblings. Grandpa Gershon was a staunch supporter of education and insisted that Faye attend a Yeshiva (it was somewhere in the Roxbury, Jamaica Plain, Boston area, specifics unknown though I remember hearing the name Soloveitchik). Mom was the only girl in her neighborhood to attend the Yeshiva. She used to translate, read and write letters in Hebrew and Yiddish for her neighbors when they received letters from and wanted to respond to their relatives still in Europe or in Israel. Our maternal grandmother, Bessie, was one of nine children and Mom had lots of cousins. After Mom's mother died, the New York cousins decided that every summer each would take one of the children to NY to be with them. Mother really lucked out and spent memorable summers with Jack and Evelyn Cornell in Brooklyn and Cold Spring Harbor being introduced to culture including music (symphony, concerts, opera), art museums, theater, manners, style. In her teens Mom worked at Ann Star's dress shop in Quincy so she could dress stylishly. Mom always had a love of languages and took courses in French, Italian and Spanish. Faye was married to the late Samuel B. Goldstein (Quincy, MA) for 22 years. They had three children: Barbara Jane Krock (Dover, MA), Jean Anne Wells (Manassas, VA), and Nancy Linda Kramer (New York, NY). They also had 5 grandchildren: Sabra Krock (Randy) Blumenthal and Alexis Krock (Grant) Mainland, Jean's children: Jared (Lyles) Holz and Rachel (Brad) Johnson, and Oliver Kramer. There are also three great grandchildren: Alexander Holz, Elizabeth Holz, and Max Blumenthal (Sabra and Randy). Mom dearly loved her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. She especially loved them when they were very young. There's nothing like that clean baby smell from baby powder. When she was living in Florida and we visited, she'd put a sheet on the carpet in the living room, plop Jared in the middle, a give him half a bagel. Boy did he love bagels when he was teething. In 1962, Faye married Dr. Earl Glicklich of Boston to whom she was married for 25 years before his death from Parkinson's Disease. They resided in Jamaica Plain, MA and Center Lovell, ME before moving to Pompano Beach, FL. Several years after Earl's death, Faye married George Mettle, a dear friend of 35 years who had been recently widowed. Mr. Mettle had been a wonderful family friend, and he and his late wife Min were guests at the marriages of Faye's three daughters and had been frequent visitors. Faye was an interior designer mainly in Boston for 40 years. She was honored to have been inducted into AID/ASID in recognition of her talent and experience. She decorated homes, offices, even a yacht. (Faye's daughter Nancy Kramer in NY is a very talented and well-respected designer in her own right.) Faye had a great love of reading and would read to her children when they were young. Jean remembers her mother reading The Arabian Knights and Treasure Island. Mom often took us to the Boston Children's Theater (I still remember seeing Peter Pan with Mary Martin and Cyril Ritchard as Captain Hook). Travel was another of Mom's great loves. She traveled to Europe, the Middle East, Japan, China, Brazil, Australia, and New Zealand. With Beej and Nancy scouting out appropriate rentals, Mom summered for many years in the Berkshires, Chatham and Martha's Vineyard. Ask Rachel about the story of the bell Mom would ring in the morning when she 'was ready' for the grandkids. Faye always felt her children should be independent and taught them how to cook, clean, do laundry, and entertain. Of course as kids we felt like slaves. But we learned and remembered - especially Nancy. I remember picking blueberries on our property in Mashpee on Cape Cod and then baking blueberry pies to freeze, along with blueberry and cheese blintzes. When Mom entertained at home, we learned to set the table 'properly' and then serve and clean up afterward. While we often resented it, we all took mental notes on how to "do it right" so we could do it in our own homes. Mom fought for us to have horseback riding lessons, go to camp, have nice clothes to wear, go to Thayer Academy, have a nicely decorated home. I remember looking under the sofa cushions for change and, sometimes, hold Dad's pants by the cuffs and wait for the change to fall on the closet floor so we could go to the movies and/or to Gary's for a pizza. Mom occasionally let me play hooky from school to go to the movies. My father had always warned Mon not to get caught speeding or he'd take her car away. And if she ever did get a ticket, she was to be sure to get the name of the police officer. One summer on the way back from the beach with Auntie Gitty and all the sand-covered, bickering kids in the back seat, Mom was pulled over for speeding. She knew this was big trouble. How was she ever going to salvage this disaster? She went to Goldie's where dad worked and found my father at the counter. She told him what happened. He asked her, "Did you at least get the name of the cop?" Mom said, "Yes, it was right there on his motor cycle. Harley Davidson." All the guys at the counter were beside themselves laughing. Sam had a hard time staying mad with them all hooting. Mom's sense of humor saved the day. My cousin Harriet Goldstein Rubin just called to say that Mom was the original Auntie Mame. Harriet and Mom took French lessons and golf lessons together - hopefully not at the same time. I never knew that. Bricks, the Lincoln and the Car Wash. This story came from Robert Holz as a reminder of Mom's sense of humor. It was sometime in the early 1960's (1963 or 1964) and Faye was busy helping to obtain unique building materials for her country home on Lake Kezar, ME. She wanted to have the fireplace surrounded by floor to ceiling bricks, but these could not be ordinary (new) bricks, They had to be antique bricks of varying shades of pink, rose and red. I was asked to meet her at a brick yard near Quincy to help her in selecting and loading as many bricks as possible into the trunk of her new Lincoln. She had me climbing up brick mountains and shouting to me which particular brick she wanted me to retrieve. This proved to be a rather formidable task as she only found a small number of bricks that met her stringent requirements. However, after several hours of climbing, examining and depositing the "perfect" brick into her trunk we had completed what was the first of many such trips to the brickyard. Now all those bricks, along with mortar that had lay untouched for years in the open caused a lot of dust and dirt to accumulate on the Lincoln. So off we drove to the nearest car wash to cleanse the exterior of the dark brown (how very 60's) Lincoln now loaded with bricks. Now the car wash was of the old type that had a chain and hook that was fastened to the underside of the front bumper and the car would be pulled through the car wash tunnel emerging on the other side all clean and nice. The attendant hooked up the chain (the first of many) and as the car began to move the chain snapped. This hooking and snapping of at least six chains finally resulted in the owner coming out and asking what was in the car trunk that made it so very very heavy. Faye, with the tilt of her perfectly coiffed hair and her lovely mink replied with a syrupy proper Bostonian accent -- why darling, the trunk is filled with bricks for my new house being built up in Maine, you need to have stronger chains here at the car wash. We were summarily directed to leave the premises and never to return. Such is the fate of loading a ton of bricks into the trunk of a Lincoln and then taking the car to a car wash to make it look nice and pretty. A final footnote to this saga: I met Faye on several follow-on occasions at the brick yard to identify, carry and deposit into the trunk of the Lincoln more bricks for the fireplace surround. I do not recall how many such trips we made but I will always recall, with a smile and fondness, her directing me as to which brick to bring down for her to more closely examine. Only then, with her approval, was I allowed to place the brick into the trunk. I do not believe that she took the car to the car wash to make it clean and pretty for the drive to Maine -- the last four miles on a dirt road -- but I am quite sure that she had it washed upon her return to Boston. (Thanks, Robert for remembering.) There are more stories, but those are for when we get together. Whatever faults kids imbue to their parents, most do the best they can raising their offspring. Very few parents are perfect. I know I'm not perfect. For that matter, very few kids are perfect. But of our parents, it was always Mom who gave us affection when we were young and showed us her love. She will be missed, but at least we have stories and memories.

Tributes

Faye Mettle

February 28, 1917 - January 14, 2013