Aunt Terry
She was the fifth child and third oldest daughter
A graduate of Brooklyn College, she was a linguist, a teacher in a one-room Vermont schoolhouse; she was a chanteuse; she taught folk dancing; she was a poet, a writer and always loving, warm. Throughout her life she loved writing and reciting poetry. She was articulate and brilliant.
How her eyes would light up when asking about the family. She led “a nomadic life” with Uncle Sidney and their children Larry & Elliot, moving around the country over the years – starting in New York, moving to California and winding up in Vermont then back to California and Florida. In Florida, they lived in Miami for a while; in her last years she finally reunited with her sisters, becoming neighbors of Aunt Jean and Aunt Sarah, while the others had homes in close driving distance.
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See the poem she shared with me in 1999. This is her poem to her sister Rae.
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My memories of sister Rae
My dear sister Rae
Like her there's no other
To us kids, long ago,
She was our second mother.
She always helped Mom
Without any fuss
And on the beach
kept watch over us.
She took us on picnics
and to the zoo
She filled our lunch bags
with sandwiches too
The trips to the museums
And to Luna Park
Were so much fun
and such a lark.
I still remember
that wonderful day
We went to the Statue
of Liberty, with Rae.
She taught us everything
a family should be
With the love and the caring
you can feel and see
She enriched our lives
in so many ways
I'll be grateful to RAE
the rest of my days.
from your kid sister, TERRY (5/6/99)
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Sidney wrote a book about this experiences in World War II. The book From Boots to Iwo Jima chronicles his experiences which are shared in the form of letters between them. As excerpted from Amazon, "From Boots to Iwo Jima, A Marine Corpsman's Story in Letters to his Wife 1943-1945", by Sidney L. Landau, describes vividly and in great detail daily life in boot camp and in the battle zones of Guam and Iwo Jima.
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