1971
Marvin’s service in the army for 2 years came closer to the end; they all came back to New York. First Johanna and the children arrived in May of 1971 and Marvin came in June. They immediately started to look for a home and the first best thing to do was to rent a house. They found one in Dobbs Ferry, where they could move in immediately. Their belongings had been packed and were shipped by the army and arrived soon. They were very happy in their new home, an old house, but quite comfortable. Marvin had started to do research work in the Columbia Presbyterian Hospital and seemed to like it very much. Johanna was expecting another child at that time and it came soon afterwards, on September 21st, 1971. It was a beautiful girl and they named her Alyssa. They had hoped for a boy, but that girl was so pretty that they were happy with what they got.
After living for a while in Dobbs Ferry, they had second thoughts. The rent was high and they thought that they could get a house and spend the same amount of money for mortgage payments instead of paying rent. So, they started to look for a house and that went on for weeks and weeks. Most houses were in the range of $ 80 to 100,000 and even these small and not nice. Somewhat less high in the range of $ 60,000 were houses much farther away from New York and not nice at all. They were quite unhappy, as they could not find anything good, anything that they would like.
Then, suddenly, they thought they should take a look at Francis’ house in Usonia, which was still not sold, was more than a year empty. One real-estate man had mentioned it to them, but had said that It was in a dilapidated condition. But they still went there to take a look at it. All of a sudden, the fog which they had before their eyes, went up and the house about which they had dreamed was there, Francis’ and Vicki’s house, beautiful, exactly what they needed. How lucky they were that it was not sold yet. Francis had asked too high a price, about 90.000, and that is why it was not sold. There was still a mortgage on that house and that was also fine. It could be transferred to Marvin and Johanna and the rest was not a problem, as Francis came down with the price and I was able to help with the remainder. So, suddenly, they had the right house and were very happy and so was everybody else. They had one bigger expense, a new oilburner, otherwise they could move in and settle down, and that was in February 1972.
There is something interesting about Alyssa that I want to insert here. It was in Brooklyn, when we had the Coopers as guests and I was holding Alyssa on my arm. We had there on the porch a cuckoo-clock and I set it in such a way that it started to work just when I was there with Alyssa. She did not believe her eyes and kept looking at me, when the little window opened and the cuckoo came out, calling cuckoo and went back again inside, to come out again and again to do the same thing again and again. Her smile and happiness over that event were an unforgettable experience for me. For many years I repeated the same thing for her, when she visited us in our new apartment. But from year to year she is less astonished, being a big girl now, who can play the violin and make the handstand with ease, whenever asked for.
