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Ruchel is born
Ruchel (also known as Rachel or Ruth) is born an Orthodox Jew in Poland to 2 very religious parents. "I was born an Orthodox Jew on April 1, 1921, April Fool's Day, in Poland." Page 1 -
Arrive to America
Ruchel and her family, which consisted of her parents and her brother, arrived in America, where they first lived in New York, from Poland. "...I arrived here on August 23, 1923, on a steamer called Austergeist." Page 16 -
Gladys is born
Gladys (also known as Dee-Dee) is born. Gladys is Ruchel's younger sister, whom she did not know very well, or get along with. "I remember Springfield, Massachusetts, because my sister Gladys was born there...Dee-Dee came into the world around 1941." Page 38 -
Moving to Virginia
The Shilsky Family (aka Ruchel and her family) move to Suffolk, Virginia because Tateh got an offer to run a synagogue. "Luckily he got an offer to run a synagogue in Suffolk, Virginia...we went to Suffolk, Virginia around 1929." Page 39 -
Sam runs away
Sam is Ruchel's brother. He ran away from home to go to Chicago, and joined the army. "...a couple years later he ran off. This was around 1934...He went to Chicago...He joined the army..." Page 63 -
Pregnancy
Rachel became pregnant by her boyfriend, Peter. Her mother finds out about her pregnancy, but does not say anything. She instead suggests that Rachel goes off to visit her grandmother in New York. Rachel ends up getting an abortion. "Mameh came up to me in the store a couple days later...Real quiet...Why don't you go to New York this summer to see your grandmother?" Page 114-115
"She made a few phone calls, found a Jewish doctor, and took me to his office, where I had an abortion." Page 134 -
Ruth meets Dennis
Ruth gets a job at her Aunt Mary's factory in New York after graduating high school. This is where she meets Dennis. "Shortly after I got there, around 1939, she hired a new man who had just come to New York from North Carolina named Andrew McBride...called himself...Dennis." Page 170 -
Bubeh
Bubeh is Rachel's grandmother (aka Mameh's mother). She had died unexpectedly, and Mameh was extremely heartbroken. "...we received a letter in Suffolk from Mameh's family...That's how they knew Bubeh was dead." Page 213 -
Leaving Suffolk
Ruth had finally decided to leave Suffolk for good, leaving behind all of her family as they went through a hard time.She went to go live in New York. "I stuck around Suffolk for awhile longer, and then I left for good sometime in 1941." Page 214 -
Mameh
Only a few months later, Mameh became sick. She then died, and Ruth fell into depression. "He told me Mameh had just passed away...I was depressed for months." Page 216-216 (month of occurrence is undetermined, but in order for the events to be in order, I needed to add a certain month.) -
Christianity
Ruth ends up converting to Christianity because she no longer felt the need to remain Jewish after Mameh's death. "...I needed to let Mameh go, and that's when I started to become Christian and the Jew in me began to die. The Jew in me was dying anyway, but it truly died when my mother died." Page 218 (same with "Mameh") -
Marriage
After meeting and getting to know each other, Dennis and Ruth finally tied the knot. They defied stereotypes, as he was an African-American male, and she was a white, Jewish female. "See, a marriage needs love...It's not about black and white." Page 233 (same with "Mameh") -
First Child
Dennis and Ruth has their first child. They then moved into a one-roomed kitchenette. "After we had our first baby in 1943, we moved across the street into a one-room kitchenette that cost six dollars a week." Page 237 -
Sam
Ruchel, along with the rest of the family, find out that Same has died fighting in WWII. "The U.S. Army forked over the death record of Sergaent Sam Shilsky, who died in February 1944..." Page 220 -
Cancer
Dennis dies of cancer, and Ruth was angry at him for leaving her, but she missed him so much. "Part of me died when Dennis died. I loved that man more than life itself...it was hard. Very hard to let him go." Page 244 -
Driving
Ruth had never learned to drive. One day, she decides that she wants to drive around, and her son, James, tags along. She almost wrecks the car and gets them killed. "Mommy has never driven before..." Page 160
"...reeling down the wrong side of the street as oncoming traffic swerved to avoid us." Page 166 -
Delaware
James, the rest of his siblings, and Ruth has decided to move to Delaware since their house in New York was falling apart. "We're moving to Delaware. Pack up the house." Page 177 -
Ohio
James moves to Ohio in order to attend college. He attended Oberlin College. "To my utter excitement, the school accepted me." Page 189 -
Graduation and Degree
James graduates from Oberlin College in 1979. James is very strong in both writing and music, so he had to decide between becoming a journalist or saxophonist. He had earned his master's degree in journalism. -
Aubrey
James travels back to Virginia to find out more about his family's past. He then meets Aubrey Rubenstein, the man whose father took over James' grandfather's store back in 1942. "When I walked into his office and explained who I was, he looked at me a long, long time." Page 223 -
The mole
Ruth had begun to write her will, as she had found out that she had gotten a cancerous cell, which caused a mole to form, due to sun exposure. "I had a little bump on my face and she made me see this fancy doctor. Now I gotta wear this dumb hat all the time...Doctors found a squamous cell cancer in a small mole they found on Ma's face..." Page 260 -
Going back
Ruth, James, Judy, and Billy all go back to Suffolk, Virginia. Ruth wants to revisit her past. "...finally faced the ghosts of her past. She went back home to Suffolk, Virginia, with me; my sister Judy...; and my brother Billy..." Page 272 -
Development of the Theme throughout the story
The theme of the story is that, you shouldn't judge people for the way the look and they background. A way the theme was developed was the way Ruth raised her children. Chapter 10 says, "We're all human beans!" This shows that Ruth believes that the way we look doesn't matter, since we are all just human beings. Chapter 6 says, "God is the color of water...doesn't have a color." This says that God is not one color, nor does he favor one over another. She raises her children to believe the same.
