The Cutting of Aunt Lill’s Roses Story
1959
Written in 2010 and Re-written 02/04/2016
Written with information from my Aunt Lillian and my Cousin Allen
It is a Lazaroff Family story
Howard Yasgar
This true story happened in 1959, when I was 20 years old and living in Westville, Connecticut,
a suburb of New Haven.
This story about my Aunt Lillian’s rose bushes took place while my Grandmother was in a nursing home on Miami Beach, and my Grandfather d, was living on Miami Beach alone.
In the past, every year my Grandparents would come to New Haven, to see the family. But this year my grandfather had a tough decision to make, as my Grandmother couldn’t travel.
But my Grandmother knowing my Grandfather would miss seeing the family, she encouraged him to make the trip by himself.
So in the summer of 1959 my Grandfather came to New Haven by himself, and he stayed in a small bedroom that we had in the attic of our house in Westville.
His story really begins when My Grandpa Eddie first moved to Florida in the 1950’s, the entire Lazaroff family said he was crazy.
They all said he was dragging his poor wife down to a horrible place, as everyone in New Haven knew that Miami Beach was nothing more than a hot and swampy land, with mosquitoes.
They were probably right about the mosquitoes.
But by time my Grandpa Eddie arrived in Florida, all the swamp land was already being filled in and tract houses were being built by the hundreds.
In New Haven, when we visited relatives, I always had to listen to the negative stuff everyone in the family said about my grandfather.
But I later came to realize that my Grandfather was a true visionary, he had always referred to Florida as the land of milk and honey just like in the bible.
It just happens that my Grandfather had moved to Florida before it became the popular thing to do.
There was no question that back in the 1950’s Florida was indeed hot, especially in the summer time, and there was little or no air conditioning available anywhere.
Despite all of that, my Grandfather said “In Florida, the fruit grows everywhere, and it’s practically free for the asking, and if you wanted to listen to live music or go dancing every night you could.
However everyone he spoke to in New Haven, thought that he was a little crazy.
So for my Grandfather to try and show everyone just how wonderful Florida really was, he started bringing a suitcase full of assorted tropical fruits when he flew up to New Haven each summer.
Most of the fruit was stuff that none of us in New Haven had ever seen before, and grandpa would lay them all out on our kitchen table for every ones inspection, then he would cut them up for us to taste.
He said they were Papaya, Mango, baby bananas, Coconuts, Dragon fruit, Lychees and lots of other fruits that no one had ever heard of.
Unfortunately, by the time Grandpa got to New Haven, most of the fruit he brought had already over ripened inside his hot suitcase, and everything was starting to rot, so everyone said that he probably found the fruit in someone’s garbage in Florida.
Poor Grandpa, I can now understand his frustration, with us all, he wanted everyone to see the bounty he had available to him in Florida. But all of us dumbbells in New Haven just couldn’t see it, and they all made fun of him behind his back.
It was only much later in life, that I realized that most of the tropical fruits grown in Florida have a very short shelf life, they become rotten quickly after ripening.
It wasn’t my grandfather’s fault at all that the fruit was over ripe. So now I’m sorry that no one listened to you Grandpa, please accept my apologies wherever you are.
When Grandpa came to New Haven without his wife, he stayed in an small attic room in our house in Westville,
He usually used a bicycle get around and visit the other family members.
My Aunt Lillian, his youngest daughter said that Grandpa always came by bicycle to visit her at home in Hamden Connecticut, where she lived with her husband Norman and their two sons Paul and Rodger.
Lillian’s husband Norman, was a WW2 Veteran, and had bought their modest tract home in Hamden using a GI loan. The small red house was my aunt Lillian’s pride and joy.
Grandpa’s riding to Lillian’s on a bicycle was quite a trip from our home in Westville, it was probably over 10 miles to get there.
So when Grandpa Eddie visited her, he usually stayed at her house for at least a couple of days.
Back then, both my Aunt Lillian and my Uncle Norman worked every day, so I think it was very boring for Grandpa Eddie to just hang around their house and do nothing.
So to keep busy Grandpa Eddie decided to do something nice for Lillian, he thought he could do some yard work for her.
My Uncle Norman who worked for the Post Office came home early one day and Grandpa Eddie told Norman his intentions were to trim the shrubbery around the house. Norman who was a laid back easy going guy said, “Sure Pop do whatever you want”.
So, Grandpa Eddie went out and trimmed all the rose bushes that were around the house.
Those were rose bushes my Aunt Lillian had planted many years ago. Grandpa Eddie thought, that like in Florida, those roses would quickly grow back in thirty days.
When Lillian returned home, she was very tired from working all day, and guess what the first thing she saw was.
It was her beautiful rose bushes cut down to a nubbin, Roses that had taken ten years to grow.
She was horrified, she said that after all her years of hard work, everything was now gone, and boy, she was mad at my Grandpa.
Grandpa Eddie was mystified, he didn't see that he had done anything wrong, and no matter what he said to her, Lillian screamed louder at him, there was nothing he could say that would appease her.
That night Grandpa Eddie took rode his bike to a neighbor’s home where he slept outside on the lawn under a statue of the Virgin Mary.
In the morning he returned to Lillian’s house and tried to talk to her again.
He apologized again, but it did no good, Lillian just wouldn’t stop yelling, so my Grandpa got on his bicycle, and rode it 10 miles, all the way back to our house in Westville.
By the time he arrived at our house, Grandpa didn't look so good, he was pale, and sweating profusely, and he wouldn’t eat or drink anything.
Mom, who was a registered nurse, became very concerned, she thought Grandpa might be having a heart attack or possibly on the verge of dying.
I wasn’t home at the time but Lillian later said that my mother called an ambulance and they took grandpa to the Grace New Haven Hospital emergency room.
Aunt Lillian told me that my Mom said that when Grandpa Eddie was put in the ambulance he was acting delirious and singing songs.
By the time I got home that evening, they had all returned from the hospital and Grandpa Eddie was not having a heart attack, he was asleep in my Mom and Dad’s bedroom.
Mom being a registered nurse was diligently checking on Grandpa every few minutes, but by the second day my grandfather was looking no better, he just kept asking everyone to let him go back home to Florida.
I could see this was becoming a serious dilemma for my parents, and I heard my mother on the phone, she felt that my grandpa might die any minute.
That evening, Mom, Pop and I, sat in the kitchen while they discussed what to do with my grandfather. They knew that he was certainly in no condition to be traveling to Florida by himself. We all knew that returning him to Florida was not an easy task, it meant driving him seventy miles to the airport in New York City, after that he would have to somehow stand in line to get a ticket on the night owl flight to Miami, and then, once in Florida, how would he ever get to his home on Miami Beach. The whole situation was becoming very complicated, because everyone thought Grandpa could die at any moment.
My mother and father didn’t know what the right thing to do was, and my Grandpa Eddie kept pleading for us to let him go home to Florida.
That’s when my mom and dad asked me if I would take grandpa home to Florida, mom said, “Grandpa needs someone to be with him, and help him, but the way he looked now, it was possible he might expire on the trip home”. That’s the very word my mom used, expire.
What could I possibly say, so I said yes, I would do it.
Mom then told me, that if something should happen to grandpa on the way to Florida, I shouldn't be scared, she said, “Just tell the stewardess what happened and they would know what to do”, so I agreed to do it.
That night I packed my suitcase and mom packed Grandpa's suitcase up, and I helped him down the stairs and into our car.
Dad drove us to the airport in New York, and my mom had already confirmed by phone that 2 of the $69.00 night owl tickets to Florida were available.
Grandpa and I boarded the plane, inside it was nearly empty, so we took seats over a wing with my grandfather sitting next to a window, and me sitting next to him.
For the first hour of the flight, Grandpa said little or nothing, every so often I looked at him, and he looked terrible. After about an hour and a half into the flight, grandpa turned to me and he said, “I smell Florida”, that was when I got real scared, I thought he might be getting delusional just before dying.
But I watched as my Grandpa appeared more and more alert, he kept sniffing the air in the plane, and by the time the plane landed in Miami, he was acting as if nothing had ever happened to him.
He was happy, jovial as we both walked out of the Pan Am terminal building and onto 36th street in Miami, carrying our suitcases.
We walked across 36th Street to a car rental lot, it was about four in the morning and my grandfather rented a brand new 1959 blue Chevrolet, which he let me drive all the way to his home on Miami Beach.
I never once heard Grandpa mentioned one word regarding the problem with Lillian or her rose bushes.
But when I returned to New Haven, I learned that my Aunt Lillian had not forgotten about her rose
Bushes, and as crazy as it sounds, many years later she still got mad at Grandpa whenever the subject came up.
Grandpa Eddie passed away in February of 1970, and eventually my Aunt Lillian, sold that little red house in Hamden, and the new owners no longer have the rose bushes.
Now that over fifty years have passed, I asked Aunt Lillian about her rose bushes, and she says she is no longer angry with Grandpa, but I think she still is.
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