Recollections of William Peck
/By Rhoda, David and Joe
4th child of Samuel and Eva Dorman Peck
Born in Baltimore, Maryland on February 21, 1908
Died in Portsmouth, Virginia on July 17, 1992
Grandma Eva used to say that when she arrived in the United States, she had "babies hanging on mine skirt [Lubah and Morris], vun in mine arms [Julius], and vun in my belly [Willie]." Dad was conceived in Russia and arrived in Philadelphia aboard the S. S. Haverford on December 7, 1907, in Grandma Eva's "belly." He always celebrated his birthday on February 21, but no one was ever sure that this was the actual day of his birth.
Grandpa Sam and Grandma Eva gave their third son the Yiddish name of Velvel (Hebrew equivalent is Ze'ev), which means "wolf." Grandma's father, Benjamin Dorman, was the son of Ze'ev Dorman, so it is possible that Dad was named for his maternal grandfather. (According to a Russian document from the early 1900s, the name "Wolf" goes back a number of generations in the Dorman family. This document states that Benjamin's name is Berko Wolfovich Dorman, and that his great-grandfather was named Wolf Dorman.)
Like his older brothers Morris ("May") and Julius ("Edel"), Dad went to work at an early age. The three boys would go to a nearby bakery at 4:30 a.m. to pick up doughnuts and buns to sell to Johns Hopkins Hospital employees. They were paid in day-old bakery goods that they took home to Grandma before going to school.
Formal education was difficult for Dad. He stopped attending school after completing the fifth or sixth grade.
About the time Uncle May, Uncle Edel and Dad reached their teenage years, they went to work for Grandma's brother-in-law, Jacob ("Jake") Shapiro, at his scrap yard. Although Uncle E worked for Jake for a number of years, Dad left after a while and went to New York. This teen-age adventure was short-lived. When he returned to Baltimore, he moved back to Grandma's house and took a job as an upholsterer. During the years he lived with Grandma, Dad assisted her financially and also helped with the household chores.
In his youth, Dad's eye was caught by Thelma Gochrach, an attractive girl with coal black hair and green eyes. Nothing came of this attraction until many years later.
During the years when Dad was a young man, Jews were not permitted to join the larger, more established social clubs in Baltimore. As a result, they formed their own social organizations. Dad and Uncle Julius were members of the Quentin Democratic Social Club, which was headquartered in East Baltimore, near Patterson Park.
Another member of this club was Julia Solomon (born July 28, 1909; died May 24, 1952), a beautiful woman with a fair complexion, blond hair and blue eyes. In addition to her pleasing appearance, she was outgoing, popular, an accomplished pianist and could sing. Dad and Julia eventually married, but not before convincing Grandma that Julia was Jewish (Grandma used to tell Rhona that when Dad brought Julia home to meet Grandma, she took one look at Julia and told Dad to get that "shiksa" out of the house).
A Rev. Metz married Dad and Mom on Sunday, August 11, 1935, at 87 New York Avenue, N.W., Washington, D.C. (Rev. Metz may have been a friend of the family; he married Morris and Rose Dorman Abrams as well as Gerson and Rose Dorman on two different weekends in February 1933.) The katubah was witnessed by Howard Ruben (husband of Aunt Lubah, Dad's older sister) and Morris "Sonny" Abrams (husband of Rose Dorman Abrams, Dad's cousin). Their honeymoon included a visit to Niagara Falls, Seneca Falls and Canada, where they saw the Dionne quintuplets.
Dad and Mom moved into an apartment on Park Heights Avenue. Dad continued working as an upholsterer and Mom continued working as a sales person at Hochshild-Cohn department store. Dad pursued his recreational duckpin bowling, and won many local tournaments.
In late 1935 or early 1936, Mom became pregnant. Although the pregnancy progressed normally, the infant was a "blue baby," and died several days after she was born. Since Grandma Eva's house was close to the hospital, Mom went there for a while to recuperate. Mom became pregnant the next year, and Rhona Esther came along in March 1938.
David Samuel was born in July 1942. Grandma and her second husband, Philip Beber, bought and furnished a house for Dad and Mom located at 1712 North Bentalou Street in Baltimore (Grandpa Beber owned a used furniture store). Family bliss was to be interrupted about a year-and-a-half later.
At almost 36 years of age, Dad was drafted into the U.S. Army. He was inducted on January 15, 1944, sent to basic training on February 5, 1944, and became a rifleman in Company I of the 329th Infantry Regiment. He departed the United States for the European Theater on July 15, 1944. He served as a private in Europe where he was wounded twice. The first incident occurred on October 2, 1944, in Luxembourg, and was described as a "slight" wound in the telegram Mom received from the Army.
The second injury happened on November 23, 1944, in Germany and was much more serious (although the telegram Mom received described this wound as "slight," also). Dad's neck and leg were severely injured and he was sent to a hospital in London, and then shipped back to the U.S. on February 16, 1945 (he spent his 37th birthday in transit from England to the U.S.). While he was hospitalized in London, Mom's two older brothers, Uncle Charlie and Uncle Nates - who also were in the Army and stationed in London - visited Dad. A letter Dad sent to Uncle E from the hospital in London was signed "Lucky Willie" - how true!
Dad remained in an Army hospital until he was honorably discharged on June 25, 1945, from Camp Pickett in Blackstone, Virginia. Among other military decorations, he was awarded the Purple Heart medal with Oak Leaf Cluster for being twice wounded in action.
Two stories related to his stay at Camp Pickett: (1) Uncle Earl drove Grandma from Baltimore to see Dad. The tires on the car were well worn (during the war years, new tires were difficult to obtain). During the trip, they experienced two or three tire blowouts, so the trip took several hours longer than normal. (2) Uncle Julius told of visiting Dad, convincing the doctor to immediately discharge him, and taking Dad back to Baltimore.
After being discharged from the Army, Dad returned to Baltimore. He worked as an upholsterer until the family moved to Portsmouth in 1946, the year Joel Howard was born (the first of several family members to be born in Portsmouth). Initially, the family lived in the Lee Hall Apartments on George Washington Highway, not too far from Peck Iron & Metal Company. In the spring of 1948, Dad and Mom bought a house and adjacent vacant lot at 523 Rockbridge Road, at the other end of the block from Uncle Nat and Aunt Zelda's house. Many football and baseball games were played on the lot (and the house suffered a number of broken windows)!
On Friday, May 23, 1952, the organ at Temple Beth-El in Richmond was dedicated by the Peck families in memory of Paul and Libbie Peck. During the drive back to Portsmouth, Dad was involved in a head-on collision with another car shortly after midnight (May 24), near Williamsburg. The driver of the other vehicle was an Army officer from Fort Eustis who was drunk and swerved across the road. Mom was fatally injured, Dad sustained injuries to a knee and ribs, and Aunt Zel, a passenger riding in the back seat, suffered serious injuries. Dad and Aunt Zel were hospitalized for a period of time, but recovered from their injuries.
At the end of June, Rhona, David and Joel went to Baltimore. David and Joel boarded a train for the overnight trip to Camp Skylemar in Maine, and Rhona stayed for a long visit with Julia's family, the Solomons, as well as with Grandma Eva and her family.
While recuperating at home, Dad suffered a near fatal stroke in July or August 1952 (a blood clot lodged in his brain). The local medical professionals were unable to do anything for him, and informed the family that he would probably die.
Uncle Edel contacted Jake Shapiro, who arranged to have Dad seen by a famous brain surgeon in Baltimore, Dr. Frank Otensak. Aunt Lubah and Uncle E traveled with Dad by ambulance to Baltimore, where Dr. Otensak performed life-saving surgery on Dad.
Dad was still in Baltimore when David and Joel returned to Portsmouth from Camp Skylemar. It was decided that they would live with Aunt Bess and Uncle E, and that Rhona would stay with Aunt Zelda and Uncle Nat. When Dad returned to Portsmouth, he convalesced at Aunt Lubah and Uncle Howard's. Soon after he returned, Rhona left the Meyers' and went to live at the Rubens' house. Eventually, Dad and his children returned to the house on Rockbridge Road.
In June 1955, David celebrated his bar mitzvah at Gomley Chesed Congregation's synagogue on County Street in downtown Portsmouth. This was the final bar mitzvah performed at the downtown facility. That summer, Gomley Chesed moved to its new (and current) location in the Churchland area of Portsmouth.
Also in the summer of 1955, B. David Peck and Rhona graduated from Woodrow Wilson High School. Their class was the last class to graduate from the High Street location of Wilson (a new Wilson high school was constructed on a former city golf course across the street from Uncle Howard and Aunt Lubah's house on West Road).
On Saturday evening, June 13, 1959, Dad married the love of his childhood, Thelma Gochrach Levy (born October 31, 1911; died August 9, 1997), who had been widowed several years earlier. The wedding ceremony took place in the living room of the home of Uncle Howard and Aunt Lubah, who were then living at 406 West Road in Portsmouth. (One of the people in attendance was Glenna Battle, Aunt Lubah and Uncle Howard's longtime housekeeper, who was spending the weekend at the house to keep an eye on Michael and Gail.) Immediately after the ceremony, the newly weds drove to Richmond to join in the celebration of some family events (Sam Peck and Gloria Miller's Sunday school confirmation?).
Later in 1959, on November 14, Joel became a bar mitzvah. In the summer of 1960, Dad and Thelma moved into the new house they had built in the Sweetbriar subdivision in the Churchland area. They lived there together until Dad's death in 1992, and it is where Thelma died in 1997.