LOST AND FOUND, A Family Memoir. SARA APPLEBAUM

      That’s me, the bride, December 19, 1959

      I returned to UCLA a married woman for my second semester. The result was that my scholarship was pulled, in spite of a 3.85 grade point average…because they said I now had a husband to support me!

      My original professional goal had been the Foreign Service…which was none too welcoming to women in those days. I went to a recruitment meeting and was told to apply for a secretarial job in one of our embassies if I liked that life.

      Only when I found out that I’d have to wait ten years to apply to the Foreign Service because I was a naturalized citizen…was I finally discouraged from a career as a diplomat.

      At eighteen, waiting a decade is like waiting a lifetime.

       My son, Steve, was born on May 18, 1964, when I was 22 ½ and I returned to school within a few months, with the help of my wonderful parents.

      My parents raised him almost as much as Harvey and I did those first five years. That was when we moved to the Valley.

      They kept referring to Steve as “der kind” until his Bar Mitzvah…when we all insisted they stop.

      Steve’s Bar Mitzvah at Temple Solael, Canoga Park, California, MAY 21, 1977

       Steve’s Bar Mitzvah

       Temple Solael

       Canoga Park, California

       MAY 21, 1977

      Although it wasn’t what I had planned to do, I have no regrets about my career in education. All in all it was very satisfying and worthwhile, at times frustrating and difficult, but all in all a rewarding career. I later got my Masters at Pepperdine. I was in education for 38 years and retired as a school principal.

      My brother, Mark, was drafted a few months after coming to the United States. He was old enough to remember many languages from the years in Europe and the Army quickly saw the value of it and trained him further by sending him to Language School. He ended up staying in the Army for 20 years doing many tours of duty in Germany and two in Vietnam.

      Mark and I lived either on different continents or different Coasts for many years. Eventually he moved to California too. That’s when we began to know one another as adults. Even though I was one of three children, I mostly grew up as an only child.

      I hadn’t grown up with Lili at all. Mark was away at O.R.T. It was a group of trade schools that offered broad vocational training. They were set up in Europe to save the remnant of Jewish youth after World War II. It’s now international.

      He got a fantastic education there, but was essentially away for three years, from the time I was about age seven to ten. Then after a few months in Kentucky, Mark was drafted into the Army and sent to Europe. Again, it was just me.