In St. Elizabeth Hospital, after she gave birth to her first child, a boy, the nurse asked her for the baby’s name for the hospital records.

My sister replied, “You have me in isolation because one of my stepchildren at home has a rash and the doctor slapped a quarantine sign on the house. I cannot name this baby until I talk to my husband and to my father.”

But, after feeding him, she had ample milk, she cuddled him and called him her “Snooky-ookums” a phrase from a popular tune of the time. In due time, they named the boy Nathaniiel after her little five-year-old brother who died of infantile poliomyelitis five years earlier. But, all the family and all his friends called him Snooky.

He had thick, honey golden hair which framed his face with curls. It is a wonder he grew up to be a normal man because Anna kept him in the long hanging curls and dressed him in a velvet jumper with satin blouse. She took him to a professional photographer every six months for his first four years. People teased Snooky. They called him a little girl. He would fly into a rage. Even at an early age, he knew it was better to be a boy than to be a girl. Finally, Anna agreed to have the curls cut off. Before she let the barber use his scissors, she tied each curl with a piece of narrow blue satin ribbon to keep it intact. (Note. Although Nat died many years ago, his daughter still cherishes the silver box containing a heap of golden curls, each tied with a blue ribbon.)

He then wore his hair in a Buster Brown cut with bangs instead of the traditional male haircut of the time. His fourth birthday picture shows a very handsome little boy dressed in a navy blue sailor suit.

During Anna’s second pregnancy, Phil often took Snooky with him to the job sites where his work crews installed the pumps and tanks in gasoline stations which were springing up like mushrooms after a rain as more and more people bought automobiles.

Few manufacturers made automobiles in the early 1920s. Ford, Chevrolet, Hudson, Studebaker and Rolls Royce each had a very distinctive and recognizable profile and a decorative radiator cap on the outside of the front of the car. Nat learned to recognize and could name the makes of the cars after the hours he spent riding with his father. And another thing he learned from the hours spent with his father; this angelic looking child could swear like a mule skinner. Even as a two-year-old, he could recognize the noise made by starting the Hudson Super Six seven-passenger car which had been Phil’s engagement present to Anna.

If his parents wanted to go out at night, after putting Snooky in his crib, and leaving him in the care of his grandfather and several teen-aged aunts, they had to put the car in neutral and push it at least a block away from the house before they could start it. If Snooky heard the car start he would scream and hold his breath until he turned blue.

When Phil gave Anna the car, she learned to drive. She also learned to change and repair a flat tire. This involved using a jack to lift up the car, a lug nut wrench to remove the lug nuts holding the wheel on the axle, then remove the tire from the rim and the inner tube from the tire. After determining where a nail had punctured the red rubber inner tube, she repaired the hole using the little vulcanizer kit. Then she would reassemble everything and finally, using a pneumatic hand pump, fill the inner tube with air.

Anna, a talented pianist, wanted Snooky to play an instrument. I don’t know why it was decided he would learn to play the violin. Each week, he spent one hour taking a violin lesson. I don’t remember that he spent much time practicing at home.

When his music teacher invited the parents of her students to the annual musicale to showcase the talents of her pupils, Snooky played Beethoven. Beethoven lost.

Most of Snooky’s childhood and youth seems in retrospect unremarkable. He earned good grades, progressed to high school, spent two summers at a sumer camp.

Girls found him attractive and the feeling was mutual. Everyone still called him Snooky.

Then in 1943, he needed his birth certificate and permission from his mother to marry Doris Fader. To our surprise, his birth certificate from the Bureau of Vital Statistics of New Jersey listed him as ‘BABY BOY LUTZ.”

Now, an adult, married, a Lieutenant in the U.S. Air Force, his wife insisted that we call him Nat.

I did not see him often. He lived in New Jersey, and I lived in Alaska; but I happened to be in New Jersey in 1943 and attended his wedding to Doris Fader held at the Robert Treat Hotel in Newark.

I happened to be in New Jersey again years later to attend the bris of his first son, Phillip.

I last saw Nat in mid 1960s when my husband Jack and I visited my Martee and Sherman, who then lived not far from Philadelphia. Although the area experienced the worst blizzard ever recorded in a hundred or more years, Nat made the lengthy and exhausting drive from Short Hills, New Jersey with his wife, my brother Matthew and my brother’s mistress. It was so wonderful to see Nat again. We went down memory lane together. I sat next to him, holding his hand. Sometimes, I inadvertently called him Snooky, and he would call me “sis,” which is the name with which I grew up.

Looking back, he was five years younger than I. At first I played and watched over him as if he were a wonderful live baby doll. But, when in my teens, I considered him a nuisance when I had to take him to the movies with me. I considered him a very spoiled brat.

But I must admit my beloved nephew Nathaniel developed into an exceedingly handsome, considerate,loving,kind, gentle and intelligent son, husband, father, grandfather, nephew and cousin. He died of cancer at the age of 59 but lives on in the hearts of the many people who knew and loved him.