My mother, Sarah Brickman had the special gift of impacting the life of everyone she met.  The people who called her friend ranged from very young to very old and I know each of you have at least one story that you would like to share.  This is the place and I sincerely encourage each and every one of you to take a few minutes and share that story with us on this site.  This site will be here for generations for all her family and friends to visit and remember the good times.  So thank you for helping me remember and continuuing her legacy.  Sincerely....Faye


In the late 1800's in a part of the world call Bella-Russ (Poland/Russia) was a small village.  The families of Julia and Harris lived in that village, but they never knew each other.  When my grandparents, Julia and Harris were young, they both separately emigrated to the United States.  They both had family in New York City and both settled there.  The story has it that my grandmother (Sarah's mom) was one of the more feisty members of the family and when she was in her teens she approached her older sister about taking night classes to learn English.  This made sense and Julia was given the money each week to attend the classes.  But, as we come to find out, instead of classes Miss Julia went to dances.  It was at one of these dances that she met Harris.  They fell in love, he asked the sister if he could court and then marry Julia and so begins the future of Sarah Brickman nee Levine's life.  An interesting fact:  Julia married Harris; Julias sister married Harris' brother. 

Julia and Harris had 2 children, my Uncle Abe and 10 years later, on December 13, 1913, my Mother Sarah was born.  She got such a kick out of the double 13 and always enjoyed telling people her birth date. They lived on the lower eastside in Manhattan along with hoardes of other Jewish immigrants.  My mom often told me how she had to drink a raw egg drink every day as well as take a spoonful of cod liver oil.  Instead of medicine there was the corner herb shop where they would mix up a potion for every illness under the sun.  For those of you who knew my mom, you knew how much she disliked doctors and how much  she hated taking medicine which she avoided as much as possible.  She did as much natural healing as she could.  I am sure this contributed to the wonderful 92 years she had on this earth.  Julia and Harris were pretty religious and Sarah grew up in a strict home.  My grandmother was a spectacular cook and baker and somehow that never rubbed off on my mom.  Her interests were more in taking apart and fixing things.  I know that she had a bit of a rebellious and feisty streak, just like her own mom. I remember a story about Bing Crosby.  She was gaga over Bing Crosby and has some posters of him up on her wall.  Her parents hated it and took it off the wall.  As quickly as she could, she would put that poster back up.  This was a beginning inkling of her own little rebellious streak. I know she used to sneak out with her friends and go to dances and car rides with the boys.Another story she loved to tell was about one day when she along with half the Jews in  NYC were on the subway bound for Coney Island.  Since the train was so crowded my mom had to stand for the ride.  Opposite her was this big burly young man who was obviously upset at having to be in this hot crowded train.  He began to rant about how "these Jews" were taking over and how they should stay home blah blah...Sarah, at that time was all of 4ft 11 inches, very slim and quite pretty. She listened to this ranting and then Wham...took the large purse she was carrying and smacked that guy right in the face.  Taken by surprise and probably very embarassed, he got off that train at the very next stop.  My mom did not take anything from anyone.  She was very bold and let everyone know it.  She always told me that she never really had much interest in getting married and so when she was 30 and still not married, the family began to put the full court press on.  About that time my father Rubin Brickman entered the picture.  He courted hot and heavy and after a while she caved in and they were married in 1943.  My dad was in the service at the time, but because of a minor injury which left him deaf in one ear, he was stationed stateside.  When he got honorably discharged he and my mom got an apartment and that was the beginning of the future Faye.  This is a little family secret, but in the late 40's and early 50's my dads career was in numbers running.  This was an illegal form of gambling and quite risky.  My mom told me that sometimes when there was someone at the door, my dad would quick run out onto the firescape to hide.  After some time my mom decided that we could not live this way and persuaded him to get into something different....which he did.   In November or December of 1946 my mom became pregnant with me and on September 23, 1947 I was born.  It just so happened that it was Yom Kipper which is the most Holy day (the day of atonement) for the Jewish people.  My mom told me that  all the people in their synogogue that evening stopped the service to say a prayer for both Sarah and me.  I consider that an incredible blessing and I know that it affected our lives greatly.  My mom was a very devoted, fiercely protective and wonderfully creative mother.  When I was young we used to do lots of fun things together.  We went to some great parks, and museums and childrens puppet shows and plays.  New York is such a huge place with so much to see and do and the times were so much safer that we really enjoyed our time together.  As most of you know she was such a generous woman.  When I was about 5 or 6 and in grade school, we used to be able to walk home for lunch.  The neighborhood we lived in was very ethnically diverse.  Jewish, Italian, Chinese, African American and Puerto Rican.  I would inevitably bring home 2 or three of my buddies for lunch.  Since there was no prior warning of when or how many there would be, my mom often gave up her own lunch to feed the group.  She was a fantastic seamstress and made most of my clothes when I was young.  She sewed everything by hand and made some really gorgeous clothing.  Dresses, Coats, blouses.  She was a great knitter and made me some of the most beautiful sweaters and scarves.  Sarah could take apart washing machines, toaster ovens, sewing machines or any electrical device that was around.  If it was possible to fix it, she would and then put everything back together.  I am going to pause in this biography for now.  I have alot more to write which will bring this bio up to current times, but I have some cards to get out to all of you and I really want to get that done.  I hope you all will have an opportunity to read this and check back periodically to get the updates.  I also hope to see some of your own stories posted on this site and again, I want to thank each and every one of you for being her friend and sharing your lives with Miss Sarah.  She was such a huge part of mine and Jeff's life and a very important part of my children's (Ross & Lev) lives.  She will live on forever in our hearts, and this site will provide a place to go to read history and see some video and photos to help keep those memories alive.  Love....Faye