Day 287: July 12, 2025 – Alaska, USA

For those of you who think you’re too old for this travel stuff, think again. Our oldest resident, Proletta, turned 99 this week, and we had the honor of celebrating the day with her. She’s how I want to be, should I live to 99. We are looking forward to ushering in her 100th, same time next year. (Though not in the same place, since we are scheduled to be in China by then.) That’s her in the center of the photo, next to her son Ben. (I’m in the lower right corner).

Her son Ben is one of my favorite people on board, so it’s no surprise that his mom would be a delight as well. Proletta has a permanent cabin on the Odyssey, but she likes to go back and forth between her home base in the U.S., where she leads a writer’s group. Here is an excerpt from an essay she wrote about reclaiming her name from Letta, back to Proletta, a shortening of the word “proletarian.”

RECLAIMING MY NAME
by Proletta Schatz

As I write this on January First 2024, I have decided, at the age of ninety-seven and a half, that I want to reclaim the name that I was given at birth: Proletta. Recently, for the first time, I saw the yellowed telegram delivered to my mother in her hospital bed within hours after I was born. Dated July 12, 1926, it reads,“Congratulations on the birth of Proletta” and is signed by the Executive Board of the Jewish Music Farband. And that was that. It was decided. As written on that telegram, my name from that day forward was Proletta. If it seems presumptuous that the executive board of that organization should decree my name, it turns out that actually both my parents were members of that Board, my father, a singer, being the musical one, my mother in charge of the finances. And yes, in discussing possible names, “Proletta” was among my parents’ top choices, as was Violet. But, my mother always told me that she and my father had not yet reached a decision. (I remain glad that Violet was not chosen – that delicate flower name would never have been a fit with my personality.) What I always knew was that at that time my parents were both ardent Communists and union activists, both were leaders in their respective garment workers union locals, and I am quite sure that the members of the Board of the Jewish Music Farband shared their beliefs. The mission of that organization was creating and supporting working peoples’ Yiddish choruses and music schools. My mother always took pride in telling me that my father was a founder of the largest of those choruses, the Freiheit Gezang Farein in New York which by then had already grown to several hundred members (That chorus still exists, over one hundred years later, though with a different name.) It made sense that members of that Board would applaud the name Proletta. “Proletta” is a shortening of the word “proletariat” or “proletarian”. I was named for the working class.

It occurs to me now that that was a heavily significant name with which to stick a tiny infant. But, for my first twelve years, that was my name, my only name, that was who I was: Proletta. And, for those twelve years I generally lived in what I have described as “a Communist bubble”. From the time that I first remember, I spent most summers at Camp Unity, the Communist summer resort where my mother managed the kitchen and dining room. I also spent five winters at the camp, during two of which its premises were taken over by a Communist Party National Training School. I was Proletta at the Camp and at the two elementary schools I attended: Manumit School, a union-oriented progressive boarding school, and Dog Tail Corners School, a one room rural public school near Camp Unity. At Manumit School, where at least one teacher was a socialist, my name was understood and accepted-perhaps even appreciated. At the rural one room school, what mattered was not my name but that I came from the Commie Camp down the road. The camp was unwelcome to some neighbors, the local KKK actually burned a cross near the camp. Still, l was welcomed into homes of my schoolmates, and members of at least one family remained my friend for years after.

When I was 12 and was ready to enter high school (I had completed elementary school in 6 years-a separate story), my mother decided that, although she would still be working in Camp at the Training School that winter, I would attend high school in New York City. She was sure that I would receive a better education than at the local high school. And, she decided that I would enter high school with a new name. Her reason? The name Proletta would raise too many questions. What questions? I don’t think I ever asked. Now I wonder. Did she fear the name revealing my Communist identity? This was 1938, before World War II, before the Cold -War anti-Communist laws that began in the 1940s. Maybe she was prescient. And of course she had no idea what huge variety of given names could be found in a New York City high school! Whatever the reason, she removed the first syllable of my name and I was enrolled in Textile Straubenmuller High School as Letta. No formality was needed for the name change. As it happened, my birth certificate did not contain a given name, I am merely recorded as Female Saroff. So she could have enrolled me with any name she chose.

My mother didn’t consult me in the name change. How did I feel about it? I think I just accepted her decision, just as I accepted her other decisions that year: that I would attend high school in New York City, live in that city for the first time since I was a toddler, and stay with her friends the Sultans, who I barely knew. The new name was one of my many changes that year. The most children enrolled in either of my elementary schools had been 55; Textile High School had 5,000. It was a vocational school; many of my fellow freshmen had repeated at least one year, most of the girls in my class were 15 years old and were mainly interested in makeup, clothes and, of course, boys. At 12, I was still playing with dolls. I don’t recall that suddenly being Letta was a problem.

Actually, for the next 11 years, I had a double name – identity. For all of those years I still spent my summers in Camp Unity, so for two-and-a-half months every summer I was still called Proletta. And, for the winter months, in high school and college I was Letta. In all my classes, to new friends at school, in all my school records, I was Letta…