"Donna Siegel has written an engaging account of remarkable people-our grandparents, parents, and their siblings. Our family's immigrant experience mirrors those of an entire generation. Recalled with poignancy and humor in these stories, they all seem to live again."
-Paul R. Schulman, author of Large- Scale Policy Making and High Reliability Management: Operating on the Edge, with Emery Roe.
"Memoirs have the power to bring the felt reality of the past to life. This is what happens in Donna Siegel's On the Doorposts of All Our Houses. Her memoir is fresh, touching, and full of pungent details. This heartfelt and humorous memoir retrieves a precious piece of American Jewish history."
-Emily Fox Gordon, author of Mockingbird Years: A Life in and Out of Therapy and Are you Happy? A Childhood Remembered.
Two immigrant families escape from their anti-Semitic homelands and journey to America. They don't know a word of English, yet they come here to establish a new and better life. The family from Poland settles in Omaha, Nebraska. The Russian family puts down roots in Sioux City, Iowa. What happens next?
Donna Siegel tells how the two families connect and become her grandparents, parents, uncles, and aunts. She offers a whimsical account of growing up in the corn belt with her tightly knit Jewish family.
She confesses that her life doesn't exactly follow the plan. Despite the piano and tap dancing lessons with which she was lavished, Hollywood never needs a Jewish Shirley Temple.
She doesn't manage to grow long legs and become a beauty queen. She does marry the prince, but they don't live happily ever after. Despite these disappointments, she succeeds in converting lemons to limoncello.
Prepare to laugh and cry as you meander through the houses of Donna Siegel's life.