Celebrating a long, happy life together

Pearl & Charles Goldberg

Pearl

Pearl and Trudy Schlisselman watched with rapt attention as their parents opened the care package their older sister had sent from America. It was 1946. Although the war was finally over, many things remained hard to get in England.

Pearl, then 18, and Trudy, 17, were interested even in the wrapping sister Celia had used: The Philadelphia Evening Bulletin. Their sister had married Harry, an American GI, and immigrated to his hometown. They were fascinated by every aspect of her new life in a new country and decided to write to the Bulletin seeking pen pals who could teach them more.

Their letter appeared in the Heigh-De-Ho column and the girls received 70 replies. Alas, none interested Pearl. “Heigh-De-Ho was for teenagers and younger; all of the letters seemed very immature to me,” she said. Trudy passed them out at school.

Then, a month behind the others, another letter arrived from somebody named Charles Goldberg. “I loved his handwriting even before I opened the letter. It seemed very masculine,” said Pearl. “And Goldberg seemed to be a Jewish name. Since I’m Jewish, that also appealed.” She read the letter — so much better than the others! — and she replied.

Charles

Charles read about the pen pal-seeking English sisters not from his family home in Strawberry Mansion, but from his bunk at an Army base in North Carolina, where he received the Bulletin by mail. Also 18, he was either working his tail off in basic training or was kind of bored. Having a pen pal might help pass some time, he thought. “Pearl was the older girl, so I wrote to her.”

Charles told her about Army life, into which he was drafted after the cease-fire, as well as life back home. If Pearl wanted to know anything about Philadelphia, all she had to do was ask, he said.

Her reply was filled with stories about St. Anne’s on the Sea, where her family then lived, and London, which, she stressed, was her real hometown.

Pen pals

For four years, they sent letters across the ocean.

They talked about their families and their lives. Pearl shared that in fall 1939, she and her sister Trudy had been among the multitudes of London children evacuated to the English countryside. They lived on an Anglican vicarage staying with the cook, whom she adored. But Pearl and Trudy missed their family terribly and returned to London in spring 1940. Taking shelter in the London Underground together, they felt overwhelmingly fortunate to be Jews who lived in England, regardless of the bombs. The Schlisselmans moved to St. Anne’s later that year.

The pen pals kept each other posted on the present. Pearl was rather disenchanted with her government office job. After basic training, Charles became a clerk at New Jersey’s Camp Kilmer, where he processed soldiers who were heading to Germany. After his discharge, he briefly returned home to Strawberry Mansion, then joined the Merchant Marine for a year before returning home for good and driving a cab for a living.

They sent each other photos and shared some of their dreams, but carefully. They had grown very fond of each other, but neither was entirely sure how the other felt.

“We were careful not to even sign our letters with ‘Love,’ " said Pearl.

See you in Philadelphia

In 1950, it seemed everyone Pearl and Trudy’s age wanted to go to America, and besides, they missed their sister. The two decided that Pearl would go first. She wrote Celia and Harry that she would come as soon as she could pay the ship fare. Celia had thought she might never see her family again. Seeing how happy the possibility of seeing Pearl made her, Harry said they would find a way to pay for her passage.

Pearl wrote Charles that she was coming to America, but before she boarded the Queen Elizabeth, she tore up all of his letters. She had imagined a romance between them, but “I didn’t want to cater to that feeling — I knew I might be making more of it than it really was.”

Charles still has all of her letters to him. “I thought she was something special,” he said. “I was really looking forward to meeting her.”

About a week after arriving in a new Philadelphia neighborhood called Overbrook Park, Pearl called him. She really liked his voice. She invited him to visit.

As they walked to meet the bus that would take them to Center City, Charles put his arm around her. He took her on a walking tour of City Hall and Independence Hall, and then to get milkshakes. “Everything was just like in the movies,” Pearl said.

Off the page

“By the end of that year, we were pretty serious,” said Charles.

Pearl had found an office job right away but was laid off in December. Her former coworkers told her the boss was famous for doing this, but it didn’t make her feel any better, or any more secure about her life.

“Charles came over that evening, and he asked me to marry him,” she said. “I think he felt sorry for me!”

“I didn’t feel sorry for her. I fell for her,” insists Charles. “It was just this intimate moment between us [when she told him what happened], and it felt like a good idea.”

They wanted to marry quickly, but wound up postponing until January 1952. Pearl’s parents and her sister were immigrating, so they waited until they could attend. Charles saved up for a luncheon wedding and reception at the Majestic Hotel at Broad and Girard so Pearl could walk down its winding staircase. They drove to Florida to honeymoon.

Pearl introduced Trudy to Charles’ best friend, Joe, and they married in 1954. “Two marriages came from our one postage stamp.” Pearl notes.

Building a happy, balanced life

Charles joined his father in the plumbing business, then took it over, renaming it the Gold Star Plumbing Company, which he ran for 40 years.

He and Pearl had three children: Richard, Esther, and Ken. Charles turned their first house, in Logan, into a duplex and they lived in their half until 1970. They moved briefly to Huntingdon Valley before settling for good in Melrose Park, where they still live.

In 1967, Pearl found the other love of her life: yoga. Few Americans were practicing back then, said Pearl. She taught at the Young Men’s Hebrew Association and at the Abington Club. She gave private lessons and offered meditation and special suppers to talk about the spirituality of the practice in her home. Pearl also became involved in the women’s movement and traveled to schools, clubs, churches, and synagogues to encourage women to push for the same rights men had.

Modern love

Charles enjoyed his business until he retired in the late 1980s. He always loved spending nonwork time with his children and tending to the lawn and greenery around the house. His first grandchild arrived in 1991, and Charles was delighted to spend almost every day with her while her mother worked.

Pearl retired from teaching yoga and meditation about two years ago. She never stopped gathering friends to practice yoga and meditate in their home, but is on a COVID-19 hiatus.

She and Charles are 93 and need to be careful — especially since he has had some health issues recently.

Sometimes this largely isolated year has given her a sense of déjà vu.

“Everybody is afraid of death. And many people are struggling. And there is all of this political turmoil,” she said.

But, now as then, the terrible things happening haven’t destroyed the joy of family, and can’t quell hope, she said.

Their children stop by for masked visits. They even joined Pearl and Charles to carefully celebrate two things that happened on the same January day: the couple’s 69th wedding anniversary and the Biden/Harris inauguration.

In late February, Pearl and Charles received their first dose of the vaccine. Once they get the second dose, there will be haircuts and family dinners and maybe even small gatherings with friends.

Spring will take the couple out of their house and onto their big, beloved back porch.

“I feel like I can be here for Pearl, and that is a very good feeling,” said Charles.

“We’re so lucky,” said Pearl.