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The cover photo shows two men walking along a sandy lane shaded by scrub oaks. One gentleman is neatly barbered and dressed in a dark suit, white shirt, and tie. His companion sports a head of bushy gray curls, a rumpled white polo shirt, shorts, and beach sandals.
Which one is the world famous scientist? Easy. The iconic image of Albert Einstein, disheveled genius, has become familiar in countless variations, from learned volumes to T-shirts and coffee mugs.
Joan Brill’s recently published book is an account of an unusual friendship, and a loving tribute to the other man, the one who is never photographed in shorts—her father, David Arthur Rothman, proprietor of Rothman’s Department Store in Southold, Long Island. The time is summer, 1939.
Why the Einstein family chose Southold for their summer vacation after visiting California is no longer remembered, but the remote little village offered peace and quiet, beaches, and waters to sail on. Albert Einstein had a passion for playing the violin and for sailing—the latter hobby was to prove nearly fatal during that memorable summer.
Ms. Brill’s narrative is based on her father’s spoken recollections, taped and transcribed by her in 1963, amplified by her own comments and reminiscences. In addition to charming photos of Einstein on the beach, the book also includes pictures of, and letters from, that summer’s other famous visitors: British composer Benjamin Britten and his partner, tenor Peter Pears.
The Rothmans were the only Jewish family in Southold at the time. Both of the author’s parents were American-born children of immigrants from Poland and Hungary. Ms. Brill’s book tells their story also, by way of excerpts from a joint diary they began on the day of their marriage in 1918, and kept for decades.
Ms. Brill is a Juilliard-trained pianist and harpsichordist who has performed with orchestras locally and in Florida, where she and her husband spend their winters. In past years, she made appearances all over Long Island with the well-known Brill-Gaffney Trio. When the Einstein family and secretary arrived in Southold in 1939, she was 9 years old and already accomplished enough to practice fairly advanced Chopin preludes on the piano. In David Rothman’s store, which was in the front of the family home, classical music played on the phonograph, on 78 RPM records purchased with coupons clipped from the New York Post.
But it was necessities, not music, that led to the first meeting between the merchant who had left school at age 14 in order to help support his family and the world’s pre-eminent scientist, who had left his native land to escape certain death at the hands of Hitler’s terrorists. Einstein’s stepdaughter, Margot, needed a sharpening stone for her sculpture tools. Dr. Einstein wanted “sundials”—or so it sounded. David Rothman managed to find the sharpening stone easily enough, and presented it as a gift. To his great embarrassment, Dr. Einstein lifted up his foot, pointed, and explained in his heavy German accent that “sundahls” meant sandals. Conversation turned to music, with both the scientist and the store owner claiming amateur status as violinists, and making tentative plans for a musical get-together.
“Here was a dream, a fabulous, impossible dream coming to pass—becoming true. I walked on air all day,” Ms. Brill quotes her father’s ecstatic recollection. The summer of 1939 brought many musical evenings, with local professionals as well as amateurs participating, and sharing cake and coffee afterward. Equally important to Mr. Rothman, a man with “a thirst for knowledge” who never stopped pursuing the education he had had to cut short, were long walks and talks, ranging from cosmology and religion to mathematics and relativity.
At one point, Ms. Brill relates, Einstein offered to explain relativity theory “without mathematics.” As seen in the illustration, the resulting document—calculations in pencil on a sheet of notepaper—contains very few numerals but lots of symbols. It must be remembered that equations full of Greek letters were not “Greek” to Einstein. According to Ms. Brill, the document was subsequently sold to “Profiles in History,” a firm in California. Analyzed by experts, it reveals “an abbreviated theory of relativity in Einstein’s own handwriting.”
“My Father and Albert Einstein” is full of such delightful anecdotes. Though hundreds of books have been written about the 20th Century’s greatest mind, it is rare to catch a glimpse of the man “en famille.” The household on this idyllic vacation consisted of Albert Einstein; his son Hans Albert (nicknamed Harry); Harry’s wife Frieda and their son Hadi; Einstein’s sister Maja; and his stepdaughter Margot Einstein Lowenthal. Einstein’s longtime, devoted secretary Helen Dukas was more family member than employee.
Quite an exotic crowd. No wonder it provided memories never to be forgotten. Ms. Brill is a conscientious reporter; she appears to have saved every pertinent artifact, photo, painting, letter, and diary, along with her father’s words, diligently transcribed. She deserves our thanks as a conservator in the midst of a throw-away culture.
on Sep 1, 2008