Dear Reader,
We’re Norma and Nate’s children, Gail and Paul. We thought you might enjoy knowing a little
about our amazing parents and the original (or at least the previous) owners of your book.
If you look back at the bookplate, you’ll see the west wall (and definitely the centerpiece) of the
home Norma and Nate built just at the end of the Great Depression. They loved books and
decided to give their early collection a special living room space where it could grow.
The copper door on the left of the fireplace held firewood fed directly into it from outdoors. In
the cold Indiana winters, that wood often became a crackling fire like the one you see. Just out of sight to your right was a green-upholstered easy chair with broad arms where each of us often sat enthralled as our gravelly-voiced father read poems–“Listen my children and you shall hear….” We’re sure that, deep into Alzheimer’s, we’ll still be able to speak the entirety of those
Longfellow lines. A quick survey of the shelves reveals Norma and Nate’s eclectic literary tastes. They were members of the Limited Editions Club and appreciated its uniquely designed, bound, and illustrated editions. Nate was a member and frequent facilitator of a Great Books group. Books were the gift of choice – to give, to receive and, as the bookplate suggests, to lend.
Their favorite titles are on the shelves. Norma loved poetry, especially the Lake Poets and
particularly Wordsworth. As a young woman, she loved Willa Cather’s My Antonia. Nate
voraciously read biographies such as his Boswell collection and numerous books about Lincoln,
Washington, and Jackson. He also loved poetry, Frost and Sandburg were among his favorites,
and he adored Mark Twain. Over there are the Journals of the Constitutional Convention next to
the transcripts of the Nuremberg Trials. Below them, an entire set of the Encyclopedia
Britannica. N&N each had many treasured books, so your chances of now owning one of their favorites are very good.
Beatrice How. Bea was a close friend of the family and a prolific reader and giver of
books. There’s a fair chance that you have a book from her. Often, she wrote the
recipient’s name, the occasion and the date somewhere near the bookplate.
Phil Levy. There’s also a good chance you have a book with “Phil Levy” written in the
upper right corner of the inside front cover. Phil was Nate’s younger brother who was
killed in World War II. He was an avid reader, especially classics of French literature in
French, books on the art of warfare, and philosophical essays, and his books likely found
their home in Norma and Nate’s library after Phil’s death. Paul wrote a book about our
uncle entitled, Finding Phil: Lost in War and Silence. It includes some stunning surprises
as well as a history of the family and an intimate view of N and N.
Big as books were at the Levys’, their work in the South Bend community was even bigger. Nate
and Norma were intent on bridging South Bend’s racial, religious, and class divisions of the day,
and this was easy to see in the friends they had and often entertained. So, if you happen to be in their cozy living room and looking at their books at the right moment, you might turn and talk to.Father Cavanaugh or Father Vincent of Notre Dame; or Rabbi Shulman of Temple Beth El or to.
Florence Adadevoh from Ghana or Nina Agarwala from India; or to Dennis Dowdell or Jo
Curtis, Norma’s colleagues at the Urban League; or to cousins Mel and Jeanette, or to Art and
Dorothy Goldberg if they’re in from Chicago with their fussy gray poodle, Crepe Suzette
You might want to join the folks gathered around Nate as he unravels one of his lengthy,
humorous stories or invites discussion of some recent world affair. But since you’re new to the
crowd, we’d recommend that you edge away from the banter and talk to Norma sitting there on
the piano bench just waiting to talk to you. Within a few minutes you will have made a good
friend, and she’ll have learned enough about you to write your biography.
And, if, by some stroke of good fortune, you happen to be visiting on Passover, you’ll be able to
join all of these folks at an ecumenical seder – then, not so common and popular as today —
where the Exodus story will quickly morph into a discussion of civil rights.
Norma and Nate were civic leaders in The Bend from the late 1940s to their deaths in the early
1970s. As you might guess from their living room guests, they were deeply involved in interfaith
initiatives and in civil rights, anti-poverty, and social welfare work. Norma, for example, was a
key force in bringing the Urban League to South Bend and served a term as its President. And
she was the force that brought leaders together from the city’s large Catholic community (think
Notre Dame) and other faiths to start a Planned Parenthood program in town. Nate, for example,
was a leader of United Way and the Anti-Poverty Program, and he led a study on conditions in
the county jail that brought much reform to that institution. Upon their deaths, each was warmly
remembered in an editorial in the South Bend Tribune.
A bit more about Nate. He was the first, second-generation Levy in South Bend. His father Louis
and grandfather Moses had led the Levy clan to the city in the 1890s to escape Russian
persecution. As the first American-born Levy, Nathan set the standard. In high school, for
example, he excelled as a student and debater and would become the first of the clan to go to
college and then law school where he also excelled. Get a glimpse of the young high schooler
through the special page devoted to him in the 1927 Yearbook of South Bend High School.
Norma grew up in Chicago, met Nate at the University of Michigan, and went on to be a welfare
worker in Chicago and then South Bend. She became a role model for many young South Bend
women, Jewish and gentile, in her quiet and effective activism. Get a glimpse of the mature
Norma in the benediction that she gave at the “Salute to Women” dinner in March 1965 where
Betty Friedan was the guest speaker.
If we were to single out an impulse that guided Nate and Norma, we might say that Nate’s
guiding star was justice and Norma’s was compassion. These impulses merged in their
relationship and produced an intensely humane and caring couple. Every day, we feel the deep
privilege of being their children.
Norma & Nate are very happy that you visited their library and now own a book from their shelves. They hope you enjoy the book, but would not miss this opportunity to wish you a gratifying life filled with all the compassion and justice that you might decide to pursue.
Warmly,
Paul Levy, levy.p@comcast.net
Gail Levy Perlman, gperlman@comcast.net
