The Story of Cecil and "Frusco" Part 1


My grandfather, Jacob David Golding, called "Jake" or "JD," had three sisters. The youngest was Cecil, then Gertrude, and unfortunately I can't remember the third sister's name.

The women in the Golding family were professional and had responsible positions. It's really quite amazing, considering what life was like in the 1920's and 30's. My great aunt Gertrude had a career in fashion and was a buyer in a Manhattan department store; she returned to Pittsburgh and set up her own clothing store for women on that magical block between Murray Avenue and Shady. This was in the 1950s. The front of her store was painted grey and her name was painted in script over the doorway. My aunt lived upstairs. She created a small and elegant shop and of course it fascinated me. I kept wanting to pick up pieces of jewelry from counter tops and try things on, but of course we couldn't do that.

In one corner of this shop my aunt put a small triangular shelf. She put accessories there, things she wanted people to notice. Once, she put a large ladies' handbag on that shelf, the body of the purse covered in leopard skin. It had a small umbrella tucked into it and oh did I want this ugly thing! I stared and stared at it and tried using forceful and positive thoughts to make my aunt give it to me, but the leopard-covered purse stayed where it was.

The great aunt whose name I can't remember left Pittsburgh, moved to New York, and got married. She had two children and these relatives came periodically to visit. I remember two things about this branch of the Goldings: 1) this aunt had a career in radio and advertising and 2) I remember my father saying that this aunt was his favorite.

That leaves Cecil Golding. She was the youngest child and the only one to be born in the United States. When the family left Poland my grandfather was a boy of five. Cecil's story, the way in which I know it, was told to me by my mother. I remember every word she said over the years about Cecil and her life because, and this is obvious by now, I love family stories.

Cecil was always different. She loved art and her talent as a painter quickly became obvious. But this was middle class Jewish Pittsburgh in the early 1920s. If a girl had artistic talent, she got married and had babies and turned to drawing and painting as a hobby. But my great aunt Cecil was not interested in this. She left Pittsburgh on her own and traveled to New York where she went to an art school and very soon fell in love with one of her instructors. This man was Manfredi Rubino, called "Frusco" by his friends and loved ones. Cecil was about 19 years old and he was in his thirties.

This was the real thing. They loved each other and lived together for the rest of their lives but didn't get married; they didn't believe in marriage. They had no children. Cecil continued to paint, and as my mother told me, Manfredi made fancy frames for her paintings. The two lived in a loft in Manhattan half the year, and in the other half they lived on Capri.