A Good Jewish Wife and Elsie Wolff’s Pound Cake
by Terri Wolff Kaufman
Wedding photo, Elsie and Louis Wolff
When my mother, Elsie Wolff (OBM), married in 1952, she worked hard at being a good Jewish wife. We four kids didn’t understand how diligently she worked until we found the evidence after her passing. Tucked away in our family home were a Hebrew workbook circa 1950, a how to win at bridge book, and some old cookbooks – all with intense study notes in Mom’s handwriting. As I examined them, I thought about what they might mean viewed through my mother’s whole life.
Elsie Benenson visited her sister and brother-in-law in Columbia, South Carolina in August 1952. Jeannie and Bob Rosichan fixed her up on a blind date with an architect “with good prospects” from their Tree of Life temple congregation. The two hit it off, and Louis Wolff and Elsie married that December. After honeymooning in Havana, they settled into an apartment downtown in Cornell Arms. As a newlywed, Elsie formed a community of social touchpoints and closest friends through the Tree of Life and the women in Sisterhood.
Sisterhood past presidents at Tree of Life’s golden anniversary celebration, 1965. Elsie Wolff is back row, fourth from left. (Photo sourced from In Pursuit of the Tree of Life, ©1996 by Belinda and Richard Gergel)
I imagine moving to Columbia was quite a sea change for my mom. She had lived and worked in New York City for seven years and loved big-city fashion, food, and culture. According to her, she and her roommates worked all day and went out most nights dining, dancing and/or dating. I don’t imagine cooking was a big thing (or eating, as evidenced by her figure in those days). Before New York, she graduated from LSU with a business degree. And before that, she grew up in small-town Alabama – the youngest of six children in the only Jewish family in town, with an immigrant father and first-generation American mother. While she strongly identified as Jewish (she spent time with her mother’s extended family in Augusta, Georgia and belonged to a Jewish sorority in college), there must have been gaps in her formal Jewish education.
Mom became very active in Sisterhood and remained so for most of her life. In the 1960s and 1970s, I vividly remember her involvement with the annual Holland bulb sales and other fund-raising activities for the temple. At the Heyward Street building, Sisterhood provided flowers for the bima at Friday night services and members took turns baking for every Oneg Shabbat. Sisterhood also planned and executed holiday events there such as Yom Kippur break-the-fast and, as I recall, contributed to the annual religious school Purim carnival. (Some of you will relate to this: each of Mom’s platters had a strip of masking tape on the bottom with “Wolff” written on it, so she could claim them after an event was over. There must have been a lot of food brought to those activities!)
The women of Sisterhood were also Mom’s friends. She went to lunch with them, played bridge and/or tennis with them. They and their husbands hosted cocktail or dinner parties and in turn attended my parents’ parties. One or more ladies were at our home every week, it seemed: Tobae, Midge, Marian, Evelyn, Evie, Sylvia, Roz and many others over the years, both in the apartment and after we moved to our permanent home on Westshore Road in 1963.
Dad loved to eat, and Mom loved to cook; it was a creative outlet for her (which I inherited – in later years after I had my own family, she often called me her balabusta). Mom was a “super-taster” – she followed a recipe to a certain point and then added touches to her taste, which in my opinion made the food delicious. Her cooking was Southern, bent toward sweet. Other than the occasional Swanson pot pies my siblings and I got when Mom and Dad went out, all of our meals were homemade.
Wolff family, 1969. L. to R.: Louis, Frances, Terri, Bruce, Elsie, and Michael
While every night’s dinner was something to look forward to, Mom outdid herself for parties, family birthdays, and holiday meals. The latter usually included a random Jewish student from USC or soldier from Fort Jackson at the table – Mom couldn’t stand the idea of anyone being alone on Thanksgiving or Passover. Over the years, Mom contributed recipes to local cookbooks such as The Stuffed Bagel (Hadassah) and Columbia Cooks with Fun and Flavor published by Heathwood Hall Episcopal School.
Mom loved to bake for other people. She made divinity candy (her favorite) and spiced pecans for bridge club, baked jelly cookies for friends’ children and grandchildren at Christmas and Hanukkah and brought poundcakes to every event from Oneg Shabbats to funeral repasts. There was always a poundcake in the freezer for a quick turn-around in case someone Jewish died.
Looking back, I don’t know if the areas of expectation that constituted a “good Jewish wife” of my parents’ generation were Dad-driven or Mom’s decision – they were both smart, hard-working, and very exacting of themselves and others. But I can tell you that my mother succeeded.
Elsie Wolff photo circa 1980, and pound cake baked per recipe below.
Elsie Wolff’s Pound Cake Recipe
2 sticks of butter (1 half-pound)
2 cups sugar
6 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 cups cake flour (or all-purpose flour, sifted)
Line the bottom of a cake tube pan with wax paper for easy cake removal. Grease pan and center tube. Using a stand mixer or hand-held mixer:
Cream butter and sugar until smooth
Beat in eggs, one by one
Add vanilla and mix thoroughly to blend
Fold in flour and mix batter for 5 minutes, scraping the sides of the bowl frequently
Pour batter evenly into tube pan
Bake at 300 degrees for 1hr 15min to 1hr 20min, until top is golden brown.
Cool cake in pan on a rack – the top should form a lovely crust. Gently separate cake from sides and center with a knife while still hot.
Remove cake when thoroughly cooled and peel the wax paper off the bottom.
Enjoy!
Note: At the time of this writing, Tree of Life Congregation library contents were packed up for a painting/renovation and not available for research. Neither online research nor outreach to two longtime temple Sisterhood members revealed any specific Sisterhood cookbooks after the 1935 Jewish Cook Book. Kugels & Collards would love to hear from readers who remember a Tree of Life-branded cookbook (or books) and have a printed copy to share!