Generosity Plentiful, Even During Crisis

Dear Ann Landers: You recently printed a letter from a woman who told a lovely story about an act of kindness. Thirty years ago, her landlord had allowed her to live rent-free while her husband’s company was on strike. Her family never forgot his kindness. Now, years later, that same landlord needed eye surgery, and the woman’s daughter, who was a nurse in the doctor’s office, took very special care of him. I was moved by the way that act of kindness came full circle.

I would like to share a similar story of kindness repaid by a second generation. During World War II, the Kabilios, a Jewish family in Sarajevo, were hidden in the attic of their Muslim neighbors, the Lehebras. This was extremely dangerous for both families. The penalty for hiding “the enemy” was death. After the war, the Kabilio family immigrated to Israel. Their daughter, Tova, grew up there.

In 1992, when Sarajevo was under artillery attack, Tova went to the Israeli authorities and told them about the extraordinary kindness of the Lehebra family. A few days later, an El Al plane landed in Sarajevo. Israeli agents found the Lehebra family and transported them safely to Israel. - Rabbi Jerry Fisher, West Hills, Calif.

Dear Rabbi Fisher: War, as ugly as it is, always produces some incredibly beautiful acts of kindness and generosity. Your story is an excellent example. Thanks for sharing it.

Dear Ann Landers: I want to let you know how one of your “how we met” letters was responsible for my becoming engaged. I hope you will print it even though other readers are bored beyond belief with these stories.

My wonderful boyfriend, “Joe,” and I like to walk downtown to a local coffeehouse on Saturdays to read the paper. One Saturday a while back, your column included a letter from “Carol in Hot Springs Village, Ark.” She had decided to marry “Walter” 59 years ago, when he came to the hospital to hold her hand after she’d had an appendectomy.

Joe was reading the story out loud to me, and when he came to the part in the woman’s letter where she writes that Walter asked her to marry him, Joe stared at me with a serious look on his face and said, “Will you marry me?” My eyes welled up, and I said yes.

Thank you so much for the part you played in my engagement, Ann. Please convey my special thanks to Carol for sharing her heartwarming story with your readers. - Barbara in Santa Rosa, Calif.

Dear Barbara: I was moved by your letter, as no doubt were many of my readers of the “waxworks” set. I am sure those who were bored skipped right over it.

Dear Ann Landers: Like some of your other correspondents, I, too, have a “cranial glitch” that makes it hard to recognize the faces of people I should know. My story tops the one from the guy who didn’t recognize the girl he had traveled around Europe with for eight months.

I studied to be a teacher in college but wasn’t successful at it because I had such trouble sorting out the identities of the students. So I took a job selling shoes in an upscale department store.

One day, I finished at the cash register and asked the next woman and her companion if I could help them. Both women stared at me incredulously. It was my own mother and sister who had come by for a surprise visit. - Me, Too, in Calif.

Dear Calif.: Dozens of readers have shared their “glitches,” but yours was one of the most bizarre. Thanks for sending it on.