“After my father had his first attack, he went to Sunset Lodge, in Sharon, Massachusetts, to get some peace and quiet. We always had visitors at our Woodrow Avenue home and my father felt compelled to greet everyone who came in the door and give them his time. Whenever my father needed rest he went to Sunset Lodge for a couple of weeks. It was located next to a lake. My stepmother stayed at home.

“Max drove me out to Sharon to visit my father. It was Max's idea, not mine. My father always had books out, even on vacation, and Max would read from these books and have a discussion with my father. I am not sure if this was to impress my father or to reassure him that his daughter was going into good hands even though she wasn't marrying a rabbi. He needed my father's blessing.

“My father realized I wouldn't marry a rabbi and he approved of my match with Max. The Gass family was religious, and Max was very well educated in English and Jewish studies. My father felt Max would look after me, and take care of me financially.

“In addition, my father liked and respected Max's father, Samuel Gass, because Sam was a brilliant, brilliant man. He was self-educated, and gifted in business. He studied Jewish scriptures by himself and observed the Jewish laws to the letter. Sam laid tefillin every day, kept the Sabbath, and to a certain point he made his children observe the Sabbath.”

Besides the fact that she was in love, Adele also appreciated that her marriage to Max would free her from the restrictions she had known as a member of a rabbi’s family. She remembered one example of this:

“During my engagement to Max, Max would sit on the steps, while I was out and my brothers would tease him about my hair. In Jewish tradition, married women shave their hair to make them unattractive to other men. My brothers said they would cut off mine before I got married. Max loved my hair—it was way down to my waist because my father believed that girls should never cut their hair. I wore it wrapped around my head and Max loved to take the pins out. If I had married a rabbi, I would have had to cut it off.”

Although Adele believed her marriage was the result of kismet, her brothers tell another story, one of two fathers planning a marriage between their children, as was customary in Orthodox Jewish culture in those days. Adele's brother, Baruch Korff, remembered how their match came to be:

“Max didn't win Adele, and Adele didn't even know. It was decided between the two fathers. People, particularly among the immigrants, had begun to call Shlomo [Samuel Gass] Reb Shloime, that's an honorary title. And his son was getting on in years, the only son. He sought a marriage contract, a mate for his son of high rabbinic background. So Shlomo hired a matchmaker, and he says, I heard that the Zviller Rebbe has a daughter seventeen years old and a beauty.

“The matchmaker said, You'll not get that babe. I'm not going. I'm going to the Tuska rabbi.  That's another rabbi who had a daughter. This whole story, the matchmaker told my father in the presence of my brother and myself. The matchmaker came to my father and told him exactly what he told Shlomo, that he's aiming too high.

“Nu, nu, nu, we'll talk about it' my father says.
 

“He will give a lot of tzedakah (donations to charity), you just name where. He will also provide the children with the proper income, said the matchmaker.

“So, my father says to him, Tell him we'll see. 

“Then my father says to my older brother and to me, Go talk to Adele.

"She laughed at us. What was Mattes, twenty-seven, twenty-eight at the time?  And she was sixteen. She said to me, Get out of here.  And so we duly reported to father.

“A week later the matchmaker bought Shlomo to my father. And they both wanted something, so it was ready made. They didn't have to go to London for fitting.

“Next, my father wanted to meet Shlomo's wife and all the children. They all came, and the reason why he wanted this was for Adele's sake, so that Adele would meet the others. Anna [one of Max's sisters] was very good to Adele, very good. Anna was a lovely young lady.

“Shlomo says to my father, Mattes keeps asking, when is he going to meet her.

“Then came The Day. Father was very smart. He arranged with Auntie [Etta] to get all the children out of there. They'd be looking and giggling and all that. And Max does not come to see Adele; he comes to see the Rebbe. She just happens to be there. We had some friends on Calendar Street, so my older brother arranged it that they would go there for a visit.”

As things turned out the fathers gave their blessings and Adele and Max got engaged. What their fathers didn’t know was that Adele continued to see other men until the day she married. According to Adele:

“We got engaged but I continued to date other men until the day I married. I would get out of his car and go into Max's car. My father didn't know about my behavior. There was a 20-year-old man that I liked very much. I had met this man at the Zviller Ball and he had been very good to me the time my father had a heart attack in Florida. Usually, I traveled with my father and took care of him--my stepmother never went. This time my father went alone. When he took ill, my friend paid for my airfare so I could join my father. He wanted to marry me. When Max and I married he sent a telegram to wish us luck and express the hope that the marriage wouldn’t last long. Max was furious. Years later, after my husband died, this man started calling me again. He had been widowed for three years and wanted to start a new relationship with me but he never got anywhere.”

     
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