Jimmy Altman and Lauren Silverman share dinner in his Dollard des Ormeaux home and discuss the details of Silverman’s upcoming wedding and chatting about the importance of family. It’s a scene played out by many fathers and daughters, except in this case, Altman is Silverman’s step-father.

Brought together 12 years ago, the two represent members of a growing group — the blended family. Both Altman and Silverman’s mother, Anita Vatch, had two children from previous relationships.

“About one third of all marriages in Canada end in divorce” says Dr. Anne-Marie Ambert in her study, Divorce: Facts, Figures and Consequences.

“About 75 percent and 65 percent, respectively, of divorced men and women remarry.”

And according to a 1987 Statistic Canada report, 96,200 couples had their divorces finalized. During the past 20 years since then, nearly 70 percent have re-married, giving birth to blended families.

Vatch remembers the early days and says Altman tried to make the transition as easy as possible on her kids. “Jimmy has always treated Lauren and Adam as if they were his own children. There is no distinction between home-made kids and blended families in our house.”

Silverman, now 26, wasn’t initially enamoured with Altman’s arrival. Raised for years by their mother, Silverman and her brother suddenly had to share her.

“I’d had my mom all to myself since the divorce,” explains Silverman. “My brother was more open to the relationship at the start because his major concern was that my mother be taken care of. As a teenager, I wasn’t very open to having a step-father. It wasn’t that I didn’t like Jimmy, it was that I didn’t want to share my mother.”

“She definitely gave Jimmy a run for his money,” says Vatch.

That was also the case with Melanie Martin, who gave her new step-father a hard time when he entered her life 20 years ago.

“I remember walking down the street just yelling expletives at him” recalls Martin, also 26, of her first outing with Wayne Belmore.

Martin says she rebelled because she thought Belmore was trying to replace her biological father.

But she says Belmore waited it out and now he and Martin share a close relationship. “He was patient and gave me time to realize he wasn’t trying to take anyone’s place. He was just trying to be my friend.”

Like Silverman, Martin also enjoyed a close and supportive relationship with her step-father. When she announced several years ago that she was gay, Belmore was one of the first people she confided in. “He helped me cope by making it clear that he loved me no matter what,” she says.

Silverman can now look back and laugh at the once tense situation.

“I certainly gave Jimmy a hard time when I was a teenager… Okay, recently too!” she says with a smile. Despite this, she says “he’s never treated me like anything other than his own daughter.”

Altman says the key to making it work is just waiting it out while offering unconditional love. “I let her know I’m on her side and try to find some common ground.” In their case, that common ground was Vatch.

“Jimmy made my mom happy, and even as a teenager, I was able to appreciate that,“ says Silverman. “He definitely fits the bill as a parent because he’s there for me every step of the way.”

True to form, Altman will be there for another important step in his step-daughter’s life, walking her down the aisle this August.

Draped in a large floral muu muu, Rosie Altman sits under a tree on her property, looking out onto the deep blue ocean. She is a pale woman, and despite residing on a tropical island for close to 50 years, she does not enjoy the sun.

An 87 year-old white Jewish woman might seem out of place on the island of Barbados. In fact, Altman has been a permanent resident for close to 50 years; and she is not alone. Like many of the surrounding Caribbean Islands, Barbados has a Jewish history and culture, courtesy of the immigrants who paid their way onto freighter ships into the West Indies as a means to escape the Nazi horrors after the United States and Canada had closed their borders.

Altman and I spent several afternoons last year on her beloved island, talking about the long and winding road that has been her life.

Born April 1, 1923, in Poland, Altman’s early years were happy, spent in the company of her parents and sister Sara, three years her senior. But the idyllic childhood was rudely overshadowed by the cloud of anti-Semitism that came to sit over Europe. In 1930, Altman and her parents were granted quota numbers, and set sail for the United States.

“Sara couldn’t get on the boat, because she’d had T.B. as a baby.” Rosie explained. “My parents thought they’d have a better chance of getting her out once they were in the U.S., so they left her with relatives temporarily.”
Altman and her parents arrived at Ellis Island in New York on June 29, 1930 and though America was touted as the land where hopes and dreams could come true, for Altman it was not quite the case. Altman’s mother gave birth to three more children – two boys and a girl – in short order, but then tragically became ill with cancer. Though she was barely a teenager, Altman spent the next three years nursing her dying mother. Her father, disheartened with life, had become a womanizing alcoholic prone to drunken rages. Shortly after his wife’s death, he abandoned his children and failed business ventures.

Rosie took charge, raising her three younger siblings as her own. She lobbied to get Sara out of Poland, but that quest ended tragically when Sara was sent to Treblinka’s gas chambers in 1942. By the end of the war, Altman was working two jobs in New York to keep the family afloat. “Every penny I had went to them,” she says, “and to this day, they have never forgotten it.” But the effort had worn her down and she eventually found Jewish foster homes for her siblings – though she kept in weekly touch with each of the three, and supported each one financially for the next decade.

Word of Altman’s nurturing spread throughout the family, and her mother’s sister sent her a ticket to Trinidad. After the United States and Canada had closed their borders to refugees, Altman’s aunt and uncle had survived by fleeing to the Caribbean. Trinidad had attracted a large Jewish community during the war, as Jews unable to get quota numbers paid their way onto Freighter ships into the West Indies. Though she did not want to leave her siblings in New York, Altman agreed that a vacation to visit her aunt and uncle could only lead to good things.

“I’d never been on an airplane before, never seen a ticket,” Rosie says, “so I had no idea it was one-way. I wouldn’t have gone if I’d known. But things worked out ok.”

Certainly, they did. It was in Trinidad that her uncle introduced her to Simon Altman, a young Jew who had fled to the West Indies from Warsaw. He was smitten, and asked for her hand in marriage. They were married later that year, and migrated to the nearby Island of Barbados, where Simon opened a shop. Though the marriage had its ups and downs, Altman was fiercely devoted to Simon, giving him four children and running his business when he suffered crippling bouts of depression. As a couple, they became the focal point of Barbados’ Jewish community. Rosie cooked dinners for members of the community, and though she had very little, she lent money to Jewish immigrants trying to set up businesses.

The first local synagogue was set up in a spare room in the Altman house, and when they had raised enough money, the couple spearheaded a massive undertaking to build a beautiful permanent synagogue in Bridgetown.

Louis Burack is a successful businessman in Montreal who was born and raised in Barbados. His parents were on the last legal boat from Poland in 1938, and they lived out their lives on the island that provided them refuge during the war. He remembers when Rosie first moved to the Island: “She was a young wife, newly married, without any kids of her own, yet, every Friday night, she and Simon welcomed people into their home and she taught all Jewish kids how to dance.”

Now a married man with grown children, Burack still loves to dance. “She was so young and full of life, she taught all us kids. Actually, I should thank her!”

Rosie never lost track of her siblings in New York, and sent them money until each one was settled. She even invited her younger sister, Anita, to join her in Barbados, and subsequently introduced her to a member of the local Jewish community who would become her husband. Anita and Rosie were inseparable for the next 30 years, but that relationship, too, was bittersweet. Anita’s mental capacity was damaged when she was injured in a car accident in the nineties. Typically, Rosie’s commitment to her sister never wavered. She was always close to and protective of Anita, and was dealt another blow when Anita could no longer bear her injuries and committed suicide. It was Rosie who found her sister at home, with a bag over her head.

Despite the trials and tribulations she’s endured, Altman remains fiercely devoted to life and to her family and to the Island she has called home for more than 50 years. Rosie’s four children were all born in Barbados and attended public elementary school on the island before going to boarding school in the United States. Like the Altmans, most of the families who settled in the area put down roots and raised their children. And like the experience of the Altmans, most children did not return to the island: They remained and set up businesses in America when they finished their studies. Over the years, the original settlers became frail, and many moved to the United States, where they could be closer to children and grandchildren. Two of her four children settled in the United States, but she chose to stay in the house she and her husband built together on the island. Today Altman and her eldest son, Jimmy, maintain the synagogue and act as ambassadors to anyone interested in revisiting the Jewish history of the island.

Altman’s kindness and devotion has not gone un-noticed. When she needed emergency heart-bypass surgery in 2004, she was flown to Toronto, where relatives and old Barbados community members now living in Toronto and Montreal ensured that she had the best care. When it came time to pay her medical bill, Altman was shocked to learn it had already been paid- by a grateful man who had grown a successful furniture business out of a loan Altman had secretly given him five decades earlier.

A constant flow of visitors keeps her active. Altman’s children have all gone on to have children of their own. In 2005, proud matriarch Altman welcomed her first great-grandchild, born in Arizona. Eldest son Jimmy spends six month a year on the island, managing his properties and spending time with his ageing mother. “She’s so tough,” says Jimmy, “and sharp!” The proud father of two boys and a doting step-father to two more, Jimmy welcomed his first grandchild in 2006- to his mother’s delight. She is most excited these days by the visits she gets from her growing family, and the extended family she has found in the Jewish community.

When it gets cold in North America, people with a Barbados connection begin to flock back to the Island to escape the winter months. Many of the children born after the war are now retired, and have purchased winter homes or condominiums. And property or not, when the month of December comes around, the community seems to assemble from all over the world.

“Every year, all the children who grew up here, they come back. They may live far away, but they know it’s this place that saved their parents, that allowed them to have the lives they have today. They bring their children and their children’s children.” For her part, Altman is eager to welcome them.

It is late afternoon and the sun has begun its descent but the air is still a sweltering 40 degrees Celsius during these summer months, when the island is at its quietest and when Rosie tends to reminisce. She reaches back and uses a single bobby pin to secure her white hair, rolled into a perfect bun above her neck. She sits on the large property she shared with her husband in the small community of Christ Church, just outside the Bridgetown city center.

“This was all an empty field,” Rosie muses, pointing to the condominium development to her left, recently erected by Jimmy. The property is lined with vividly colorful flowers that he has planted. Over the ridge, an ice cream truck broadcasts Home on the Range as it rides lazily through town. Neighborhood children flow out of their homes and run after it. Like her yard, the Barbados landscape has changed since Rosie arrived in 1946. The town has become more commercial, and businesses have set up shop in the island community. A recent resurgence in travel has sparked real-estate development frenzy, exemplified by the Barbados Hilton, which underwent a massive renovation and reconstruction in 2005.

While a sea of tourists flocks to the island, the Jewish community that was so dominant after the war seems to have all but disappeared. But Altman’s devotion to Barbados has not wavered. “I’ve moved around enough in my life,” she says. “This is where my husband is buried. This is my home. This is where I belong.”