Azrael “Israel” Irving “Irv” Widaen:  protagonist, educator, socially conscious, angry one-time historian, talkative skeleton.  He grew up in Peekskill, a small town an hour north of New York City, in grinding poverty. Had a lifelong interest in social justice and history.   A man of great wit, intelligence, compassion, known to his children as the D.U. (Dreaded Unit) he faced his sudden death stoically and without self-pity, but died with terrible regrets.  His life is an object lesson in the dangers of unexamined anger.

Aren “Aaron” Gleiberman: uncle of the protagonist.  But for Aren’s desertion from the Czar’s army in 1904 as his unit was being shipped east for the Russo-Japanese War (he and two fellow Jewish draftees headed west) the life of the protagonist, and this account, would have been unimaginable.  Aren sent for his youngest sister, Chava, on the eve of World War One.  Chava would beget the protagonist, in 1924.

Chava Gleiberman Widem — born in the tiny, doomed hamlet of Truvovich in Belarus, across the Pina River from Pinsk, Chava and oldest brother Aren, in America, were the only members of their family left alive after the Nazi advance across their area.  Tiny, red-haired, religious and given to rage, she entered into an unhappy arranged marriage with Eliyahu “Harry” Widem and gave birth to the protagonist in 1924.

Eliyahu “Harry” Widem:  the protagonist’s father, a cipher.  He was described as completely deadpan, his face “two eyes, a nose and a mouth.”  The most complete account Irv ever gave of his father, given the last night of his life, was “my father was an illiterate country bumpkin completely overwhelmed by this world.”  He died young, his gravestone indicating that he was a straight, simple man, which, it turns out, is not as uncomplimentary as it sounds.

Uncle Paul:  younger brother, by less than two years, of the protagonist.  Highly intelligent, he was a lifelong civil servant in the federal government in a bureau dealing with alcoholism.  A mild mannered, playful man with a corny sense of humor, he was also, among his intimates, a man of towering rages.  After retirement he dedicated himself to the creation of a federal civil service museum, a dream that was not realized.

Eli Gleiberman:  first son of protagonist’s Uncle Aren, seventeen years older than the protagonist, the closest thing Irv had to a father figure.   Aren’s wife died shortly after giving birth to Eli.  Alone in NYC, Aren planned to give the baby up for adoption.   Eli’s mother’s mother, and her three daughters, took Eli to grow up on their farm in the Bronx.   By age four, Eli reported, he ruled that farm, his word was law.  He added in a quiet voice “… which was very, very bad….”  Eli had, and displayed, the “Gleiberman temper”.  A man of great charm and humor, a wonderful story teller, equally capable of brutality.  He greatly loved, and terrified, his first cousin, the protagonist.

Evelyn:  wife of the protagonist, a poetic woman with a good sense of humor, given to wild exaggeration.  The sophisticated NYC girl had been reluctant to meet the bumpkin Irv, who was related to neighbors/friends of her’s in the Bronx.  The witty college boy soon swept Evelyn off her feet, although there is much more to the story than that, obviously.  They were married in 1951 and remained so until Irv’s death in 2005.

“My sister”:  younger than me by twenty-two months, the protagonist’s only other child, a bright and very private person.  I have zealously excluded all details of her life and identity, except for her participation in childhood events and her occasional insights on the protagonist and his wife, our mother.