BORN INTO TOUGH TIMES
“We may not have had much money, but my world was full of the riches a young boy would easily happen upon in a small town.” - Herman Shooster
Herman Shooster - I was born in 1924. My Hebrew name is Zev Volof ben Pincas HaCo- hen. By the time I arrived, things were a little easier economically for my parents. It wouldn’t be long before they would get slapped back down by The Great Depression. By the age of 6, talk of the depression was a part of our everyday lives. I could not compre- hend the concept of a depression, but as the years wore on, I could not help but hear about the tough times everyone was going through. My parents had a few meager sources of income in 1929. They started with a tailor and cleaning shop in 1915 and with limited access to capital a year before I was born, my father and his friends created a small finance company, and they elected him President. He retained that title his whole life. As my father struggled to build a business, most times just hanging on by his fingernails, mother, on the other hand, saved every penny. She knew there was no safety net for her or for us. If something happened to my father, she would end up with nothing. That was a power- ful impetus for her scrimping and saving. When enough money was saved, she shared it with my surprised father, and they looked for investments. All they could afford were homes for poor people. Meanwhile, when the depression struck no one was buying clothing, and few could afford rent. Foreclo- sures loomed. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, (1933 - 1945) was tasked with getting the country back on its feet. Most people practi- cally worshipped him. I found him an inspir- ing speaker. I remember his fireside chats on the radio. They were filled with down-to-earth advice. When Roosevelt took office, one out of four Americans were out of work. Some cities had as much as 50% unemployment. More than 9,000 banks closed. The resulting panic caused financial chaos. The first thing the new president did was to put the banks on holiday. Then he guaranteed them with the full faith of the United States government and reopened a little bit at a time.
Top to bottom, Izzy, Harry, and Herman Shooster
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