holding on by their fingernails. 1932, they miraculously scraped together enough money to buy a gas station. With this, they put my older brothers to work. A few years later they bought another gas station that happened to be on the very same block. Each station served a different route. One serviced east-west, Pennsylvania to New Jersey, and the other the north-south, Philadelphia to Washington. Between the two stations was an empty lot. He bought that lot too, and built an ice shed the size of an outhouse. It was the time before electric refrigeration. Everyone need- ed ice for their iceboxes every few days. Later, he tore down that ice house and built a small take-out restaurant. I worked there every day when I started high school. The food must have been good because, as the business grew the building became more elaborate. Leveraging our meager success, my father bought a piece of commercial proper- ty in another part of town. He built a couple of stores. That’s when he ran into big trou- ble. Approved for a two-story permit and strapped for cash he only built one story. The local government refused to change the permit making it impossible to get a Certif- icate of Occupancy. It turned into a fiasco that almost bankrupted the family, leading to court appearances and newspaper articles. As the costs mounted, foreclosure notices loomed until the burden was beyond his abil- ity. He lost the property. Then by a miracle of goodwill, he regained it again, with the help of a disabled associate whom he helped years prior. That case worked itself all the way to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. My father, Herman, never told me this story. It was only in my later years that we discovered news- paper clippings and learned what happened. Frank Shooster, Sr. must have suffered greatly during those times. I can hardly imagine him as an immigrant, seeking justice in an Amer- ican court, and not just any court, but The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. When it was over, he won the case. Anti-Semitism was rampant in the early 1900s, reaching its highest point in history during World War II. They lived through the
almost total destruction of our race. Eventual- ly, a count was determined, six million killed, half of world Jewry and most of our family in the old country. Years later, the term Holo- caust was used to describe the magnitude of destruction. Frank Shooster Sr. lived through cataclys- mic times; two world wars punctuated his life. I discovered both of his draft cards. The one for WWI simply states his name and serial number, 1515. He was never called to action. After WWII, cars changed the Ameri- can landscape, suburbs were created, super- highways were built and bridges replaced the ferries to cross back and forth from New Jersey. Seizing the opportunity, our restau- rant gradually grew and pushed out the gas stations. It was the heyday of drive-ins and the beginning of Rock ‘n Roll. For his final act, Frank Shooster Sr. built a dream home for mother. She cherished him and that place for the rest of her life. He died shortly after they moved in. EARLY LIFE Frank Shooster Sr. grew up in tzarist Russia. His father, the shoemaker, was very poor. Things were so bad, there was little to eat. Childhood mortality was high. He had ten brothers and sisters, most died of famine. Life was harsh during those times for everyone, especially for Jews. Łutsk became part of the Soviet empire around the time my dad left. Today, it is located in the Ukraine. If you’re looking at a map, you can find Łutsk in the district of Łutsk Raion, within the larger province of Volyn Oblast. It is situated near a natural bend in the river Styr. A bend in a river is called a Łutsk; thus, the name of the town. Generations before my father was born, the Jewish people were attracted to Poland by The Statute of Kalisz . The express purpose of this proclamation was specifically to attract Jews to Poland with the promise of progres- sive legal and religious rights.
53
Made with FlippingBook. PDF to flipbook with ease