DISSOLVE THE PARTNERSHIP
Dora Shooster - When I got to Chester, I didn’t like Frank to be a partner with Gins- berg. Ginsberg was a single fellow, and he was young, and he was a bum, [sic] in plain English. And, I didn’t want my husband to be associated with a man like him. I told Frank it’s going to be either Gins- berg or me. I don’t want Ginsberg as a partner. Frank, ‘How can you do it?’ ‘Dissolve the partnership. You have two golden hands. Your success is in your hands. You are already in Chester. Tell Ginsberg you have to dissolve your partnership. If he wants to remain in the store, he could remain in the store. If not, you remain. You pay each other out with whatever expenses you have.’ Ginsberg, ‘I want to stay where I am. If you want to dissolve the partnership, you look for another place.’ So, Frank comes home one day on a big Monday morning with his big scissors. The big scissors that we have in our house. Frank, ‘Well Dora, you didn’t want me to be with Ginsberg,’ with a smile. He knew that I had the right idea. ‘Now we are going to look for an empty store.’ ‘Ginsberg didn’t ask you to sign that you wouldn’t open a store within so many blocks. Everybody likes you. Frank, go into Linden- burg, the Realtor, and ask him where you can get any little place.’ Lindenburg, ‘Right across the street there’s a baker shop. She doesn’t need all that stuff for a baker shop, so we’ll give her side for a bakery shop, and we’ll make a petition, and you’ll take the other half, and you’re in business. You buy a second-hand machine and a table, and you’re in business!’ Sure enough. That’s how we did it. And we started to do business. This created competition and a rift in the family. Ginsberg used to live with my broth- er, Baruch. Tanta Oodle, Baruch’s wife, used to take her son, Sam, out of school whenev- er Ginsberg had to go away because if the store was closed, the customer would go to Shooster’s.
Ginsberg didn’t stay there long, perhaps three years. We remained and started to do a little business. Herman Shooster - I was told that Gins- berg had Communist leanings. This might be what my mother described as him being a bum. My dad had enough trouble with poli- tics from the old world. I believe my father was inclined toward a more liberal view of the world like socialism, anyways, although, in truth, he never used that word. His actions, on the other hand, were entrepreneurial, which augers against the idea that he was a socialist. I think his liberal lean- ings probably account for my own feelings so many years later. It truly was a different time. By the way, this store was not across the street, it was next door. My father would never take a partner again. MORE COMPETITION Dora Shooster - [Early on] We had a man working for us, Nick Moretti. I says, Frank, that boy is no good for you. Pop knew what I was saying because he saw him work across the street at the competi- tion while he worked for us. So, he believed me. Everything Nick would do for us, I thought for certain if he collected a few dollars, a dollar would go in his pocket. It got worse when he moved in across the street. One day he decided he is going to work for himself. That week he bought a truck for collecting the weights [dirty laundry is called ‘the weights’]. This was a very real problem since he knew all our customers! As soon as Pop realized what was happen- ing, he had to buy a truck, too. He gave it to our son, Izzy, and directed him to go around to all our customers before going to school. We figured Izzy would collecting weights (dirty laundry) from 7 AM- 9 AM, then go to high school and after school go again. The kids were used to hard work; they had to pitch in.
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