One day Izzy decided he wants to change his schedule around and doesn’t want to pick up in the morning. He thinks the truck should be his truck. Pop didn’t like it, so Izzy just quit high school. He was going to go whenever he pleas- es. So, he didn’t go to high school, Haha. You know that we didn’t put up a fight. He didn’t go to high school, so he didn’t go to high school. Later, Izzy took an intelligence test, and he won the biggest prize! Herman Shooster - A lot of people didn’t finish high school back then. Izzy attended Chester High for two years. It was not unusu- al in those days. The most important thing on everyone’s minds was just trying to make a living. Finishing high school was not a prior- ity for anyone. From the day we could work, every one of us had to chip in. We knew no other way to earn our meager way. ISAAC SHOOSTER (MAY 30, 1921) Herman Shooster - 1920, the census show my parents, both age 27, owned a tailor shop. They had two kids: Isadore, four and 6/12ths; Harry, three and 3/12ths years old. They also had two boarders: David King, 22, from New York; and John Ethridge, 22, from Mississippi; both machinists. It is hard to make out, but it also states Frank Shooster is not from Łutsk but Nyrssifbanie, Russia. We can’t find this on a map. Dora Shooster - “I would like to tell you about my life with kids. Izzy and Harry were about nine and seven years old at that time. We lived in Chester on 6th Street. I was preg- nant and due to give birth at any time then. I had a few roomers. I got up Sunday morning; it was decora- tion day. I said, ‘Frank, today is the day, and what am I going to do with the boys if you go away? He told me that he had to go out and buy trimmings for the shop and that during the week he wouldn’t have a chance to do it.
Izzy, 11 years old, 1926
So, he went away, and I had close neigh- bors who were busy with their own company, getting ready for the holiday. I was ashamed to go out on the porch. In those days, women use to hide themselves when they were pregnant. Frank had to go to Philadelphia to buy the trimmings. He had to take a jitney and then a train, and it was quite a ride to get to Philadelphia. The neighbors were all busy having cook-outs, and I was ashamed to go outside. I jumped over the fence, and I told Izzy and Harry to stay right by the fence. I felt I was due then. I walked to my sister-in-law, Mrs. Emmett, and told her she would have to take care of my boys until Frank came back. It was about a three-block walk. I hopped on a jitney and went to the hospital. There was no telephone there either. I told the driver of the jitney, who now is a millionaire, Take me to the hospital as fast as you can! Perhaps I was even too late then.
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