CAREERS
bring meals to the chil- dren. They had noth- ing to eat. We opened Shoost- er’s Drive-In up on a Friday night, 1938 (Herman was 13-14). Harry was going around that time with Ethel, and Mr. Kohn, her father, was a millionaire. They knew that the restaurant is going to be opened. My friends Goldie and Nathan came, we didn’t have anything, no furniture, no nothing, no table, we couldn’t afford to buy anything. We sat on sheets and had a picnic.
Dora Shooster - Mine[sic] son, Izzy, got married, and he didn’t want to stay in the gas business. So, we got to buy him a business. Mr. Shooster took him and the find a taproom. Before buying that taproom, he had to agree that he will NEVER go under the bar. I don’t want my son behind the bar. You never know it when they get drunk. The Tap Room was $28K. Frank paid a few thousand dollars and got a loan for the rest. He thought Izzy will pay for the loan. When he came home, I told him, ‘I’m not satis- fied with that. You didn’t do enough to help our older boy.’ I says, ‘Some parents are strug-
Frank Shooster at Shooster’s Gas Station
gling to send their boys to college to make some- thing out of their child, and you give him $20K to pay. When will he ever come to something?’ I says, ‘Tear up the note. We will struggle and get it paid. You would have to spend $20K to educate him. You brought a son to this world; you have to see to it that you’re responsible for him. ’ So, we wouldn’t go on vacation, and we would do this or that, but we have to pay that note. I wanted to give him a clear title. Let him go ahead and make a living. Harry liked the gas business, and his wife didn’t care if he stayed in the gas business. So, he stayed with us in the business, and he was very devoted, and he made a living. After Pop bought the second gas station, which happened to be on the same block, he also bought the empty prop- erty between them and built an ice house on the empty lot. Meanwhile, down the road, in Wilmington, was a round restaurant called Spic ‘n Span. So, my husband thought he has three boys. Each one is growing up. They didn’t go to college, and he has to see to it that they should have something, enough for the boys.” We hired George Nicoles, a carpenter, and father of 12 kids to build a similar restaurant. He lived on the corner near my friends. I used to
Herman was a young boy. He was very handy and willing. If somebody goes by the restaurant and then comes down to the tailor shop, I was told that when Herman waits on them, they eat twice as much! They used to love him. They used to love him and leave a dollar. So we built that restaurant, and it made out pretty good. A man that used to work for us, Ed Rosen- thal, bought himself a trailer and used to ride our grounds to steal customers away. Around the same time, we decided Herman is a young boy and he works so hard, and it’s summertime. So, we sent him away on a week’s vacation. It cost $15, the whole week. We just let the boy have a little vacation. In the middle of that week we saw that imposition, Ed, stealing our customers and we got scared. We were worried. He had worked for us. He prepared the syrup. We didn’t know-how. So, right away, Frank went to the camp where Herman was and he brought him home. He made the hamburgers on the grill, and with the Frigidaire he made the syrup. And we stayed with the restaurant, and the gas station, and the tailor shop, so we had a little bit of money coming in.
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