He said, ‘You don’t have to have... I own The Corporation. I’ll get you 200 dollars and you’ll pay us back. Your wife will stay with you in the business, and you will support your family. In the meantime, you’ll have food in the house. Listen, you do what I tell you.’ So, I became a grocery man now, and I’m worth a few thousand dollars. If it wouldn’t be for Frank, I would never have it. So, then when the Rabbi came in to say the last words, he told us you should have heard what this man Casey said, you couldn’t say enough about Frank Shooster, what he done, just from the goodness of his heart, nothing matters, he wasn’t sold for the dollar. And then the Undertaker closes the casket. He was sick. You can imagine how I felt. I was only living there for about a year. Frank Shooster was sick already. So, the Undertaker comes over and says, ‘Would it make you feel better, Mrs. Shooster if I give you five minutes alone?’ I was sitting in a chair and said, ‘Every little bit helps.’ And I wouldn’t see him again. So, I say, ‘Give me ten minutes.’ A DREAM HOME Dora Shooster - My husband’s main ambition was to give me a nice home. He knew that I was just crazy about my home, not expensive, but nice. So, when he had a few dollars he made up his mind, he is going to build me a mansion. He is going to surprise me. By that time he was sick already. In the meantime, the young- er boy, Herman, was in the army. Frank made me a surprise. It was beauti- ful, velvet walls, mit beautiful. He could have spent 10,000 dollars to furnish it. In those years, that’s a lot of money. Near the end of his life, Frank started to make a little money, and then, when he could afford it, to build. He decided to build a house. He came home, and he said, ‘I’m going to build you a house but under one understand- ing. I wanna live there. I wanna have that plea- sure to make you a surprise. I want to build a house myself.’ So I said, ‘All right.’
Every night he would come down and make plans, and he started to build a house. Every night I would also come down, and I would say, ‘Frank you know what I would like? I wouldn’t want you to make wooden frames … it’s a lot of upkeep, and I don’t like… you wipe up one window it’s much easier than...’ Frank says, ‘All right.’ The next night I would come down, and he would come to the bathrooms already. I says, ‘Frank, I would like yourself to make a sink where you wash yourself. You sit down on the sink (a bidet).’ Frank says, ‘What else?’ ‘I want to have a walk-in shower, and a door.’ Nobody had it those years. ‘And I want blue tile and red trim, and I want the bathtub should go curled. Ha, ha!’ He put everything on paper.
Frank Shooster, Owner Alterations and Additions to Dwelling 124 East 25th Street. June 11th, 1947
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