A TRIP TO CANADA One of my mother’s step-brothers, my Uncle Meyer, lived in Montreal, Canada with his wife Rose. She was crazy about her half brother, Meyer. He got her to correspond with my future father, Leon Schluger, a friend of his. My father fell in love with the letters my mother wrote him so he invited her to visit him in Montreal. I’m told when my mother arrived, all dressed up from America, my father lifted her up in the air and carried her off the railroad platform. From that day on they were never apart. They were married in a garage in Philadelphia on a freezing cold day (January 14, 1923) in a no frills, very plain wedding. MY FATHER Leon Schluger (Lejby Szlugera) was never one to worry about time. No matter what he promised, he would always be late. My mother told us a story of her visit in Canada when she went with my father to buy him a new pair of shoes. She nearly left him in the store it took so long for him to make up his mind about which shoes to buy. My father was a coppersmith. He was very good at working with metal. When he was a young man in Montreal he made a copper still. It us used for making alcohol. Liquer smuggled in to the United States from Canada was very profitable during the times of Prohibition. Unfortunately the Canadian police discovered his still and confiscated it and all of my father’s equipment. They also took $8,000, which was a fortune at the time. Funny thing I heard was the that police said it was the best still they had ever seen. Another Jewish man in Canada had better luck with his still; his name was Bronfman. He founded the Seagram’s liquor empire. That’s the way it goes sometimes. Everyone needs a little mazel. Who knows, my father could have been a billionaire. ON THE STREET One of my earliest memories was when I was five years old, my mother sent me to fetch my brother Marvin for dinner. Marvin was about a year and a half older than me. After I sent him home I decided to play in the street. I was having a good time just running back and forth. Then I ran out into the street without looking and was hit by the car of a young couple coming back from their honeymoon. The poor man carried me home to my
Uncle Meyer Introduced Leon to Sadie
Leon Schluger (Lejby Szlugera) with Uncle Meyer
mother who was hysterical. She took me to the hospi- tal. This made me upset because I thought they might keep me overnight. Fortunately I had only minor inju- ries. They painted my legs with antiseptic and sent me home. RADIO The hot technology when I was born in 1925 was radio. Broadcast radio had just recently been intro- duced and everyone was buying radios and making them the new center of the home. Families would gather to listen to news and entertainment shows. At the time my father had a store where he sold beautiful lighting fixtures. I remember there was one that was shaped into grapes that lit up. When radio started to become popular my dad began selling similar items made of brass and other items for decorating radio sets. They sold like hotcakes. As my mother put it, “Money was pouring in.”
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