Ninety Seven Years?!

Today my great Uncle Marty celebrates his 97th birthday! For most of the time that I was growing up he lived in California, but around the time I was in High school he moved back to Wisconsin - and since then I have really been able to enjoy getting to know my great uncle (my paternal grandmother's brother). He's the closest thing I have ever had to a grandfather, and I am lucky to have such a relationship with him!

When I lived in Madison, after graduating from college, I would go visit him to listen to his stories, play backgammon and enjoy his company. The last time Felipe and I were in Madison I recorded one of our conversations...I've transcribed it here...and will try to do more in the future.

I had wonderful parents. I can never figure out, my father was a shoemaker. But he would take me around wherever he went, in Chicago there were two huge Armenian carpet dealers in the loop. They were huge, we’d walk in there and they’d take my father in the office and they’d sit and talk for hours. I’d sit there and I don’t know what they’re talking about, they’re talking Armenian, I don’t understand Armenian. I never thought anything about it. I’m just a kid. We go to the ice cream factory and the same thing – they go in and talk and I would get a nice big plate of ice cream. I would listen to them talk and I don’t know what they’re talking about. No matter where he went people treated my father like somebody special. He never indicated, he never showed any indication, never talked about his past. I get a hunch he was raised by the Armenian Church. He could speak French, he came here able to read English and speak English. He was bright.

I was born behind the shoemakers shop, a little later we moved to another street, he moved to a bigger shop and we had an apartment not directly above but almost next door. He had the shop there and all I remember about that is I remember a kitchen; I remember a bedroom and a living room. I remember the 1918 Flu, everyone was sick but me, I’m a kid I walk around and everyone is on the floor. I’m walking around and I’m not sick.

And then from there my father opened a shop at Wieboldt's, the dept store in Chicago. He rented the space and he did so well the company took over the space and made him the manager of the shop. Which didn’t make him too happy but he did it for a while, but then he left and got a partner. Got a great, a nice – was a, it had everything, shoe shining, hat cleaning, clothes pressing, everything, the whole ball of wax in the loop, off the major drags. (Do you remember where exactly that was?) Michigan boulevard and State street – between those two streets they had this shop. At that time, the only time I would see him was on the weekends. He’d leave before I got up and come home after I went to bed. He worked himself to death. He got sick. He had to leave and his partner took the whole thing. He took it all and wouldn’t give us a dime.

We moved to Milwaukee then and he worked with his brother. After a year, there was something wrong. His brother also had hired a cousin who was a drinker and a gambler, which didn’t fit my father’s ethics at all, so they got in big squabbles and they had a fight one time and I was there and I was grabbing my father’s legs because I didn’t want him to get hurt. And then we moved back to Chicago, but it wasn’t long before my father went back. But we stayed, my mother and sisters and I stayed in Chicago a year and then we went back to Milwaukee.

One problem that caused was, I was a good athlete, I was good at almost all the sports. And I mean I was good, I wasn’t moderately good, I was good. And I was never eligible until my senior year, second semester. And I went out for the football team and the coach said, “I don’t care how good you are, you’re not going to make the team, I’m building for next year”. I was good at football and I was good at track, and I was good at baseball. (What did you like best?) I played more ball than I did anything else. I was quick. Not necessarily, I ran a great 100-yard dash, a good 200-yard dash, 400 was beyond my limit. So I was quick more than I was fast. I ran, I went out to practice with the track team, and when they had the city meet. And I ran and did a high jump that was better than the city champs and I ran a better 100 yard dash than the city champs, but still couldn’t compete. In a way it would probably have paid for my education if I were able to do that.

The year I graduated from high school my father went into the sanitarium for TB and I had to go to work. He left before, they didn’t discharge him, but he left on his own recognizance. I’m sure because he wanted me to go to school. Inside of a year he was back in the hospital. I used to take the train, not the train, the streetcar – it was way out on the Westside, we lived on the east side. The sanitarium was way on the west side and it took a long time to get there. And they would be in the open; in those days they kept them in the open air – even when it was below zero, because that’s what they thought it was necessary. Later on it wasn’t the case. That’s what I remember.