an insatiable hope for the future and a commitment to his family.
On Thanksgiving Day, 1954, my parents and I were on our way to dinner at the home of my father’s business partner. I recall sitting in the back seat surrounded by other cars—all of us driving to our Thanksgiving Day destinations. Suddenly, our new Buick stopped. In the middle of traffic, my father abruptly grabbed the gearshift and shifted it into Park. Without saying a word, he put his head down.
My mother shook his shoulder back and forth. His head, however, remained planted on the headrest. Traffic signals changed from red to green. Horns blared behind us. Surrounding cars moved ahead and swerved around ours. But my father’s unconscious state remained the same. My mother let out a scream—a visceral cry that I’ll never forget.
To this day, I don’t know how they found out, but eventually I heard the shrill of a siren. I was only six years old, so I did my best to explain what happened to the paramedics. They carried my father out of the car, and we took a seat in the ambulance.
Once we arrived at the hospital, I sat in the waiting room while my mother remained with my father. Eventually, she emerged from the hospital room and sat next to me. Her eyes were filled with tears, and her hands were full. In her fists, she clutched a watch, a wedding band, and a wallet. My father had a fatal coronary heart attack, and these were the three possessions that he carried with him.
Grieving was a luxury my mother could not afford. The bills had to be paid, and her daughter had to be raised. For the next two years, she worked as a single mother to support both of us.
From that Thanksgiving forward, we stopped celebrating the holiday. Year after year, I remember sitting in class and listening to my teachers talk about Thanksgiving. “It’s a time to give thanks,” they would say. Meanwhile, it was a day about which we never spoke at home and an event that brought about one of the biggest changes of my life.
It wasn’t until I married Saeed that Thanksgiving was restored to its celebratory status. We were looking to live in Beverly Hills at the time, and I was pregnant with our second son, Michael. It was a big move—from our simple residence to our estate in the best part of Beverly Hills. We finally found a home that we loved.
Unfortunately, competition was fierce, and our chances for an accepted offer were slim. The other buyers were more qualified and had better financial resources than we did. But through Saeed’s determination and negotiation skills, he convinced the owner to sell us the house.
Thanksgiving was rapidly approaching, and Saeed explained to the owner the circumstances behind my father’s death. My husband requested to buy the house on Thanksgiving Day. He told the seller that he never wanted his wife to be sad on this day again. The deal was sealed on Thanksgiving; escrow closed two months later, and we moved into our beautiful home on the first day of spring.
A Second Start in America
Like my parents and countless other Jews who had survived Nazi Germany, Arnold arrived in the United States with few belongings and a determination to succeed. My mother’s sister, Anne, knew Arnold’s sister. Both sisters felt that my mother and Arnold shared much in common. Two years after my father’s death, Anne acted as a matchmaker and convinced my mother and Arnold to meet. My aunt Anne saw an opportunity to improve my mother’s life and acted on her behalf.
My mother and Arnold became good friends. They had much in common: their European roots, their native languages, a commitment to family, and a common experience of wartime tragedy. In 1956, they married. The three of us—Arnold, my mother, and I—traveled together for their honeymoon. We stayed in the Concord, a hotel tucked away in the Catskill Mountains.
Initially, when I told friends about my mother’s plan to re-marry, they asked how I felt about Arnold: How could my father’s shoes be filled so quickly? What if I didn’t get along with him? But I never had these fears. I was happy for my mother, and Arnold and I immediately formed a bond that, to this day, has remained strong. Two years later, my baby sister, Betty, was born. With her birth, we were four.
For many years, Arnold earned his income selling sewing machines. He often worked at conventions, where he would host a booth demonstrating the superiority of his products. Surrounded by onlookers, he would grasp a piece of fabric, slide it under the machine’s needle, press down on the foot pedal, and raise his hands in the air. The machine whirred as its needle bobbed up and down.
My new father sewed pockets on aprons, embroidered designs on cloth, and monogrammed initials—all with hands-free ease. I stood by his side, wearing an apron with a heart-shaped pocket that was created by this marvelous machine.
At first, I was a reluctant prop. But my trepidation vanished once I heard the warm words of passers-by. They would tell Arnold what a lovely daughter he had. I realize now that he was teaching me, at a young age, the skills required to sell successfully.
Arnold was a savvy salesperson who knew how to build a business. With the sale of one machine, he bought two more. Eventually he sold enough machines to be able to lease a sewing machine store. That store’s success allowed him to buy another one. He then set his eyes on a new retail endeavor. Arnold pulled together his resources and approached Paul Swado, owner of the well-known Swado’s Furniture Store.
Swado’s was in the heart of Downtown Buffalo’s Polish district. Here, Arnold knew that his ethnic roots would work to his advantage—he shared the same language and culture as the shop’s customers. Mr. Swado sold his company to Arnold. Now my father was the owner of one of the busiest furniture shops in Buffalo, New York.
Marriage and My Move West
In 1970, I graduated from State University New York (SUNY-Buffalo) and married Saeed. Shortly after, we planned to move west. Although he could have found work locally, this was never his intention. While we dated, he would tell me, “Myra, read my lips: We’re getting married in Buffalo, but after our honeymoon, we’re moving to California.”
Saeed is a man of his word. After getting married, we packed our lives in our car and drove across the country. At the time, I was selling waterless cookware. It was a job that I began when I was in college. When I told my boss about my plans to leave Buffalo, he was sad to see one of his most productive sales people leave. In fact, he asked me to launch the same cookware business on the west coast.
At first, this sounded like a good idea. I had never been to California and assumed that the cookware business would be an easy endeavor to launch. But once on the west coast, I quickly learned about Southern California commuter life and how the expansive urban landscape made selling waterless cookware a daunting task.
Our drive to California was like an extended honeymoon. After all, the cities that line the cross-country trip have filled pages of countless coffee table books and travel guides. Unfortunately, these publications are the only references we have. As a result of our determination to get to the other side of the country, Saeed and I took to the highway, drove 14 hours a day, and stopped only to eat and rest.
When I look back, I see missed opportunities. Now, I have children, grandchildren, a husband, family, work, and friends, which means my life is filled with activity. Then, we were young with few commitments. We could have ambled across the country, stopped to see the sights, and experienced local culture. Instead, with autopilot-like focus, we charged ahead toward our destination.
First
