Eisenberg Assisted Living: Our Stories, Our Lives, Vol. One

even number--it was two cents less. Or three ninety-eight or ten ninety-eight.

The salesmen all thought my father was a quiet gentleman, but they didn’t know him at home. I can remember my mother always saying when my father pulled up in the car, go to the back door and help your father with what he’s carrying. Because if you didn’t, he would be in a bad temper.

He was born in Poland and educated win Switzerland, so I assume his family was fairly comfortable. I never met his father, but he has some kind of brother and his brother and he both came over. His brother was two years younger than he and they both came over from Poland. He never talked about his family.

He brought over his mother and his sister after he and his brother had been settled here. Originally he was in the wallpaper business in New Haven Connecticut, which is where my mother met him. Then they moved to Worcester, where he tried the curtain business. He apparently tried a number of businesses, because at one point he opened a curtain factory in Boston and it didn’t even last a year. He didn’t make a go of it, but I was too young to know any of the details.

If my dad said do something, you did it. Otherwise, he’d blow his top. He would yell. He wouldn’t swear. If I asked my mother, could I get something, she would always say, “Ask your father.” I think he gave her a certain amount of money each week. But he never said no.

He would always say, “Do you really need it?” That I remember. And if you said, “Yes, I really need it,” he’d say Well you can have it.” So he controlled the purse strings.

But my husband, always said, “Go ask your mother.”

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