To all of us who hold dear family stories of our ancestors making their way to America where the "streets were paved with gold", readers will appreciate this charming and relatable memoir by Mort Zachter. Mort's Jewish immigrant grandparents, Max and Lena Wolk, came and opened a bakery in New York's Lower East Side in 1926. Their bachelor sons, Harry and Joe, came to work in the bakery even before their parents died, and it became their whole life. Their daughter, Helen, Mort's mother, also worked there and that is where Mort grew up. It was common in those times for a family to escape to America and then work hard to eek out a meager living while supporting one another.
"The Store", as the family always called the business, was not actually a bakery but rather a place that sold day-old breads and bakery goods. Mort's childhood centered on the small shop in Manhattan, complete with its smells, sounds, customs, and customers. All these things were what made up the fabric of their lives. Mort's family lived in a Brooklyn tenement and it was a hard life but all the life he knew. It is almost a classic immigrant story complete with the hard working family, supporting each other, and struggling to provide a decent life for each other. The one difference in this story is that Mort's family, unknown to him until he was an adult, was very wealthy!
Alternating chapters between Mort's childhood and his more recent years as an adult, the story unfolds with the reader becoming involved in Mort's struggles to help his family while also trying to better himself and make it through college. This is accomplished only for Mort to find out when he is thirty-six that he is set to inherit millions of dollars that his uncles had somehow hoarded away through success in the stock market and also in bonds.
As the reader goes from past to present and back, one slowly finds out more and more oddities about the bachelor uncles and his parents. Zachter thinks about the long and hard hours they all worked, including himself when he had to attend night school to get his degree. He thinks about his poor mother working all that time for no pay while they struggled at home to put food on the table. So many questions, many not answered, and so much to ponder with this new found wealth makes up a good part of this story. With the marvelous background that sets the tone for what this family goes through, only to shockingly bring us to wonder why was it all necessary when there was all this money?
The story is nostalgic and often amusing and leads the reader to wonder how Mort Zachter will deal with the new found wealth! How will he feel about his family once he realizes what all this money means, and could have meant for all of them for all those years? Will it change his life or is he set in his ways as perhaps his family was? Will the inherited work ethic be something Mort can give up and change? All these questions will come up as the story progresses and one realizes this is a memorable memoir-a family story. How a family's relationships with each other effect everything in their lives from work, education, religion, love, and of course, the mighty dollar!
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