• Abstract and Figures
• Public Full-text

Climb Another Mountain P lant Another Tree SECOND EDITION Still Climbing Mountains; Still P lanting Trees The Story of One Man’s Life By Sidney Gefen As told to Wini Rider Young Keith Gockenbach and Judith Erwin FIRST EDITION Climb Another Mountain Plant Another Tree SECOND EDITION Still Climbing Mountains; Still Planting Trees by Sidney J. Gefen Copyright © 2009, 2013 by Sidney J. Gefen All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used, reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any manner whatsoever without the written permission of the author. Printed by The Hartley Press. For my support team Lois, Ann, Barbara and Carol With love Hartley Press had to be the publisher of my story. My relationship with Hartley began in the early 60s when Dyess Hartley was just launching the business. As one of the first Hartley customers, I take joy in remembering that I introduced graphic artist George Thompson to Dyess, and through that relationship the Hartleys learned new techniques that enabled them to expand and sophisticate their processes. After 50 years, Hartley is one of the largest printers in the state of Florida, and our relationship has come full circle with the publication of this book. CONTENTS iii CONTENTS QUOTATIONS PROLOGUE PART ONE THE BEGINNING 1 PART TWO NEW YORK BOY TO FLORIDA GI 9 PART THREE OUTBOARD MOTORS TO YACHTS 37 PART FOUR IN THE WAKE OF BOATS 67 PART FIVE ON THE HOME FRONT 83 PART SIX SHOW BUSINESS 111 PART SEVEN TURN AROUND TIME 163 iv CONTENTS PART EIGHT PALM BEACH DAYS 171 PART NINE BACK IN TOWN 209 PART TEN THE MEANING OF IT ALL 217 EPILOGUE 269 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 277 PART ELEVEN STILL CLIMBING 279 MOUNTAINS; STILL PLANTING TREES EPILOGUE 243 v The next thing most like living one’s life over again seems to be a recollection of that life, and to make that recollection as durable as possible by putting it down in writing. – Benjamin Franklin People are always blaming circumstances for what they are. I don’t believe in circumstances. The people who get on in this world are the people who get up and look for the circumstances they want, and, if they can’t find them, make them. – George Bernard Shaw As my father planted for me, so will I plant for my children. – Talmud PROLOGUE vii PROLOGUE Sid Gefen was leaning on his elbows at the desk in his office, his hands covering his mouth. His eyes widened as he pondered the question that had just been put to him. “Why do you want to write a book?” he was asked. “Whom do you hope will read it?” His hands dropped to the top of the desk. He pushed himself up out of the chair, his strong but aging frame unwinding to its full height. He turned around and pulled open a file drawer in the desk beneath the window behind him. He pulled out four thick black legal folders and turned back to his interrogator. “I want to write a book for my children and grandchildren,” he said. “I want them to know there was more to me and my life than this.” And he slammed the four black folders down on the desk in front him as hard as he could. W.R.Y. PART ONE The Beginning THE BEGINNING 3 CHAPTER I rite a book? Where do I begin? WHow about 79,000 years ago? My niece Beth Wise told me about a new genealogical, anthropological, ethnographical and demographical root search program called The Genographic Project. Created by National Geographic and IBM, it is a program that, through DNA, can trace ones ancestry back to the beginning. As Beth is my brother Murray’s daughter and we probably have many of the same genes and similar DNA, she suggested I take part in the program. So I bit, and bought the package for $110. The kit included swabs and glass vials as well as instructions about how to collect ones DNA. So I swabbed and collected and sent the DNA sample back to the source. About three weeks later – identified only by a coded number – came the answer to who I was and where I came from. You, my children, and I began in Africa – where southern Ethiopia is now – between 31,000 and 79,000 4 CLIMB ANOTHER MOUNTAIN PLANT ANOTHER TREE years ago. According to the report, we can be traced to a single individual, whom the research program has labeled “the Eurasian Adam.” “This African man is the common ancestor of every non-African person living today. His descendants migrated out of Africa and became the only lineage to survive away from humanity’s home.” Our pack, or tribe or whatever we were, apparently following a more abundant plant and animal food source, migrated north through the Holy Land, the Balkans and into Central Asia. My great-grandfather, Israel Gefen, was born in 1820 in Lithuania, which was then part of Russia. My grandfather, Abraham, was born there, too. I know little about my grandfather, except that he was married to a woman named Sarah. They had three boys and a girl. My father, Nathan, born in 1889, was their second child. First there was Harry, then my father, followed by Thomas and Esther. The family emigrated to the United States in 1898 and settled in Boston. The good thing about the United States is that all of us are immigrants. Even the Indians and Eskimos came from somewhere else – across the Bering Straits perhaps. Somewhere. After arriving in the United States, Sarah died and my grandfather married again. His second wife, The Gefen family in Boston, circa 1910. (Top left) Grandfather Abraham, Esther, Nathan and Harry. (Bottom row) Bernard, Joseph, Abraham’s second wife (name unknown) and Thomas; little girl (unknown). 6 CLIMB ANOTHER MOUNTAIN PLANT ANOTHER TREE whose name I do not know, died in child-birth but the baby, a little boy, survived. He was named Bernard and my grandfather, now with five children of varying ages, raised them alone. (Bernard, who became very successful, was always very grateful to my father and credited him with bringing him along in the family and encouraging him in life. Now Bernard’s grandson Ed is living in Jacksonville and is an educator in the Duval County School System. He is married to Robin Nuss, daughter of Dr. Robert Nuss, dean of Shands-University of Florida.) Once my father’s 8-year-old feet were firmly planted on American soil he must have flourished. I know that he was educated in Boston. After moving to New York he became successful and acquired Charlotte Mills, a carpet manufacturing and importing company based in Philadelphia. He moved the headquarters to 225 Fifth Avenue in New York. It was in New York that he met and married my mother, Bertha Silverberg, who was four years his junior. Her family had come from Vienna, and she was one of four beautiful girls – Sophie, Frances, Bertha and Tillie. They were very close. Bertha was deeply religious, which my father went along with, and ours was a strictly Kosher home. I know very little about my father’s early working THE BEGINNING 7 life, how he became a success or even how he acquired the carpet mill. All I know is that this is the beginning and the foundation for my life. My life, which follows. The house on Copeland Street - Sid rented a room when he first arrived in Jacksonville in 1941 PART TWO New York Boy to Florida GI (Above) Mother and father Bertha Silverberg and Nathan Gefen, when they were married in 1915 in New York. (Above) Beach living in the ‘20s. NEW YORK BOY TO FLORIDA GI 11 CHAPTER II apa was a brilliant man and we were people Pof means. We had a great house, a 16 cylinder Cadillac in the garage and a 53-foot sailboat at the Yacht Club in Sea Cliff, N.Y. We had servants, and I had my own nanny until I was six years old. She used to take me to church with her. The only time I remember asking my father for money at that young age was so that I could take it to church and put it in a little slotted wooden box. He later saw to it that I had my own little blue box in my room – for the Jewish National Fund for land in Palestine. I was taught how to give at a young age. I had two siblings, an older brother Sylvan and a younger brother, Maurice (Murray). I didn’t have a middle child complex because it seemed my mother was always doing extra things for me, like cooking my favorite foods – pineapple upside-down cake, spinach with eggs. She made me feel special. 12 CLIMB ANOTHER MOUNTAIN PLANT ANOTHER TREE The first house that I remember, and it was a big house, was in New York City. There was a lot of love there. As I told you, Momma was very religious and kept a Kosher home. The house was immaculately cleaned before Passover. The Oriental rugs – and the house was full of them – were rolled up and put away and straw mats were put down in their place for the summer. She made special dishes for Passover and any food that was considered non-Passover and not eaten was taken outside and burned. Momma respected the rules of her religion. As I grew older, I tried to modify her ideas. “Kosher laws were great at the time, Momma, but they were made for health reasons, ” I would say.

Load more

  382

Copy Link