Page 249 - The Legacy of Abraham Rothstein - text

Reminiscences

was an area called Willowbrook. Mama made out the bills, and he was
supposed to collect the money. But he always believed the hard-luck
stories he heard, and was reluctant to keep asking for what was his
due. So lots of times there was very little cash. Sometimes he would
ask Mama to call those debtors. In most money situations he
wouldn’t push. He loaned and didn’t collect. He even did what is
supposed to be less than sensible: he co-signed for a friend who let
him down, and he lost what little he had.
My earliest memory of his working was that he was never there in
the morning: he had already gone to the produce market. Sometimes,
in the summer, he would take me with him. It was an exciting
experience. There he was very affable. He was “Abe” to the people
there, back-slapping and talking the price of potatoes, in a good
mood. Sometimes he brought in produce from the truck farm, and
sometimes he would just pick things up there, having someone help
load his truck with produce he would sell out in those little towns—
what is now Los Alamitos, Torrance, and Compton. Back then they
were out in the wilds, little blue-collar areas where people could only
afford to buy a quarter of a pound of sugar at a time. And my father,
like his father, had a hard time collecting money—especially when he
thought the people were poor.
When he became more and more burdened and tired he fell asleep
easily, although he struggled to stay awake and read. But he had to
get up at four a.m. to go to the market and choose produce; so at
eight-thirty p.m. he was dead to the world.
The house he built on Figueroa Street was based almost
completely on his idea of what a house should be like. Anything in
the way of amenities my mother had to beg for. He was a very high-
handed man, never wanting to consult with anybody else. For
instance, he didn’t see why the house had to have a back porch, or
why one would need a linen closet. He grew up in a house with four
whitewashed walls and a hard-packed dirt floor, so anything else was
like a mansion to him. If you wanted windows on both sides of your
front door for ventilation, that was a nonsensical luxury. He was
willing to spend money on books, a piano, and records. But my
mother didn’t even have a decent sink to wash dishes in—it was
made of some cheap material like soapstone that gradually eroded.
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