Son of Yoshe Hochstein and Rashe Gitte (Isaacson) Hochstein.

Brother of Leo (who had at least two children), Fanny (who had at least one child), Sarah (who had two children), and Phillip (who had four children.)

Husband of Ida (Leshan) Hochstein.

Father of Elenore Lester, Paul Hochstein, Robert Hochstein.

But the good times did not last. Sam, like his mother, like everyone, was wiped out by the Great Crash. I have the impression from my father and his two siblings that from the early 1930s on, Sam was a broken and depressed man, struggling to pay the rent for his family.

I asked Bob Hochstein to recall his Bronx childhood, in the 1930s and 1940s.

Your mentioning your interest in stories about my parents [Ida and Sam Hochstein] got me thinking again. One really nice one and one not so. I might have mentioned both but I don't think so.

Dad had part ownership/management in the building at 1340 Morris Ave. It was a terrible time, the late 30's. Some tenants simply couldn't pay the rent. And for one in particular, Dad would send me out to get groceries for them and leave it at the door. I would ring the bell and run. Dad said they would never accept it otherwise.

For those that were late in paying the rent, he tried not to lean on them. His partner in the management of the building was just the opposite and they would get into huge fights over this and other matters. In the end, one day Dad slapped him in the face. That was big and eventually the partnership broke up and the building was sold. Dad's mother either owned or had an interest in it.

As I think I've mentioned before, during this period and the war years Dad was in an awful funk and didn't talk much which had especially grave consequences for Elenore (Sam's daughter). She felt unloved and I guess simply unwanted. The best I can make of it is that she never got over it.

But I always had great sympathy for Dad, despite his lack of connecting with us. In lots of families "love" wasn't the big thing, it was bread on the table, doing well in school. So we weren't an affectionate family but they did convey to me, somehow, a sense of caring.

As I got into my teens I always felt Mom as too hard on Dad as though he wasn't trying to make a living. There would be lots of arguments about money, which made Elenore, I think, sort of stingy and me just the opposite.

Incidentally, the reason I wound up in Oklahoma was [that it only cost] $50 a semester and you could work for room and board. Also, I wanted to get far away from the screaming. Also, I wanted to get away from the Bronx, which I felt was dragging me down. Also, I might be writer if I went away and had "experiences." More than you want to know, but you're provocative.

Bob Hochstein, June 2001

Yet my father reports seeing his father in the 1930s staring in the mirror saying, over and over "What are you trying to do to me? what are you trying to do to me?"  

Sam's son Bob notes (above) the profound effect that Sam's detachment and depression had on his eldest child, his daughter Elenore.

Bob continued in another e-mail...

Miles, don't know if I told you about my secretive runs to safe subway boxes where Dad hid etchings and books. This was during the war. Sam would spot at an auction a particular book or etching that he felt was a good value in a larger collection. He'd hide it [in a locker] box to be smuggled into the house at a future date.

Sometimes I just had to feed the meter as it were--I think it was nickel for 24 hours. Other times I would bring the contraband home. Mom was going crazy over the expanding collection of books and etchings which reached thousands of the former and many hundred of the latter. This at a time when we were really broke. (When I was treasurer of so-called Blue Devils club, she emptied our dues from a secret hiding place--about $7 or $8 dollars. I wanted to kill her because I was sure my "friends" would kill me.) The point was, as she crying explained, she needed it for the rent. Talk about "the rent" was, as I think I explained, endless. And it often involved crying and screaming.

But back to the books and etchings. The point was that Dad, God bless him, was managing somehow to build this huge private collection at time when we were hurting from day to day. While it was little crazy, I was always sympathetic with Dad. He got such joy from it all.

At this point he really had two separate lives--one of high art and culture (he also collected classic RCA 78 opera records) and the other of struggling to eke out a living.

It all may sound bizarre but that's the way it was. He had deal in his workaday world with awful people and he created his own refined world of literature, art, music and other languages.

How many people in the Bronx could do what he managed to pull off? Sure, it was sort of selfish. I understood that, too. But that was Sam and I always loved him.

I don't think I explained that between the two of us we would bring stuff home gradually. So there was never any bundles. You could slip a book or etching in a newspaper. So, too, with the records.

Other stores to come. Stuff is coming back to me. Best wishes at home and I hope all are thriving. Robert.

After taking a walk, Bob continued... Took a walk and was thinking about what I told you. To be fair, he caused us a lot of angst and pain. Mom was right when she'd say, "you're like a drunken sailor." He was when it came to books and pictures. But also in fairness, he did think he was providing an insurance policy for us--that he was buying would be valuable some day and that would be insurance for her. Fact is we gave most of his stuff we gave away after he died to NYU and a library in Jerusalem, though Elenore managed to sell some of his stuff. When El died I got a few of the etchings. One was recently appraised at a high price. I'm sure he never paid more than a hundred dollars or so for an etching, probably less. I've never stopped missing him. He truly was one of kind.

~

Shula told me to let you know that after we met, he wrote letters to her family in a kind of biblical Hebrew that awed her family. He did have gift for languages and he would learn them by reading texts with a dictionary at his side. He had endless patience for this and would do so in early morning hours. In bed, he always had several books along with his wife. You would have fun with him. OK enough for now.

Bob Hochstein, July 2001

Above: Sam Hochstein reading a newspaper on a bench at the 1936 World's Fair.

As Paul Hochstein told me and as Bob Hochstein confirms above, it was only his joint ownership of an apartment building with another man (with whom there were endless conflicts) and the rents that he was able to collect from tenants (no doubt as financially desperate as everyone else) that enabled him to remain solvent through the thirties.

His great love was books, fine collector's editions. He did open a bookstore during my father's childhood, probably the mid-1930s, and my father also recalls schlepping books to and from auctions with his father, on the subway, and working in the book store.

Their whole apartment was filled with books. Paul Hochstein recalls that his mother Ida (Leshan) Hochstein, hated the books because of "the dust". But Sam's collecting was unstoppable.

The fine book store went broke. Customer tastes were not able to keep up with Sam's opinion of literary worth and fine printing. Also, he had chosen the name "Nonesuch" for his bookstore. As a result he was promptly sued by a publishing house of that name, of which apparently he had been unaware.

Later, in the early forties as war broke out, he finally found work as an airport guard at La Guardia. By then he would have been in his mid-fifties. My uncle Bob Hochstein told me of how his mother wrapped Sam's legs in newspaper under his pants to withstand the bitter cold of night guard duty at the airport.

Bob also tells a story of Sam's sense of humor. Sam pretended to be asleep while on duty. He was approached by another guard who tried to take away his gun, at which point he grabbed his gun and laughed, showing that he had been wide awake, just pretending to sleep on the job.

This provides some evidence that what seems to have been a joking nature persisted through it all.

Following the war he found work again with his former real estate company, but his casual and informal style of business was not compatible with the new management, and that didn't work very well or last very long.

I asked Bob Hochstein about his father Sam and his wife Shula and how Sam and Shula first met when Bob and Shula arrived by boat from Israel circa 1957.

No question Dad was smitten with her (his daughter in law, Shula) from the get-go. He always had a keen eye for the ladies. And here was one that was not only pretty but spoke Hebrew with a Sephardic accent. It was just wonderful for him. He absolutely adored showing her off whenever he could. They would talk about Hebrew poets and authors. It was ideal for him, though our stay in the apartment was relatively brief--perhaps a month or so. And of course Shula enjoyed that attention/affection that was so generous.

When Shula and Bob arrived from Israel, the story goes that Sam pretended to be an uncle rather than Bob's father...

That business about their meeting in the car, it wasn't Sam's idea to tell her he was the uncle, I whispered that to him. I guess just for fun.

Remember, too, this was a big time for Israel. It occupied the highest moral ground. And a "sabra" was a hero and Shula looked and acted the part. After all, that's who she was. [She had] an openness and I guess an assertiveness. She was a force that Dad thoroughly enjoyed and Mom sort of coped with.

On the latter, no real friction other than questions about Shula's "odd" diet, endless salads and fruit. I guess that was bothersome because Mom cooked heavy. These are really minor things and there was never real tension during the stay, though Shula thought Mom didn't care for her that much. Don't think was actually true, but maybe Dad making such an fuss over Shula was disturbing to her. Could be. But we out of there and in DC in pretty quick order.

I don't know if any of this makes sense to you but it's about the way I can recall things. About Israel again, like the war and depression, for Jews, anyway, Israel loomed so very large and here comes a native "son"--so I, we [Bob and Shula], created a stir not only at home but everywhere we went.

I guess that's it for now, questions, let me know. Take care and all the best. Robere

Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2001 17:59:43 -0700
From: "Riesenberg, Alan"

Hi Miles,

My name is Alan Riesenberg, and I grew up at 1635 Montgomery Avenue in the Bronx. I knew your grand-parents and perhaps your father and his siblings, although I have only dim recollections of that time, having left the Bronx in 1967. My parents, Hinda and Jacob Riesenberg were certainly good friends of your grandparents, living directly across the hall from them for many years in Apt. 5-D. Having accidentally come across your web-site, I was interested in knowing what your father is doing now, if in fact, he is still alive. My mother passed away last year at the age of 82, while my father is still alive and living in Bergenfield, NJ at the age of 87.

I still remember the kindness your grandparents always showed my family in the years we lived in the same building, and that I used to go shopping for your grandmother when she needed something. Your grandparents were terrific people and my mother loved them both very much. [...]

Best regards,
Alan Riesenberg

I have only one memory of Sam Hochstein, from approximately 1963 or 1964, when I was about 3 and 1/2 or 4. He had suffered a stroke and walked in a walker. I was a little bit scared of him at first - I can see and hear him walking toward me even now, looming high above me, shuffling in a strange chrome walker, speaking in a strangely accented English.

But then he played hide and seek with me, right in that small New York apartment. I remember that one time I found him hiding in the bathtub, behind the shower curtain. And one time I found him hiding under the bed! (How did a man who walked with difficulty climb under a bed?)

That is my only personal memory of Sam Hochstein. He died in 1964, after my family's return from Stockholm.

"Nice to hear, Miles. You're true researcher--you hang in. Doubt very much if there are any letters. If there are, I never saw them. But, in fact, they [Sam and Ida] weren't ever physically separated to the best of my knowledge. And if they were, I'm sure Dad would call....

"Incidentally, on more than one occasion Dad spoke to about the three evils in the world, the 3 "C's", Communism, Capitalism, and Catholicism. In those days he read a couple of Yiddish papers which I believe had Socialist orientation. I think he saw himself that way.

"He was on to Communism as an unmitigated evil before liberal acquaintances thought of it that way and even in face of its fight against Hitler and his left leaning, even Commie, daughter [Elenore Lester]. Socialism was big in the trade union movement and involved many Jewish members and leaders."

Dear Miles:

I too, like Warren can tell you nice things about your grandfather (my Uncle Sam).

We corresponded for years (10 to be exact) in Yiddish using the English alphabet. I was about eight years old when the relationship started. They were mostly humorous letters. I saved a few -- maybe someday I can share them with you.

Both of us were musically inclined. He would go to the auction and buy Yiddish and Hebrew folk melodies and bring them on his Sunday weekly visits. I would play the piano and we would sing together. Needless to say, your grandmother (my Aunt Ida) was furious. I guess our voices were pretty bad.

I wanted you to know this about your grandfather. He liked fun and he loved his Jewishness.

The questionnaire regarding our family will soon follow.

Julie.