Only in America: A Fiction Short Story

My name is William Rosen. That’s my American name. Back in the old country it was Magen Thallrossen.

I arrived in New York City in 1904 with my wife Ditza (now it’s Ada) and our six children: Motel (Max), Yossel (Joseph), Ruchell (Rose), Gershon (George), Helena (Helen), and Faygala (Felice). Their ages were 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, and the baby was one year old.

With the $19 we were able to bring with us, we rented a three-room apartment on Orchard Street and Delancy in the Lower East Side of New York City. We arrived with a package of sewing needles, a tape measure, and a scissors and very little else.

We had been sponsored by my uncle Hershel (now Harry) who already lived in New York City and was in the garment business on the Lower East Side. That $19 was used to pay for the first month’s rent of $13 and a sewing machine with a down payment of $3, leaving us $3 to survive on until we could earn some income.

I had been a tailor in the old country and Ada had been a seamstress. The apartment had a bedroom for Ada and myself. The kitchen was also the sleeping room for the three boys and the third room was our workroom, where the girls slept at night.

We were fortunate to have arrived in 1904 as prior to 1900 this apartment building did not have any indoor plumbing. Before 1900 two outhouses took care of the needs of all the occupants of this building. This indoor plumbing for the entire building was on the first floor of the apartment building, while our apartment was on the second floor.

The workroom was where my wife and I did work for Uncle Harry, who was a manufacturer of ladies’ dresses. He sold his products to retail stores and had his garments completed by workers such as my wife and I.

Our workroom contained three tables, two baskets, many spools of thread and a large bed for all three girls to sleep in. My wife and I each worked 14 to 16 hours a day to assemble the pieces of fabric that arrived at our apartment every day except Saturday.

These packages, which I refer to as bundles, required cutting some small pieces to fit the larger pieces and then using the sewing machine to piece together the final product. This usually needed a final effort by my wife to make sure that there were no seams showing and that there were no extra attachments of any sort on the dress.

Our boys Max and Joseph made extra money by being runners. They delivered our final product to Uncle Harry’s shop and then picked up more bundles for us to work on. For this work before and after school they each earned $1 a week.

With Ada and myself working with the sewing machine and the pressing iron, which we had to buy to press out the wrinkles, we earned a total of $16 a week for a combined work week of about 150 hours.

My wife soon became exhausted from all this work plus all of the household duties, and I was forced to hire a seamstress, who I was lucky enough to hire for $6 a week.

My wife then decided that she did not like the look of the dresses I was completing for my uncle. Her complaint was that they all looked the same, as if they were potato sacks when worn by women, no matter how tall the woman was or what shape or weight.

Ada decided to make a dress out of the many leftover pieces of material from all the dresses were we assembling in our shop. When she finished, I told her that the dress looked a little better but not much.

I said that her dress and all of my uncle’s dresses still had the flapper look of the day, which was the flat-chested look achieved by women wearing something called a bandeau.

Then Ada asked me if I would help her design an undergarment that would accentuate a woman’s natural figure. Together we designed a new undergarment that consisted of two cups connected by shoulder straps and a band that fastened in the back.

Ada wore the newly designed undergarment under the dress that she made. When friends saw her new figure form, they demanded that she make those “bras” for their use.

She did and sold many of them, and soon we were no longer working for my uncle. Instead Ada and I were making and selling just these “bras.” These made us so much money we were soon able to move to the Upper East Side of New York (with indoor plumbing in every apartment).

Albert Zimbler is the 93-year-old author of six humor short story books on Amazon of which MORE DATING AND MATING SECRETS OF SENIORS AND OTHER HUMOR SHORT STORIES is the latest. He also teaches senior improv.

Click here for a video of the presentation by Al Zimbler on the inspiration for his humorous stories given to the MEL (Men Enjoying Leisure) group in Chicago to which he belongs.

Click here for an interview of Al Zimbler on “The Daily Author.”