Page 173 - Where the Dream Ends ebook

Insurance

bles in thick leather binders that proved, conclusively, that no
amount of insurance was enough even for the poorest of fam-
ilies. In those post-war days of the 1940s, when financial se-
curity for families of the tenements was as elusive as heat on a
cold day, it was a hard argument to refute. Insurance salesmen
were like members of the family: professionals, held in high
esteem, men you could trust; though Harry suspected that
during those afternoon forays into the neighborhood while his
father was at work, Mr. Axelrod had his eyes on more than his
father’s wallet.
After Harry’s family moved to Long Island, his mother was
ill-prepared for the high-powered techniques of the insurance
salesman who rang the doorbell of their tract house one after-
noon, offering unheard-of riches.

* * *

Harry’s mother was a victim of what is called “The Great
Depression” in American history. She was born at the turn of
the 20 century to a New York Jewish family of modest means,
th
and when she was seventeen, attractive and rebellious, she fell
in love with a handsome young man with a mustache and a
cigar. He was beneath her in both station and education, but
she married him anyway, knowing that so long as she married
a Jew, her family would take care of them even if they couldn’t
make ends meet on their own.

In the beginning, she was right. For nearly 10 years —
through the birth of two children — Harry’s father worked in
the family clothing business; and had it not been for the eco-
nomic collapse of the 1920s that ruined so many family for-
tunes, they might have continued enjoying their lives together

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