Fletch
I'll Lock Up
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/08/us/08canton.html
Sam Stone was a very lucky man. He'd come to Pittsburgh from Romania as just another Jewish boy with little more than his faith and its teachings to do good. Like many another man of that faith, he found himself in one of a few merchant trades - in his case, men's clothes, in Canton, Ohio.
By age thirty, he'd done well enough to support a wife and 3 daughters, and to survive bankruptcy court and stay afloat - even into the starvation year of 1933. Maybe the beginning of Nazi Germany that year, and its assault on people of his faith, had something to do with it - but certainly it was the sight of suffering all around him in hardscrabble central Ohio that made Sam buy an ad in the Canton Repository as Christmas drew near.
Under the guise of "B. Virdot," a name made from the names of his girls, Sam asked people in trouble to write to him in care of the paper. 150 writers would receive a $5 check. Somehow, Sam scraped together the $750, and those $5 checks - roughly $75 in today's money - bought food, shoes, clothing, even a few niceties here and there for desperate families.
In years to come, "B." would repeatedly offer his anonymous help. One of Sam's 3 daughters would have a son, Ted Gup, who grew up in Canton and became a well known author and journalist. Thanks to Ted's caring work, the story of his grandpa and the people he helped is now a book.
It's quite an inspiring tale - not the least for the private, personal view into the reality of Depression misery. Society in 1933 had no place for these people and no sympathy for their stories. Only in the anonymity granted by "B. Virdot" could they have told them. Now, across the decades, they speak.
Best of all, the B. Virdot Fund is again raising money in 2010, easing misery in a once again suffering region.
Sam Stone was a very lucky man. He'd come to Pittsburgh from Romania as just another Jewish boy with little more than his faith and its teachings to do good. Like many another man of that faith, he found himself in one of a few merchant trades - in his case, men's clothes, in Canton, Ohio.
By age thirty, he'd done well enough to support a wife and 3 daughters, and to survive bankruptcy court and stay afloat - even into the starvation year of 1933. Maybe the beginning of Nazi Germany that year, and its assault on people of his faith, had something to do with it - but certainly it was the sight of suffering all around him in hardscrabble central Ohio that made Sam buy an ad in the Canton Repository as Christmas drew near.
Under the guise of "B. Virdot," a name made from the names of his girls, Sam asked people in trouble to write to him in care of the paper. 150 writers would receive a $5 check. Somehow, Sam scraped together the $750, and those $5 checks - roughly $75 in today's money - bought food, shoes, clothing, even a few niceties here and there for desperate families.
In years to come, "B." would repeatedly offer his anonymous help. One of Sam's 3 daughters would have a son, Ted Gup, who grew up in Canton and became a well known author and journalist. Thanks to Ted's caring work, the story of his grandpa and the people he helped is now a book.
It's quite an inspiring tale - not the least for the private, personal view into the reality of Depression misery. Society in 1933 had no place for these people and no sympathy for their stories. Only in the anonymity granted by "B. Virdot" could they have told them. Now, across the decades, they speak.
Best of all, the B. Virdot Fund is again raising money in 2010, easing misery in a once again suffering region.
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