CHAPTER 1

Some Background

My Grandpa Nosanov, the man in the middle had two brothers, one a Nosanou in Pennsylvania. This brother had two sons, Dan and Edward whom I met in my later years, most delightfully. I had a Grandpa Soafer, too, who had at least one daughter, my mom, Eugenia. I can identify only one relative on my mother's side of my family, second cousin, Jeffy, who in 1929 burned to death at the age of three, in an apartment house basement in Chicago. A Soafer family lived in East Los Angeles.




Grandpa Nosanov, renamed Ellis when he emigrated, with his wife Sarah, sired seven boys and finally a daughter. Six boys and the daughter survived childhood. Grandpa Ellis had been in the Czar's Elite Guard but when the Russo- Japanese war broke out opted to leave the country with his two sons Louis and Morris. The next to be born was Harry but where I do not know. Grandpa had another son, Robert, born in England and the last two, Sammy and Jack, were born in Chicago. Louis, nicknamed Bisco, fought as a U. S. Marine in the American Expeditionary Forces during World War One.

The boys learned to fight, of necessity, on the streets of Chicago. Neighborhoods were racial turf. When a fight broke out at a dance one night the brothers called home for help. Grandpa Ellis joined the fray. Grandpa Ellis could chin himself with one hand, as could some of the boys. They reveled in feats of physical accomplishment. Once a Pole “caught” my Dad, who had a Polish friend, in his neighborhood. The Pole hollered out, “Hey, Stash, I caught a Jew”. It may have been the beginning of “catch and release”, that Pole needed more help than he got.

During World War 1 my Uncle Bisco as a U.S. Marine married a French girl, Charlotte. They begot William. Bisco, known in the 1920's as the meanest man in South Chicago, died during commission of an act of violence in 1933. His name and my Uncle Jack’s name made the front page of the Wednesday, September 19, 1934 edition of Chicago’s Herald-Examiner (Appendix A, Family Mementos). The column to the left reported on John Dillinger and “Baby Face” Nelson. Louis’s son, my cousin William, later spent 17 years in the French Foreign Legion. Bisco, an accomplished fighter, broke my Dad's nose at least several times because, among other reasons my Dad, Morris AKA Morrie, insisted on singing dirty ditties to him about a prescribed sexual practice of specific French women and how the men fought with their feet. Bisco, as the oldest child, always sat closest to the meat at Ellis's supper table. William (Billy) told me many years later that when he and I fought with each other his Dad would punish him if he lost. I remember Bisco twisting my arm when I was a very small boy. In the 1950s Billy developed a reputation in the Foreign Legion in which he served in French Indo China, Arabia, Africa, and World War II; he seldom smiled except when fighting.

Morrie, also known as "Sunshine" and " Nigger ", had a good reputation as a boxer. He served as an Armorer’s Mate, a Petty Officer, in World War One, U. S. Naval Air Corps. He never lost a fight but did suffer a draw against an opponent who broke both hands on his head and yet failed to knock him down. He trained under Gene Tunney's trainers, Bloom and Fernandez. Gene Tunney was a World Heavyweight Champion who defeated Jack Dempsey for the World Heavyweight Title.

The next two oldest of Ellis and Sarah's issue, named Harry and Robert (Ruby); both were very athletic, normally kind carpenters. Both became the Chicago Yardley Boys Club champion wrestlers. They learned their trade, as did their older brothers at Ellis's wood shop, which he opened in Chicago. I have a copy of their company stationery on which was inscribed a cabinet door design (Family Mementos, Appendix A). Grandpa Ellis died of Bright's disease at about age 54. Sadly, I never met him. On his deathbed, his son, Morrie promised to look after the younger boys.

The younger ones became first and second-class bums. Sammy seemed to be constantly happy. Jack who seemingly seldom sobered up during his 78 years was also a happy go lucky guy. Sammy gambled his way through life and somewhat followed The Dog's Philosophy except for his generosity. Aunt Besse, who remarried at age 88 and died at 91, was the last of the Ellis and Sarah Nosanov issue. Protected by 6 older brothers, she did not participate in the numerous fistfights after dances, during parties and on the streets of Chicago, in which Ellis and her brothers participated. For her sixteenth birthday, Dad gave her a Ford Model T that he had painted red. She drove it right into a barbershop that day. Grandpa Ellis loved to shoot guns, as did his sons. One night he shot 32 pussycats from the 3rd story of their apartment in Chicago's south side. Once my Uncle Jacob (Jack), the youngest one, around age 10, accidentally put a bullet through a wall of the house where they lived into one of his brothers' pants where it lodged in a pocket. Jack kind of lived his whole life of 78 years by accident, barring deliberate acts of seduction. In his later years he drank between a pint and a fifth of whiskey per day, mostly Schenleys, aka “Old Panther Piss”. He tapered off to a pint a day after his doctor instructed him to stop.
Dad's grandfather lived with the family in the States until age 94; he may have been the relative with contacts, ballet dancers and such, with the Czar's palace and contracts for cabinetwork with the Russian Imperial Navy. A beautiful sterling silver Russian fish knife set, made in St. Petersburg, is a family heirloom in my possession. It has a provenance showing it to be a gift from a person of the Romanov court ( See Appendix 1-Memorabilia )

No known male Nosanov was immune to the ladies, and therein lays my origin. When Morrie was 26 years old he worked at his father’s wood shop and still lived at home. He received $ 0.25 per week and room and board. My mother came to the U.S.A. at the age of 14 to escape both the Russian Revolution and religious persecution. Born in 1900, she had witnessed the fatal beating, during a pogrom, of her parents and became one of many immigrants welcome at Grandpa Ellis's house. She became an artist and at one time worked as an illustrator for the New York Times. Grandpa Ellis caught Dad “fooling around with Eugenia” on the living room floor one night in 1922. Forthwith, my Dad was told you can't do that with a nice girl and was instructed to marry her, so he did.

I entered this world in Chicago’s Norwegian Deaconess Hospital on April 29, 1923. Mom aspired to being a practicing Jewess and Dad’s side, as far as Jewish piety or devoutness was concerned, was all renegades. Mom named me Isaac. The next day, Dad had the birth certificate amended to Myron.

Morrie, after he left his father's employ, had his own furniture mover business with brother Harry. They bragged about who could carry a piano, alone, up the stairs, how far and how fast. Dad then went to work at Cement Gun Co., based in Harvey, Illinois, and sprayed concrete on bridges in New England for several years. His boss was Victor Schaeffer (I think the spelling of Victor's last name is correct). My daughter Vicki is named after Victor. Dad worked long hours at Cement Gun Co. and often hurried home in his Model T Ford Coupe so as to keep peace with his Mrs. In 1928 Dad was hit by a train which he raced coming home from work. The train, Grand Trunk R.R, caught the rear end of his car threw him clear and unconscious, into a ditch. When he revived he tried to stand and fainted from the pain. Found and hospitalized, his left leg was broken in two places and so badly mangled as to be a candidate for amputation. The other had a compound fracture. Dad was not expected to live so to forego an expensive operation for which there might be no compensation the doctor decided to patch it. Unconscious for three months, he woke up and fainted. When he felt better, he decided to go to a radio and listen to a Notre Dame football game. Found on the floor of the hospital they tied him to his bed and so he stayed in bed another month or more. I saw him there once and he suffered from bedsores that left scars on his body for life. He was hospitalized for three years. During recuperation he had to learn to walk while tolerating a twisted, shortened, grotesque left leg.

For a man with one leg crippled Dad had awesome strength. At age forty he could grab his left foot with his leg extended do a one legged squat, sit in a chair and grasping the arms of the chair, raise himself up and rotate his body 360 degrees; "skinning the cat". He learned to play golf and had one of the first sets of Wilson's stainless steel shaft golf clubs. He could walk on his hands, too, but so could Uncles Harry, Ruby and Bisco. About five feet and five inches tall, they all had broad shoulders, long arms, short legs, (ate lots of bananas) and were athletic marvels of renowned accomplishments among their peers. Dad was five feet five inches tall, had a size 43 chest and hands as big as hams. He was usually cheerful but when angry he could emulate Genghis Khan, from whom I have reason to suspect he descended. He also had a soft side and sang to me. One of my favorites when I was a baby is “Barney Google”. Another, later, is “One Grasshopper Jumped Upon another Grasshopper’s Back” At age 72 he could still chin himself one-handed. At age 86 on his deathbed in a convalescent hospital he suffered from congestive heart failure. Several weeks before he died, he objected to a comment from a male orderly. So Dad got up, punched him, and knocked the guy into a large oxygen tank. The orderly and the tank went down. They made up later, both apologizing.

Uncle Harry had been in the moving business with Dad and later became a professional wrestler for a while. He could walk on his hands and was quite handsome. When he finished grade school he had a scholarship opportunity to study art in Europe that he had to refuse. After he retired became a prolific oil painter and could play the harmonica. One day in the 1960's I met a tall man in who recognized my last name and asked if Harry was related. After finding out if he was related he said " I wrestled him in Oklahoma and he bit me". Uncle Harry later explained that he had wrestled this guy and had signaled his manager to "bet on me". Turns out he had to bite him to win. The gentleman was thereafter known as "Cry-Baby Walker". The fight took place in the late 1920's. Uncle Harry, married to a religiously observant Jewess, in the 1960's punched out a man who made the mistake of calling him a “dirty little Jew”. Uncle Harry’s diamond ring cut the man’s face badly. The man sued. Uncle Harry’s insurance company settled. Uncle Harry rode Harley Davidson motorcycles until his last week on earth at age 78.

In 1952 Mr. Ed Rich, a co-worker, in Los Angeles City Hall, Bridge and Structures Division, asked me if I knew a Morrie Nosanov. Mr. Rich had been Dad’s commanding officer, in the Navy Air Corps, at Great Lakes, Michigan and took the contingent of 25 sailors to Pensacola, Florida in 1917. There was an opportunity and reasons to change my name; I had reasons not to do so. If the name is a problem for any person, I refuse to waste my time, energy and emotion with that person. In justification thereof, when cousin Billy visited me in 1975, he met my acquaintance of over 25 years, Robert L. White, CEO of a major international engineering company for which I was employed. Upon his introduction to William Nosanov, he said "Nosanov, its a good name". I try to keep it that way.