Besides the hardware store, papa worked at night for the Baltimore Gas & Light Co.  He helped to invent and build gas meters.  My parents Uncle Jake walked a cow from Bonneyville to Baltimore 45 miles and that was the start of a very thriving dairy business for my mother.  She was delivering milk and daily products from that one cow all over Baltimore.  She bought wholesale and sold retail.  The dairy business was as big as the hardware business, they had to choose between the two.  I think my father wanted to get five hardware stores for the five brothers; he bought two more stores 605 S. Broadway for John, 115 for Otto and Joe.  When John was 35 he sold his store for $38,000 and retired.  He put all his money in a B&L took control.  He later lost his life at 49 over this.  None of the boys wanted the stores.  We were a different sort of family we didn’t want to work for anyone and none of us ever did too much of that.  I went to 23 schools, not counting 2 in Fla.  Two in Calif 4 yrs hi school.  I studied Lib Arts and Interior Decorating at Md. Int.  I decorated one house in Hollywood in 1924 for $00.  I took my money and ran, and never dec again, even my own home.  I studied short hand and typing; had one job for a month, my mother said she couldn’t afford to have me working for anybody for $25.00 a week.

Next 419 was one of the most ex. Dept. stores in the city.  Julius Gutman, papa traded with them, mama and I could buy any thing we wanted and did.  Papa got a bill every six months, and he would be shocked, but we got away with it.

My maternal grandmother Catherine Cadori Staub came to this country when she was 19 from Alsace Lorraine which had been fought over many years by the French and Germans.  It was French in my grandmothers time and grandfather too.  When he was 17 he was drafted into the French Legion.  He fought in Africa against the Mohammodians and the stores he told the children were terrible, and he was anxious to get away from that.  When he came back from Africa he married my grandmother, they planned to come to America under the patronage of any uncle Cadori, but she became with child and they had to defer immigrating until the baby was born and when the baby was 6 mo. Old they sailed West.  Before embarking they were required to have so many pounds of dried food, dried apples (schnitzel and meat and beans).  These shy backward children were confronted with big strong barbarians, they couldn’t fight their way to the hearts (in the hold of the ship) to cook their food, and the baby died and was buried at sea.  The captain would lock the people in the hold of the vessel, and tell them to prepare to die, they were so mean and rough.  When they arrived in Gettysburg, they had their home and that is where my mother was born, Jan 12th, 1856.  My grandfather was 6 mo. less than the draft age for the Civil War, he wouldn’t tell a lie, went to war with the grace of God lived to tell the tale.

My mother spoke a little French and Penn. Dutch, for which my father made fun of her, he called it low German, he spoke the Kaisers German.  Papa talked with an accent, when I was a child it embarrassed me.   He couldn’t pronounce his V’s they were W’s with him my dress was welwet.

The Cadori farm was taken over by the Govt at the time of the Civil War.  The soldiers came to the house, and told to pack the wagon and move North to Carlisle for the duration.  Mama was four years old and she remembered when Lincoln gave his address at Gettysburg.  After the war when they came home their home was riddled with bullits, and all the preserves, hams and staples were cleaned out.  The Govt. reimbursed them.  Their uncle was a wealthy landowner, and owned many houses.  The one in which mama was born was taken over by the govt. and it is kept in beautiful shape, we enjoyed being there two years ago.  When mama was 18 she came fro the farm to Baltimore, she kept house for a French Prof. and his teacher wife.  She cooked and ran their house for a year, then met and married my father in Gettysburg.

Papa and mama made many trips to Europe. The ships at that time were small, (first class and steerage) they call steerage swish a deck, and mama would hate it when papa would go below and look at the steerage people  The cabins in first class were small, mama put her coat on and told papa to get up and get dressed while she was waling the deck, she came back shortly and found he was still in bed.  She started to fuss with him but he wouldn’t budge.  It wasn’t until she failed to see her clothes, that she was in the wrong cabin with the wrong man, was she embarrassed.  On another trip they went to Munich, where papa sister’s husband was a tailor at the Court, and papa insisted that mama have a Court dress.  She didn’t want it but she got it anyway.  It cost $100.00 and took several weeks to make.  It was black fitted princess style, soft silk taffeta with a long train, and yards of black jet beading.  I have her picture, taken in 1914 in San Francisco, when she went to the Worlds Fair.  When they came home from Europe they had many willow hampers filled with lines, dirndls, red socks, clothes and hardware.  I hated the red socks and dirndls.  The children in school made fun of my imported clothing.