IN THE NEXT BLOCK from our home lived a physician who was an important person in our early family life. During our father’s lifetime, Dr. George Williams was our family physician, and he remained so after my father’s death.
I remember our beloved friend as a large, good-looking man with an olive complexion and black curly hair. He had a jolly, infectious laugh. It was a big hearty laugh that called to you and let you know that he was near.
AFTER OUR FATHER’S DEATH, our older brother began working when he was ten years old to supplement the family income. His salary was only one dollar and a half per week, but it was a great financial help to my mother, especially during the summer.
MANY PEOPLE OF FOREIGN BIRTH walked the Brooklyn streets daily. People called them peddlers. Mr. Harry Golden has written an interesting history of Jewish peddlers in one of his recent books. Perhaps some of these peddlers who came to Brooklyn were Jews.
We could never differentiate between peddlers as far as their nationalities were concerned, but we thought them to be mainly Italians and Syrians. Most of them had swarthy complexions, straight black hair and could have been easily mistaken for some types of colored people.
BEFORE THE COMING OF THE STREETCARS, most people who were early settlers in Brooklyn walked wherever they wanted to go, especially to and from work. Later, a very few people had automobiles, but most of them who were able to afford riding used a horse and a carriage.
MY MEMORY OF BROOKLYN would be incomplete without some space being given to our laundry man. He was very fair, tall, lanky, raw-boned and angular. If dressed in buckskins, he would have looked quite the type that one would imagine a frontiersman to have been. Courage showed in his every action, and one could readily see that he feared no man. He moved in every street and alley in Brooklyn and carried a large amount of money in his leather bag, but I never heard of him being molested. Every week, he came for our laundry and brought it back on time.