William Shapera

William Shapera 91 of St. Petersburg passed away January 1, 2017. Private interment will be at Bay Pines National Cemetery. Shapera family tree Came to U. S. approx. 1890, possibly earlier, from, probably, Latvia. Grandfather, Louis Shapera, Wife Baila. Sons: Harry, Married Jennie Jacobson two children, Dorothy & Gerald. William, Married Lena Zola, two sons, Lawrence & Arthur. Morris L., Married Fanny Cohen. No longer remember children’s’ names. Charles M., married Anna Cohen. two sons, three daughters. (except for Betty, I no longer remember their names). Julius, Married Fannie Joseph. I no longer recall anything about their children. Ephrem (Frank) (second marriage) married Ann Drucker. two Children William Isadore & Ruth. William Married Rose Provus. two children, David Frank & Deborah. 1997. David married Virginia Salazar, Deborah married Kurt Schumacher. No grandchildren. Ruth Married Norman Kranz, two children, Roberta & Philip. Roberta, one child, Robyn (married Dan Murov), Philip no children. I will begin with a story my father told me many years ago, about why and how his grandfather came to America: He was a young man, living in Russia, before the revolution. The Tsar had a policy to draft Jewish men into the Russian army for a minimum of 25 years. Of course, he had no intentions of letting this happen, so he packed a bag left home. He walked from his schtettle, all the way to and across Siberia, caught a boat to the U.S., wound up in Chicago, and made the life which he lived. My grandfather, Louis Shapera, settled in Muncie, IN, where he opened a clothing factory where he made men’s clothing and underwear. All six sons worked there. There were mechanical wizards. They designed and built most of the equipment except for the sewing machines (this included the cutting machine that cuts a large stack of cloth from a single pattern). This was (other than the sewing machine) the mainstay tool of the clothing manufacturing industry. They all began to squabble and fight over who got to patent it, and a competitor (who saw what it could do) stole the idea and patented it himself, instead. This created a serious rift in the family which took many years to heal. During WW1, they had government contracts, so my dad was exempt from the draft. Eventually, they moved to Chicago. My father was born on July 4, 1895. He died on July 4, 1935. He married my mother in 1923. They started out in a home in Albany Park, south of Lawrence Ave. I was born on March 20, 1925, while we were living there. Shortly after I was born, he sold that home because he didn’t like to keep shoveling coal into the furnace, disposing of the ashes, cutting grass in the summer and shoveling snow in the winter. We moved into a three flat apartment (I can no longer remember the address) north of Lawrence Ave. Soon, as he became successful and we moved to E. Rogers Park, just off Sheridan Rd. it was a huge first floor apartment. We also had my maternal grandmother, my mother’s two sisters, My grandmother’s cousin Slouva and Slouva’s daughter Adele living with us, plus a maid and a nanny for me. My sister was born while we were living there. While in Muncie, IN as a teenager, he built himself a motorcycle. He would race it. This caught the attention of an automobile manufacturer. I can no longer remember the name of the car, but it was a fairly expensive one. It had a wooden chassis and an air cooled engine. They hired Dad to drive their race car on the tracks around the area. That was how auto manufacturers advertised their cars then. When they were newly married, my mother strongly objected to driving on country roads at 100+ MPH, which he enjoyed. His first “remedy” was to paint the speedometer glass black. When that didn’t work, he asked for a different work assignment. He then became a stunt driver for them. At one time. in fact, I had a clipping from the Chicago Tribune telling about the grand opening celebration for the double-decker Michigan Ave. bridge where Dad drove over the bridge while it was opening, jumping the gap at the top. Obviously this didn’t please your grandmother much either. The acceptable solution was to make him the local dealer. He Chose a location on “automobile row” on S. Michigan Ave., where many of the other car dealers were then located. In the early 1920's banks refused to loan money to purchase autos: they were easily subject to damage and wore out too quickly. Thompsons were fairly pricey. Not too many potential buyers could afford them. Frank began providing the financing. It was successful. Soon, the other dealers saw how well that worked, so they asked Dad to loan money to their customers, too. This became much more profitable than selling cars, so he closed the dealership and converted the showroom into an office. He re-opened as the Alliance Finance Co., Auto Loans, and he did so well at this that he had a chauffeur-driven Cadillac., which I remember that the chauffeur was a negro named Starkey. When people heard him speak with Starkey, they would give him funny looks. He advertised on WGN and I believe that the Cubs belonged to Mc Cormack, who owned the Tribune and WGN. I remember going with dad, when I was about four, to Wrigley Field, for a cubs game where he had a box which came with the ad contract. During the years when he was successful, we lived in large apartments in in East Rogers Park. Frank not only had my mother and Ruth and me living with him, but right from the beginning, Rebeckah, iriam, Eunice and Rebeckah's cousin Slouvah, plus Slouvah's daughter Adelel came along as part of the "package" agreement Ann had made with Frank as part of the condition for getting married. When the depression hit in 1929, his business collapsed and we owned a whole fleet of used, repossessed cars. After the crash we moved into a large 20-flat court building, at 6641 Newgard Ave, in Rogers Park where most of his brothers and their families now lived. Frank's brother, Charles was the principal owner, and their brother Morris also lived there, as well as brother Will's' widow and sons. There, we moved into two apartments on the first floor. Dad broke through the wall separating the apartments, making a bigger place. My father, with help, from uncle Charley, designed and built a conveyer system to take coal from the coal pile and feed into the furnace. but they still had to haul out the ashes, collect the garbage and maintain the property themselves. By this time, besides Dad, there was only Charlie and Morris still alive, and it was too much for them to handle. In 1934 Dad had a massive heart attack. The doctors then knew very little of what they now know about the heart, so he was put on digitalis and bed-rest. Very soon, he had to move to a hospital. One of the last thing I remember doing with my dad, before his heart attack, was him taking me to the World’s Fair. After my dad was hospitalized I never saw him again. He died on his 40th birthday, July 4th. My mother went back to work,as a secretary, in order to support us. Eventually, with so many relatives for tenants, Charles lost the building, so we moved to a series of i-bedroom apartments in Edgewater. Ann put my grandmother, Rebeckah, in the Drexel Home for the Aged, where she remained until she died, in her early 70's and by then Slouvah had died, and Adel Miriam had married. We lived in a series of smaller less expensive apartments in Edgewater and Lakeview. We moved every October, for years, because landlords customarily gave a month's free rent. Of course, Eunice lived with us. For a while we existed on what she was able to raise by selling off her jewelry and our collection of expensive antique or custom-made furniture, and our grand piano, just around the time as I had begun piano lessons. I don’t know that much about my mother. I know that she was the eldest daughter of Isadore and Rebekah Drucker. (I know virtually nothing about my grandfather’s background and history.) My mother, Ann Drucker Shapera, was born in 1895, in Chicago to Isador and Rebeckah Drucker. They lived in a Jewish Immigrant neighborhood on Robey St. ( now known as Damen Ave.). Seven years later, her sister Miriam was born. Six years later, Eunice was born, My grandfather soon died. My grandmother, Becky, developed problems with arthritis in her knees. She went to a local doctor who advised removal of her kneecaps. She had it done, turning her into a wheelchair-bound invalid, making my mother her principal caretaker, and at 13, after graduating from elementary school, my mother went to work to support her family. At 15, she won a one year scholarship to a business school where she learned shorthand, typing and book keeping. She then went to work for a childhood friend, Sol Harrison, an attorney, as a legal secretary. (the Harrisons' remained life-long friends). In 1923 she was invited to a dinner party where she met Frank Shapera. She and Frank married in 1923. When my father died, she went back to work. First, she went into business with Uncle Ben Tauf, her brother-in-law. They opened a Jewish delicatessen on Sheridan Rd., near Foster, around the corner from where we lived. The hours and workload were too much for them: after about two years they sold the deli. She would get up at 4 AM to go to work to make corned beef and get home after 9 PM when they closed. To take care of Ruth and me, she hired Minnie Hertz. who was my grandmother’s caretaker at the Drexel Home, where she lived. Mrs. Hertz lived with us. She raised us from that point. In fact, Mrs. Hertz had a son, Alfred, who owned a chicken farm in Lansing IL, a far south suburb, and she would take Ruth and me to live with her family every summer vacation and most holidays. There, I helped out on the farm by picking bugs off the three acres (which I remember dad telling me that it was very tedious and boring work) of corn they raised to feed the 3000 chickens and 200 ducks they raised and helping where I could with the chores. There was an apple orchard next to the house, and I would pick up fallen apples when the crop ripened. The major use for the apples, as I remember, was to bring the apples into the basement, where there was an apple press where the apples were turned into juice and then, into cider, which was bottled. We lived all over Edgewater and Lakeview, moving every October to take advantage of the month’s free rent then offered to new tenants. The rent savings was greater than the moving costs. Finally after the strain of moving became too much, we settled at 538 Belmont, where aunt Eunice lived with us until I married, on the third floor. This was a large court building, which had, on the west side, a large grass lawn next to it. After the lawn was the back of stores fronting on Broadway. This lawn had a five foot fence fronting Belmont and I used to dive-roll over the fence for fun. The Janitor and his family lived in the basement apartment and his son, Bob, and I were friends, When we were teenagers, Bob and I would get on our bikes on a Saturday morning and ride north on Sheridan road, way out into the northern suburbs and back. When your mother and I decided to buy the home on the far south side, at 8848 S Indiana, we discovered that the down payment was too steep for us, so grandma put up the rest of the money with the understanding that she would live with us. However, she could not understand that your mother was the boss, not she. (Actually as my mom had put it, grandma used to host dinner parties for her friends, but not only did she not include them in her little gatherings, she treated mom as a domestic servant. That had infuriated her to the point where, one day she grabbed some grocery bags and started throwing some of her belongings and some of David's and my possessions in, and while she was holding us in each hand she threatened to leave him then and there. Since dad did not want her to leave us, that lit a fire under him, and he told his mom that she was no longer welcome living with them under their roof. Mom also told me that she had no idea where she was going to go it so she was greatly relieved that dad had taken a firm stand with grandma!) Finally, I had to ask her to leave, so she moved into a hotel on Sheridan Rd. and North Ave, owned by Sol Harrison, where she lived until Aunt Eunice divorced Bill Fleischman. Then they moved in together again until my mother died. I was born on March 20, 1925 to Ann and Frank Shapera, in Grant Hospital. I was supposed to be born in early April. In fact, my mother and her aunt, Corinne Moment, were supposed to deliver within a day or so and had booked a double room for the event. David was born on time. However, my mother had serious problems with her pregnancies: she was ill, her legs swelled up so badly that she had to wear thigh high lace-up boots during her pregnancies. I was a small, underweight baby who had problems. However, I soon stabilized. Of course, as a baby, I was unaware of this. I have only the stories told to me by my mother to go by. I was told that I was very intelligent and began to speak before I was six months old, speaking coherent, clear English. I learned to read early, too. I was told that my mother would read while I sat with her and started to quickly pick up reading. By the time I was four, I was reading the newspapers and books. When Grandma Ann would read a book and laid it down, I would pick it up and read it too. Before I was five, when we were in the library, I asked for a library card and the librarian made me read for her. I was issued a library card. When I was seven, I asked for an adult card. When I was tested again, I read fluently with comprehension. I was issued an adult card. This was the plus side. Of course, there was a negative side to this story! I refused to eat out of perversity. I was immune to every remedy that y parents or the doctors attempted. When they said yes, I insisted NO! I refused to eat because this upset them. The doctors were unable to find a remedy. The result was that I was a sickly, weak, underweight child who was unable to run without falling, I could not step over a low fence around the front parkway, could not or would not play with other children except for the little boy, Byron Stoll, who lived upstairs. Eventually, at age five I was sent to Kindergarten. I was not accepted because of my behavior. My parents were told to try again at age six. Same story! However on testing, I was much educationally advanced over the other 1st. graders. At age seven, I was finally accepted and put into second grade. I was still a semester behind, but was still advanced in everything but arithmetic over my classmates actually, I was behind! My teacher, Would call my mother and come over to our apartment and have lunch with us to tell my mother that my intelligence was remarkable but I would not socialize with the other children. At home, I would lay down on the floor and thrash my head from side to side endlessly and would refuse to stop. Of course, everyone who had to deal with me were at wit’s end! As I grew older, my behavior became more acceptable, except that I still had an eating problem. I slowly improved, so by eighth grade I became accepted into the society of my peers. I began to eat, put on weight, was accepted by my peers, in high school. Because I started school so late, I was a semester behind my peers. However, I was still small for my age. My closest friend during high school was Bernie Sandick. Bernie was also undersize, underweight and not athletic. He, was socially popular, but I was very shy and couldn’t bring myself to ask a girl for a date. We remained close friends until he died. When I was a kid, I was nuts about airplanes. By now, WW 2 was going on. I built scale model airplanes by the dozen and hung them from the ceilings. The Board of Education decreed that all boys in their senior year were required to take a course in Aviation and girls were able to elect to take this course. Mr. Coe, the chemistry teacher, taught this course. He was a very enthusiastic teacher. He arranged for us to take flying lessons at a small airfield at the west end of Irving Park. The western edge of O’Hare is there now. The lessons were $5.00 each. I signed up! I usually had a job after school which paid $5.00 per week. This paid for lunch and carfare I began to walk to school and to skip lunch so I could pay for the lessons. Every Saturday morning I would get on my bike and ride from Belmont and Broadway to Irving Park and then up Irving Park to Wolf Rd. for my lesson. I felt free and content. Eventually, I got a student license. When I was drafted I turned the license and my logbook in to the Army, where they were entered into my service record. I was then assigned first to the ASTP program which I had qualified for. That is how I was eventually put into the Air Force. I was a senior, about to graduate in June, 1943. However in March, I received my draft notice, a week after turning 18. I was shipped to a fort something or other in Wisconsin. There, I was processed, issued appropriate clothing, etc. I was medically checked again, and tested to determine how I was best suited to do for Uncle Sam! I was already doing Basic Training in Mississippi on Graduation Day. My diploma was mailed to me. I spent a couple of months waiting assignment, my name was posted on a list. however, the next notice that was posted announced the closing of the program. I was assigned to the Air Force and shipped to Keesler Field, Biloxi Mississippi. There, I did both the air force and infantry basic training. After which, I was assigned to the Mechanic school there. I was doing well in the school but they closed the school: too many mechanics, and was tested again. It was decided that they needed radio operators. I was shipped from semi-tropical Mississippi to Truax field, Madison Wisconsin to radio school. There, My service record showed that when I was a boy scout, I was part of a drum and bugle marching band, where I learned to bugle. At the school, I became the bugler and I had to wake everyone up and put them to bed. I was doing well, learning Morse code etc., but due to the climate change, I contracted pneumonia and spent three weeks in the hospital while my class graduated. When I recovered and returned to duty, I was assigned to a new beginners class. However, this was a class for high speed operators and the code cam too fast to take it down with a pencil. They did me a big favor: they taught me to type so I could with 50 words per minute code. Then, they closed the school in Madison and transferred me to another school at Scott Field in Rantoul IL, across the river from St. Louis. I graduated from radio school there. I was sent to Kelly field, San Antonio TX for further training and assignment. There, I renewed relationship with one of my uncle Charlie’s daughters (I think it was my cousin Elinore) who was married to a conservative Rabbi there; I spent my off time mostly there. While there I was sent to aerial gunnery school to learn how to use a parachute. We jumped off a high platform accessed from a ladder. My next assignment was Fresno CA. After a week or so, I was finally sent to Oklahoma City where the 20th AF was being put together. I received further training as a radio operator, both on the ground and in the air, for a few weeks. From there, we were sent to Seattle WA pursuant to going overseas to “ Duva.” (This turned out to be Guam) The Boing plant is there. Those who were essential to fly the planes spent time getting their planes and further training. The rest of us were sent by ship, from Ft Lewis. The ships were converted banana boats from the Caribbean. We were the bananas. We were put into the banana hold, stacked 6 high! We left Seattle. headed to Duva. We were only a few days out when we were caught in a hurricane. It was terrible!! most of became seasick. We began throwing up onto our helmets. When the stench and mess became unbearable, I escaped up to the deck where I found a protected place and spent several days there until we reached Pearl Harbor where we made an unscheduled one week stop. One of the other 2 banana boats suffered a damaged rudder which needed repair. We spent several days there, anchored in Pearl Harbor: we weren’t allowed off the ship. When our convoy finally continued on, our next stop was Guam. This took, as well as I can remember, about 2 weeks. We saw nothing but a submarine periscope until we arrived. We saw a lush tropical beach with palm trees. We anchored. Soon, some small landing crafts arrived alongside. Big rope nets were hung from the side of the SS Mormacport. We threw our barracks bags into a landing craft. slung our carbines over our shoulders, and climbed down into the boat. We were deposited on the beach. We were marched a short distance into a coconut plantation. We set up pup tents and survived there for about 10 days. Our living conditions were primitive but tolerable. Our biggest problem was being harassed by Jap soldiers hiding in the jungle who would come out at night to steal our food and shoes and slitting throats. We searched for debris from destroyed buildings and built low platforms on the trees and had fashioned rope ladders for access where we set up our two-man pup tents . We had also obtained parachute cord from the ‘chute packers and would take empty C-ration cans, punch holes in their bottoms thread the cord thru the holes, tie a large hex nut to the cord, to create a noisemaker and hang then over the side so anyone trying to climb up would create a racket to wake us up so we could defend ourselves. We and lived like that for about a week, when the Aviation engineers arrived with prefab barracks, etc. and they assembled them on-site, building us accommodations with all the comforts of an airbase. When I went home for my furlough before we shipper out, I brought my father’s 16 mm movie camera from the 1920’s. II t had a spring-wound motor and needed no batteries. I discovered that the 3rd photo-recon squadron used 16 mm cameras and had film. I went there and asked for film, which they gave me. Whenever I needed more film, they supplies it and even developed the exposed film for me. Those of us who were so disposed, would go to the flight line and hitchhike on local flights on free time and I would bring my camera, film the sights and the crews in action. I saved a few of film reels, which I took home with me. And your Uncle Jerry, who had a 16 mm projector and screen would show them. My friendship with the men from 3rd photo made it possible to hitchhike on a mission to film the South china coast It was a 16 hour round trip for which my topic gave me unofficial permission. The local flights usually lasted about an hour. Nearby, an airfield was under construction. It became Harmon Field, where I spent until February of 1943. The planes arrived shortly thereafter when we were declared surplus. Our air group was then broken up and used as replacements or given make-work assignments. I learned to drive about that time. My sergeant asked me deliver something to another location elsewhere on the island. I asked how I was going to get there. He wrote out a jeep requisition to take to the motor pool. At the motor pool I told the sergeant that I didn’t know how to drive. He said “here, do you know how the controls all work? I answered “yes, I watched my father”. He said “ start the engine, drive out the gate, drive around the motor pool, stop here” I managed to do so. He then went back to his office, wrote out a military driver’s license for me entitling me to drive anything up to a 10 ton truck. I turned that in to the Chicago Driver’s License offices and they issued me an Illinois one, no questions asked, no test. I then was constantly given temporary assignments ranging from clerical to construction. I was even made a librarian for our bivouac area when a bunch of paperbacks arrived. (This is where paperback books began.) I got this job because my records showed that I had worked for the Chicago Public Library after school. I was also assigned to work as clerk in the machine shop hanger. There, I made friends with the machinists assigned there and learned how to use the machine tools. I even built a motor scooter from “liberated” materials. When I was assigned to be chief clerk in the HQ office, I was assigned three teenage girls that were hired to work as clerks for me. I treated them with respect and dignity and we became friends. I corresponded with them after the war for over a year, when they married and wrote that they could no longer by my pen pals. (actually, the oldest one was a 20 year old war widow with two children.) They were born American citizens and had typical American educations. Their mothers were native women and their fathers were American sailors or employees of Pan American Airways. Guam (and the Philippines) became U.S. possessions in 1898 and the Mariana Islands are still part of USA. During the time of the decommission several of us in my barracks “liberated a B-29 life raft (this was a fairly common practice) which we kept inflated, in a dump truck which I traded my juice ration for, at the war’s end. The Navy island command was disposing of surplus large items such as trucks, jeeps, aircraft that was not needed any longer by dumping them into the harbor at Agana, the capital. The CeeBees would trade Jeeps for fruit juice and/or beer. The juice was fermented to make alcohol beverages. When we went to trade ours for a jeep, the jeeps were all gone so we accepted a dump truck. These vehicles were not assigned, they were “liberated”. When we went to the beach to swim on our free time, we drove to the beach, launched the 10-man raft and snorkeled the shallow water for tropical sea shells, which we sorted, polished and stored, When an Air Transport Command flights would arrive, we would sell the shells to the crews, who would bring them to Europe, where GI’s at airbases there would buy the shells and use them to make jewelry with rings, necklaces and bracelets obtained from artisans. The ATC crews would then buy the jewelry and resell it in the U.S. I was offered the opportunity to fly home on a B-29 being returned home or going by troopship. As I was aware of the sloppy maintenance at that time, I chose the ship. We left Guam on a troopship. There, I had an easy time. As a noncom, I didn’t have to do any work, but as a radio operator, I had to stand regular watches as a radio operator. When we reached San Francisco, we were sorted for destination and I was placed on a train and sent to a camp in Wisconsin (I no longer remember its name). Aunt Eunice’s husband drove up there and retrieved me when I was mustered out in March, 1943. This was my military career. After they drafted me, they couldn’t figure out what to do with me!! When I got released from the service, I went back to 538 W Belmont and to my folding cot in the dining room. I also registered with the VA and decided to go to college under the V.A.. I chose to go to the University of Chicago. I took the L to the Midway and went in and registered. It was a mob scene there. I filled out the papers, was given a battery of tests, and was told to return the next day to see if I was accepted. I did, and I was! I was sent to the registration line. It was so long that it extended outdoors. While standing and waiting while the line slowly wound indoors, I began reading the Chicago Times over the shoulder of the man in front of me. The story I was reading was about the founding of a new college, Roosevelt College. The story explained that this school was just founded by the student body and faculty of the YMCA college which had just resigned in protest of the YMCA’s quota system of apportioning acceptance into the student body based on race and religion. Being Jewish and having been raised in a liberal home, I felt that THIS was the school for me!! I left the line and walked over to the IC station and went downtown. I walked over to Roosevelt, which at that time housed in a war-surplus office building on Wells St. I went I and handed my papers from U. of C. and was accepted as a freshman majoring in Political Science. I naively thought I would run for congress when I graduated. I started classes in June, started class when the school opened in the morning and had classes all day until they closed the building at night. I had been awarded passing grades for several basic courses after having passed tests at U. of C., which helped! One of the courses I was required to take was music appreciation. I was seated in the first row, next to a pretty girl named Rose. We said hello and sat down. As the days passed, we were studying classical music and the teacher would play records for is on a commercial-grade phonograph. The music sounded tinny with the six inch speaker built into the lid. It just so happened that I had learned basic electronics at radio school and was very disappointed in the sound of the cheap suitcase phonograph Grandma obtained while I was gone, on which she would play our classical record collection dating back to records recorded as far back as 1912. One of the first things I did was to sit down at the kitchen table and build my first hi-fi. I placed in a large floor-standing “relay rack” in the middle of the living room and wired into a speaker placed in the left louver of our grandfather clock. I wanted a better speaker system, so I bought a 15” speaker and some ‘tweeters”. I was taking art with Don Baum my art teacher, (I’m sure you remember him). He let me build the cabinet as a project. After the speaker was complete, while I was applying the finish, I used carry the speaker system up one flight and struggle to bring it through the door. The girl sitting on the other side of your mother persuaded Rose to hold the door open while I brought the speaker in. This how we met! I was, at this time, still too shy to speak to girls, but I struck up an acquaintance with her. Meanwhile, I also met some other girls and even dated a couple. However, except for a girl who was also a member of the veterans’ club I belonged to, I wasn’t sufficiently interested to pursue any further contact. I finally developed sufficient courage to ask Rose for a date. She accepted and things progressed to the point where we got married between semesters in Aunt Ethel’s basement on one the most important dates in my life; January 30th, 1949. Service Information