Never Give Up!

This is really my Mother’s story.  But I want my family and friends to know what kind of a woman she was.  So, I have decided to retell it, in my own words.

The year was 1927.  I was two years old.  My Mother had just graduated from the University of Pittsburgh Law School and had been admitted to the Pennsylvania Bar Association, i.e. she was permitted to practice law.  She was 31 years old, married to my father.  She tried to get a job in various law firms, but was regularly turned down because she was a woman.  She couldn’t even rent an office, since the owners said women didn’t pay the rent.

She decided to go into a courtroom, to see what lawyers do there.  She walked into the Orphans’ Court of Pennsylvania and saw a severe-looking judge sitting on a platform, and a lawyer standing at the Bar.  He was explaining to the judge that he had been unable to find an heir to a fortune found in the mattress of an old man in Lima, Ohio, who was thought to be friendless and poverty-stricken.  The judge dismissed  the case.  Then my Mother stood up and addressed him.  She said, “Your honor, I have nothing to do.  I would like to help if I may.”  “Who are you?” asked the judge, looking very severe.  She replied, “I am Ella Graubart.  I was admitted to your court two days ago.”  The judge pulled a list out of a drawer, looked at it and said, “Go into my chambers.”  My Mother was scared to death, but she went in.  The judge picked up a telephone and said, “In the Estate of ______, I name Ella Graubart as Commissioner.”  He told Mother to go to room 916 where Mr. Sweeney would give her instructions.  Mr. Sweeney suggested that she start in Lima, Ohio, where the other lawyer had found no clues, and gave her $200 (the equivalent of $3000) for expenses.  She was elated.  She didn’t know whether she would be paid for this work, but she didn’t care about that.

She arranged for her mother, my beloved Grandma to come and take care of me in her absence.  She took a train to Lima, Ohio.  She put an ad in the newspaper stating that she was looking for an heir to the old man’s fortune, but only received an invitation to dinner, made by a young man who saw the ad.  She said, “No, thank you.”  

For a whole week, she spent the days walking the streets of Lima, Ohio, “accosting” (that was her word) old people who might have known the “decedent” as she called him.  She got a few leads that led nowhere.  She was heart-broken by the thought of returning empty-handed.  But, she didn’t give up.

She had learned that the decedent was of German descent.  Therefore she tracked down the minister of a German church in Lima.  That old minister remembered her decedent and gave her the name of his friend who had moved to a town in Indiana.  The minister doubted that the old friend was still alive, and if he were alive, would he know about a possible heir?

She didn’t know if it was worth it to track down that clue.  But she said to herself, “Never give up!” and set out for Indiana, after arranging for my Granny to stay on a few more days, to take care of me.

There were no passenger trains available for that trip, so she had to take a slow freight train.  She got up at 4 a.m. and boarded the train at 5 a.m.  Of course, there were no seats, so she had to stand up for 12 hours, resting occasionally on sacks of wheat.  She had brought no food, nor drinks, so she just stood there, looking at the fields of Indiana passing by.

When she arrived at the town, she asked the Stationmaster if her knew the man she was looking for.  “Yes!”  He knew him well and gave her his address.  Without stopping to eat,  she jumped into “an old hack” and soon arrived at the house.  She found an old man sitting on the porch telling a story to his grandchildren.  His face lit up when she explained her mission.  He told her he and the decedent had worked together in a factory in Lima.  He said the man had never married, but had a brother living in Bremen, Germany.  (Mother said she wanted to hug this old man!)  She treated herself to “a big, delicious meal.”

She caught a train back to Lima and then to Pittsburgh.  The next morning she appeared in the courtroom and told the judge the trail led to Bremen and she was prepared to go.  She said the old judge looked at her “with doubt and amusement.”  He said, “I cannot let you go to Germany!”  (There were no planes in those days.)  “I know you have a daughter, and she would be left motherless if the ship went down.  You will continue your search by correspondence.”

“Disappointed, but not daunted,” as she said, she wrote to the American Consul in Bremen, who eventually located the brother.  Not hearing from the brother, my Mother wrote again to the Consul in Bremen, only to learn that the brother had died.  Eventually, with the Consul’s help, my Mother located three of the brother’s children, two living in Bremen and one in South America.  The inheritance was distributed to them and my Mother received a fee (the equivalent nowadays) of $15,000.  

She was very happy and felt that the practice of law would be lots of fun, and also lucrative, as it turned out to be.