Rosetta's family loved dressing in costumes

Rosetta's sister-in-law Lillian and best friend Rose in the early 1950's.

For as long as I can remember, Halloween was always a special time for Rosetta and her friends and relatives. It was a chance to dress up in outrageous costumes and play tricks on each other.

During my childhood and teen years, my family's love dressing for in costumes was shared by aunts, uncles, cousins and friends--they all jumped at the chance. Combined with my father's love of putting costumes together with whatever was at hand, it must have passed through the generations. My three children Scott, Jakki and Jason and my sister Phyllice's son Ross all inherited the talent and urge to dress in costumes. One of my sister's favorite photos taken during the time she lived in Alaska is of her dressed as the Good Witch of the North in a lovely dress and garland wreath with hiking boots sprayed with gold paint. Yes, it was for Halloween, not a casual, around-the-house outfit.

Phyllice as the Good Witch of the North

Rosetta joined right in and although she usually put something together that was guaranteed to produce laughter, she wasn't always delighted with the costumes my father created. Like the time he decided to dress up as Baby New Years for a party at our apartment. Everyone had to stifle giggles when this overweight man with a black "5 o'clock shadow" pranced into the room dressed in a strategically arranged bed sheet, sporting a banner from shoulder to waist proclaiming that he was the new baby for 1951. Belly bouncing, he gaily went from one guest to another touching them with a makeshift wand and wishing them a wonderful new year.

Yes, Rosetta had helped with his getup and managed not to "spill the beans" to the guests so his appearance could have full impact, but as a twelve-year-old hiding in the shadows I could tell she wasn't all that pleased. That was a lot of exposed skin for 1951! She never said a word, though. She supported my father in whatever he chose to do and when it involved laughter it was all the better.

Rosetta's book, Can We Come In and Laugh, Too?,  has delighted thousands with the stories about her zany family's antics dating back as far to her childhood in the early 1900s. It is available in paperback at multiple online booksellers for $9.99 and the Kindle edition is just $2.99 on Amazon.

"This book is  funny, sincere and delightful."  Logan's Library

Keep watching the blog for more stories.

MORGAN ST. JAMES
Rosetta's daughter

DO YOU KNOW THE ORIGIN OF "WHEN IT RAINS, IT POURS"?

 Looking back at things that occurred during Rosetta's early years

1911 - ROSETTA WAS TWO WHEN MORTON SALT BECAME AN INNOVATOR

So many things that we take for granted these days happened at the beginning of the 1900s when Rosetta was a young girl. We will be taking these trips down memory lane with her on this blog.

 Most of us know the expression, "When it rains, it pours," but did you ever wonder how it originated? Let's go back to the year 1911, the year Rosetta was only two years old.

Morton Salt Girl - 1914

In 1889 Joy Morton acquired the Onondaga Salt Company and renamed it Joy Morton & Company. In 1910 they changed the name to the Morton Salt Company.

In those days, when the weather was humid salt would cake and be hard to pour. However, by 1911 the newly named Morton Salt Company came up with a major advance—the addition of an additive that prevented caking, made their product free-flowing in any weather, and therefore highly competitive. 

They needed an advertising campaign to get this news out to the public and hired the advertising agency N.W. Ayer & Company. 

Their quest was to come up with a campaign that would put Morton Salt in every cupboard. It took twelve proposed ads and three substitute options, but they finally had it.

Morton Salt Girl Now

Joy Morton's son Sterling, decided upon an image of a young girl. Her umbrella was carefully held in one hand, but the blue package of salt was not so carefully held. Despite the rain, salt poured from the package in the soon-to-become iconic image. The picture told the story: Morton Salt was clump-free, regardless of the weather or storage conditions.

The slogan "When It Rains It Pours®", adapted from an old slogan "it never rains, but it pours," and the Morton Salt Umbrella Girl made its official debut on the blue package of table salt in 1914. Of course, a girl must keep up with the fashions and the image changed many times through the years, but the slogan is still used in general conversation today.

Rosetta's memoir, "CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO" makes a wonderful gift during the holiday season.

The family loved going to Rosetta's brother's Camp Ojibwa in Eagle River, Wisconsin

Camp Ojibwa  Meyer, his wife Bea, Al, Sam, Matilda, Jean and  Edna

One of the big delights for the family was an excursion to her brother Al's Camp Ojibwa in Eagle River, Wisconsin.

It is amazing how well-known it became and how many celebrities acknowledged it. Even the Alan Sherman song, "Camp Granada" was inspired by Al's camp. You see, Sherman was one of his counselors, but how do you rhyme with Ojibwa?

At one time baseball's famous Leo Durocher left a game to spend two days at the camp, but the Chicago Tribune found out and did a cartoon with him wearing a Camp Ojibwa tee-shirt.
Here is a post about it from www.funtrivia.com

14. An incident occurred in late July (Saturday, July 26) involving Leo Durocher. Do you remember what he did?  Leo called Jack Brickhouse a mental midget on the "Tenth Inning" show  Leo left a game and went up to Camp Ojibwa  Leo punched home plate umpire Harry Wendelstedt while arguing balls and strikes  Leo won his 1000th career game as a manager

Rosetta's daughter Phyllice lived in Alaska many years, and lo and behold she mentioned Camp Ojibwa to a friend in Juneau and it turned out he was a former camper. As for me,  one of my ex-husband's business associates had an uncle who was an original investor in the camp. What a small world.

If the name Camp Ojibwa sounds familiar, please post a comment. Rosetta and her brother Al were very close and he watched out for his "little sister" her entire life. Here is an excerpt from Can We Come In and Laugh, Too? where Rosetta introduces her brother Al. This section in the book tells the story of how the camp came to be.

~Morgan St. James, Rosetta's daughter

EXCERPT:

Al was the most successful of my brothers. Still in his early teens, he was too young to enlist in World War I, but heard that a person could make lots of money by working in the shipyards and help the war effort at the same time. He traveled to Detroit by himself and got a job in the shipyards there. It was true. By the time he was ready to come back to Chicago, he had saved up a few thousand dollars which was a fortune in those days.

He returned home and told my parents to ask for anything they wanted. As it turned out, the only thing they wanted was a pair of tickets to the Jewish synagogue for the High Holy Days. With the money that was left, he bought a horse and cart and launched his first business—delivering ice for iceboxes. We didn’t have electric refrigerators back then. Big cakes of ice were placed in heavily insulated ice boxes to keep our food from spoiling.

My brother said that he learned at a very young age what he had a talent for—making money.

As I say in my main story, the business he loved the most was owning a boys’ camp. He opened Camp Ojibwa in Eagle River, Wisconsin in 1928 and it became famous worldwide. For the rest of his life wherever he went it seemed someone recognized Al. Even in Europe. 

The book is available in paperback and Kindle. Get your own copy for inspiration and laughs.

Rosetta's oldest sister Jean was a cover girl in the early 1900s

This was not the cover with Jean's image,
 but hers would have appeared around this time

EXCERPT FROM
"CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO?"

Note: Jean was the oldest of ten children, and Rosetta, her baby sister was the youngest. Here is Rosetta's memory of her sister Jean, beautiful both inside and outside.

My sister Jean was the oldest and she was almost more like a mother to me than a sister because of our age difference. 

When she finished grammar school, she got a job in a department store as a cashier. Kids from poor families went to work very early in those days. Her earnings were so minimal, that after staying on that job for a while, Jean found a job with the Saturday Evening Post. It was a very popular magazine in Chicago, and her job was going from door-to-door to get subscriptions for the magazine.

She was a very beautiful girl with jet black hair and pretty soon people at the company noticed her good looks and approached her. They wanted to make her a cover girl. She accepted and was on a magazine cover, but didn’t stay with the company very long. Jean wanted to better herself, and was offered a job with Cameron Dental Lab, a dental laboratory that manufactured all kinds of dental equipment.

Jean was not only pretty, she had beautiful teeth. Well, while she was working in the dental industry, it didn’t take long for the people in charge to notice how pretty she was and even more important what a wonderful smile she had. Sure enough, they asked if she would model their instruments.

So once again she became a model in addition to her job of working on the assembly line. They got away with highway robbery, because neither of those companies ever paid her an extra dime for being their model, but it was fun for her to see her photo in print.

She worked for Cameron a long time, assembling instruments and lending them her smile. When she finally left, they begged her to stay and even kept calling her and asking her to come back.

Eventually she met a man named Sam Heftel and they got married. Family members were surprised at her choice because many handsome, successful men had courted my sister and she had turned all of them down.

Sam was into real estate, and although Jean assumed he was a fairly good salesman, he never seemed to be able to close a deal. They were married many years and lived in a small efficiency apartment with a pull down bed and what was called a Pullman kitchen. It was so small and so compact, it was built into an alcove. They never had any children, and to tell the truth, Sam always had to scrape out a living so her life wasn’t very exciting. Not only that, but he loved to smoke the smelliest cigars you can imagine, and that little apartment always smelled putrid no matter how much Lysol she used to clean it. She could have married so much better.

Thousands of people have enjoyed Rosetta's stories since the release of this book in May 2012.  Now you can, too.

Surprise 78th Birthday Trip

We flew to San Francisco for Lunch

Although she loved geography,  my mother hadn't traveled much until I began to take her on trips whenever I could in the 1980s. I wanted every birthday to be special for her.

~Daughter, Morgan St. James

On her 78th birthday I told her I was taking her to lunch, but we had to leave early.

She questioned why that was necessary, and I came up with some BS excuse because I had a very special lunch planned for her. Little did she know that we were flying from Los Angeles to San Francisco for lunch at Fisherman's Wharf. I knew she loved Chinatown, too, so after that I planned to go from the Wharf to Chinatown, do some shopping,  finish with and early sushi dinner at Yamato's Restaurant on California Street in Chinatown, then fly back to L.A. 

Yes, I know sushi and Yamato's are Japanese, but the restaurant actually was in Chinatown right across from a McDonald's restaurant I'd decorated. Because I made several trips to San Francisco related to decorating McDonald's restaurants back then, I'd become friends with the sushi chef. No matter how much time went by between visits, he always greeted me as "Decorator Lady from McDonald's" and made special dishes for me. I thought she would enjoy that.

As we headed for LAX, she asked where we were going, and when I pulled into the airport she said, "Honey, are we going to the Theme Restaurant?" That was a big Space Age looking restaurant at the entrance to LAX.

I shook my head and said, "Good guess, but no. I know you've only been to San Francisco a few times and loved it, so I thought it would be the perfect place to have lunch."

Her eyes widened. "Lunch? We're going to fly to San Francisco for lunch? I can't believe it."

"Believe it!"

In her circle of friends it would have been a rare occurrence for someone to fly to San Francisco just for lunch and I knew she'd really have something to talk about at the Senior Center. Tears filled her eyes and she told me how special I'd made her birthdays. Her 75th was a weekend spent in Las Vegas with VIP treatment from the general manager of the Flamingo Hotel, 76 was New Orleans where she was up on stage dancing with the club owner (see the chapter in "Can We Come In and Laugh, Too?" for that story).

We caught a cab to the Wharf and  walked around, watched the seals and walruses on their platform in the bay, peeked in shops and generally had a great time. Then it was time for our Crab Louis at Alioto's on the world renowned Fisherman's Wharf. I joked that the restaurant was almost as old as she was--not quite, but almost. Mom was born in 1909 and  Alioto's had opened in 1925. She was in "seventh heaven." With lunch finished, we walked to the cablecar stop and I helped her hop on a cablecar, Destination: Chinatown.

After an afternoon of walking around--she was a great walker, better at 78 than me at 48--we went to Yamato's where I hoped my friend the chef would offer his normal greeting. The minute we appeared in the entrance he called out, "Greetings pretty decorator lady from McDonalds. And, who this beautiful lady?" (referring to Rosetta). I introduced her as my mother and he raved about how much he liked making special dishes for me. Mom was beaming.

She'd never had sushi but was ready to try it and he prepared a feast. After that day she asked if we could have sushi on several occasions. It didn't matter how old Rosetta got, she was always game to try something new. Maybe that's where I get the spirit of always being willing to  try new things. However, if she didn't like something, she didn't forget, either. Once I recommended a restaurant and she said she'd eaten there twenty years before and wouldn't go back because the service was awful. 

After being catered to by my friend, the sushi chef, we took a cab to the airport, and that's when I got a big surprise. Our return tickets were gone! I dumped the contents of my purse on a counter, but there were no tickets and the flight we'd planned to take was sold out. I told them we had reservations, and the agent actually saw the bookings, but without the tickets we were out of luck. I had no idea what had happened, unless I'd somehow dropped them and perhaps two people were enjoying a free flight to L.A.

We had the agent check other airlines and found we could buy tickets for a flight that was leaving shortly on the old commuter airline Air Cal. Mom and I hustled to their terminal only to discover a long line waiting to check in or buy tickets. We begged people to let us through the line so we could buy tickets for the flight in time to board it. Mom smiled sweetly as I pleaded.

Maybe it was her snow white hair or her captivating smile, but whatever it was, everyone let us get in front of them until we reached the front of the line. We just made it onto the flight and when we landed in L.A. she gave me a hug and said, "I can always count on you for something unexpected for my birthday. I love you, honey." That was worth everything! 

CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO? is filled with humor and inspiration -- stories covering everything from growing up in as the youngest of ten children in a zany, early 1900s family to using laughter to get through some of the curves life threw her way. Thousands of copies have delighted people all over the globe. Why not get your own copy or give it as a gift. Available in Kindle and paperback. Amazon Select members borrow it FREE.

Family dinners were like a scene from a comedy

Throughout the time Rosetta lived in Chicago the family dinners were huge affairs. With most of her 9 siblings living in Chicago, plus their kids, imagine up to 40 people crowding into a relatively small apartment. Then add to that the fact that most of them were absolutely zany and you had the recipe for hilarity.


Rosetta, Edna and Jean were known as the "Three Graces." They worked together to serve all of these people like a finely oiled machine--each with their specific chore. From preparation through the dishes, they never allowed other family members to help. Even after Rosetta, Edna and Jean moved to California, the routine for family dinners, although smaller now--maybe around 20 people--persisted. This continued until the trio ranged in age from Rosetta (about 75 at the time) to Edna (around 79) and Jean approaching 90. The younger family members were always told to "sit and enjoy."


From the time the dinner guests arrived it was non-stop fun, with jokes and pranks bantered around like tennis balls. Each tried to top the other. One time they decided to stage a mock rendition of the old TV show "This is Your Life," with MC Ralph Edwards. Edna put on one of her husband's suits, a fedora and drew a mustache with eyebrow pencil. Rosetta made what was supposed to be the "book of life" for their mother, Mathilda. They sat Mathilda in an armchair and one-by-one Edna read the names of her brothers from the book.


In turn, they stood in front of Mathilda and related some funny incident from her life. Poor Mathilda was completely bewildered by this and sat there saying, "What's going on?" in Yiddish as she didn't speak much English. 


I was a kid at the time--maybe eleven years old--but I can remember that particular dinner as clearly as if it were yesterday. It was the epitome of the constant fun that prevailed in the Schwartz family and inspired all of the offspring to find the laughter in any situation.


Enjoy Rosetta's stories, both funny and inspirational in CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO? Thousands of copies have been downloaded so why not get your own copy?

E


Morgan St. James, Rosetta's daughter

ROSETTA LOVED SINGING THE FUNNY SONG "I'M AN INDIAN"

Rosetta at 93

Rosetta loved to sing and she had a very good voice. Combine that with her sterling sense of humor and imagine her performing in a show at the local Senior Center.


She was about 82 or 83 when her neighbor Jean Williams, a flamboyant woman of about the same age who ran gambling junkets to Las Vegas, invited her to do a number in one of the shows put on at the Center. Despite her age, Rosetta was always game for most things. She decided to do a funny number, but what could it be? 


Then she remembered one of her favorites--an old Fannie Brice number called, "I'm An Indian." It was a lesser known song that told the story of little Rosie Rosenstein, a Jewish woman who fell in love with an Indian chief and became a squaw. What could be better? Not only was it a funny song, but it lent itself to a great costume. My sister and I had loved to hear her sing it through the years, and now she was to perform it on stage accompanied by another senior playing the tune on the piano.


Rosetta dug out a blanket that sort of looked like an Indian pattern and made herself a headband with a feather, then practiced her dance moves. Even though she was in her eighties, Rosetta had some good moves left in her. Hours were spent rehearsing in front of a full-length mirror, singing: "Look at me, just look at me, I'm what you call an Indian, that's something that I never was before. One day I met an Indian chief named (she called him Itchka Mahogna) and right away he took me for his squaw. He wrapped me up in blankets, put feathers in my head. Between the blankets and the feathers, I feel just like a bed."


Click HERE and you can hear the original Fannie Brice rendition of the entire song.


Finally she was ready to do a test run for Jean and me. She nailed it, Jean gave it thumbs up and the audience loved it. Rosetta was in her glory. She smiled and said, "Now I know what it feels like to be a star."
                                             Morgan St. James, daughter


Enjoy Rosetta's stories in CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO? She takes you from being the youngest of ten children, born in 1909, through 1989 when she wrote her memoir. Even when life got rough, her laughter and spirit carried her through. The book has been call funny, inspirational and delightful. A book by an ordinary woman with the extraordinary gift of making people believe in themselves. REMEMBER, Amazon Prime members can borrow the Kindle edition free.