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.

Excerpt from CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO?

Via Photoshop Rosetta was the model for Flossie Silver
 and her own father (at about the same age) the model for Sterling Silver
 in the Silver Sisters Mysteries

CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO?

Our household was strictly Orthodox Jewish, which included several traditions. I learned to read Hebrew at a very young age and my father would settle back in his favorite chair while I read the Hebrew newspaper to him. Now that I’m old, I can’t read a word of Hebrew. I can’t explain why that is, but as an adult I definitely didn’t get involved in religion much. Maybe that’s why I’ve forgotten Hebrew, but I can still speak Yiddish.  When I do go to temple, it is either Conservative or Reform and I usually only go on the Jewish High Holidays. After my sister Jean and my brothers got married, my sister Edna and I were the only ones still at home and we knew we wanted to be part of the modern world.

My father was a very kind, gentle person and had a great sense of humor. Mama loved to laugh, but not like my father. She was much quieter. He did all the grocery shopping because my mother never had a chance to get out of the kitchen. Cooking for at least twelve people every day was a full-time job. 

ROSETTA'S SISTER JEAN - Excerpt from CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO?

Jean & Husband Sam-Around 1910

Rosetta devoted space to each of her 9 brothers and sisters in the book. Jean, the oldest, was about 17 when Rosetta was born. She lived to 93 and was like a second mother to Rosetta.

Jean

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 Saturday Evening Post 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.


Read her stories in the popular memoir CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO? Over 6,000 copies downloaded since May. Also available in paperback as a wonderful gift of laughter for someone you love.

 NOTE: When Jean was in her early thirties she had major surgery. The anesthetic caused her jet black hair to turn snow white overnight. She kept it long and rolled it into "sausage curls" which was a style of the times. To me it looked like strands of spun silver, and as a very young child one of my big treats was being able to brush Aunt Jean's beautiful hair.  ~MORGAN ST. JAMES

FLYING TO FLORIDA IN THE 1940s

Rosetta's mother and sister Jean in the 1940s in Florida

Every year Rosetta's brother Al made it a point to send his mother Mathilda and his sister Jean to Florida during the harsh Chicago winters. Jean was eighteen when Rosetta was born, and as the oldest of ten children she had been a little mom to several of her siblings. Jean's help made it easier for her mother to care for so many kids, and Al always treated her as a second mother.

Traveling by air in the 1940s  was far from the norm, but Al knew the trip by train had become very taxing for his mother. Although it was extremely expensive in those days, he convinced her that it was the only way to go. He drove them to the airport and as they sat in the passenger area waiting to board the plane, Mathilda was mentally prepared for the adventure of actually flying through the air.

Mathilda, a very little woman, was small but mighty. To give you an idea, Jean was only five feet tall, and you can see how much shorter her mother was.

However, there was a young couple also waiting to board the propeller plane that day, and the young woman was absolutely terrified.

As Rosetta related the story, even though Mathilda spoke very little English, she approached the young woman and with Jean's help got her message across. Essentially it was:


"I'm an old woman and I'm not afraid of this newfangled contraption. You are a young beautiful woman and should be fearless, but if it will help, please hold my hand. I will give you some of my courage."


In later years, the roles switched and Jean became the one taking care my Grandmother. Both of them lived into their 90s while Rosetta's father died in the 1930s. It is no mystery where Rosetta got that indomitable spirit. Although her mother was generally a very quiet woman, there was an underlying strength and she passed it along to her ten children. When Rosetta was still alive, she said their father, my Grandfather, had a fantastic sense of humor and that was why the family was always laughing, regardless of the situation, and the neighbors asked if they could join the laughter. Rosetta got the best of both. Her mother's gentle strength and her father's humor.

Read her stories in "Can We Come In and Laugh, Too?" Over 6,000 copies downloaded since May. Also available in paperback.

THE PAJAMA PARTY

They certainly weren't your typical "bevy of beauties."

A group of women who worked at Swartzchild & Company, a jewelry supply company in downtown Chicago, decided to get together and have a pajama party. Rosetta is the one  dead center in the third row. This photo was probably taken around 1927 when she was eighteen years old.


Rosetta's comment: "We all held our breath while the photographer got everything ready and prayed the bed wouldn't break!"


If some of the ladies look a little stoned, it's because without Photoshop or digital cameras back in those times, if the photo came out with some eyes closed, the photographer simply painted the eyes onto the eyelids.


Years later, this photo hung on her daughter Phyllice's wall, and Phyllice looks quite a bit like Rosetta. One of her friends squinted at the image and said, "Phyllice, when were you working in a cat house?"


Rosetta lived for laughter and shared it in her memoir. Since recently being published, thousands of Kindle copies of  Rosetta's heartwarming, funny book, CAN WE COME IN AND LAUGH, TOO?  have been downloaded . It is also available in paperback and makes a wonderful gift.


She passed on in 2006 nearing her 97th birthday, but her humor lives on.