Tuesday, December 13, 2011

The Grandpa Eddie’s Bus Story


 
                                               The Grandpa Eddie’s Bus Story
                                                                    1953
                                    The story as told by my Grandfather Ed Lazaroff
                                How the New Haven Orange Street bus Line got started     
                                             Written 2010 Re-written 08/06/2015
                                                             Howard Yasgar

This story was written to assist anyone that is researching the Lazaroff family history.
See the Lazaroff Family Index for other stories.
My Grandfather (On my mothers side of the family) was Edward Lazaroff, everyone called him Ed, but his youngest daughter Lillian said his real name was Abraham.
From what I gathered from family members in 1953 was that the family didn’t like Grandpa Ed too much.
On occasion, even my mother spoke negatively about him, and I didn’t know why.
Today, now that I am much older I know why  my Grandpa Ed was disliked by the family.
I was because he was a authoritarian, and his advice to everyone was always right on the money, and no one likes person who is always right.    
In 1953, I was 14 years old, and living in New Haven Connecticut.
Like many teenagers at that age I didn’t care to socialize with my extended family members.  
I remember the Lazaroff family, which was my mother’s side, I remember it best because they had yearly family functions.  
The functions were usually held on holidays like Passover, where once a year I got to meet all the relatives, and had all the older women squeeze my cheeks and say how big I was getting.
The worst part was, I had to make believe I knew them all.
I knew that most all of the older relatives had originally come from Russia, and I was told by my mother that my grandfather Eddie was responsible for bringing many of them to the United States.
I was also told that my grandfather Eddie was one the first in our immediate family to make the trip to America.
However I later found out that may not have been 100% accurate, because when my grandfather first came to New Haven, he lived with a cousin who was a blacksmith, and that cousin had probably been the one who sponsored Grandpa Ed to come to the United States.
My cousin Allen the son of  Grandpa’s second daughter Adele, has researched and found that Grandpa Ed first entered the United States at the port of Boston, Then the rest of the family later came to America through Ellis Island.
After volunteering and serving in the U.S. Army, Ed returned to Russia to try and bring his immediate family out. There was his wife, Malka (Molly), my mother Bluma, (Betty), and my mother’s younger sister Chaja (Adele). (Please see the “Escape from Russia Story it tells what a real hero grandpa Ed was)”.
We know that Eddie served in the military as I have seen pictures of him in uniform, and he later told me how he cheated when he returned to Russia, he dressed up as an U.S. Army officer, complete with a swagger stick. As an American officer had more prestige in Europe than an enlisted man. However he always knew that if he was caught by the Russians he would be killed as a spy.
I was told that over a period of years, Eddie had returned to Russia several times to bring out his other brothers and many other relatives.
However, no one has ever explained how my grandpa Ed could afford to do all of this, and now there is no one left to ask.
However, I suspect some of the money came from the Orange Street Bus Line.
Grandpa Eddie told me that he first worked as a plumber, I knew he did because he explained to me word for word what the New Haven plumbing test was like.
He eventually left being a plumber and went into selling insurance for the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.
Grandpa Ed told me that he carried a “Book” for Metropolitan Insurance Company, which meant that he knocked on people’s doors every week to collect twenty five cents, for their life insurance policies.
Grandpa Ed worked for Metropolitan until he retired in the 1950’s and moved to Florida.
I can remember Grandpa Ed selling my mother a $3000,00 life insurance policy on me, which I still have.
Back in 1954 when I was fifteen, mom was concerned that I might be killed, as I was involved in  mountain climbing at the time.
Mom admitted that she didn’t think I would make it to be sixteen.  
Over the years my mother always told me that Grandpa Ed had started the Orange Street bus line in New Haven.
She also said it was taken from him by family members while he returned to Russia to bring more relatives to America.
So one day, when my aunt Lillian, and my mother were both together, I asked them what grandpa Ed had to do with the Orange Street bus line in New Haven.
I was curious, because the Orange Street bus line was still in business on Orange street.     
At first, the two sisters were very hesitant, and then they started telling the story, each one remembering something and correcting the other.
What they told me was the following story.
In the 1930's there were rumors of a major taxi and bus strike coming in New York City.
My grandfather bought an old open sided bus in Milford Connecticut and he drove it to New York City.
When he returned, he had a lots of money, but  he didn’t know what to do with the bus.
So he started the Orange Street bus line, which at the time was in competition with the Connecticut Company bus line.
Then with the money he earned in New York, he left the Orange Street bus company in the hands of relatives and he went back to Russia to bring other family members to the United States.
When Grandpa Eddie returned from Russia, he found that his bus company had been taken from him, and that was all they knew about any of it.
They said that they were all very young at the time when all of this happened.
The bus story intrigued me.
So one day when Grandpa Ed was over for a visit, I asked him to tell me the story about the bus strike in New York.
Grandpa Ed got wistful, and he told me the following story.
He said, “One day I was in Milford Connecticut, and everyone was talking about the impending bus strike coming in New York City.”
They all said that New York City would be shut down completely if the buses stopped running, and if that ever happened, the taxi drivers would also support the strike.
“That’s when I saw an open air bus for sale, it was parked on the side of the old Boston Post Road.
So I went over to take a look at it.
It was an old bus, open air style with a canvas roof on it, and worst of all it had hard rubber tires.
“After talking to several people I found the owner and I bought the bus.”
“I drove all night up the pot holed, Boston Post Road, until I reached New York City”.
Back then, the Boston Post Road was the only way to get to New York”.
Once he arrived in New York City, he hadn’t realized it, but the bus strike had already started, so when he stopped at a street corner, people started getting on his bus.
Each person gave him a nickel which he stuck in his pocket. After he filled up all his pockets with nickels, he asked a young boy to go and find him some kind of bag or box to hold the money.
The boy returned with two horse feed bags, the kind you put over a horses head with feed in it, so he used them, filling both up with nickels.
He said that night he slept in a barn using the money bags as  pillows, his greatest fear was of getting robbed.
Grandpa must have put the money in the bank as he said he filled the bags many times during the week, until the strike was over.   
When he returned to New Haven with the bus, he started looking for something to do with it.
Grandpa Ed wanted to sell it, but every one was telling him that Orange Street in New Haven was poorly serviced by the Connecticut Company, and he should think about using his bus there.
So he said, to test the market he started driving up and down Orange Street, and he soon, he became known as the Orange Street bus line.
I was really impressed because the Orange Street bus line that I knew back in 1954, had big modern equipment, with token machines in them.
The Orange Street Bus Line I knew, was a first class company in New Haven.
However it appears the Orange Street bus line never had a transfer agreement with the other New Haven bus line, so it was eventually bought by the Connecticut transit Company in the 1970’s
I asked Grandpa Eddie “why he didn’t still own the bus line?”
“That’s another story he said”, and with that Grandpa Ed got up and walked away.
I looked up the Orange Street bus line and found that it was sold to the Connecticut Bus Company in 1970.
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