The following was written by Sherwin:

My first thoughts go back to my wonderful parents, Sarah (Machtin) Martin born outside of Kiev, Russia in 1896 and died in Skokie, Illinois on June 2nd 1958. Harry Kravitz was born in Odessa, Russia in 1898. He died May 30, 1961. 

My mother told me that she left her family in Russia to come to the United States at age 15 or 16. Her family lived in a "shtetl" outside of Kiev. Times were very hard for Jews in Russia. There was persecution and prejudice and food was at a premium mostly all of the time. The community had a synagogue at which my grandfather was the Rabbi. 

My father had an interesting childhood in that he was given over to a Russian family at age seven to learn the sign painting trade. It was very common in those days to literally loan children out for five years to seven years to apprentice a trade. My father became a journeyman sign and pictorial painter at age twelve. Once in America my father traveled west from New York to Chicago with his mother and sister.

My young life was great. I was born on the Westside of Chicago at 1304 S. Kolin Avenue in an eighteen unit fairly new apartment building. My mother and father loved me because I was a son, and an only one at that.  My two wonderful sisters, Selma who was five years older than I was, and Ann who was nine years older pampered me. They showered me with such love and affection that to this day it brings tears to my eyes knowing that I can never repay the wonderment I received.

The following was written by Sherwin:

The summer of '46 came quickly. Four of the guys including myself were planning to take a vacation to Kalamazoo, Michigan. I had been there a year or two before with Victor Hoffman and I had thoroughly enjoyed myself. 

The train made a stop in Benton Harbor for water, mail and passengers and we got off for a breather and a cold drink. The train was to leave in 20 minutes and that was plenty of time to take a short walk into the station for a drink and some goodies...wrong! We got involved talking to some girls and by the time we got back to the platform the train had gone. With approval we went to the courtroom where one of us slept in the Judge's chair while the rest of us slept in the seats and on the carpeted floor. In the morning we thanked the desk sergeant and went off to catch a bite to eat and be on our way.

The schedule for Kalamazoo showed leaving about 12 noon. There was an earlier departure by bus that went to Paw Paw Lake. George remembered his mother having a very good school friend that had a summer cottage in Paw Paw Lake and I remembered that my mother used to buy fresh country eggs from Mr. Katz who not only sold eggs but also had a resort there. As luck and fate would have it we bussed off to Paw Paw Lake where I would soon meet the love of my life, even if I didn't know it at the time.

After we introduced ourselves Mrs. Katz asked how we came to her. I told her that I had known of the resort from her husband who delivered eggs to us and the fact that we knew the Dubins from Kolin Avenue who came there occasionally, and also the fact that George's mother was a friend of the Kramers who had a summer home in the area. Feeling at ease about us, Mrs. Katz said she could show us what accommodations she had available. 

On the afternoon we arrived and were getting settled Mrs. Katz called for us to come over and meet some nice Jewish girls. I wasn't looking for a nice Jewish girl. We went over to the kitchen where we were introduced to June Kramer and another girl. The girls were very nice, young, and very nice looking. They appeared to be 16 or 17 years old. We were all soon to become 18. Actually I found out later and much to my chagrin that June was actually 14 and was to become 15 at the end of the month, which was June.

Later that afternoon we went over to the Ellenee for some sodas and hamburgers and by chance June and another girlfriend Lita came by. Later on in life I was to find out that it wasn’t happenstance that June and Lita dropped by. It was by June’s design that she wanted to show me off to Lita and asked Lita to accompany her to the Ellenee. 

I don't know how I wangled a date with June but it did happen. I don't remember what we did on that first date but I remember that I enjoyed being with June and that I was hoping that I would see her again. As the evening ended I walked June to her house, and while making another date with her I tried kissing her. I was rebuffed. I was dumbfounded. She liked me well enough to date me but not to kiss me. June said she would never kiss a man on a first date. The next day or so we were invited to come over to June's house for swimming. I hadn't realized her house sat on a lake lot. June intrigued me. She didn't smoke like most all of her friends did. When I asked her why she didn't smoke, she simply said she didn't necessarily have to do what the other girls did. My God, she had a mind of her own!

I liked June right from the start. She was exceptionally bright and had talents up the kazoo. She was sophisticated and one of the most beautiful girls I had met or had ever been with. When I left Paw Paw Lake I wasn't sure I would ever see June again. She was only 15 years old. She lived some eight miles from from the apartment house I lived in and that was a great distance in those days. To travel between her house and mine would easily take an hour by streetcar because of the many stoplights along the way. By car it was a half an hour if traffic was light. North side girls didn't usually date the lower classed west side boys, and besides that I would probably have to get her parents’ permission.

(Over a year later...)

June and I would talk for hours about our goals and we found that we truly loved each other and had countless common interests, goals, ideologies, etc. That was important to me...to us. Here I was telling myself that at age nineteen I was ready for this permanent relationship called marriage. I had found the woman of my dreams who had all the traits, talents and personality that I would ever want in a partner. Was it or would it be a problem in that she was only 16 years old? My inner self told me to go for it.  

The engagement was set for just after Passover in April 1948 with plans for a wedding later in the year or in the following spring, depending on hotel and facility availability. 

In early 1948 I received a notice from the Army Air Force that because I was in the C.A.P. I could come into the service as a temporary Captain providing I enlisted within 30 days. I had never signed reserve papers and Congress had changed the draft law whereas any serviceman serving less than eighteen months was eligible to be drafted. I had served fifteen months. If I didn't enlist I would be eligible for the draft. Finally the commissions were no longer offered and I was draft bait. What were we to do? Married men were being deferred from the draft at that time but we couldn't get married because we couldn't find a decent or even indecent place to hold our wedding.

Our solution was a simple one. In order to take the time to find a nice place to get married with a Jewish ceremony and still not be drafted, was to go to City Hall and get married immediately by the Justice of the Peace and then have our Jewish vows taken whenever we could. On July 21st 1948 we were married by Judge Clayton. He read the ritual vows from a book and at one time lost his place and started over again. After five minutes of ceremony we were pronounced man and wife and for the time being I had a reprieve from the army. The ceremony was quite funny and what was even funnier was that because we were both under age we had to have our parents consent. My mother and June's father signed the consent forms and were witnesses to our City Hall wedding. The marriage was a secret since we were going to have a Jewish ceremony as soon as we possibly could. What a rush, what a push...and June wasn't even pregnant. 

June and I were married but not living together because we hadn't been married by a Rabbi. After Labor Day in September June came back from the lake and started to look for a hotel for the wedding. It was finally decided that she liked the Orrington Hotel in Evanston and that we would take the first available opening providing it didn't interfere with Jewish holidays or conflict with other friends or relatives whose wedding plans had already been made. That first available date was April 9th, 1949.

The rehearsal and re-rehearsal dinner went very well. Teveleh Cohen was to be Rabbi and Cantor and he was excellent. The ushers and bridesmaids were just as nervous as we were but the dice were cast and the show would go on. And so it was, we were married in the Grand Ballroom of the Sovereign Hotel on April 9th 1949 with about 325 people in attendance. It was a beautiful wedding with all the trimmings including an open bar and a wonderful band. My 5-year-old niece Maureen Fishman sang the anniversary waltz as well as another couple of songs popular at the time. It was the first time I ever saw my parents dance. Even my in-law Joe got Myrtle on the dance floor. I was very happy. The party was a huge success and we were now married for real.


(Later reflections)

At this point I must take a moment to talk about June. She worked just as hard as I did through our entire marriage. I could not have done what I did without her. When I was a sign painter and couldn't stand it, it was June who offered not only support but help me in changing careers. More importantly she loved me with her entire being, just as I loved her…fully and unconditionally. I have many more accolades for June but time prohibits me from putting them down on paper at this moment. Besides that she will be reading this someday and I don't want her to get a swelled head over it….Ha, Ha!  In short, I couldn't have gotten to this station in life (1971-1972) without her. One thing is certain. I only have good things to say about my family…I’m a very fortunate individual. June knew my likes and dislikes and never forced her opinions or what she wanted upon me. We were and are truly as one. If I planned anything it was always with June in mind. I would always ask myself whether she would be pleased or not. I could go on and on, however in the end it would boil down to a very inadequate word called love. June is my spirit and the life that I breathe. It is for that reason that I would want to depart this world before her, because without her there would be no world for me.

The following was written by Sherwin:

I might summarize the morphing of my life from being a first generation American and the happiness derived from having an opportunity to become someone other than a drone and having to live a life that was really directed by an outside source other than myself.

Right from the start of my bar mitzvah at age thirteen and even earlier I learned the work ethic. First by working at night and early into the morning helping to put together the neighborhood circus in order to get free rides and a paltry twenty-five cents an hour. After that my next job on weekends was at Carmel Kosher dehydrated soups washing the huge mixing bowls and maintaining the sealing machines. Packaging pepper after school was another job I disliked but it paid thirty-five cents an hour and gave me an opportunity to save ten cent government stamps in a book that when filled up to $18.75 would buy a war bond worth $25 in ten years. The job wasn't fun but it was comical when I would come home from work at night. My clothes would be full of pepper and when I would walk up the stairs to the second floor the neighbors in the apartments would start to sneeze. 

I did go to work for Sears (1942). Miss Post hired all three of us (siblings) over a six-year period. We were hard workers and producers and who knows perhaps set the stage for other "Jews" who wanted to work for a company that didn't hire members of our tribe. I was 14 years old when I applied for the job and listed 16 on my application. I always looked two years older than I was and I got away with it. Because I was under age I had to have a work permit from school in order to work. That was easy enough to falsify. When I was told to bring in my birth certificate I stalled and said I would have to get it from the family safety deposit box at the bank. Every week Miss Post would ask me for the certificate and every week I would stall her off with various reasons and excuses. Finally after several months Miss Post called my mother. At that evening’s meal my mother told me that she had called and asked how old I was. Hoping I wasn't in trouble I asked Ma "what did you tell her"? Ma said, "I told her I don't know, why don't you ask him"?

When I first went to work at Sears I was paid thirty-five cents an hour and was put to work in the men's department restocking the tables with merchandise. A short time later I was transferred to the catalog order department where I really had great experiences and fun. The department was huge as was the entire store and warehouse. I would guess that the Sears complex was one block wide by four blocks long. It was located at Homan and Arthington streets.

I quit Sears in 1943 and went to work for Montgomery Ward for 40 cents per hour filling catalog orders in their main warehouse on Chicago Avenue. That job was unusual in that we filled bra orders while on roller skates. When I started the job they gave me three orders to fill in ten minutes. That was easy. When I came back they gave me six orders to fill in ten minutes, etc., etc. It was amazing how tired one got skating on the long wooden planked floors and picking orders from bins of bras in various styles, sizes and colors. I worked there a very short time but long enough to have bra throwing fights with my co-workers and to hear Mr. Avery swearing at the floor managers.

After a brief summer (1943) job at Warshawsky and Son, (an auto supply company) at 1900 S. State St., I went back to working for my father (sign painting). That meant earning 75 cents per hour versus the 50 cents I was earning at Warshawsky and Son.

One of my short-lived jobs was selling women's shoes. For fun the other Sherwin in the club and I got a job two nights a week selling for the Edison Brothers stores known as Malings in Chicago. We worked on Madison Street about two blocks west of Crawford Avenue. The reason for quitting Malings was simple. If we didn't quit we would be fired, because of the following episode. At the end of every night and just before closing we had to take inventory and fill in the "holes" with back stock. In those years the stores would have rolling ladders that leaned against the walls of shoes. The ladders were held vertically close to the wall with rolling wheels at the top that fit into a channeled rail that was fastened to the wall. It was from these ladders that we were able to reach sizes and colors for our customers. It had a safety belt that you fastened around yourself. One night after being very busy we were tired and giggly. Sherwin was going to call missing numbers to me and I was to get the box replacement from back stock and throw it up to him for replacement on the shelf. Sherwin was fooling around and had the safety belt around and under his behind instead of his waist. He was singing, laughing and calling numbers and instead of getting down and moving the ladder he would give himself a shove to the next “hole” while he was still high on top. On this particular night, just before closing, there was still one customer in the store. The salesman had just left the seated customer to get a shoe when Sherwin at the very top of the ladder shoved a little too hard. The ladder went sideways all right but it also left the channel track and went straight back and down, landing Sherwin where the customer was seated. There sat the woman shocked and screaming. Sherwin didn't hear it. He was unconscious. The screams brought Mr. Hinton running out from his office to the scene of the melee. Upon seeing Sherwin he jumped and yelled, "Are you dead"? We pulled the dazed Sherwin out from under while laughing hysterically. The customer was yelling at us hysterically and Mr. Hinton was hysterically infuriated at the whole scene. We quit under the duress of the evening.

Winters were rough and we all wanted to have money jingling in our pockets, so we all had to take whatever part time work that was available. I recall going down to Railway Express and unloading boxcars in the severe cold. One evening the skip loader dropped a huge carton of baby chicks and it broke open and out piled fifty to a hundred chicks. We had to run around and under the platform and the trucks retrieving them.

When painting signs with my father I earned fifty cents an hour and eventually led to seventy-five cents an hour and finally to a dollar an hour in 1947. As a sign painter I painted signs on tavern windows and helped paint murals in the cocktail lounges with my father. Mostly all of our work was done for the syndicate (now called Mafia), however we did do work for private businesses also. The year 1941 was a pressure year for me. The sign painters union would not let me work with my father unless I joined the union and was a paid member. They had caught me working with him a few times in the tavern windows and once on a beer garden fence. The union was very strong in those years and they had their spies out there even on the Sundays that I had been working. If I didn't join the union within the three months notice they would break the windows we had painted signs on. I joined at a cost to my father of $150, and $120 per year thereafter.

June and I had many ideas that eventually came to market long after we had invented them. One of the ideas was the clip-on lampshade for table or for hanging fixtures. We had fashioned a cardboard prototype for our hall fixture in our studio apartment in 1949. Another idea was for a fade-in, fade out attachment for movie cameras. I researched the motor resource and did my drawings and brought them to Sears & Roebuck purchasing. They liked the idea and told me they would place an initial order for 100 as a test if I could market and package it to retail for under $10. I could...but I didn't. I was afraid to take what money we had and try to start a business I knew nothing about. 

I decided to look for a job to augment my declining income from sign painting (in 1952). The decal industry was eating into our business and it was beginning to take its toll. I wanted to continue sign painting when a job or jobs came in so I took a second job and went to work on the night shift at what was then called a defense plant. It was for Royal Tire Company and it was located on the near north side. The shift was from 3:30 PM to 12 midnight and I was to learn to fabricate and repair jet fuel cells for the air force. My days were quite filled. I worked with my father until about 2:30 PM and then dropped him off at a main artery of traffic from where he would take a streetcar home. I would proceed to my second job and get home about 12:30 AM. 

After a time I saw an ad for a bookkeeper at General Outdoor Advertising Company. It appealed to me because I knew a little about accounting. Besides that, the insurance benefits were good. The starting salary was $100 per week. General Outdoor was the number one painted bulletin and poster board company in Chicago. The interviewer sat back, looked at me with staring eyes for a moment and said "excuse me while I make a call". I couldn't hear what he was saying. When he hung up he told me he wanted somebody else to see me also. That person told me he liked my personality and would like me to join his sales staff. Here I was answering an ad for a bookkeeper for $80 to $100 per week and was being offered a prestigious job as a salesman with a guarantee of $100 against 10% commission plus travel expenses and an opportunity to make as much as $30,000 per year. I went to work in the middle of June 1953. It was to change my life forever.

My income grew to over $10,000, but with the coming of the new salary plus bonus contract I knew I would have to work harder just to make the same income. I was already working to the limits of my capability. I had to at least see what Neon Zeon was like and what they would offer me. In cold and freezing weather I flew to Los Angeles and arrived in seventy-degree sunny weather. I accepted the position and said that I would be out there and ready to start on June 1st, 1956. I am proud of one of the signs I sold; it was the Roosevelt Hotel vertical neon sign that you always see in the movies. That's the hotel across from Grauman's Chinese Theater on Sunset Boulevard. The outlook for my ever reaching the top in L.A. was a million to one shot. I wanted better odds than that. My wise June asked me to use the balance sheet approach to the situation. I wouldn’t. To June the good outweighed the bad in California. To me it was vice versa. My Aunts and our few new found acquaintances tried to talk me out of moving back. My Uncle Sam told me everybody moves back "home" at least once and then moves back to California again. That wasn't me. I was through with California. I began to hate L.A. and the cutthroat approach to everything. We moved back to Chicago.

I tried the second largest outdoor advertising company to G.O.A., Triangle Signs. I felt that perhaps they might want me for selling outdoor advertising space. Their answer was that they had all the salesmen they needed but that they were opening a new commercial sign division like their competitor G.O.A. They would hire me on a three-month trial basis with a $75 per week guarantee. I told June of the offer and she felt that it was better than not eating. Besides that it was possible that I might be able to really do well there. I took the position and hated it after being there only one week. I had no art department to back me up. There was no sales manager and when I needed to have an estimate approval or a question answered I would have to go to the V.P. for it. He was always busy or out of the office. I wanted to quit immediately but June in her quiet manner urged me to continue and to look for another job at the same time.

At a convention I did meet one fellow Bob of about forty that was representing his own company at one of the booths. He was not in the sign business but rather in the plastic Christmas decoration field. Not knowing any of the hidden problems at the time I thought that there was an opportunity here. Work was constant. If I were to work twenty four hours a day I still wouldn't be able to clear my desk. I was no longer a salesman for sure. I continued to work and did my best to stay on top of things. I needed Bob's help and he wasn't there in body or mind. Too many things were being swept under piles of papers and unanswered telephone message minders. I started to look around for a position outside of the sign industry.

I answered an ad for a comparatively new company that was going to expand their operation and was looking for a manager for one of its new locations. The company was called Midas Muffler. They already had about six or so locations in Chicago. I was surprised by an immediate offer. I came home smiling. June was happy that I was getting going again.

On that same weekend while in my back yard I saw and talked to our neighbor Irv Lamitz. I told him of my problem with my job and the offer I had just gotten. I asked him what he thought of the offer. Irv was a road salesman for a women's apparel manufacturer. His answer to me was simple. He told me I had a good mouth and that I could sell anything. He thought I might be good in the rag business. Irv suggested that I go see the president of the Chicago Salesmen’s Association, Abe Levy. Abe told me I would be successful at selling on the road, however I would be just another "rag man". He could easily get a line for me to rep but he had a better suggestion for me. A rapidly growing firm named Bobbie Brooks in Cleveland, Ohio was expanding their sales force. After hearing about this thirty four million dollar company and the opportunities it was offering, I was interested. June was just as happy as I was. Even though it meant traveling and the possibility of relocation it also meant personal and financial rewards with unlimited potential for future growth into management.

I had to apprentice for nine months but was able to learn fashion, fabrics and sales for a growing company called Bobbie Brooks. June and I decided that if I couldn't get a Dallas or Atlanta territory I would probably have to settle for the San Francisco area. I had a territory, which turned out to be the southern third of Northern California, which covered South San Francisco to Monterey, and the San Joaquin valley from Stockton to Fresno. Along with that I learned to become a consultant to the dress shop and Jr. Dept. stores and soon was on my way to the riches of being an entrepreneur. 

In 1965 I was doing business at my sales booth at one of the market weeks at the Sheraton Palace Hotel in San Francisco with one of the Vegod buyers. He heard that I was looking for a location for one of my clients. He let me know that there was a location they were going to give up. It was a store that they had taken over for closure from a high fashion department store in San Jose called Blums. They weren't doing the volume they had anticipated because their merchandise wasn't high enough fashion for the area. They couldn't do separate buying for only one store so they were going to close it or sell it if they could. The store was called "The Fashion" and was located at El Camino and San Antonio Roads in Los Altos in the Village Corner Shopping Center. This was just ten minutes from our new home in Los Altos Hills.
In short order we all went to the Vegods offices in Hayward and struck a deal. By approval of Charlie Vegod we were to rename the store "The Village Fashion". The Vegods would run their giant inventory reduction sale and then we would take over. We were also able to take over the existing lease by a simple set of signatures with the owner of the center. We even kept some of the salesgirls. The following weekend I designed a new sign for the front façade, and along with that, all kinds of in store signs for prices, new arrivals, etc. We began operation of “The Village Fashion in May.