"Only Connect" wrote E.M. Forrester
Hank R. Schwab * Memories
In the Beginning
EARLY MEMORIES
It all started a few weeks after World War I began. My dad was an officer in the German Army and I was born on October 9, 1914 in Frankfurt am Main and we met quite a few months later. My family can be traced back in Frankfurt to the fifteenth Century. Among my ancestors were the father of the famous Meyer Amschel Rothschild, whose sons were the 5 founders of the Rothschild dynasty. My part of the family, however, did not inherit anything from them.
I attended what was called a "Humanistic High School" meaning that they taught classical languages . I studied French for 9 years, Latin for 6 and Greek for 3 years- no English. A point of interest: My class(in the whole of Germany) was the only class that began school with Kindergarten in 1919- in the year after the Kaiser abdicated - and ended with graduation in 1932- the year before Hitler came to power. In the German schools in those days- and perhaps even today- the arrangement was that the class remained together in an assigned classroom and the teachers visited this room in an endless parade from period to period- the History teacher, the Geography teacher, the German teacher etc except Gym or Chemistry for which obviously we had to go to their venues. As a result my classmates and I became the closest of friends since we practically lived together for 9 years. Some of these friendships have lasted throughout our lives.
In Germany, Church and State were not separate.
The denomination with the largest membership became the State Religion and since Religion was taught in school, in our case the Protestant
Minister came in the classroom and Catholics and Jews had to meet their Priest or Rabbi in another room. This led to an unpleasant competition between the religions since instead of pointing out the many similarities between them such as the Ten Commandments or the Golden Rule, they seemed to thrive on ridiculing the other religions and these "Men of God" taught dissension and hatred of other faiths . I, for one, received a false impression of Christianity from my Jewish teachers which took me many years to overcome and only after meeting Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. did I begin to understand other religions. As it turned out, I have been very fortunate throughout my life to see, hear and meet many prominent personages, some by coincidence or sheer luck, others through organizations I belonged to or because of many special interests in various subjects.
I believe that the first "celebrity" I saw and heard speak was the German Reichspraesident Paul von Hindenburg who came to Frankfurt to give a speech at the famous Roemerberg, the center of old Frankfurt and all the schoolchildren were marched there to listen to him.
After graduation from HighSchool my parents sent me to London, England where a cousin of one of my Grandmothers squired me around and I found a family that took me in as a "paying guest" and I became intimately acquainted with London and its environments. In the middle of June the English celebrate the birthday of the Sovereign, regardless of when it actually occurs because usually the weather is pleasant and they can have pageantry and pomp. In 1932, I went to Buckingham Palace for this occasion to take in the festivities. And I saw the following, all in one
parade: King George V and Queen Mary, the current sovereigns; The Prince of Wales, later King Edward VIII (Duke of Windsor); The Duke and Dutchess of York, later King George Vi and Queen(Mother)Mary and Princesses Elizabeth, later Queen Elizabeth and her sister Princess Margaret and many others. So I saw 4 successive English Kings and Queens all at once.
After returning to Germany I was sent to the Deutsche Bank in Frankfurt to work as an intern to learn all about the Banking business. My next location was in Augsburg where I became an intern in a shoe factory that was started with the financial help of my maternal Grandfather and I was transferred from department to department- from the leather to the finished product . This was meant to be a preparation for my future connection with our family business, Gebrüder Feisenberger, one of whose sub divisions was a shoe wholesale house, O.Lietzman KG.
In 1935 I entered that business, in Berlin, and for the next three years worked myself up to becoming a Vice President with check-signing privileges.
In the meantime, Adolf Hitler had become Chancellor of Germany and immediately started to make things rather miserable for Jews. Living in Berlin, I had numerous occasions to see Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Hess, Himmler and each and every major Nazi Party leader. I stood under Hitler's Balcony on April 20 for three years in a row- on his birthday a new postage stamp was issued there with a souvenir imprint and as an avid stamp collector I swallowed my pride and stood there with all his admirers. One year, I think it was in 1937, I saw Hitler in a way that hardly anyone ever saw him: In full dress, white tie and tails, during a performance at the opera that I attended and he showed up all of a sudden.
It was a Gala performance and I was lucky to obtain a ticket. Later, in 1938, I was in Munich on a vacation trip by Motorcycle and I visited a special art exhibition entitled "Entartete Kunst" (Unworthy Art) which showed paintings and sculptures by Jewish and other artists who were no longer permitted to exhibit in Germany. Much to my surprise, while I was walking through the exhibit, Adolf Hitler and his train of followers showed up to view the art works . He was only 10 feet away from me and if I wasn't the coward that I admit I am I could have changed the history of the world right then and there (and mine, too).
While in Munich on the same trip I had another unbelievable break. Coming out of my hotel, I became an eyewitness as Hitler, Mussolini, Daladier and Chamberlain left their "Peace in our time"conference to pose for pictures.
Things didn't go so well after that. All German firms, even those still owned by Jews, that had 50 or more employees were forced by law to hire one of the "old Nazi Fighters" i.e. members of the Nazi Party when it was first formed in 1923.The people who then were eager to join the National Socialist Party (Nazis) were dope addicts, criminals, cripples, unemployed and umemployables and many of them were unable to find a job even through 1938, hence the law. Our Firm Gebrueder Feisenberger in Berlin as well as the one in Frankfurt had enough employees to qualify and so, one day, a man in brown uniform with a swastika armband showed up and announced "I am your new employee" It so happens, we were very lucky since the new worker turned out to be a quiet, unassuming person who bothered no one; he seemed to have a wooden leg and had a bad limp but he did his work efficiently and to our satisfaction.
One day, in the second week of November 1938 he approached me and said:"Mr.Schwab, you have been very nice to me so I would like to do something for you. Please don't come to work tomorrow! There will be "spontaneous" riots against the Jews and I do not want you to get hurt." So, the next morning I heard Sirens and fire engines and all sort of noise from the street and a lot of commotion and since I had inherited from my brother Fred his little motorcycle I just couldn't sit there so I dressed in my leather jacket and goggles and helmet and leather gloves and took off towards the streets from where all the noise had come. There I witnessed people getting beaten up , a synagogue set afire and the windows of every Jewish owned store and business smashed and the stores looted- this is what later became known as "Kristall Nacht-Crystal Night. No one bothered me- and therein lies another story:I looked like one of "them". Had I been Black, I would not be here to tell the story today.
One observation which may also explain Hitler's popularity at least in the years before the war is very interesting: Because in the Thirties working class people could barely afford a radio and surely not an automobile, Hitler and his henchmen invented a "Peoples Radio" and a "Peoples Car" (Volkswagen) The radio was cheap enough for the average person to buy, it had only one flaw: you could only listen to one station- the one that the Government controlled. The Volkswagen, by the way, was the Nazi's method to mass-produce automotive engines and supplies and thus they became proficient to build tanks an other war materials. This actually was against the limitations imposed by the Versailles treaty.
I am telling this because I happened to own an expensive radio, outlawed by the government and risking a jail sentence I listened to "foreign" stations. So after my trip through the riot torn streets of Berlin I turned on this radio to find out from England and Switzerland what actually had occurred where I was. It turned out that most male Jews all over Germany had been arrested and sent to Concentration Camps. So I called my mother in Frankfurt and asked her:" How is Dad?" She used a "clever" code and answered: "He went on a trip". I told her not to worry and that I would take the next express train to Frankfurt to be with her. Shortly after I arrived there, to be exact, at 2 am the next morning, there was a loud knock on our door and two black uniformed SS men with Swastika armbands asked for me personally- me, who had not lived in Frankfurt for 5 years!-They must have overheard our "coded" conversation and they arrested me and took me to a police station where I was "booked" for "loitering". This was a typical Nazi method to make even their most heinous crimes look "legal". With their overpowering weaponry and ever tightening laws they could have done anything they wished to do without asking for permission but nothing was done without giving it the cloak of "legality" by naming it some sort of a crime, even "loitering". I was taken to the Frankfurt Convention Hall, the "Festhalle" where I found hundreds of Frankfurt Jewish men getting ready to be taken by train to Weimar and from that station being herded roughly with beatings and insults to the Buchenwald Concentration Camp.
I remained there as a prisoner for 5 weeks. I was shaven bald, received a striped prison uniform and a number which I will never forget: 10052. In those days they did not yet tattoo prisoners.
After a couple of horrible nights in which I saw more people killed than the average Viet Nam veteran I was assigned to a barrack and ordered to transport large boulders. When we had carried them to the designated place, we were ordered to take them back where we had picked them up in the first place. After 3 weeks I was ordered to the front gate and told: "Good News, you are going to be released!" But that turned out one of their funny, Nazi Humor gags that they specialized in and I was marched back to the general camp where there were 5 large structures. each housing 2000 prisoners on shelves. After long searching I found my father and we were together for one more week after which he was released. I finally got out one week later since my family after all the problems had applied, thanks to an American uncle for U.S.Immigration permits and the Nazi in those days had only one desire: Get rid of Jews. Get rid of them any which way: If they leave on their own free will, if they die a natural death, or if they had to kill them- get rid of them. In our case our great fortune was that the American papers were in the pipeline; a few more months and we would have never gotten out.
Away from Nazi Germany
In January, 1939, after going through a tremendous, rushed series of straightening out my final affairs, packing, government clearances from police and other authorities, tickets, closing out my Berlin apartment etc I boarded a plane for London and I remember my great exhilaration when I spotted Dutch windmills from the air and I knew I was out of Germany. I had to stay three more months in London, awaiting my American Immigration Quota number to come up, and I was able to stay with a cousin of my mother; the parents also arrived and stayed with other relatives as well. In April they and I boarded the HAPAG liner Europa for New York-
first class since we had been able to pay the passage with our remaining cash- after the Nazis declared a "flight tax". How much was the Tax? "How much money have you got?" That was the Tax. So we were able to pay for our trip but all that we could take was 10 Marks, $ 4.20 at the time. We also had to give up Jewelry, Silverware, Weapons and anything of value so we ordered new wardrobes tailor-made and were allowed to ship our furniture books and other belongings, packed in what was called "lift-vans" and shipped by freighter to arrive much after we had entered the USA.
The first class voyage would have been perfect if it was not hampered by the knowledge that we were on a German ship that might be ordered to return at any given moment and there were Gestapo agents all around the liner and suspicious looking Germans that made our trip less peaceful. Fortunately, our fears were unfounded and we arrived safely in New York where my brother Fred picked us up at the pier. My sister Lee had been in the States earlier but had returned to Europe to help to settle refugees; she came back to the US shortly thereafter. This was April, 1939- the war in Europe started September 1939- we would have never gotten out after that date.
I first moved to Gary, IN to live with my closest friend, Otto S. Young whom I had met in Augsburg and who subsequently became my brother-in-law.
I found a job that paid $ 12.00 per week- minus taxes-, sorting Coke bottles from beer bottles when they were returned empty. Through the recommendation of a restaurant owner in whose establishment I consumed breakfast, lunch and dinner I was referred to his brother who had a hardware store in Chicago and as a "specialist" in sporting goods and toys I was asked to start a specialty department in his store on a concession basis. I was able to borrow some money and started "Hank's Sporting Goods and Toys" at Berman's Hardware, 7918-20 S. Ashland Ave. in Chicago.
My real name, at birth, had been Hans Ruprecht Wilhelm Schwab. I come from a very patriotic family. My grandfather Schwab named my dad Alfred Wilhelm Schwab, to honor Kaiser Wilhelm I. My father named me Ruprecht after the Crown Prince of Bavaria, in whose army he had served and Wilhelm, this one was the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Kaiser Wilhelm II's son, my dad also served in the Prussian army. As long as we are talking about this, I named my son Steven Franklin Schwab because Roosevelt was the President under whom I arrived in the USA and Steven named his son- believe it or not- Michael Fitzgerald Schwab for you know who. So you see, we are one crazy family. But I am telling you this because in 1939,with the war very close at hand, a name like Hans became very unpopular and my business associate recommended that I change one letter and call myself Hank, a short form of Henry, particularly since at that time a number of Baseball players were named Hank, the most famous being Hank Greenberg. My business turned out not to be a smashing success, partly because my limited funds did not make it possible to compete with the big Department Stores and also because my knowledge of Sporting Goods was limited to Soccer, Tennis, Fencing and Track and Field and I practically knew nothing about Football, Baseball, Basketball or Hockey. So I sold quite a few toys on Christmas and for birthdays and some Fishing tackle or ammunition on Saturday nights and I slowly found that I lived on my inventory so I had to look for a job. This did'nt turn out to be so simple. You see, I was a German immigrant with a heavy accent and with a war going on in Europe I was considered an "Enemy Alien". So I turned to an insurance agent who had sold me some insurance and told him: "You meet a lot of people, perhaps you can find someone who needs someone like me to go to work for him." But the answer was the same as what I just stated: "This is almost impossible with the depression still in full fling" But he added: "I am engaged in selling a brand new type of insurance, unknown til now, called Hospitalization. I am very busy since no one has ever heard of this and there is little competition. I could use your help but there is no salary, commissions only: You would earn $ 1.50 for every policy you sell". I said "No thanks, Insurance is the last thing I'll ever do"
I turned out to be a prophet. So, 60 years ago I took the job, having no alternative. In December, 1940 I sold my first policy and I still have the receipt for it. Incidentally, to make you feel bad, a hospital policy paying for 3 weeks in the hospital-all bills paid- for an individual cost $ 3.65 for three months. In addition, there was an application Fee of $ 1.50- That was my commission. For a family of three or more, the quarterly cost was $ 7.65.Times have changed, haven't they?
1940 was also the year in which I married my old friend Trudy from Augsburg and in 1941 our son Steven was born. Soon I became an insurance broker in my own right. I was accepted by Associated Hospital Service, a Not For Profit Hospital Insurance Company- the same people for which my first boss was working as an agent and he graciously permitted me to seek direct employment with them and I became one of their agents. I also became affiliated with an Insurance Agency called Don R.Jensen & Co.- they are still in business today. One day, while getting a haircut, my barber told me that he had just joined a fraternal lodge and since it was necessary for me to meet as many people as possible in order to succeed in my new business, I told him "Let me join this lodge" without having the slightest idea what this was all about. It turned out to be the Excelsior Lodge of the Free Sons of Israel, an old Jewish Lodge which operated with all the trimmings of fraternal associations: password, secret greeting, rituals such as an "outside tyler" who had to stand outside the lodge hall to make sure that anyone who wanted to attend knew the password-and if he didn't it was whispered to him- and because of my desire to meet folk I attended as many meetings as I could. Soon, I "moved through the chairs" as it is called, meaning I became nominated first for very inferior offices and then moving up each year until finally I became the President of the Lodge and later even advanced to District Deputy. This was the first of many Presidencies to which I was elected over the years and I am convinced now that anyone who so desires can become President of any organization for which by bylaws he is eligible as long as he becomes a regular at all meetings and joins committees: The nominating committee members will fall all over themselves in nominating you.
Some remarks about the history of the Insurance business might be of interest: I turned out to be a pioneer in Health Insurance since as I stated earlier, Hospitalization was a brand new type of protection and the policies I sold were just about the only ones available in our area that permitted individuals to join- most other policies were for Groups, sold to Manufacturers, Department Stores and Utility Firms. I found out after a short time in this business that practically all Insurance Companies instructed their agents to sell only to Whites - my Company I am happy to say had no such restrictions, although we did not come across many Nom-Whites, but in my possession I have a copy of a Health Insurance policy from a now respectable Company which states, in print: "If the insured hereunder is of a race other than Caucasian, all benefits under this policy will be one half of what otherwise be payable, anything to the contrary notwithstanding "Every once in a while I came across a Black prospect who asked for Life Insurance. Since the Companies I dealt with would not accept my applications, I was recommended to an Agent who would, for a consideration. He gave me a rate book that had blue and pink pages. He explained that the blue pages were for Whites and the pink pages, about 50% higher, for Blacks.
Incidentally, to once more compare the "good old days" with what's happening today: A minimum Auto Liability Policy, which in those days covered $ 5,000 for each person, $ 10,000 for each accident and $ 5,000 property damage, cost $ 64.20 per year!
It was about at that time that I attended a rally at Soldier Field at which President Franklin D. Roosevelt was the speaker. He was the first President I saw and heard speak in person and I have seen and heard every President from then on: Truman, Eisenhower- with whom I shook hands- Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan , Bush, Clinton and George W. Bush. My congressman Bobby Rush also introduced me to Vice President Gore.
As I explained above, my business remained lily-white from a racial point of view- Blacks having had a terrible time obtaining insurance, which by the way led to the phenomenal growth of Black Life Insurance Companies. I had no personal contact with Blacks at all. Sometimes things happen that turn your life around and these occurences strengthen your belief in a Higher Being. My life began anew because of an incident which at first seemed of no particular importance.
I must first come back once more to my years as a youth in Frankfurt. Shortly before the Nazi era, the racial division of the population in Frankfurt was 599,999 Whites and 1 Black. This is where I came from and when that one Black person appeared on one of the streets, all traffic stopped and everyone gawked at him since they had never seen a Black person before except in the Zoo where from time to time supposedly African Tribes appeared in the cages and performed "Rain Dances" and other rituals. Now that I know better, I think these "Africans" were from Brooklyn. Anyway, the one Black Frankfurt citizen was probably a leftover of the French Army of occupation after World War I who had married a German lady and stayed on. This where I came from.
Now back to the event that changed my life: One of my best customers in a South Suburb who had bought Life, Health, Auto and Fire Insurance from me, called and told me he had a problem that I might be able to solve fro him. He had just been elected Treasurer of the McCormick Works Credit Union,McCormick Works being part of the large International Harvester Company, and he told me that they had assets of about 1/3 of a Million Dollars. He said" You are the closest thing to a Financial Advisor that I know and perhaps you have some ideas how we could invest this money.
I was very flattered and told him:" I have some great ideas, but they are all illegal, but, joking aside, did you ever make Automobile Loans?" In those days, and perhaps still today, credit unions could make loans only to members that had been with them for at least 5 years, so they were pretty good risks. He said he would bring this up before his Board of Directors and a few days later he told me that they had accepted "his" idea and he would start making Auto Loans. I told him that in order to protect the Credit Union, the borrowers must carry Fire and Theft and preferably Liability Insurance, and that the premiums could be added to the amount of the loan and collected with the loan payments. The next week I received an envelope from them which contained 5 applications for Automobile Insurance. You must understand that in those days I might sell one or two Auto Policies in a week so five in one day (and another five the next day) was sensational. I sent the orders to my regular Insurance Companies and two days later they came back with the note: "Sorry but we do not sell to 'colored". To start with I had no idea whether the applicants were Black or White- later I found out that they all worked in the smelter oven department and all were Black- You can see what a tremendous disappointment this was for me: Just when I had a chance to really open up my business and become a larger agency- and it occured to me for the first time what an injustice this was to the Black workers who needed protection and I decided that I had to do something about this. There happened to be one Insurance Company I dealt with which specialized in Health Insurance but had a license to also sell Automobile Insurance It was called Universal Mutual Casualty Co. and its President, whom I had met, was a man named Roger McCormick.
By coincidence- and again with the help of Divine Assistance, Mr. McCormick was the Grandson of Cyrus McCormick, the founder of the International Harvester Company, after whom the McCormick Works were named. I made an appointment to see him and pleaded with him not to let HIS people down. He made me a tough proposition: If I would sell one Health policy for every Auto policy I sold and if I promised to sell only to those Negroes that I knew personally, he would go along with the program. I said "No problem". Little did he know that I knew NO Negroes at that time, none whatsoever. So I called every single applicant who had asked for Insurance and told him: "You don't know me but I am your Auto Insurance Man and I would like to make an appointment to come and see you and explain the policy to you. Don't worry about money, the Credit Union paid for it already. "I added $ 1 per month for a Health Insurance Policy to fulfil my other promise to Mr. McCormick- in those days "Tie-in" sales were legal.
Now I had sold one health policy for every auto policy and had met every Negro whom I sold insurance to. And for the first time in my life but surely not the last, I met with Black people in their homes. Obviously all of them were blue collar workers but I was impressed to find that they had the same problems as Whites- it was still the end of the War years and they had the blue and gold star flags in their windows for their soldiers and sailors and since they had been unable to obtain Auto Insurance before, they recommended me to their friends and family members and before long I became acquainted with Millionaires and paupers alike, professionals and laborers and Taxi tycoons. And I insured just about every Cadillac belonging to the leading Black clergymen of the city.
I was the pioneer who made it possible for Blacks to obtain Automobile Insurance in Chicago without discrimination, without hassle and with the same rates that Whites paid.
In 1946 our son Richard David was born, but a very few years later Trudy and I divorced.
Because of the tremendous influx of new business I decided to take on a partner, Victor Raab, and we called our Agency Raab-Schwab Insurance Agency. It was not long before we acquired or started a number of Insurance Companies of our own in order to become independent from the whims and restrictions of the Companies we had to deal with.
Our Flagship Company was called Home and Automobile Insurance Company and I became the President. It was a stock company and we sold shares to Insurance Brokers, White or Black who wanted do do business with us.
It was at that time that I met Jesse Owens, the Olympic star, who happened to be the guest speaker at one of our lodge meetings. I asked him what he was doing these days and he said: "I have just been appointed sales representative for an Automobile Club". When I asked him: "Which Club?" he mentioned one that I was very familiar with and that had a very poor reputation and was run on a racketeering basis. I told him what I knew about them and suggested that this would not do his reputation any good but that I had a better proposition. I offered him a partnership in "Silver Wheel Plan" which was a subsidiary of our business and entailed a motor club. He accepted and we became very close friends, both in business and in private life and since I had married for a second time my wife Merle and his wife Ruth spent many occasions together. He helped us to enlarge our business manifold- not so much by actually selling insurance but by taking me in person to meet every New Car Dealer in Chicago and Suburbs so that Raab-Schwab Agency became extremely well known in the Automobile business and we prospered from these connections. Unfortunately my second marriage also ended in divorce and I moved, in 1957, to a new community, Lake Meadows, at 33rd and Lake Michigan. At one time the worst slums in the City had been at that location, but they had been dismantled and New York Life Insurance Company started to build an apartment complex in a beautiful environment, dubbed " Live in a Park by the Lake" and it was supposed to be completely integrated racially. However, to this day, this never really happened and Lake Meadows is still mostly rented to Blacks.
The people who can afford to live there are middle class folks and I have become close friends with many of my past and present neighbors. I guess I like it here since this is my 44th year.
I became quite active in independent politics, particularly when Adlai Stevenson ran for President. I joined the Independent Voters of Illinois and eventually became Vice Chairman for the State. I also became very active in the Dan Walker for Governor and Harold Washington for Mayor campaigns.
In Lake Meadows, I met Edwin C. (Bill) Berry, the Executive Director of the Chicago Urban League. He explained to me the purpose, program and services of the League which was originally started in 1910 when an ever increasing number of African Americans migrated from the South into Northern Cities and the need for assistance to acquaint these newcomers with their new surroundings became very stringent. I joined the league and after a relatively short time I was appointed a member of their Board and served for ll years. Other members on this very illustrious Board were such prominent Chicagoans as Charles Swibel, head of the Chicago Housing Authority, Robert Pritzker of the Hyatt Hotel family, James O'Conner, CEO of the Commonwealth Edison Co, George Johnson of Johnson Products, the late Professor Philip Hauser of the University of Chicago, the late State Representative William Robinson and many other prominent Chicago leaders. Bill Berry invited me to join him at the National Urban League Conference in Dayton, Ohio in 1958. I was so impressed with the way this conference was run and the important participants I was able to listen to and meet that I have been to 43 more conferences since. Because of my attendance at these conventions, I met over the years every African-American leader and public official from all over the country and I became personally acquainted and even friends with many of them.However, I also met many White personalities such as Mayors, Governors, CEO of Fortune 500 companies, Congressmen and Senators. I was privileged to be in the "smoke-filled" room when the powers of the Urban League chose Whitney Young to succeed Lester Granger as Executive Director of the National Urban League.This was a great event in my life since Whitney became a very good friend. The current CEO, now called President, Hugh Price, is the fifth President under whom I have attended conferences; the others besides the ones mentioned were Vernon Jordan and John Jacob.
The Chicago Urban League appointed me Chairman of the Benefit Committee and in that capacity I met and became very friendly with Sammy Davis Jr. and I was given two "Sammy" awards by the league for my efforts. Among other affairs I chaired was a concert at McCormick Place in which Tony Bennett, Dave Brubeck and his Quartet, Oscar Brown Jr., Joe Williams and others appeared. I was also put in charge of the World Premiere of Oscar Brown Jr.'s Musical "Kicks & Company", also at the Arie Crown Theatre of McCormick Place.
Soon thereafter I founded the Lake Meadows Art & Jazz Society which held weekly meetings, first in my apartment and after the crowd became too big, in the Meadows Club at Lake Meadows. The meetings featured Jazz Artists and Painters and Sculptors, changing from one genre to the other every week.
I was particularly proud of having initiated an Art Gallery at the Meadows Club where the Artists who were my guests guided us through their exhibit and then the gallery remained there for two weeks. For the Jazz meetings, I invited some of the greatest Jazz stars who appeared in Chicago. I played a tape, culled from my record collection, of their old and newest recordings and they commented or answered questions from the audience. At one of our meetings a young up and coming, but unknown comedian was introduced to us, anxious to show his stuff- his name was Dick Gregory and he became a very good friend over all these years.
Sometime later, after he was already a big star, he asked me to help him promote a charity affair at McCormick Place, starring Sammy Davis Jr. and entitled "Turkeys for Mississippi".For my efforts, he awarded me during the concert with a plaque on the stage of the Arie Crown Theatre. The benefit was repeated in Detroit and Dick asked me to come along and repeat my work there. I was to pick up Sammy and his wife, Mae Britt, at the Airport , after which we all had dinner together. Among the Jazz musicians who came to my apartment and the Meadows Club meetings of the Society were, to mention just a few who also became close friends: Dizzy Gillespie, Julian "Cannonball"Adderley, his brother Nat, Abbie Lincoln, Max Roach, Herbie Mann, Horace Silver, Ramsey Lewis, Jimmy Smith and Stan Getz as well as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, J.J.Johnson, Ahmad Jamal, Freddie Hubbard, Donald Byrd, Yusef Lateef, Roland Kirk and many others.
I also became involved in those days in an organization by the name of National Association of Market Developers( NAMD)which was the African American's answer to the American Marketing Association which they were not permitted to join.
I attended some of their meetings by invitation and , asked to join, became very deeply involved. I went annually to their conventions in various cities and although I was the only White member, I was elected President of the Chicago chapter after only a few years and as such I became a member of the National Board of Directors. Once again I had the chance to meet leaders and celebrities in the different cities where the meetings were held . In those days, Black marketing people were mainly in a few lines of business: Liquor, Beer, Cosmetics and Cigarettes and a Black Marketer was probably a truck driver going through the main streets in the "hood" stopping at stores and asking" How many cases today?" I was a witness when many of these same folks became Vice Presidents ("of special markets") of Pepsi Cola, Coca Cola, Philip Morris, Anheuser Busch, Ford and Chrysler Motors and many other Companies and these were the people who made history- they were the "Firsts".
During one of these conventions, the Guest Speaker at the final Banquet was Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. On the next morning, while waiting for the Airport limousine in front of my hotel, a long black car stopped in front of me and a man rolled down the window and asked whether I wanted a lift to the Airport. It turned out to be Minister Farrakhan and for three quarters of an hour I had a one-on-one conversation with him, long before he became quite controversial. But even then he said that there was a lot he liked about Hitler. I told him about my Buchenwald Concentration Camp experience and said: "If you would have been in Germany in those days you would have welcomed me in Buchenwald because you would have been taken long before me".
In the meantime, Dr. Martin Luther King came to ever increasing prominence. I met him first when one of my Urban League friends gave a party at her home for an "up and coming young minister" and it turned out to be M.L.King Jr. But once again it was Bill Berry through whom I became very well acquainted with Dr. King and even was given the honor to introduce him at a fundraising affair as the guest speaker. Together with Bill Berry I took part in the historic "March on Washington" on August 28, 1963 where I was able to sit in the third row to listen to the "I have a Dream" speech. After the march, the Washington Urban league gave a reception where among others I was introduced to Josephine Baker. I became also involved, inspired by Dr. King, in Anti Vietnam War protests and marched in Washington, Cleveland and New York City. I studied for the CPCU (Certified Property and Casualty Underwriter) degree and after 10 2 hour written examinations, some of which I had to take more than once, I received my degree in 1977. I also studied for the equivalent Life degree (CLU) but passed only 8 of 10 exams and did never finish. In the early sixties, I sold my interest in Home and Automobile Insurance Co. and started an Insurance Agency, called Skyway Insurance Agency. I also began a Public Relations business under the name of H.R.Schwab/Associates, in Hyde Park, Chicago to make use of the talents I had developed while with the Insurance Company.
Soon I expanded to work with Jazz Clubs and even started to manage a number of musicians: all this was great fun, a wonderful experience, but no money earned to speak of! Much to my surprise, Earl "Fatha" Hines who appeared at one of the clubs that I was handling publicity for asked me to become his manager. I told him I had no experience but he said "Don't worry, I'll teach you!" and I traveled with him to New York and some other places. And although I have never received credit for this, I am convinced that it was my work for "Fatha" Hines that he emerged from almost complete obscurity and was able to resume a creditable carreer until his death. My next major client was also a pianist, the redoubtable Dorothy Donegan with whom I traveled with extensively and who introduced me, whenever I attended one of her performances, as "my manager". These successes, not money wise as stated, led to my involvement with a Hollywood management business called "Management of Stars" with offices on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood and at the Hyde Park Bank Building in Chicago. My partners were Truman K.Gibson Jr. a very prominent attorney who was greatly involved with integration of the African American soldiers and sailors into the Armed Forces and was a close associate of Joe Louis and Jackie Robinson, and Albert Dale, a typical Hollywood agent with tremendous self- confidence, a slight tendency to exaggeration, a great deal of knowledge of the entertainment industry and very good connections. The original idea was to manage a group of formerly prominent show biz personalities who had faded from their erstwhile pinnacles and use them for Supermarket openings or Mall appearances and special events as well as TV commercials etc. Some of his clients, for a while, were Morey Amsterdam, Errol Flynn's widow Patrice Wymore, Broderick Crawford, the Academy Awards winner- he came to stay at my Lake Meadows apartment for weeks at a time and I handled all his checking accounts and finances. With Broderick and Truman, we flew to New York to negotiate a movie biography of Jack Dempsey at his Broadway Restaurant. Unfortunately, the scriptwriter we hired never followed through properly and after paying him a hefty advance he declared bankruptcy.
So, after a couple of fun years, traveling between Chicago and LA, to Europe and back, we had spent more money than we took in and decided enough is enough and we disbanded this business and I took full control again of my insurance agency.
I joined the Chicago Association of Life Underwriters and after a few years was elected President of the South Side Branch and later a director of the Illinois Association. In 1971, a Senate Subcommittee, under the chairmanship of the late Senator Hart of Michigan, came to Chicago to investigate complaints of "Redlining" in Automobile Insurance based on racial discrimination. I was on the organizing committee for these hearings together with prominent African American Insurance Brokers and one of them was my friend Milton E. Moses and we also testified before the committee. As a result of these hearings, the Liability rates for Automobile in Chicago were changed so that they are now the same anywhere in the city which was not the case previously.
I had taken in my son Richard as a partner in Skyway Insurance Agency and when in 1979 he was given a chance to become a State Farm Agent, I accepted an offer from Milt Moses to sell my agency to his, Community Insurance Center Inc. and I joined him in his offices on 87th Street and have been there ever since.
The new Millenium
Since Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. asked Rev.Jesse Jackson to start "Operation Breadbasket" as a subsidiary to the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Chicago, I had been a frequent attendee at their meetings and stayed on after Rev. Jackson changed the organization into Operation PUSH (People to Save Humanity). Over the years, I participated from time to time in boycotts and marches and became very active in Jesse Jacksons two Presidential campaigns. In more recent years, Operation PUSH joined with the Rainbow Coalition and is now called the Rainbow/PUSH coalition. Since 1997 I have represented Community Insurance Center at every Saturday meeting of the International Trade Bureau of RPC, usually attending the weekly Broadcast Forum as well and I have travelled twice to New York for their Wallstreet Project and attended conferences in Chicago.
In my private life, I have always enjoyed music. As a child, I took piano and violin lessons -I didn't get very far with the piano but I became quite proficient with the Vioiin and added Viola when my High School music teacher needed that instrument in the School Orchestra and I played in quartets and the orchestra. For my 13th birthday my parents gave me a ticket to a concert by Yehudi Menuhin who was just one year older than I and from that day on I have seen and heard every great classical musician of the last century. Among them come to mind Fritz Kreisler, Mischa Elman, Artur Rubinstein, Wladimir Horowitz, Jascha Heifetz, Pablo Casals, Marian Anderson and so many others, too numerous to mention them all. I also had the privilege over the years to listen to many of the greatest composers of our time conducting their own works, among them Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Aaron Copland, Leonard Bernstein, Aram Katchaturian and many others. I listened to such eminent conductors as Klemens Krauss, Arturo Toscanini, Erich Leinsdorf, Bruno Walter, Erich Kleiber, Otto Klemperer, Artur Rodzinski, Claudio Abbado, Carlo Maria Giulini and obviously Sir Georg Solti and Daniel Barenboim. I have subscribed to the Lyric Opera of Chicago for more than 30 years and to the Chicago Symphony Orchestra more than 55 years.This is where these unforgettable memories come from. At the opera I have heard just about every great singer of our times.
In Sports, too, I have been very active. As a young fellow, I was given Fencing lessons and became good enough to win a tournament. During the Nazi years I even became a fencing instructor at a Jewish Sports Club in Berlin. I was a better than average sprinter and long jumper and I was a good Club tennis player. As I grew older I became more of a spectator than a participant . Over the years I was fortunate to meet such Sports celebrities as Ernie Banks of the Cubs, Muhammad Ali, the aforementioned Jack Dempsey and Joe Louis, whom I got to know quite well. Two sports events I attended deserve special mention: I was present at one of the baseball games during which Joe Di Maggio made a hit while working on his record-breaking 56 game hitting streak and I was in Indianapolis for the 1992 Olympic Track and Field trials when Florence "FloJo"Joyner broke the World Record in the 100 meter dash.
I had the fortune to do a lot of traveling, mostly on cruises, all over the world. At last count, I have visited 55 countries. On some of these cruise ships I met such personalities as Jimmy Cagney, Vincent Price, President Eisenhower's son John and numerous others.
Well, as you have seen by now, I am a Name Dropper of the first rank, only in my case I can document that these encounters really happened. And I haven't even mentioned that I became well acquainted with Julian Bond, Redd Foxx, Lena Horne, Helen Hayes, Nancy Wilson, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and... and ... had enough?
You know I am a very happy fellow and maybe now you can appreciate why. My eyes have seen and my ears have heard so much that I think I can leave you with three exhortations:
1) Always live by the Golden Rule: Do unto others what you wish them to do unto you!
2) Don't use the worst word in the English language: "THE" in connection with Races, Nationalities, Religions etc. Don't ever say "The Poles" "The Irish" The Jews etc. There are many wonderful people in all ranks and it is unfair to put them all in one group.
3) Help to influence your family, your friends, your congregegation, your business associates, your neighbors and anyone you come across to stop emphasizing the things that are different between us and other religions, races and nationalities.
Let us stress the fact that the similiarities are much more prevalent than the differences, which only lead to war, riots, conflagrations and from there to poverty and famine. We are all children of the Allmighty- all Brothers and Sisters- Let's not forget it.
Thank you
