Debby was not a “soft” person, but she was not bitter, either. Her mother had died in 1912 when Debby was a baby, and her fairy-tale stepmother, whom she and her brother referred to as “Horse-face,” beat her and forced her to iron clothing three to four hours a day. Her father was a charismatic “ne’er-do-well” who could always get the best herring by mimicking the regional Yiddish of any shopkeeper. During this time, he was out pursuing other women.
Debby’s biological mother was a Charlop, descended from King David and the Exilarchs of Babylonia, and Debby was tall, with unusually deep-set brown eyes. The relatives she was later sent to live with considered her an attractive addition to their households and taught her to weave Yiddish into her conversation. She often said, “I’m good at living in other people’s houses.” Her older brother Morris became a successful dentist and wanted Debby to go to university, but she went to a business college instead and fell in love with Herman Goodman, a traveling hardware salesman.
After Debby felt ill for several weeks without realizing she was pregnant, Herman was called into the office of Debby’s doctor, a forthright woman who campaigned with Margaret Sanger for women’s access to birth control. This doctor ordered Herman to marry Debby. Yet neither Herman nor Debby ever regretted the marriage, and they made a good team. During the Great Depression his salary dropped from $200 a week to $20; she wore, without complaint, cotton housedresses that cost $1 each. He continued his sales rounds in the New York winter even though he didn’t own a coat, telling his family he was warm enough in his sweater.
In the 1940’s Herman went into business for himself as a wholesale hardware concern, travelling the Eastern and Midwestern states and putting 100,000 miles a year on a succession of Packards. To make his life easier, Debby decided they should publish a mail-order catalogue—an innovation in that era. Unlike Debby, Herman was “soft” or sensitive, so she wove her suggestion into a discussion in such a way that he was always convinced the catalogue was his own brilliant idea.
Herman Goodman & Company occupied a large loft on Chambers Street in lower Manhattan. At the front were two desks, but the rest of the loft had floor-to-ceiling shelves holding boxes of hammers, screwdrivers, hoses, files, drills, drill bits, clamps, and many other items. Debby’s innovation, the mail-order catalogue, meant that no one had to travel or meet clients in person. To create the catalogue, she sat for hours rubber-cementing tiny pictures of drills and saws, along with their specifications, looking down at the page through the half-glasses she wore on a necklace. Cuttings would be spread over the desk, and her self-imposed deadlines were sacred and pressing.
Debby also had a gift for getting along with people, which was good for business. After Herman died of a heart attack, she managed Herman Goodman & Company alone. She’d talk on the telephone to the owners of midwestern hardware stores and tell them that Herman was away on a trip, never revealing that Herman was dead and the business was run by a woman. Occasionally a travelling salesman appeared unexpectedly at the door of the loft on Chambers Street, and she’d say that Herman was out at a meeting. The salesmen joked with her and gave her samples for her grandchildren: a pen that wrote in twelve different colors, or keychains with dangling compasses.
Debby never retired, as she wanted to continue the business that she and Herman had started. She did not re-marry, but instead worked full time and spent her leisure hours with her friend Marion, who had also lost her husband. She and Marion went to dinner, theatre, or museums in New York; took cruises in the Caribbean in winter, and traveled together to Europe and Israel. Debby retained her aristocratic beauty and elegance. She and Marion were spoken of as a unit: “Debby and Marion saw a new musical last week,” or “Marion and Debby are in Amsterdam.” At one time, Debby’s close friend Milton, whose wife had been killed in a car accident, proposed that she marry him. The proposal was giggled over by Debby and Marion, discussed seriously, but ultimately refused. Debby said that no one could replace Herman Goodman.
Copyright © Leora Freedman 2015
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