Saul Glazerman: A Collection of Anecdotes
"He was impractical"
Saul was confident World War 2 was just a passing phase, that everything was going to be okay. He was impractical, in his beliefs, and vision about the world. Impractical is a phrase repeated more than nearly any other word by his loving son throughout the interview. What encapsulates him more than anything else, is impracticality. Leon did not know too many stories about his father kindness, something he kept a secret because Saul knew his mother would not approve of how impractical he was about his kindness. Saul never passed on a chance to make a difference, even if hurt himself (and sometimes his wife).
Still Lee said a few well known anecdotes about Saul's impracticality and who he was as a person. These are some of my favorites.
"You are the luckiest man in the world."
In Lawrence, Massachusetts, there were not many people drowning in lakes. But on one particular day, a little boy fell into a pond and was thankfully saved by another man. The man wasn't Saul, but the man was congratulated by all those in the town. But as the man crossed paths with Saul, Saul said in enthusiastic fashion "You are the luckiest man in the world." If not for his reputation as of the most giving kind people in the community he would have likely be hit in the face, but Saul meant it. In Orthodox Judaism, luck is about having the opportunities to give and be kind to others. It was the ultimate opportunity being to save another person, he truly saw this local hero as lucky, and he likely would have still made the comment even if he would have actually been hit.
"If they want to go to college they are going to go."
Being a woman and Jewish in the 1910s meant that going to college was, well, impractical. His older daughter, Lola, who asked to go, knew how hard it would be to get a job. Likely, college or not, she was seen as someone whose goal would be to get married as soon as they could. So her mother was insistent that she not go, because it not only did not make sense, but they had no money. Still, Saul was adamant, a feeling he rarely felt. And after somehow convincing Sarah and pilling himself with debt, he sent her to school. Lola Glazerman would become the youngest lawyer in Massachusetts, and created one of the most successful government contract law firms in New England (with the second most being her brother Leon's). And then Saul sent the rest of his kids to college, two went to Ivy League school, and three out of the four became lawyers.
“Incredibly kind to his customers”
One of the many customers that Saul sold to was a widow afraid of her son leaving her for a wife and new family. She did whatever she could to make sure he could not leave, abusing him and taking away his life. Eventually, she put him in a mental hospital afraid of his absence (possibly the most impractical part of the story). But Saul took the money he earned from her and bought her son anything he wanted from golf clubs to new clothes. He made sure that the son eventually got his freedom back and helped him eventually start a family of his own.
“Everyone who knew him loved him”
Saul's values of family, openness, and education percolated through every generation since he first created the building blocks for the American Dream.
Even today, his children remain best friends and the same is said for his grandchildren as well. Every single one of his kids, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren (of age) have all attended higher level education. And it's his optimism that continues to carry a family, still strongly held together, forward. The Glazerman trope has always been about how things will work out. It's a idiom that allowed for success in people's careers, and more important it has continued to hold the family together without any conflict lasting longer than the time until the next meal, even as people faced sickness, addiction, abuse, and every other conflict that could tear a family apart. Ultimately, who Saul was, was an emulator of empathy, a timeless carried on trait that has the power to break through all cultural or language barriers.