"I was born in 1920 in Bayonne. I had four older sisters. When I was eleven, my mother died and my father disappeared. I was taken in by my sister Jennie and her husband Jack. She was eighteen, he was nineteen. They raised me. I graduated from Bayonne High School in 1938. For years I worked for an insurance company in New York City. I started at $5 a week. I lived with Jack and Jennie in Bergenfield. I took the bus and then a train and then a subway. One of my girlfriends was seeing a guy, I can't remember his name, but he had a friend named Dave. I married Dave in 1942. He was sent overseas, I didn't see him for three years. In Oman, he was coming off a ship, they were shooting at them, he was wounded right here, if it had been an inch this way I wouldn't have any children. Dave's father had a business, Broadway Arcade on Broadway and 53rd Street. Dave took over the business. He was a good mechanic. We had Madame Esmerelda the fortune teller. Pinball, skiball. In the basement were pool tables, we sublet the space. It was a good business. We were famous for our nuts. We had two boys, Steve and Mark. Steve ran the Arcade after we moved to Florida, Mark is a food chemist. The Arcade is closed now — the landlord kept raising the rent. If we had bought the building I'd be rolling in it. Dave died at 68 in 1987. I play mah-jong once a week. I go bowling once a week. My team is in first place. I take my sister Sophie with me but she can't see well enough to bowl. She's ninety-six. So I've been married, it's sixty-seven years. Hard to believe."
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