My Rich Uncle Aaron

by

Elan Zingman-Leith

“I don't know a lot of details about my family's rich uncle Aaron. I learned that when my mother and grandmother were in Odessa during the Russian Revolution, a bunch of Bolsheviks banged on the door of their house. My grandfather was named Berish (Boris) Farber and my grandmother was Edis (Ida) Ehrlichman) Farber. The Bolsheviks demanded “the jewels”. My grandfather was a jewel merchant. He had hidden them in the counterweight pockets of the windows. The Bolsheviks ransacked the house, found the jewels and took my mother, grandmother and grandfather in the backyard and shot my grandfather. That night, my mother and grandmother hid in a hay wagon and headed west to get out of Russia. They travelled to Bucharest in Romania, which was not part of the revolution or the Soviet Union, as it became.
 
I asked my cousins, how did they live for a couple of years in Bucharest, with no income? They all said, uncle Aaron (Ehrlichman) paid for everything, as he did for all of his siblings. Uncle Aaron opened a grocery store in Detroit during the 'teens. It went well. During Prohibition, he laundered money for bootleggers in Detroit by reporting their income as the grocery store's income. He was eventually caught and went to prison, but after he rescued all of his siblings. He was one of seven or eight.
 
After he got out of prison, he had no money. But he had learned about stock-trading. He did that and earned another fortune later in life. By the way, the family name – Ehrlichman – means “Honest Man.”