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Monday, June 28, 2004     Page: 9A

David Wolf was just a child when he began a journey from Leipzig, Germany,
that ended right here in Wilkes-Barre.
   
“I had an early connection to Wilkes-Barre,” he joked. “I liked to play
in the coal bin.”
    Wolf, an Orthodox Jew born in 1925, began his schooling in Germany. At age
7 it was time to move on.
   
“Things got a little uncomfortable in Germany,” remembers Wolf, alluding
to the rise of the Nazis.
   
His parents, Samuel and Chaja Wolf, decided to leave the country for
Poland, where they had relatives. Each person who left Germany, however, was
allowed to take only 10 marks, about the equivalent of $10, when he or she
left.
   
Wolf’s parents had a plan. They decided that father should go on ahead with
his meager amount of cash and mother should stay behind and turn some of the
family assets into diamonds.
   
When it was time for Wolf and his mother to leave Germany, she baked bread,
made sandwiches and packed a basket for the trip. He carried the basket of
sandwiches across the border, and inside the sandwiches were the diamonds.
   
“I was a smuggler at an early age,” he said. “What if one of the guards
was to take one of the sandwiches, bite into it, and break a tooth?”
   
The family lived in Poland for about a year, and young Wolf attended school
there, until Poland became “not polite.” The family then set out for Israel,
where Wolf’s grandfather had gone on before.
   
In Israel, Samuel Wolf opened a grocery to support his family, and again
Wolf began school. Their situation improved.
   
“We weren’t poor, we weren’t rich; we were normal,” he said.
   
But a life in Israel wasn’t to be. Chaja Wolf became ill. The climate
didn’t agree with her, and it became apparent they would have to relocate
again.
   
America was the answer. They set out to join relatives in New Jersey,
arriving at Ellis Island when Wolf was 13. Eventually Samuel Wolf opened a
candy store in Bayonne, N.J., and the family lived behind the store. Now Wolf
was enrolled and finished his education in an American school.
   
When he was nearly 18, Wolf volunteered for the U.S. Army. He spent many
weeks in infantry basic training but wasn’t old enough to be assigned to
combat, so he ended up becoming a medical aide.
   
His best contribution to the war effort was his skill at speaking foreign
languages, particularly French and German. He often was called upon to be an
interpreter.
   
“I’ll say this about war,” he said. “It isn’t a question of how smart
you are or how brave you are. You have to get lucky.”
   
Shortly after the Battle of the Bulge, Wolf became ill with jaundice and
was flown to a hospital outside of Paris. He was unattached to any unit at the
time, so no one knew where he was.
   
The army collected his belongings and notified his parents that Wolf was
missing.
   
“My father had one of his many heart attacks at that time,” he said.
   
Wolf was recovering, though, and sent his parents a postcard to let them
know he was alive. He was later on a ship to Japan when the Japanese
surrendered, and he came back to the United States safe and sound.
   
In the meantime, Wolf’s parents had opened a linen store in the Bronx, N.Y.
Upon his return Wolf worked there and dated a girl, Joan Lesser, from
Brooklyn.
   
It was a long-distance relationship for the time, and the couple’s strict
faith made it impossible for them to see each other from sundown Friday until
sundown Saturday.
   
Wolf saw one solution to the problem: marriage.
   
Marry they did, and David and Joan Wolf celebrated their 53rd wedding
anniversary in February. They raised two daughters, Janet and Susan, in New
York, and they have five grandchildren.
   
Wolf drove a cab to support his family, and he spent many years fighting
the system to make cabs safer by cutting down on the carbon monoxide a cab
takes in through the vents when idling in heavy traffic. His fight, however,
was for the most part fruitless.
   
Some of Wolf’s other jobs included manufacturing linens, making slipcovers
for furniture and making novelty advertising items.
   
When his and his wife’s parents became elderly, Wolf decided they should
get a large house and all move in together. It would be easier to see to their
needs in their declining years.
   
Wolf found a house, in bad repair, and convinced all it could be fixed up
and made comfortable. He was true to his word, and the extended family moved
in together. Wolf and his wife took care of their parents until their deaths.
   
Now, with both daughters married and their parents gone, the couple was
faced with an empty nest – and freedom.
   
Wolf had seen an article in Money magazine about the 10 best places to
retire, and Northeastern Pennsylvania was on the list. They wanted to live in
a city, so they checked out both Scranton and Wilkes-Barre.
   
At that time, 15 years ago, Wolf said, downtown Scranton was a mess.
Wilkes-Barre was the better of the two cities. They sold their property in New
York and moved to Wilkes-Barre, where real estate was a bargain.
   
They once again bought a house in need of serious repair, moved in, and had
it remodeled to their liking. The home is complete with a kosher kitchen – two
sinks, two stoves, separate utensils, etc.
   
But downtown Wilkes-Barre was declining fast. Wolf took an active stance in
trying to improve the city but believes his suggestions fell on deaf ears.
   
In the early 1990s he suggested a plan to renovate the Stegmaier Building
on Wilkes-Barre Boulevard into a recreational facility with a rooftop
restaurant, an aviary, amusements for children and a home for the Greater
Wilkes-Barre Chamber of Commerce, but it was not to be. In 1995 Wolf
challenged Tom McGroarty in the mayoral primary and lost.
   
One of the greatest losses in the downtown area, as Wolf sees it, was of
Pensak’s Kosher Deli on Northampton Street, which closed in the early 1990s.
It was the only kosher eatery in the city.
   
He still has hope for the future of Wilkes-Barre as well as ideas on how to
improve the area. The courthouse, for instance, is a beautiful building, with
impressive architecture and history, he said. “Why not have tours?”
   
Wolf has a flair for looking at nothing, so to speak, and seeing the
possibilities. He can see a plant stand in some pieces of abandoned wood or
the beautiful home in a run-down, flood-damaged house.
   
Spray-paint art is his outlet since retirement. He makes interesting
abstract paintings on canvas using cans of spray paint.
   
“When you’re working, you don’t have much time,” he said. “When you have
time, you do things.”
   
Wolf frequently expresses his opinions and ideas in letters to the editor,
sometimes assigning blame.
   
He also has waged a recent battle against cancer.
   
“And won,” wife Joan lovingly reminds.
   
Wolf probably chalks it up to luck.
   
“We were in Brooklyn one day when an airplane fell out of the sky,” he
said. “Do you have to be smart – or lucky?”
   
HEY, READERS!
   
Do you know a local senior citizen whose life so far has been, to say the
least, an interesting journey? Maybe it’s you.
   
To nominate a senior citizen for a MY LIFE SO FAR story, contact Kim Davis
at: Times Leader People News, 15 N. Main St., Wilkes-Barre, PA 18711, e-mail
her at [email protected]. Or call 831-7378.
   

   
TIMES LEADER STAFF PHOTOS/DON CAREY
   
David Wolf, 79, tells the story of how he landed in Wilkes-Barre for his
retirement years.
   
Using spray paint and handmade stencils, David Wolf creates art in his
spare time.
   
Dancing figures are the theme of one of David Wolf’s works.