Due to the untimely death of his father [when my father was only 10], he went to work at an early age.  He worked for 40 years in New York banks; he started as as a runner and office boy and worked his way up to the position of Vice President, before he retired in 1956.

He saw action in France in World War I, and often spoke of the memories he had and the friends he made in the little villages of the St Emilion section of Bordeaux, where the local citizens rewarded the "doughboys" with their prize wines and macaroons.

To the left is one of my favorite pictures of my father, taken in his bank in the 1940's by his cousin Stanley Brown.  

(more to come)