Back to the Beginning

It was 1939 and Steve [Waldman’s] Uncle Bill Waldman was working as a stenographer. Bill’s older brother Charlie told him that he needed another job because it would be hard to support a wife and children on a stenographer’s salary. He suggested insurance. Furthermore, Uncle Charlie, who sold store fixtures and mannequins to retail clothing stores, offered to bankroll Bill during the early years.

Uncle Charlie’s suggestion was on the mark. Bill’s combination of personality and charm made him a perfect fit as a life insurance salesman.

A decade later, Steve’s father Erwin, the “baby” of six siblings and six years younger than Uncle Bill, was working as an auto parts salesman.

Those were the days before cars had air conditioning, so Erwin developed his own technique for keeping cool as he traveled to see customers in Texas, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas. He would leave one appointment, duck behind a billboard (billboards were at ground level rather than elevated in those days), take his shirt off and put a wet towel over his head for the drive between cities. As he approached the next town, he would find another billboard, remove the towel, put on his shirt, and arrive cool and refreshed.

This lifestyle, however, became less appealing when he and his wife decided it was time to start a family. Erwin joined Bill in the insurance agency in 1949, and, once again, Uncle Charlie offered to help until Erwin established a clientele.

The Waldman brothers were frugal, sharing one car. On Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays Bill got the car. He’d drop Erwin off several blocks from their office, and Erwin would walk up and down the nearby streets, calling on customers. Bill would make calls in outlying areas. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, the pattern was reversed.

This went on until 1958, when they won a Ford Edsel in a raffle. “When the phone rang, Dad thought it was a prank at first,” Steve remembered. “The Edsel really was the worst car you could ever imagine, but it met their needs at the time.”

Their other car, a 1957 Chevy, was far more reliable. It was still running when they gave it to Steve to take to college 11 years later.

Excerpted from the RiskProNet newsletter, with permission.