Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

James Vanderpol was born in the Netherlands and emigrated to the United States after World War II. After graduating from Rider College and earning his CPA, he worked for such companies as Coopers & Lybrand and Becton Dickinson. He resides in Plaistow, New Hampshire, with his wife, Carol, and cat, Oliver.

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And The Money Went Over The Railing

Trafford Publishing

Contents

Preface................................................vAcknowledgements.......................................viiMy Life in the Netherlands.............................1World War II...........................................14My New Life In The United States.......................43College Years..........................................52Touring our New Country................................59Starting Work at Hart, Inc.-Boston.....................65Coopers and Lybrand-Boston.............................75Coopers and Lybrand-Pittsburgh.........................80Coopers and Lybrand-New York...........................91Family and Community Life-New York.....................95Huntington Hartford....................................105Becton Dickinson.......................................128Bennington College.....................................147Bradford College.......................................174Emerson College........................................182Retirement.............................................206

Chapter One

I was born in July, 1924, in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. My father, Joshua, informally called Joe, was a wholesale diamond merchant and had a business in Amsterdam and in Antwerp. He was well respected in the industry and had built up his business from scratch. He spent part of the week in Antwerp and part in Amsterdam. Sunday was spent with the family. My father came from a lower middle class family and had educated himself after finishing grade school. He originally wanted to become an actor as he was blessed with a beautiful voice, a knack for storytelling and good looks and charm. He was a stern man, but a good entertainer both at parties and at home. Certain stories of his from his time as an amateur actor became classics in our family. His role as a father took on aspects of a Supreme Court justice. Because he spent little time at home, my mother used the approach of "Wait till I tell your father!" which usually did the trick. We had great respect for him. He never spanked us, but one reprimand from him and we froze.

My mother, Rachel, most often called Rae, also came from a middle class family. Her father, Simon, was a rather simple man who had narrow views of the world and made a marginal living as a diamond cutter. To supplement this income, my grandmother, Griet, started a millinery shop and worked long and hard. My mother in her youth helped my grandmother and, because of this, became rather knowledgeable about hats. Many years later, when she was married, she bought a hat and showed it to my father. He didn't like it. So my mother took a pair of scissors and narrowed the brim. My father still didn't like it. In desperation, she went back to the store and persuaded them to take it back and exchanged it for a new hat. Her powers of persuasion allowed her to do some wondrous things in the war and later on when she lived in Flushing, NY.

My mother was very close to her mother and revered and respected her. She was always quoting her. I was impressed with my grandmother's deep understanding of life and human behavior. My mother inherited some of that and was always helping family members who were in some kind of trouble. She told us many stories about her youth, some of which were very funny. She had two brothers, one of whom was a practical joker. When they were young, they had a live-in maid who had been with them for many years. On Friday, her fianc would come, and she would become anxious long before he arrived. My uncle Raph connected a wire from the toilet to the front door bell. He would sit on the toilet and ring the bell and the poor maid would run to the front door to find there was nobody there. I don't know whether she ever figured out my uncle's trick.

Every year, my great grandmother would knit for the grandchildren. My uncle had heard that, one particular year, she was knitting underwear for his birthday. He told his mother that he would not wear it as it was too itchy. She told him that, out of respect for his grandmother, he had to wear it. He refused. When he actually received it on his birthday, he refused again. He was told that he would not get dinner. A week went by without dinner and he did not complain. The following week my grandmother received a note from his teacher to ask her to come to the school. The teacher told her that her son was a wonderful boy. He had admitted that his father was an alcoholic and had spent all the money so that there was not enough food at home. In response, the teacher had taken a collection and wanted to give the money to my grandmother. Needless to say, my uncle was grounded for a considerable amount of time.

Some stories about my family are included here to provide a fleeting look at some of the people who influenced my life and to show the love and closeness in my family. This brought a sense of security and comfort to me. This does not mean that there were not the usual family squabbles. One of the more amusing ongoing tensions existed between my two grandfathers. Each Sunday evening, my grandfathers and my mother and father would get together to play bridge. My father had a natural talent for the game, and my mother worked hard at it, but my grandfathers told each other every Sunday night what the other did wrong. Many times they left angry at each other, but they were always back together the next Sunday.

My father was an impressive man. He was good looking, a sophisticated dresser, and a good story teller with a beautiful voice of operatic quality. On Sunday morning, he would spend hours in the bathroom and sing excerpts of opera. Some Friday nights, we would have a musical evening with my grandmother playing the piano and my father singing the latest songs from Paris. He could be a stern man, but had a good sense of humor. He told us many stories about his experience as an amateur actor. He once played the romantic hero in a love scene in the living room with a beautiful chandelier. The next scene took place in the middle of a wild ocean. My father was rowing and trying to save the heroine. Unfortunately, in the fast change of scenery, the stagehands had forgotten to remove the chandelier. However, the story that I liked the most was when his fellow actors played a joke on him. In the play, my father was to stand over a wishing well and recite a long, romantic poem. Only then did he discover that his colleague had put some cow droppings in the wishing well. My grandfather was a very strong man and, if any play went beyond 11 p.m., he would climb onto the stage and carry my father off the stage so that he could get home and be in bed on time. In the end, my father decided not to pursue an acting career, partly because the family considered acting to be an unacceptable career.

When my father was engaged to my mother, she complained that he had forgotten her birthday. The next year, he hired a band and, at six o'clock in the morning, the band played happy birthday for her and, at the same time, to my mother's embarrassment, awakened the whole neighborhood. She did not complain again. They were married on a boat decorated with red roses, floating down the Amstel River.

Since my father was only home on weekends, much of the discipline was left to my mother. She was rather free...