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Dave Molot on the history of the Molot Family

Dave Molot on the history of the Molot Family

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Held by: Ottawa Jewish Archives via Canadian Jewish Heritage Network (incl. Alex Dworkin Canadian Jewish Archives)
Dates: October 20, 1996 (indexed as 1996)
Level: item
Scope & content: Subject: Lecture by Dave Molot on the history of the Molot Family Interviewer: Lecture by Dave Molot Date: October 20, 1996 Interview Location: Ottawa, Ontario Length of Time: 52:26 Notes: Introduction made by Dave’s nephew- Henry Would like to thank Lawrence and the society of behalf of the Molot family for honouring them and giving Dave the honour of presenting the history of the family A few personal memories: immediately after the war, Dave and his wife Lottie and their daughter and Lottie's parents moved into an apartment above his grandparents so Dave’s parents. Dave came back in 1945, so the Henry was 6, but he remembers the activity Lastly, he remembers working in the drug stores, he worked at most of them. He worked mostly at 580 Rideau where Dave was the manager. Uncle Dave was always an active person, always running off to B’nai B’rith meetings, Kiwanis meetings, never missing a golf game, first at the Gatineau and then the Rideau View With that he presents “Giant” Molot to speak about the family Dave thanks the Ottawa Jewish Community and the Ottawa Historical society for giving him the honour and privilege of presenting the Molot history. Our parents were from Minsk in Russia, soon after they married they left Minks and traveled to Kurgan? Turkestan Kurgan? is 100 miles what was then the capital of Turkestan and now is is Uzbekistan, about 400 miles north of the border of Afghanistan During their years in Kurgan? They built up a lovely business and had 6 boys who survived. The first boy unfortunately died at his bris, the Moil, who had been drinking, spilled a bottle of carbolic acid on the baby. Carbolic acid, probably diluted with water, was used in those days as an antiseptic. Then came the boys who ultimately came to Ottawa: Sam, Las, Abe, Lous, Saul, David Around 1912, the well educated and beloved governor of Turkestan passed away and his cousin was appointed in his place. As a result, life dramatically changed for the worse. This new governor was an old time version of Hitler and Stalin. He immediately began to pick on the Jewish population He prohibited Jewish prayers and imposed other restrictions to the Jews including they could no longer own property or businesses unless they converted to christianity. Dave’s father, being an outspoken man, landed himself in jail. After his release he began to prepare to leave Russia. He had a half brother in New York and a cousin in Ottawa Fortunately, he chose Ottawa where his cousin Jacob Reuban, who had married a member of the local (?) and had left Russia only a few months earlier had come and settled in Ottawa. His father landed in Ottawa with a field of his boys, Sam, Las, and Abe in December 1913. Their mother stayed behind with the rest of the family in order to dispose of the business. Then she followed with Reub, Sol, and Dave himself. They arrived in Canada in June 1914. One year later on May 29th Edith their one and only sister was born. In Kurgan his father owned a business and learned the fur trade. He would travel to Afghanistan to purchase the raw pelts and make the fur hats for the Kalzacs. In Ottawa they lived with the Schulman family on York Street for a short while before his father built a 4 home row on Cobourg Street, 67-73 Cobourg. In the early years, his dad made a living by buying and selling raw furs. He had a horse and wagon and would travel up to Almont, Carleton Place, Arnprior, Smith Falls, Perth, etc. purchasing fur pelt from the white and Indigenous Fur trappers (outdated term used) At home on cobourg street, he began making fur coats, then he opened his first store on Bank street near Laurier. He later moved to the south side of Rideau street, between Waller and Nicholas. A few years later he bought some property across the street from the Rideau street business next to Larocks? And built 2 stores on the ground floor. That included 1 for himself, and 6 apartments above. His dad had also built them a new home at 20 Heney street. Sam, Las and Sal became furriers after finishing high school. All learned the fur trade and each went to New York. Sam was the only one who stayed in New York, and became a furrier to the carriage trade. At 25 he was in charge of one of the biggest fur departments in New York City. He changed his name to Molo instead of Molot. He had 2 good ads in Vogue magazine. One ad said he was the son of a Parisian. The other said he was the son of a French Canadian fur trapper. Las and Sal returned to Ottawa and took over their father’s business on Rideau Street When they became residents of Ottawa, their parents and family became members of the Rideau Street Shul. This shul had monthly meetings, which was in those days a very important day,. It was the highlight of social activity in the community. At one very important meeting, there was a discussion regarding one of the kosher butchers in town. There must have been 5 kosher butchers at the time. 4 of the butchers came and said the 5th one was doing something forbidden on Shabbat and should therefore lose his kosher license so they would get more customers. After much arguing, his dad got up and said “if this is the case, then this shul should have a new president, because according to the constitution, the president was not allowed to work on Shabbat” 3 days later, the Shul board advised his dad that he was suspended for 3 shul meetings for insulting the president As a result of the butcher up roar and his father’s punishment, at least 20-25 members resigned. First they held meetings at their home on Heney street, then they rented a hall at the corner of Nelson and Murray street. At that time, the old Murray street shul was on the north side of Rideau between Nelson and King Edward. In 1927, the Murray st. Shul, decided to build the largest shul at the corner of Murray and King Edward When that happened his dad and his friends decided to become members of the new synagogue. His father purchased a life seat to help the synagogue that was having a hard financial time, and then after that all he had to pay was his membership fees. During the winter in the early 20s, the Jewish boys were able to rent a basketball gym above the number 4 fire hall station. One year, the Molots and Abelsons had a friendly argument, and as a result a challenge game was arranged. The Abelson boys Jess, Nat, and Sid. Molot boys Las, Abe and Reub Each chose the rest of their teams from outside of their families. The Abelsons chose 3 men from the senior city league, the Molots chose 3 Jewish boys from the Junior league; Mo Lapelle? Harry Burger, Abe Black. Before the game started, his father arrived and went around placing bets on the Molot boys. Molot team won the game and the next morning his dad gave them each a share of his winnings When he entered First (?) Collegiate he wanted to be in the top tier math class. And they put him and another fellow into Botany. So they told the principal. When they went to the botany lab, the teacher stood up and said I understand some of you boys don’t want to take Botany, you want to take math, so if that is you, stand up. Both Dave and his friend stood up and the teacher collected their names. Except Dave’s friend was rather short, so the teacher walked right buy him Las, who was an excellent boxer and basketball player, was on the Jewish basketball team and on the senior league city team, who’s players included Phil Horowtiz, Harold Pearl, Ralph Pearl, Sam Golberg, Ed Miller, Mo Abramovich who was from Montreal. The team won the championship in Ottawa and then they had to go to Montreal to take on the Montreal team. The Montreal team had done an excellent job at waxing the floor on the basketball court. They did such a good job that the Ottawa boys slipped and had a disastrous defeat. Now during high school, Abe, Rueb, Sol and Dave worked as delivery boys at Aikons Drug Store at the corner of Charlotte and Rideau, 580 Rideau Street. They worked at night from 6-11 pm, to have some spending money. The pay was 50 cents per night. In summer they got there on their bikes, in the winter they had to walk. They didn’t clean the snow then like they do now so when you walked, if you were short like Dave, the snow was up to your knees. Abe and Reub both attended the University of Toronto. Abe had already spent 1 year at McGill and then decided to join Reub, and become a pharmacist. They graduated in 1932. Abe received the class gold medal. Abe left McGill. In 1980, Dave received a phone call from a man named Lionel Ashley? Who had gone to school with Abe, both highschool and McGill. Ashley said “did Abe ever tell you why he only went to McGill for one year?” Dave said no. Ashley said Abe was a very clever boy and the reason why he never went back to McGill was because they had a Jewish quota, and that’s why he was not readmitted. That is why, Abe had to change his mind and decided to go into pharmacy In the pre war years, to obtain a degree it was first necessary to serve a 3 year apprenticeship in the pharmacy, you worked before you went to school. After the apprenticeship period, one went on to the university of Toronto for 2 years, where at the end of that, one received a bachelor’s degree in pharmacy plus a pharmacy degree in science, which enabled the graduate to open a pharmacy in Ontario. Now times were tough in 1932 when they graduated. However Abe managed to find a job at a Pharmacy on Wellington Street. Reub unfortunately could not find any work at all, so in April 1933, he started up his own pharmacy at 480 Rideau Street, just near the corner of Augusta In 1933, Dave was in Montreal, trying to get any kind of Job. He was staying at the YMCA paying 25-35 cents a night. In April 1933, Reub called Dave to come back to Ottawa and start his apprenticeship at his new pharmacy. Reub’s business was not very good at the start. They installed a lending library in the drugstore, where Reub would purchase books and rent them out for 2 cents a day. They did more business with the library than they did with the prescriptions for the first 2 years, then the pharmacy really improved and they got rid of the library. When Dave was apprenticing with Reub, he remembers tampons came on the market. He remembers a young woman who was having difficulty with the product because she wasn’t using it correctly. April 25, 1933- December 24, 1933 was the first prescription file at Molot pharmacy. In this file, they filled 500 prescriptions during that time. In those months, they were lucky to do that, and if you add up the repeat prescriptions that’s about 5 prescriptions a day. In November of 1981, 48 ½ years later, they sold the pharmacy to (?) pharmaceuticals in Toronto. At that time, their smallest and last remaining pharmacy at 580 Rideau street was filling 200 prescriptions a day. Back in 1935, Abe opened up his first drugstore at 586 Bank street, between Chamberlain and Rosebery. Abe was a real practical joker. One day he was going to put a sign up in the window when the messenger boy asked how he was going to stick that sign up in the window, so Abe said he needed a rubber hammer and rubber nails. So he sent the kid down the street to get the materials for him. The kid was gone all day. In September 1937, Aikon drugstore went bankrupt. Since his father had bought the building a year earlier, Abe decided to take over that store, but left Mr. Aikon managing the business. The pharmacy was renovated and restocked, and they hoped that this particular store, which had been a pharmacy for over 50 years, would be a success once again. 1938, Dave graduated pharmacy school in Toronto and returned to Ottawa. Reub asked Dave to help out for the summer, which he did, even though Dave had plans to go up to Northern Ontario where he had heard from school friends that there were good employment opportunities for him there. However, Reub wanted him to take over the new place on Rideau street, to see what was wrong with it because it was not bringing in new business In took Dave 2 weeks to find out there was something drastically wrong, and it was Mr. Aikon. They had to fire him. It was tough and took a lot of courage. Sandy Hill was particularly Gentile, there were not many Jews there, and for 25 years Mr. Aiken himself had been a prominent member in that community. He had at one time owned 3 pharmacies, lived in the Glebe, but was now destitute. Unfortunately, Mr. Aiken’s family had spent beyond his means, and after being let go in order to escape he moved to Toronto and opened a pharmacy there. That was the last time they heard from him. September 1st, 1939, after closing the pharmacy that night. Dave and 2 helpers were doing inventory when the radio was interrupted, with the announcement that Germany had invaded Poland. Dave recalls looking around the store and thinking that he wouldn’t be there for long Sunday September 10, 1939, Dave was with Bert Loeb and Dr. Joe Greenland. They were sitting in the beer garden at Saddish (?) hall sipping beer, when they heard Prime Minister Mackenzie King announce that Canada declared war on Germany. Dave told his friends he was going to enlist. Before leaving the hall he bumped into Harold Copland, and told him his intentions. Harold said he had a very good friend who was a colonel in a regiment, and wanted Dave to join his friend. The next day, Harold called Dave and gave him the phone number of his friend. He put in a call and they said they were recruiting so he went up right away. He went up to Slater street and there he was interviewed by Dr. Sam Merski who was a major. The recruiter said they needed a pharmacist and that Dave was joining a medical unit. Unit 5CCS; Number 5 Casualty Clearing Station, and he described it like MASH without Hawkins or Radar. The way the outfit functioned was to accept the wounded from a field ambulance and then after emergency operations ship them back to a general hospital. In the unit at that time besides himself and Dr. Merski was Dr. Eddie Wallstein, Joe Wolf who moved out of Ottawa and went to Toronto, and Norman Taller. A year and a half later when they were overseas, Archie Taller joined their unit. After Dave enlisted, he phoned Reub and Abe to tell them what he had done, and they would have to get someone else to run the pharmacy. It was a change for Dave who now had to take orders instead of giving them One of his reasons for enlisting so early: before the war with Hitler raving away in Europe, here in Canada, Jews were having problems. In the summer of 1938 or 39, there was an antisemitic man in Hull (Gatineau) named Tissot He would send hoodlums over and they would paint swastikas on stores owned by Jewish people. Dave also recalls going to a meeting at Dr. Sam Merskis’ office; there were 8 Jewish boys there. The purpose of the meeting was to try and find out who the hoodlums were. For 2 weeks at night they would travel around the shopping areas in cars carrying baseball bats hoping to find the antisemites. However they never found them That was in addition to the weekly news reports from movie news? Because there was no TV news at the time There you would see terrifying news of Hitler and his croonies screaming, yelling, their terrible messages. After joining the army, Dave was stationed at the exhibition grounds, then Petawawa for a year and then overseas. In England Dave met his wife Lotta. Before the war, Lotta lived in Luneburg, Germany. In 1938 she applied for a passport and the official forgot to stamp it with the letter J. Therefore she was able to leave Germany for London England. Once she was over in London she was able to obtain sponsors for her parents and brother to come to England in July 1939. They were very lucky. The first time he met Lottie was at a hospitality hall organized by a friend, Mrs. Elton, who had been head of the women’s division of B’nai B’rith and she had opened what they called Wolburn house, for the Canadian Jewish soldiers. Here they met old friends, met Jewish girls, and enjoyed coffee, cookies, and dancing. The first time Dave was with Sam Merski and his friend Mark Abramson. Mark, who was in the air force, was killed in Denmark in May 1944. Dave was in England until after the high holidays 1943, and Dave indicates there is a picture present of Lottie and some of the boys who were in the army from Ottawa They were shipped to Sicily in Italy. Dave had to leave behind his pregnant wife. Lottie and he were married in England November 18, 1942. He was in Italy until March 1945. June the 6th, 1944, Rome was taken by the American Army. The American general Mark Clark would not allow other troops, for example Canadian or Polish, to stay in Rome. They would enter to tour but could not stay. June 7 or 8th, Dave was in Rome with a gentile friend when a civilian approached, wanting to sell him postcards. By this time he could speak Italian so he asked him if there were any Jews around. No matter where he was, Dave was looking for Jewish people, and he found some. The civilian said yes he was a Jew, so they got talking, and he told Dave that the synagogue which had been closed since the beginning of the war was opening that night. So Jimmy and Dave attended the service. The chief Rabbi had been hiding in the Vatican, during the war and he gave the sermon. Dave found out after that the Rabbi had given up his Jewish faith and had converted to Catholicism. After the service, Jimmy and Dave wandered down to the Jewish ghetto which was not far from the synagogue, where they sat in a tiny wine cafe. A woman sitting near them began to tell Dave how much the Jews had suffered during the war. He asked her if she was Jewish and she said she was Catholic. She asked Dave if he was Catholic and he said no he was Jewish, and within 10 minutes that place was loaded with Jewish people and they shared lots of wine and missed their bus back to their billets. But they talked an American into giving them a ride back. In late March 1945, the Canadian army was transferred to Belgium. In May 1945 they arrived in Amersfoort Holland, where they liberated 2 Jewish families who were originally from Amsterdam. They had been hiding in the attic of a home for over 2 ½ years. They were very happy to see Dave and to find out that he was Jewish. When Dave got up to Belgium he managed to get a week’s leave to go up and meet Lottie for the first time in almost 2 years, and to see his daughter for the first time, who was then 1 year old. In August 1945, Dave returned to Canada and civilian life. At first he did not want to return to the pharmacy as he recalled in the prewar years he had to open the store at 8 in the morning, and close after 11 at night. He wanted to spend more time with his wife and child. However, Reub and Abe convinced him that times had changed and things were different, meaning the hours were only 9 to 9. So early September 1945 he went back to work in the drug store, taking up the old store at 580 Rideau Street. In December 1946, they lost their dad, and their mother now took over at the head of the Molot clan, and they decided they were going to pool their resources together and those left behind by their father. First they sold their holdings on Cobourg street. Dave said although any family their size is prone to arguments, his family was quick to forgive after an argument. Reub was an excellent athlete in high school, he held the track record for the 100 yard dash, was an excellent boxer and basketball player. Years later in 1947, he coached the Ottawa B’nai B’rith intermediate basketball team. It was such a good team that it defeated Montreal, and won in the semi finals in Moncton, New Brunswick, before advancing to the Canadian finals in Waterford, Cape Breton. It lost in a 2 game series by only 2 points. In April 1953, they decided to tear down the pharmacy at 580 Rideau street. They replaced it with an office building and put in a new drug store The plan at first was to put a building all around the old store, and that way the business could move into the new building temporarily while they tore down the old building and rebuilt it, with the purpose of moving back in. But the man who did the construction work forgot to fix the foundation of the old store and it all caved in. So for 9 months Dave was out of business, so he moved in with Reub for the 9 months During the 9 months he worked with Reub at 460 Rideau. In 1940, Reub had moved his store from 480 to 460 Rideau, a plot of land he built the store and 2 apartments above it, that Reub’s family later moved into. In late december 1953, when the 5 storey building was completed and the new drug store was finished, Dave returned to his old location. In 1954, they decided to close down 460 rideau street because it was too close, and Reub and Dave joined together at 580 rideau Street A few years later the Molot family purchased property on Cartier st at the corner of MacLaren. There they constructed a 90 unit apartment building, and Reub and Edith named the apartment building after the Molot family- calling it SADLERS Laz retired from the fur business in 1954 and Sal came up to Ottawa from New York to take over. Laz had handled the family real estate until he retired to go south around 1975. He had to obtain a passport, and at the passport office in the interview the man in charge said “Mr. Molot I’m sure you’ve been in Canada for at least 50 years, we’ve heard your name quite often. Can you give me the name of someone you might have known 50 years ago?” Laz said yes, he remembered Rabbi Burger, Rabbi Merski, both the man had never heard of. Laz said he recalled Father Miron. Audio cuts out…restarts 45:11- 45:24. Dave recalls they gave National Drug 100% of their local purchases, which was a blessing in disguise because National Drug was having financial issues, especially with the rise of antisemitism from the Gentile pharmacists. However, the Loebs, who were part of National Drug eventually returned the favour. After Abe took over the McArthur Plaza store, they sold the Bank street store, which 3 years later became and remains a Christian Bible book store. They concentrated on the 5 remaining stores, later selling each in turn as years went by. First the (M) store, then one year later the McArthur Plaza to one of their old time managers, who had been with them since he graduated. The manager’s son, who is also a pharmacist, is the present owner. As for 580 Rideau, in the office building with the pharmacy they needed a place for people to go for lunch so they put in a snack bar- they put in a small restaurant at the rear of the pharmacy with 26 stools and 4 booths. Dave said he did more business that first year than he did 15 years later, when he closed the snackbar when he renovated the pharmacy for the 5th and last time. It cost him about $400 a month just to have his breakfast there. Within one year of opening the new pharmacy and snack bar in 1953, 6 small restaurants had opened between him and Ambrose. By the time he closed the snack bar 15 years later, there were 13 small restaurants in that area. He remembers the Ambrose restaurant said Dave had no business going into the food business and he said don’t worry we’re selling Jewish spaghetti not Italian spaghetti. Shoppers City West? Created a whole new concept for all pharmacies in Ottawa. It was the city’s first discount pharmacy and proved successful. So when they took over the pharmacy in the East, they converted it also to a discount operation. Finally after they got rid of the snack bar at 580 rideau st, this pharmacy too was converted to a discount pharmacy. They retained the regular staff, but there were no more charge accounts and no more deliveries. Prior to becoming a discount store, they had been giving a 10% discount to their Jewish customers. After meeting with their auditors, they were forced to acknowledge that the discount was not profitable. As a result, they arranged a meeting with all the Jewish pharmacists in town and at this discussion it was agreed by all to terminate the courtesy discount because it was getting around to the Gentile people. Reub wrote a beautiful letter explaining why the discounts would stop. However, not long after they learned that 3 of the pharmacists had decided to continue the discount and in no time at all they lost about 75% of their friends. However, their store became more profitable because of their Gentile customers. One telephone call from a former customer said he wouldn’t work with Dave because he can get his discount elsewhere, but he really appreciated Dave and Reub’s dedication to their customers. As the years went on, they regained some of their customers and they introduced a loyalty discount. During their years in business, a number of Jewish boys worked in the pharmacy as apprentices. Including Marty Ginesberg, Dave Edleson, Jack Aberman, Bernie Goldberg, Norman Firkin, and 2 others from Toronto who did not like Ottawa so back they went. In his 48 years in Molot Pharmacies, Dave has wonderful memories of all the people he knew. He looks back at the lasting impact the pharmacy had on the Ottawa area. During those years they were not only business men, but a great asset to the medical profession. Molot furs, Dave’s dad, Laz and Saul also contributed to making the Molot family a great asset to the Ottawa community. To this day, Dave still maintains contacts with a number of old staff who had been with them for a number of years. Even after 15 years of retirement, Dave still runs into customers, who still remember and miss him. Audio ends with a audience member asking “what do you take for bad colds” Audio ends- 52:27
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