Charlie, Georgette, and the Fair Store

by Alice Liles | Oct 9, 2021 | Bright Lights | 50 comments

I recently enjoyed a visit with Charlie and Georgette Isaac in their new home in Lubbock and learned the intriguing story of how a boy from the town of Homestead, Pennsylvania, by way of Ramallah in Palestine and a girl from Jerusalem by way of Matamoros, Mexico, courted, married, and wound up raising a family of six kids and living a successful life in Muleshoe. Youngest daughter Debbie Isaac Jones joined us and relived the journey that brought her parents to Texas.

I asked Charlie to share his story with me; he asked where I would like for him to begin. I said, well, at the beginning, so he chose to begin with WWI and his dad, Victor Isaac. WWI pitted the Ottoman Empire and the Central Powers against the Allied Powers which included Great Britain and The United States. Even though Victor lived in a Central Powers’ country, he saw fit to fight with the Allied Forces. After he served with the forces from Great Britain and the war finally ended, in 1920 he went to England to receive his earned pay. Possibly because he was a Palestinian Arab, which made it look like he was on the opposing side, they would not pay him.

Left holding an empty bag, Victor chose to board a ship heading for New York, shoveling coal into the ship’s furnaces to pay his way. He sold dry goods and household items door to door, peddling out of the car, and met his future wife, Helen Ryczek, who was Polish, in Homestead, Pennsylvania. Her dad was not happy with their romance, so they eloped to marry since Helen was only seventeen, but could marry legally in West Virginia. They moved to Detroit, had son Edward in 1925, and went back to Pennsylvania to reconcile with her father, which was successful. They remained there until Charlie was born in 1927, when a few months later Victor made the decision that Helen should take the kids back to Ramallah to show Victor’s family and he would stay in America to work, stockpile his earnings and join them.

Charlie and his brother Edward Photo courtesy of the Isaac family

But the Depression got in the way. Helen left the boys in the care of Charlie’s grandfather in Ramallah and came back to America to join Victor in the struggle to make a living for the family. Three more children were born later: Dolores, Richard, and Lawrence.

The Depression affected life in Ramallah, too. Charlie said they would get up in the morning looking for something to eat. Bread, figs, grapes, and olives became their basic diet. Sheep and goats furnished meat for perhaps one meal a week. He said he didn’t see cattle until he came to the United States. They had no running water, gas, or electricity.

And after the Depression, WWII began. Edward joined the American army while in Europe, was given no basic training and was sent straight to North Africa. By then Charlie was eighteen and when he found out there was a ship taking Americans back to America, he decided he wanted to go to America as well and see his parents. He hitched a ride on the Swedish Red Cross ship Gripsholm. On this ship is where he had his first experience using a toilet. He arrived in New York with nothing but the clothes he was wearing because he had shared his belongings with other people on the ship, many of them Greek.

As Charlie stood on the docks not sure what to do next, a man came up looking for Charlie Isaac. The man was his father who had been told Charlie was coming; they had not seen each other since Charlie was a toddler. Father and son took the train from New York City back to Homestead where Mom and siblings met them at the train station. Mom, who had not seen Charlie since he was a toddler, either, looked at him and then said in Arabic, “You’re tall.”

Charlie had finished 11th grade in Ramallah, so he enrolled in Munhall High School and learned English in six months. I asked Charlie if he still is fluent in his native Arabic language. Yes, he said, I think, dream, count in Arabic. He looked around slyly and grinned as he shared a secret, “ I cuss in Arabic!”

After graduation in 1946 when Charlie was draft age, he knew if he were drafted, he would be in the army; he preferred the Marines and enlisted with them. He served for two years and then worked in steel mills and for the railroad for a few years. He decided that neither were his cup of tea, so he moved to Texas, to Corpus Christi where his uncle lived and helped in the uncle’s store there.

Then one day a man who sold out of his vehicle and whose driver had quit came by and offered Charlie the driver’s job for $25 a day. Charlie said no to the $25, but that he would drive and help sell the merchandise and split the net profits; they were successful. Charlie would use that same salesmanship when he got to Muleshoe.

But before he made it to Muleshoe, he met and married Georgette Masso, which was another globe-trotting adventure.

Georgette’s mom was Lebanese, her dad was Palestinian, and they had always lived in Jerusalem where her dad had worked in international trade and had done quite well. Georgette was born there in 1935. But the family lived in Lebanon for a couple of years to escape the Arab-Israeli War. When they returned to their home in Jerusalem in 1952, all was gone and the situation was tense. so the five underage children were sent to Matamoros, Mexico, to live with Georgette’s older brother who had a shoe store there. Two years later, the rest of the family moved to Mexico. Georgette was one of the ten children in the family.

Georgette and her family; she is in the white coat on her knees in the bottom right of the picture.