Nathan initially settled in Lynn, Massachusetts. As Harrison described it:

 "When poor Ruskies came over here with no money—and my father didn't have any money—it was customary for them to find somebody who had a couple of rooms to rent. My father rented a room from my mother, Sonia (Sophie) Dorson Shorr, who was married to a man called Phillip Schorr, and had two children, Albert and Dora. After about a year and a half my father ran off with Sophie to San Antonio, Texas. Maybe they had to run that far to rid themselves of scandal. Running off with a married woman was unheard of in those days. My mother divorced Schorr, married my father in 1912, and I was born in San Antonio, Texas, in 1913.

San Antonio, Texas, is perhaps best known for the Alamo. (left) Alamo Square, 1909 (right) The front of the Alamo, 1922 Credit: ©1909 Keystone View Company, Meadville Pa. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number LC-USZ6-1920] and © 1922 Underwood & Underwood. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction number LC-USZ62-87798]

San Antonio had a large military presence at the time Nathan and Sonya Gass lived there. Credit: © 1911 George Grantham Bain. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division [reproduction numbers LC-USZ61-1796, LC-USZ61-1795, LC-USZ61-1798, LC-USZ61-1797]

"Nathan was in the fruit business in San Antonio, which meant he had a fruit stand, or he had a horse and buggy and went around selling fruit. He came back to Lynn [Massachusetts] to start Lion Shoe Company with his brothers. I don't remember San Antonio at all so we must have left when I was very young. My brother Benjamin was born in Lynn in 1919." [2]

It appears from various documents that Nathan returned to Massachusetts by 1916, and that he moved back and forth between Chelsea and Lynn. Nathan’s petition papers (petition­ing to become a citizen),  filed in August 1916, listed the family address as 21 Brimblecom Street in Lynn.[3] His 1917 draft registration form shows that he was a self-employed shoe worker with a wife and two children living at 145 Congress Avenue in Chelsea. [4]  The Lynn City Directory published in January 1918 shows a Nathan Gass, whose occupation was leather remnants, working at 49 Harbor and rooming at 22 Crosby,[5] and papers filed in 1918 declaring  Nathan’s intention to become a U.S. citizen state that Nathan was a 29-year-old shoemaker living at 145 Congress Avenue in Chelsea.[6]

By 1920 the family had moved to 51 Prospect Street in Lynn and Nathan's occupation was listed as "shoe shop." [7]  Perhaps this shoe shop was a precursor to Lion Shoe, which appears to have been established some time between January 1920 and the end of 1922, as the 1923 Lynn City Direction lists Nathan as the president of "Lyon" Shoe Company located at 195 Boston in Lynn.[8]  The 1924 City Directory shows that Nathan had moved to 60 Franklin.[9]  The 1925 Directory indicates that Lion Shoe moved to a new location, 61 Allerton.[10]
 

Nathan’s petition papers

Nathan was granted citizenship on January 3, 1924 and Sophie was naturalized on June 30, 1925.[11]  Nathan's son Harrison  provided more details about his parents’ life.

"My mother was a lively and colorful woman, interested in music and poetry, and full of life. [Nathan] was not a very gregarious fellow, he was reserved and shy. But after Lion Shoe was established he used to travel around the country selling shoes.”

Harrison also explained a possible origin of the Lion Shoe Company:

“During Nathan's first year as an immigrant in Lynn, he had worked at a shoe factory, and he was familiar with the manufacturing and merchandising of shoes. He had learned that he could go into business for himself--someone else would cut the shoes, he would stitch them together, and a third party would sell them.”

Harrison told how he joined his father and uncles at Lion Shoe:

"When I got out of college—Harvard—I was nineteen years old and didn't exactly know what to do. I was offered two jobs as a part-time instructor while I studied for a Ph.D. One job was in economics and one was in music appreciation. And that sounded pretty good to me, to be a professor at Harvard. But I found out it only paid fifty dollars a week and that didn't sound so good to me. Money is good to have. My father used to say, Rich or poor, it's good to have a few dollars. So I decided I'd go into my father's factory and learn how to make money. At that time my cousin Max Gass, Samuel's son, was working for Lion Shoe and had been there a few years. Sam Gass, Morris's son had been there for a year. And there was another partner's son, Abraham Gootman's son Georgie.

"I'd been there about six or seven months when finally the partners decided they were going to close the business. Not that they were broke. It was still profitable but it was getting more difficult. The way of making shoes had changed. Instead of stitching the bottoms on, everybody was cementing the soles on. The partners needed to change some equipment and they weren't really up to it. They decided they'd better close the place.

"They weren't ready to turn the business over to the younger people. They had an agreement that if they ever split up, none of their progeny would ever take over the factory because the others wouldn't like it. I didn't understand. Not that I knew much about it, but I knew I could run the business. I knew something, I could have paid them out in time, but they felt they'd all do it together or none of them, so they closed the factory."

"They made money up until the day they closed and they split the assets equally among themselves."  [The space and machines had been rented].

Nathan retired in 1940  when Lion Shoe closed.

Harrison’s quotes were edited by Eleanor O’Bryon, the first editor of this family tree project. To read Harrison’s original interview, click here.

Click here to read the Harrison Gass interview.

     
[1][2][3]