EDWARD EMANUEL KAUFMAN - "SWIFTY" - PART I

Grandpa Ed, as he was called by the family when I married into it, had already retired. He lived alone because his wife Sylvia had died in 1956 and his only child Carole in 1974. His two grandchildren, Kathie and Garry, were living in San Diego so my husband Jerry was the closest family he had. He’d had several stomach surgeries in his old age and was not really in good health. In fact, he had just a small portion of his stomach left, and while he still enjoyed good cooking, he always paid a price for eating. He was always grateful for any attention lavished on him. Jerry and I kept a close eye on him.

Ed was born Jan 31, 1897 in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, the fourth of six children. His parents were Henry and Carrie Kaufman. According to his story, he joined the Marines at a young age, probably somewhere near 17, and by June of 1918 he was fighting against the Germans in a very famous WWI battle at Belleau Woods, 70 miles outside of Paris. The Germans used gas warfare (a poisonous mustard gas) and Ed was taken ill from the gas and was hospitalized. We have tried to get his military records, but the government says it does not have any. He was released from the service with severely impaired lungs. In 1920 he was back home with his family in Baton Rouge, but the doctors advised him that if he intended to continue living, he needed to get out of the humid climate of Louisiana and go to Arizona. He did, but he found way too much desert in Arizona so he decided to try California. He was able to find a job with Swift Meat Company in Los Angeles and settled in Glendale.

Eventually he married his Louisiana sweetheart, Sylvia Asher. Sylvia had been raised in Opelousas, but at the time she enrolled at LSU she boarded with the Kaufmans in Baton Rouge. She graduated with a teaching degree, and after a few tries at teaching in the South, she followed Ed to California where they were married in 1926. Sylvia was "starstruck," and living near Hollywood was right up her alley. Sylvia and Ed's only child, Carolyn, was born at a hospital in Hollywood, and the senior Kaufmans bought cemetery plots at the Hollywood cemetery, now called "Hollywood Forever."

However, after working a few years in Los Angeles, Ed was assigned the territory of East Riverside County. The family, which now included little Carolyn (whom Ed always called Caroline), moved for a short while to Banning and ultimately settled in the city of Riverside, where they lived the rest of their lives.

Ed was the consummate salesman. He made friends easily, could talk a good talk, and made money for the Company. He was known to his customers as “Swifty.” Those customers were buyers of large quantities of meat – restaurants, hotels, resorts – and a great deal of his business was done in Palm Springs, which in those days (1930s) was to Southern California what Las Vegas became later to Nevada. In the course of Ed’s sales trips, he became well acquainted with Louis B. Mayer, whom most of us recognize as the Mayer of MGM – Metro Goldwyn Mayer. Louis was not only involved with the movie industry but also he owned a large thoroughbred horse ranch in the Coachella Valley. There were always Mayer-bred horses running on one race track or another. And it was through this contact that Ed began betting on Mayer’s horses.

Jerry recalls Ed telling the story of getting a call in the middle of the night from one of Mayer’s associates asking him to go to a certain jail and post bail for one of Mayer’s sons. There was nothing more explained and Ed asked no questions. He posted bail and that was that. At some later point Ed was contacted and given a list of horses on which he should place bets the following day at Santa Anita. He was told that he should “let the money ride” for all six races. Ed did as he was told, and he claimed that he won over $10,000, which in those days was a huge sum, especially to a meat salesman.

One time he was asked by someone in the Mayer association to take the movie star, Jimmy Stewart, duck hunting at Salton Sea. Ed was happy to do this, and both he and Jimmy brought home ducks for dinner that night.

Being supplied with good meat was not one of the perks offered to its employees by Swift Company, but Ed had another buddy in the desert, a butcher, who provided high-quality steaks and other good meat to Ed for his family. This, of course, often ended up on the plates of Jerry and Carole. Ed would drop by the house, hand his daughter a package of meat and announce "Here's your dinner!" There was some kind of association between Ed and the butcher; no one asked what it was, but for Ed’s part the payoff was in fine-quality meat.

TO BE CONTINUED