by Martin Sklar
Three of my four grandparents were born in New York. They were the children of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe - Hungary and Belarus to be more specific. I got to know my maternal grandfather, Morris, also known as Murray or Moishe, very well. She has lived to be 93, having initially emigrated from a shtetl outside Kiev at the age of 6. On ancestry.com I was able to find the ship's manifest for the 1904 voyage from Liverpool. Morris attended Cooper Union and became a New York City math teacher. Among his students was a difficult eighth grader named Lee Harvey Oswald.
My paternal grandfather, Reuben, had the misfortune of being a fur coat salesman during the Depression, Happily his wife Anna was also a NYC teacher with a steady salary, but as a result they only had one child, my father. My mom's uncle, a dentist, became quite wealthy investing in real estate. When he died childless in the Sixties and disinherited three of his six siblings there ensued a massive 15 year litigation. My father Arthur, raised in Brighton Beach, Brooklyn, turned 18 the day after V-J day but was immediately drafted for Korea in 1950. Half his unit never returned but he, being an accountant, was kept in Virginia to do payroll. My mother Arlene, now 88, lives in Long Island, where I grew up. She studied art history at Queens College and like so many of her generation, married upon graduation and became a homemaker.
About The Author
Martin Sklar focuses his practice on investment management, securities regulation, offerings and transactions, and mergers and acquisitions. Martin advises domestic and offshore investment funds from the formation process through maturity. He has particular experience in hedge fund as well as private equity offerings, management structure, marketing and brokerage arrangements, state and federal advisor registrations and compliance, SEC reporting, shareholder rights issues, and portfolio transactions involving venture capital and other equity and debt securities offerings and bank debt transactions.
