Memoirs of Peter Boudoures Chapter 5 Martha, My Future Wife

Martha Boudoures Early 1920's

While we were in business there was a good looking blond customer that lived up at the next corner and who, I would say, was very hard to please. Everything had to be the best and she was never willing to pay the stated price. She was always bargaining. In the beginning I felt like telling her to take her business somewhere else. But my business sense, and necessity, told me that you could not do that to customers, so I took all I could. Eventually, we became friends and I took a liking to her and asked her for a date once or twice. She turned me down. Finally, I succeeded and for the first time I started going out to a nightclub. I started learning to dance, and started to get an idea of the American way of life. This young lady, Martha, later became my wife. She was born in Norway and was an immigrant, like me, but she knew what she wanted and she knew a lot of things that I didn't. As time went on, I knew that I would want her to be my wife. At first, I didn't have the courage to ask and, I didn't think that I was in the financial position to support a wife. As a result I let it go and kept our friendship for quite a few years.

In the meantime I became ill again, this time with double pneumonia. When I returned from the produce market one morning I felt dizzy, I had a headache, and I could hardly stand on my feet. I called the doctor and he immediately put me in the hospital. I was very sick. For a while the doctor had given up hope, he didn't think I would pull through. By some miracle I survived. Martha, my wife, who was then my sweetheart, fiancée or friend, whatever you want to call her, kept calling on me at the hospital. After I came out she was very kind and attentive of me. It was then that I realized that my dream of making $2,000 or $3,000 and returning to Greece to go into the dry goods business was a fairy tale. I realized that this was the land of opportunity where I had a chance to become someone much quicker and much bigger. As the idea of going back to Greece gradually went out of my mind, my thoughts concentrated on how to make more money and to ask Martha to marry me and with the hope she'd say "Yes."

Things went fairly well but I was again not satisfied that we had the proper location or that there was enough money to be made in our store. It was getting close to when our five-year lease in the store was about to expire and I realized that the store did not have the volume for three people to make a good living. The business wasn't easy to sell so I suggested to my two partners that the place was not big enough for three to make a living. I told them that I would be willing to sell my part if they were willing to buy me out, but if they weren't, one of the two of them must sell so at least the two remaining would make a better living.

Neither of them wanted to sell and they left it up to me to decide which one I wanted to retain and who I would ask to sell. This wasn't an easy decision. I would be misunderstood no matter which one I chose. My better sense told me to ask my uncle to sell his interest and retain the other partner. My uncle was very much put out. He couldn't believe that I would do such a thing. I explained to him that family relationships were one thing but business was business. The other man was a better worker, he could adapt himself to the business easier and be an asset to the business. My uncle, who was a fine man, was not cut out to be in the retail business for reasons that are many and are immaterial for mention here. As a result, we bought him out, paid him some money down and the rest over a period of months.

Across the street on the northwest corner of Leavenworth and California Streets was a small store run by an elderly couple who were worn out and ready to retire. We were able to get a lease on that store. We gave up the old one, which was down the hill, and moved up there. This store proved to be a much better location. It did a much bigger volume of business, thirty to forty percent more, and we were able to make what was considered a fair living.

During this period, once or twice I attempted to go to school to learn English at the old High School of Commerce where night classes were held. But the hours that I had to put in at work, getting up in the morning and going to the wholesale fruit and vegetable market to buy produce, returning to the store, working 'til late at night, were such that each night I was exhausted. After a short period of time I gave up trying to improve my English and decided to stick to my work.

Shortly thereafter we found another location only two blocks away, near Hyde and Sacramento Streets, which we rented. My partner ran that store and I remained in the old location. I did the buying for both stores so that we could buy in larger quantities at better prices.

During this time Martha and I were becoming closer, and we knew that in due time we would marry. I asked her to give me an answer. She prolonged it for a while longer, but I knew in my heart that she would not turn me down.

At that time I had learned that leasing an apartment building, furnishing it and subletting the apartments, was a good way to make money. My fiancée, Martha, to whom I owe a lot and to whom I have been married for 42 years, and I decided to go into the apartment business and lease a building at 1140 Pine Street. Martha managed the building and lived in a studio apartment right off the lobby. I lived in a three-room apartment upstairs with Mr. and Mrs. Frank Lamont, with whom we had become very good friends.

This was around 1921. It all went well. We made money in the apartment business and both stores were doing well. Then my partner, who had recently married, for some reason or other, I think it was his wife's idea, did not like the fact that I went into the apartment house business without asking him to participate. He asked that we separate or dissolve our partnership. I agreed, he kept the store on Sacramento and Hyde Streets and I kept the store on Leavenworth and California.