jakeglas.txt



Dear Prevention-minded friends,


Enclosed are segments of Dr. Raphaelson's autobiography --
for your interest.

Best,

Otis

==================

THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A LAMED-VOV-NIK (1 of 36)

By Jacob Raphaelson

Written 1954

Years 1875 to 1908


%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%%


LAMED-VOV-MIK

In Hebrew, the letter "L" counts for thirty and the letter
"V" counts for six.

"Lamed" is the name for the letter "L" and "Vov" is the name
for the letter "V".

"Lamed-vov-nik" means one of thirty-six. According to Jewish
legend, there are thirty-six righteous men in every generation who
live unrecognized an unknown in the world, and it is to their
piety the world owes its continued existence. The term for them
is "Lamedvovnik" (hidden or unknown sage or saint). A Lamedvovnik
is generally a humble person, unostentatiously plying as an
artisan until some untoward clammily threatening the Jewish
community arouses him to his appointed duty. He then emerges from
his obscurity, performs some act by which the clammily is averted,
and retires into obscurity.


++++++++++

SCHOOLING

When I came to Fall River I was able to read four languages
-- Yiddish, Hebrew, German and Russian -- but I was able to speak
only Yiddish. Now I wanted to read and speak English. There was
a free night school in on of the public schools. It was near our
home. I joined it. They taught us how to read the first and
second grade books. I thought it was too slow for me. I believed
that I could do better by teaching myself. After attending for a
couple of weeks I quit the night school.

I brought an English-Yiddish and Yiddish-English dictionary.
I studied the double dictionary. With its help I began to read
English books. I got books from friends and acquaintances. I got
books from the library. During my two years in Fall River I read
many books in the English language. Here again, I could read and
understand English but I could not speak it. I could not speak it
because I had no chance to learn. At home we spoke Yiddish. In
the mill no one spoke because of the noise.

There were two outstanding books I read in Fall River that I
never forgot. One was Victor Hugo's book, "Les Miserable",
translated from French. It tells the story of a convict thief who
became a saintly man. It also tells of a poor student who would
not accept his rich grandfather's money. That reminded me of my
own rich grandparents whom I had discovered in Slabodka.

The other book was a translation from Russian. The author's
name was Chernishefak. IT told the story of a young student who
had a sweetheart whom he loved and was going to marry. He
committed suicide in order to enable his sweetheart to marry his
friend. He believed that she loved his friend more. What
impressed me was the letter of explanation. He explained that he
did it for selfish motive. It was altruism motivated by
selfishness.

When I left Fall River I could read five languages but could
only speak one well, Yiddish.


[Comment: Anyone who has taught himself to read five
languages has not spent 90 percent of his time looking at
distant objects! Later on Jacob discovers he is seriously
myopic (-3.5 diopters) -- and no wonder. I think he finally
realized the "consequence" of using his eyes in this manner
-- after it was too late to do anything about it. OSB]


**************


MY FIRST SPECTACLES

At that time a traveling spectacle man came to see us. He
stayed with us for several days. I told him about my troubles
with the shoe boxes. He sold me a pair of spectacles which opened
up a whole new world for me. They were minus 3.5 diopter lenses
in a small white metal frame. Minus lenses is another name for
concave lens. The unit measure for the lenses is signified by
"d." for diopter. I did not know about all this at that time. I
am giving the reader the benefit of my future knowledge.

Nearsighed eyes are fitted with concave glasses which gives
better distant vision. At the same time, these glasses are harder
on the eye for close seeing.

Now I had a bicycle which enabled me to cover more distances
and a pair of glasses which enabled me to see farther away. I had
more than one hundred dollars left from Steubenville and also my
wages from East Tawas. I decided to become a medical doctor. In
those days the requirements to become a medical doctor were more
lax. However, a certain amount of schooling was necessary. I had
no regular schooling. I decided to go to the regular public
school to acquire the needed education.

I went to the principal of a school and told him my story.
He gave me an examination and accepted me as a pupil in the eighth
grade. I was twenty one years of age but of small stature. I do
not remember any inconvenience in going to class with much younger
boys and girls. I got along well for the short time I was there.
I could have kept up my schooling and perhaps, in time, become a
doctor. But now my eyes were failing me.

My eyes began to trouble me about two or three weeks after I
started to school. They began to hurt me when I read for any
length of time. Then they began to get sore. I had to quit
reading and I had to quit school in six weeks. Thus ended my
ambition to become a doctor.


=========

SPOONS AND SPECTACLES

I pacifically ran away from Toledo in March, 1899, because of
my unlucky ventures there. I had not destination in mind and it
was too early in the spring to ride a bicycle straight west. I
took a southerly course through the state of Indiana where I
lingered for more than three months.

I left Toledo riding on a bicycle with two valise, one on
each handle of the bike. The larger valise was packed with my
personal belongings. The smaller one with my peddling
merchandise, spoons and spectacles. I soon found that the
spectacles were the better seller of the two. I never reordered
the spoons. By default, I became a spectacle peddler.

I was on the road only a few weeks, selling my spectacles,
when I began to feel in my bones that, at last, I was doing
something for which I was fitted. I soon gained my
self-confidence, lost a good deal of my bashfulness and timidity
and became more able to confront anyone without fear or shame.
Besides, I lost my rheumatism, and was it for good. I soon
realized that by selling spectacles I would become a benefactor
instead of a nuisance. I could see in the faces of people to whom
I sold spectacles not only satisfaction, but gratitude. I decided
to make the selling and fitting of spectacles my life work.

On my southerly course through Indiana I peddled at farm
houses, stopped over- night at farm houses and nearly always
exchanged a pair of spectacles for the night's lodging. Sometimes
I sold spectacles in small towns while passing through. I do not
remember stopping in any city until I reached Fort Wayne, Ind.

I rode to Fort Wayne on my bicycle and stopped at a corner
place where there was a saloon at the front and a sign, "Rooms for
Rent". I rented a room which was upstairs, over the saloon and
slept there over night. In the morning I went into the saloon and
ordered a glass of beer. I was standing at the bar holding my
spectacle valise in one of my hands. There was a tall man
standing beside me, also having a glass of beer. He asked me, in
a friendly, manner, "What are you selling?" I said, "I am selling
spectacles." "Spectacles?", he exclaimed, "To sell spectacles you
have to have a 'brass' fact." Said I, "Suppose I do not have a
brass face"? Said he, "Then put in on." I decided, then and
there, to put it on.

I didn't ask the man what he meant by a "brass" face, nor
what it has to do with spectacles. However, I felt that it was
suitable advice for me. I was being handicapped by being timid
and bashful. I was already convinced that in selling spectacles I
became a benefactor. It gave me a sense of security. I had no
reason to be ashamed or afraid. From then on I do not remember
the time when I was really ashamed or afraid.

It was still cold while I was in Fort Wayne. I continued
southwestwardly. I stopped for a few days in Bluffton, Indiana.
Then I rode south to Muncie, Indiana. I must have stayed a week
or more in Muncie. I became acquainted with a Jewish family there
and they invited me to their home for a card game. I remember
that they played hearts and I lost 99 cents in the game. I
remember that that it broke my heart. I soon left Muncie. It was
beginning to get warmer so I rode straight west to Lafayette,
Indiana.

In Lafayette I rented a room upstairs above a corner
restaurant. I had most of my meals at the restaurant and I also
kept my bicycle there. I made the restaurant a kind of office for
my spectacle business. I used to ride away eight or ten blocks,
leave my bicycle and peddle a few blocks. Then I would ride to
another location. I even began to take orders for spectacles. I
already had it in my mind to settle in some town and have a
permanent location. I did fairly well in Lafayette.



FIRST ATTRACTION, CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, 1899

There was an eye doctor in Muncie or Lafayette who I went to
see for information about becoming an eye doctor. He told me that
one could not become an eye doctor unless he was first a regular
doctor. He also told me that there was an optical school in
Chicago where one could learn to fit glasses and become and
optician. I felt that because of my eyes and my health and my
pocketbook, it would be too much to try to become a doctor. But,
if I decide to remain in the spectacle business, I would go to
school and become a full-fledged optician.

After many weeks in Lafayette I became somewhat sick. I went
to see a doctor but he didn't do me much good. I decided to go to
Chicago where they had free clinics with good doctors. In Chicago
I went to a free clinic. They gave me some medicine and soon
afterwards I was really cured.

My sister Theresa was in Chicago at that time. She worked in
a department store. She shared a room over a saloon with here
friend, the saloon keeper's daughter -- and she wore read
stockings. I didn't like her red stockings because it reminded me
of the red stockings I used to sell in the red light district in
Toledo. She introduced me to her friends. Harry B., who was our
border in Fall River, was amongst them. There was also his sister
Sarah, who had a friend by the name of Michaelson. It was
Michaelson's sister Ray who attracted me to the circle.

Maybe I would have managed to go to the optical school then.
I might have stayed and settled in Chicago if there had been any
chance of marrying Ray. But Ray paid no attention to me. Here
attentions were for Harry B. Later she married him. On account
of my disappointment with Ray and perhaps, also, because I didn't
have enough funds to go to school, I did not linger in Chicago
very long. After a few weeks I again resumed my journey westward
on my bicycle.


OPTICAL ADVANCEMENT

In the few weeks that I was in Chicago I made arrangements
for a change. I made a change from being a spectacle peddler to a
professional eye fitter -- from a seller of ready-made spectacles
to one who makes up spectacles to fit the eyes. I did not then go
to the optical school to learn to fit glasses. Instead I brought
a book and learned it myself. Instead of buying ready-made
glasses for resale, I brought a stock of separate frames and
separate lenses.

The book was quite new. It was printed in 1895. The author
was William Bohn. It was called, "Handbook for Opticians". I
still have the book I just reread parts of the book and find that
it is still reliable and not obsolete. It is now 9:15 P.M.,
August 16, 1954 and I am writing these pages in my mountain home
on Pisgah Creek in North Carolina.

This book gives the basis principles of refraction and
dispersion of light. It tells how optical glass is made. It
tells all about convex and concave lenses, cylinder lenses and
prisms. It has a chapter on the anatomy of the eye. It tells
about nearsightedness (myopia), far-sightedness (Hyperopia), old
sight (presbyopia) and also astigmatism. Of course it didn't take
me long to read and digest a book of a couple of hundred pages.

I went to Morris & Co., a jeweler-optician supply house and
brought a pocket trial case and a stock of lenses and frames,
three kinds -- straight bows, curved bows and nose frames. They
were in three sizes, No. 1 (small), No 0 (medium) and No. 00
(large). They were all small lenses in comparison to what the
sizes of lenses are today. The larger 00 lenses were smaller than
children's glasses are today. I was now ready to fit a pair of
glasses and make them up while the customer waited.


SATCHEL AND TRIAL CASE

I didn't carry the pocket trial case in my pocket. It
happened to fit exactly into my small optical satchel. Besides
the trial case, my satchel held a reading chart, a small distance
chart, some frames, a few dozen pairs of lenses in lens boxes and
some small tools for inserting the lenses into frames. Thus I was
able to test the eyes and make up a pair of glasses at people's
homes while they waited.

I was now able to test eyes, not only for reading, but also
for distant seeing. I do not believe that I tried any cylinder
lenses for astigmatism because I had no astigmatic chart. It was
in later years that I learned to fit cylinders without an
astigmatic chart. I remember that I felt sure of myself. I felt
sure that I was capable of doing my work well.

During the next six months that I traveled from Chicago to
Dubuque and Muscatine, Iowa and back to Chicago, where I attended
an optical school and got a diploma, I gained a lot of knowledge
and experience in the art of fitting spectacles. I remember that
when I went to listen to the lectures at the optical school I
found that there were a few matters about spectacles that I did
not already know.

Then I came back to Chicago in January, 1900, I was again
financially independent. I had a fitting apparatus. I had quite
a stock of lenses and frames, and quite a little cash on hand. I
also seemed to have very good healthy.

++++++++++

A SPECTACLE FAKER

It was in October, 1899 that I was driving southward from
Dubuque, Iowa to Muscatine, Iowa, a distance of about a hundred
miles. Along the way I stopped in a villages and farm houses to
sell my spectacles. It was on this trip that I came across the
trail of a spectacle faker. A spectacle doctor who was a phony.

I stopped overnight at a farm house where there was a young
woman wearing spectacles. She told me a pathetic story. About
three years before, she had not been felling well for quite a
while; her eyes had been bothering her. A traveling optical
doctor happened to come around at that time and promised to help
here with a pair of spectacles. He charged here $150.00 for the
spectacles and told here that the frames were solid gold and the
lenses were pure crystal.

She didn't have the full $150.00 at that time, so he let her
have the spectacles on the payment of $75.00; he was to collect
the balance in a couple of weeks. She said, "The poor doctor!
Something must have happened to him. It has been more than three
years and he has not yet come back for his money." She was still
keeping the $75.00 case in her home, waiting for him to collect
it.

When I examined the spectacles I found that the frames were
not sold gold but the cheapest roman alloy. The lenses were
clamped in the frame and there were no hinges and screws for
repair purposes. The plus 1.50d lenses had bottle-greenish tint
which were the cheapest kind of glazed spectacles sold in those
days in some hardware stores for less than twenty-five cents. I
returned her spectacles, but the woman seemed to be so healthy, I
didn't have the nerve to say anything. I didn't want to spoil the
woman's faith and satisfaction by telling her that she had been
defrauded.

This episode, in the year 1899, gave me an incentive to
search for the relationship of vision, spectacles and health. In
the early part of that year I had already committed myself to make
the fitting of spectacles my life work.

In later years I came to the conclusion that the benefits to
vision and health, derived from wearing plus 1.00 or plus 1.50
diopter spectacles is worth not only $150.00, but ten times as
much. Fifteen hundred dollars for a pair of plus one spherical
glasses, or stranger, would be a low price to pay for prevention
or remedy of human ailments in comparison with the amount we pay
for many other methods of treatment.

############

MISSED THE TRAIN

It was the latter part of December, 1899 in Dubuque, Iowa,
when I missed the train going westward, which resulted in my
taking the next train eastward to Chicago and getting an optical
diploma. I missed the train and was soon transformed from a
spectacle peddler to a traveling Doctor of Optics. Like the
prophet Jonah, I was trying to run away. I was running away from
God, my family and my past. I was going to the unknown west and
get lost. Missing my train brought me back to the family and my
former past.

It was in Chicago, in the early part of 1900, that I took a
course in optics at the northern Illinois College of Ophthalmology
and Otology. At this school, and optical diploma could be
obtained either through correspondence or by attending class at
the school. There was no time limit. The only requirement was to
pass their examination. If you passed the examination you got the
diploma. I decided to take an attendance course. I stayed there
not quite two months, passed the examination and got my diploma.
The cost was $25. I believe it was a good school.

During the time that I attended the optical school I had a
room downtown within walking distance of the school. I attended
each and every one of the lectures. I practiced with the
instruments and watched their method and technique in the fitting
of glasses. I was ready to make use of my diploma.

After receiving my diploma, the first thing I did was to make
a connection with a first class optical house, the F. A. Hardy $
Co. I got credit and made arrangements for them to send orders to
me or to my customers. I brought a full sized trial case,
suitable for traveling. I bought a hand retinoscope and a battery
retinoscope. I also bought a battery ophthalmoscope. I bought a
stock of lenses and frames. I was ready for traveling or office
business.

I decided to settle far enough, but not too far from Chicago.
Somewhere west of Chicago and east for the Mississippi river.
Somewhere between Chicago and Rock Island, Illinois.

I took the train to Dixon, Ill. which is about 100 miles
west of Chicago and about 60 miles east of Rock Island, which is
on the Mississippi river.

==========================

It is very clear that it is easy to "fix" a person with a
minus.

It would be rare for a person to understand the NEED for the
plus (strongly used) at the threshold.

It is clear that the public REJECTS any "help" from an OD who
would HELP with plus-prevention at the threshold. But that must
be recorded as a "fact" and a "reality" of this situation.

The real "insight" of Jake Raphaelson was to recognize this
sad and tragic truth.

I would hope our "future" could be "better" than that -- but
I see little hope for it.

Best,

Otis