Harry Yarmovsky

Taken from Sidney Crane Memoirs: Tales of a Clam Digger

Uncle Harry Yarmov, Ex Millionaire

I first met uncle Harry Yarmove at a very fancy party at his house when I  

was only five years old.

He made a fortune in the building business,  and gone to Europe to get ideas for the house she was going to build when he got back. After he builds his dream house he invited all the big shots and also all of his extended family to an elegant party to  

show what Harry was worth.

Please understand, there wasn't a boastful bone in this man's makeup. He  

had come far from a humble beginning in Europe and this was just his way of saying “Thank you America”. He wanted his family, great and small, to  

rub elbows with the swells he knew.

Of course all I really knew about that party was what I heard when the family got together and they discussed our uncle and his early rise to the top. When I was 14 years old, working in dad's store, a kindly gent just came in and said, “Hello Sidney”.  I didn't have any idea who this man was, but dad came out of the office and fell all over  

the stranger who turned out to be the fabled once rich uncle.

Only, by now, he had lost his fortune and all his finery and was living a modest life, a simple small contractor. The man I got to know and love with his friends, unassuming man .

He had returned to Atlantic City from Baltimore where he was living at the time of the great stock market crash of 1929. At an advance age, he was rebuilding, from the ashes, what had been one of the greatest development firms Atlantic City ever knew. In his prime, he built hundreds of housing units every year.

He hit town when there was a great need for housing and his quality brick homes were in great demand. The time was after World War I, and young men were returning to a city that had little to offer in the way of reasonable quality built homes. Uncle fill that void and building quality earned him a fortune.

My dad's brother, Will, recently returned from duty in France as a machine gunner in the Yankee division, stopped in to visit his uncle, while on his honeymoon. That visit resulted in the migration of the Crane brothers to Atlantic City. Between the time I met uncle Harry and my leaving Atlantic City to active duty with the Air Force, I came to love and respect this kindly man. He always have time for a young fellow. His stories were true and much to be learned from this gentle giant who believed that  

the only way to go was the straight and narrow.

He never looked back to his salad days. His clear eyes were focused on the future, and how he could better serve the people for whom he worked.

Despite an early hectic family life he treated his wife, Aunt Anna, his son Jack and daughter Judy as though they were the royalty he once placed on thrones.

The funny thing is, the gentle kind soul that I knew died a millionaire even if he didn’t have more than two dollars in his pocket when he passed on.