Cantor Moses Rueven Rogoff

Jerome Rogoff (1915-2000)
Thank you, Mr. Bibbins and Mr. Stimac, for your additional stories about Jerry at Chyrsler Corporation!

After my father died September 16, 2000, I started to compile bits and pieces of my heritage. There were some remarkable people in my family, not the least being my father himself. I was fortunate to be his captive audience and got to hear his stories over and over again in the course of my lifetime, so most of it is firmly entrenched in my memory. With that plus whatever his surviving brother has been able to tell me, I can tell you a little about him and his family history.

B.F. Goodrich in Akron, Ohio

EARLY DAYS

Jerome (Jerry) Rogoff was born May 15, 1915 at 8:00 a.m. Saturday, in Akron, Ohio to Kate (Kitty) and Herman Rogoff. Kate was from the Bloch family, who  had some connection with Mail Pouch Tobacco and clothiers in New York, and the Hyman family, which owned a resale barn (right). She was a pianist trained under a student of Franz Liszt. I remember one incident where Doc (my grandfather) was attempting to play the piano and kept hitting a sour note. Kitty finally had enough of it and charged in from the kitchen, just about knocked Doc of the piano bench, and pounded the correct note on the Steinway. She had something of a temper but cooked a great rib roast and potatoes that I fondly remember. Herman (Doc) was  physician. Doc's dad was Moses Reuven Rogoff, a cantor from Minsk, Russia (see left). I believe that the original surname was Lipschitz and it was changed to Rogov (Russian for "something with horns"). Moses also had two other sons, Eli and Julius, and three daughters, Becky and Rose. Julius did research to help find cures for Addison's disease using Dobermans (see right). I remember he'd cry when some of the dogs died during the experiments. Eli (also known as Alex) was a pharmacist and something of a vaudeville act...he changed his name to "Rags Fuller" then finally "Rex Fuller" and played ragtime piano. He co-wrote some radio programs for the Joe Penner show. Becky taught French, and Rose didn't do much at all...neither woman married.

Ohio Farmhouse. Kitty in foreground

Jerry,his brother Robert and sister Ruth, grew up by the rubber factory area of Akron, which could be a bit rough, so Jerry and Robert learned to use techniques of the popular sport of the times, which was boxing. My father was quite good at it for a small guy, and ended up defending other kids in the neighborhood. One, named Ed Sloan, was notorious for starting a fight and backing away to let Jerry finish the tussle. Jerry got tired of being the fall guy, so one day, when it looked like it was time to finish yet another fight that Ed started, he looked at Ed and said "You started this damn thing, YOU go finish it!"... Ed promptly stuck out his paw to the other guy and said "friends?".
The youngest kid, Ruth, contracted encephalitis and was was mildly retarded. She was also hit by a car as a child. My dad found the hit-and-skip driver by going to a low-class bar and being asked "You looking for someone?", and when he said "Yes", they said " We know who threw So-And-So of the bridge last weekend"...my dad said that wasn't the info he was after, and told them about his kid sister. The thugs at the bar got indignant and offered to have the culprit disposed of, but my pa decided to handle it himself. He found the guy, got mad when he saw the dents on the bumper, but managed to calm down enough to get some money from the man for medical expenses.
According to Robert, Jerry idolized his father, who was a bit irreverent and somewhat intellectually narcissistic. Robert learned to be more of a team-player, while my dad was a bit more abrasive. As a result, Robert studied hard and managed to get into medical school, and my father didn't...he was too busy pointing out his teachers' fallacies and shortcomings, which didn't help him earn grades in all subjects. But he was exceptionally bright nevertheless, and entered the mathematics program at Harvard University. There he did well and worked as a vegetable-peeler while going to school. He noticed the vegetables declining in quality, and fearing he'd soon be without a livelihood, decided to try his hand at fortune-telling. He was a natural at it...people would volunteer information for him to use for his "predictions". He also worked in flop houses and quit because they were so depressing, he said. He mentioned seeing battered women going back to their abusive men, and guys getting rolled while too drunk to know what was going on. His employers also were corrupt. One tried to charge Jerry for phone calls he never made. Jerry pointed to the clock on the wall and said "See what time it is? It's the time I quit." The boss, flustered, said to forget the charges, to which my dad replied "See what time it is? It's the time I went back to work." Jerry wasn't always true-blue himself, as a drunk once wanted him to get him a corned beef on rye, so pa over-charged him so he could get himself a sandwich while he went on the errand...
He liked Boston, though, and fondly would talk of "Hahvahd Squaah". He also remembered the gay population there and was indignant when an old man in the square said to him "I used to be a young girl once..." I believe my dad was more indignant that he was being approached by an old guy more than the fact that the man was gay...!
Pa took math seriously. He related an incident where he had been working on the solution of a complex problem for days and couldn't get anywhere. So one night, as he slept, he dreamt of the solution! When he woke, he quickly scribbled the answer on a pad and tested it, and it was correct!

 In the Navy  Married...Again  Life At Chrysler  Retirement
 
        Flophouse districts

          Portrait I did of my father

Hyman's Red Barn Furniture
2625 Airport Highway
Toledo, OH 43609 (419) 385-9409
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In 1926, Julius Rogoff (1884-1966)
and George Stewart (1860-1930) of
Cleveland hit upon the real cure when
they showed that dogs whose adrenal
glands had been removed would survive
if they ate extracts of adrenal cortex.
Three years later, they reported
successfully treating Addison's disease
patients with these extracts.
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Kids by Eastside Akron YMCA

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C++ vs. Basic Programming
I never was too good at math,
and Jerry was not shy about letting
me know that I was inept at it.
However, when I took C++ a few
years ago, we had a little bit of
fun competing with each other on
my homework assignments. I
would tell him what the project was,
and we would both race the clock
and see which one got the program
running the fastest. He won at
first without any trouble, even with
Basic as his only language on his
archaic computer. Finally I started
to catch up with him, but he always
had slicker and more creative ways
to solve problems. The teacher was
amazed at the interesting logic I
would present to her, but I did
confess that I had help from a
Harvard math major...

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