In his day, ragman Harry Demsky was better known in Amsterdam than his son Isadore.
Isadore, whose nickname was Izzy, changed his name to Kirk Douglas and became one of the 20th century’s best known Hollywood actors and producers.
Harry Demsky was a legendary strong man, drinker and brawler. Kirk Douglas wrote in his 1988 autobiography, “The Ragman’s Son,” that his father was “the toughest, strongest Jew” in Amsterdam.
According to Douglas’s book, his father was born Herschel Danielovitch in Moscow and came to America in 1908, in part to avoid getting drafted into the Russian army then fighting a war against Japan. His wife Bryna Sanglel followed two years later. Their six daughters and one son all were born in America.
Douglas wrote that his father left their Eagle Street home every day with his horse-drawn wagon, traveling the streets of Amsterdam yelling “Rags, any rags!”
The rags and scrap metal collected were sold to what we would call a recycling company.
Douglas wrote, “I’d help my father stuff the rags into burlap bags. I’d jab four holes in the top of the bag, lace a woman’s discarded stocking through the holes, knot it, and add it to the pile of bags. I got to be quite good at stuffing ragbags, I don’t think I’d have any trouble doing it today.”
Amsterdam native Albert Roz, who now lives in Schenectady, said his late sister Clara used to scam Demsky when the ragman visited their grandfather, Albert Dzikowicz, on Crane Street at the top of Vrooman Avenue hill in the 1920s.
Demsky would leave his horse and wagon and sit with Dzikowicz in his cool grape arbor, playing cards and checkers and enjoying home brewed alcohol.
Douglas wrote that his father always managed to find alcohol, even during Prohibition. Once he got in trouble for drinking the ceremonial wine stored at his synagogue.
Roz said that while his grandfather and Demsky were out of sight in the grape arbor, his sister and her friends would “carefully remove a bag of rags from old man Demsky’s buggy and drag it about 100 feet to the corner of Crane and Church Street.”
The girls patiently would wait for Demsky to resume his rag collection run with his horse and wagon and then sell him his own bag of rags, usually for twenty cents.
Roz wrote, “Wow, back in 1925, twenty cents would buy a lot of Mary Jane and other penny candy at Mruczek’s candy store on Crane Street.
“Occasionally, young Isadore (Kirk Douglas) would join his father on these trips and Clara, her friends and Isadore would play and the girls could not sell rags to the ragman that day.”
Clara Roz was born in 1914 and died two years ago at age 93. She had married and her last name was Clara Spring.
Kirk Douglas is 93 and stays in touch with fans through his blog on MySpace.
VIKING EXPLAINED
A reader has explained why Mohawk Carpets in Amsterdam once had a fiberglass Viking as an advertising symbol. Mohawk’s Viking was donated to Hudson Valley Community College, where the sports teams are called the Vikings. The fiberglass statue was lost in a 1990s windstorm that hit the college football field.
Carpet installer Oliver Menton wrote, “In the 1960s and 1970s, Mohawk made an indoor-outdoor, rubber-backed carpet called Viking. It was one of the most durable carpets ever made, but when gas prices quadrupled in the 1970's--the product was pure petroleum--it was no longer cost effective and was discontinued. Mohawk sold millions of yards of it, and I still see it out there in homes and businesses.”
