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A SECRET PAGE OUT
OF THE HISTORY OF
A FAMILY WHOSE UN
ENDING TOIL MADE
A GREAT VIOLINIST
Sacrifices RUBINOFF Can Never Repay
YOU know, when you hear Dave Rubinoff play his violin Sunday nights on the radio, that there were many long years of study and practice, of hard and constant effort behind his success.
But what you do not know, for it has never before been told, is that also behind Rubinoff's success are the unselfish sacrifices of five people — people of whom you have never heard. Without their help, Dave Rubinoff could never have reached the pinnacle on which he now stands.
And another thing you do not know is just how Rubinoff is repaying the sacrifices those four people made for him in the early days.
These people were his mother, who provided him with his first violin; his father, who carried him on his back, often through miles of deep snow drifts, to his first lessons; his sister Rose, who sewed tirelessly to help pay for those lessons; and his brother Herman, whose enterprise brought Rubinoff to America, land of his great opportunity.
Thirty years ago, the Rubinoffs lived in the basement of a dismal stone house in Grodno, Russia. There were seven of them existing on the father's meager earnings in a tobacco factory. Small wonder that David's first violin playing was done on an instrument owned by a little neighbor boy!
But he wanted a violin of his own. And where the Rubinoffs were going to get the money for a violin was more than any of them knew.
That is, except his mother. It was she who saved and scraped, making the borscht a little watery and slicing the
black bread a little thinner until she had three whole roubles saved up out of the household money. Then she was able to' place in her son's thin, eager hands a cheap violin, bright with orange varnish! David's career was started!
That the child had more than usual talent was soon demonstrated. For one day the great Max Gottfried passed by the humble basement and heard David practicing. He immediately rushed down the steps, and offered to teach the young genius for nothing.
But their pride would not let the Rubinoffs accept Gottfried's generous offer. To them it seemed charity. Nor could they afford the two roubles for lessons. Yet David must have his chance! All were agreed about that.
Rose saved the day.
"I'll sew for Madame Gottfried to help pay for the lessons," she said calmly. So that part was taken care of.
But Gottfried lived three miles away, too far for the legs of a thin, undernourished boy of five to walk.
David's father then stepped forward. He would carry the child those three long miles on his back!
And so every week, David's father took him carefully on his back, fiddle case and all, often struggling through deep Russian snow drifts that came up above his knees, and carried him to Gottfried's home for his lesson.
And every night Rose sat up till three o'clock, sewing for Madame Gottfried and her two small children, stitching down gores and putting on flounces of fine silk and velvet.
After a few years, David's (Continued on page 68)
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