BRATTLEBORO — I grew up on Marlboro Avenue in the late 1950s and 1960s. Donna Borofsky was my piano teacher. Her husband Pal owned Sam's Army and Navy, and her two sons, Scot and Brad, were about my age.
We all attended school together, first at Oak Grove Elementary and later at Brattleboro Union High School. As is often the case with your neighbors, I didn't know a whole lot about their family history. I had met Pal's father at their downtown store, a nice man with a big smile.
Years later, in 1973, came a BUHS production of the musical, Fiddler on the Roof, in which Scot, then 16, starred as Tevye, the Jewish farmer and father of five daughters, living in Tsarist Russia in 1905.
Scot had been chosen for the role because of his abilities as an actor and because of his beautiful singing voice. However, the musical coincidentally followed closely the story of his own grandparents' immigration from Russia. In fact, Scot wore his grandfather's prayer shawl as part of his costume during the production.
“It's really too bad that his grandmother had died a few years before that show. She would have cried her eyes out with pride,” said Donna Borofsky, Scot's mother.
Like so many families in Brattleboro, the Borofsky story is one of hardscrabble immigrants and their children, the first generation Americans who made good.
Stanley “Pal” Borofsky recounted his family's history with the satisfaction of a son proud of his father's success.
“My family's story really isn't much different than so many families,” remembers Borofsky. It was a story of an immigrant, my grandfather, who came from Russia in the 1890s, the 'White Russia' in the area of Poland. Both of my grandparents spoke Yiddish, and very little English. My grandparents had 10 children - five daughters and five sons. Initially, only three of them came over, and they worked hard to save the money to get the others to America over the next few years.”
Though the eldest Borofsky was a farmer and fisherman in the old country, he quickly became a peddler in Bridgeport, Conn.
“My grandfather came to the United States in 1903,” said Pal. “The biggest mistake is to say my grandfather was a business man. Peddling is a bit different. Actually, the peddlers that sold clothing to the factory workers bought goods by the pound, and after they graded it, they would sell it for as much as they could get for it. Pants could sell for 10 cents or 25 cents if they were better.”
Pal's father, Sam, started a delicatessen in New York City, which he eventually sold to his brother-in-law.
“There was no such thing as welfare in those days,” Pal said. “You came with the clothes on your back, and you had to make good quickly to survive.”
Survive they did. The eldest brother, Lewis, moved to New England with Sam, where he opened a clothing store in Concord, N.H. Another brother, Irving, opened up a store in Keene, N.H. Sam also delivered ice in the summer and coal in the winter, in the beginning. Lewis was running a store in Claremont, N.H., Harry was in Fitchburg, Mass. A sister and her husband ran two stores in New York state.
Sam bought his brother Irving's Army & Navy stores. He ultimately opened up stores in Bellows Falls, Greenfield, Mass., East Jaffrey and Keene, N.H., and the last store, in Brattleboro, in 1932.
“Louis started his own store without Sam,” Pal said. “Sam came in 1932 to join his brother Irving in Keene, and came to Brattleboro to run Louis' store. Army and Navy stores started up after World War I. Clothing and other goods became available and sold to vendors by the pound. You could make more money by the pound. These people would go to the factories and sell their wares, but if the weather was inclement, they couldn't peddle their goods.
“Eventually, stores were opened up. Basically, these stores were for the workers, people who needed inexpensive clothing. Ultimately what happened was that the surplus merchandise ran out and the Army and Navy stores began carrying work clothing. When the Second World War came along, and later, Korea, the Army and Navy business got stronger. All types of things were sold, from cranes and bulldozers to airplanes. My father bought all kinds of stuff, and expanded his store at that point.”
The original immigrant family members and their children eventually owned as many as 13 stores.
“My son Brad is running the only one left standing,” said Pal Borofsky.
Why is Stanley Borofsky called “Pal?”
“I had an uncle that could never remember anyone's name. He called everyone, 'Pal.' For some reason with me, the name stuck,” he said with a laugh.
Sam Borofsky, Pal's father, was born in 1904 and was 28 years old when he started the Brattleboro store, Sam's Army and Navy. His son Pal started working in the store when he was 9 years old.
“I sold cigarettes and candy. I did the hangers, sorting them in the basement. There was no plastic in those days and different clothing required different hangers. It was my job to sort them out, the wood from the wire hangers,” Pal said. “My father was a hard task master. He was pretty sharp. He never got past the fourth grade, but he was a very smart man.”
Downtown dealings
Stores in Brattleboro each had their purpose and their own loyal clientele in the days before big box stores, where the Main Street in Brattleboro was the only place to shop.
“He got to know his customers really well,” said Pal Borofsky. “He built those strong relationships one person at a time. He trusted people and built up his business. He was selling clothing to a lot of people who couldn't afford it. He let people charge it and trusted that they would pay the bill when they could. When you come from a background where you have to try and survive yourself, you understand other people's problems. There was camaraderie among people in town, and our store and the folks who worked at the Cotton Mill were a great example. Most of those people were immigrants like my father. Immigrant families stuck together and supported each other and their businesses.”
This was the era where a handshake was the contract for the business itself.
“Mr. Herbert Barber owned the building the business was in. When my father first bought the store from my uncle, he couldn't pay the same amount of rent that my uncle did because he was just starting out, so Mr. Barber gave him a rent reduction. As the business grew, he paid more and more until he surpassed what my Uncle had been paying on the rent,” Pal said,
As the store grew, Sam Borofsky began to take over other parts of the building to expand as other businesses closed.
“There used to be a bar in the building with dancing girls and a balcony, the whole deal,” Pal said. “There were some sad men in town when we bought out that business' space.”
Scot Borofsky, a nationally known painter and artist, began working in the store when he was a boy, where his art education began.
“Early on, I used to go to Bakers Office Supply up the street and purchase the brushes and inks to hand paint the signs in the store,” Scot said. “My grandfather was really the first artist in the family. He was an amateur calligrapher. I would watch him work when I was six or seven years old. I also worked the sidewalk sales in July. We called them Old Fashioned Bargain Days at that time, and the merchants on Main Street all wore red and white vests and fake moustaches.”
Brad Borofsky stated working selling cigarettes behind the counter when he was 12 or 13, just as his father had before him.
“I didn't do it on a regular basis, and I don't remember a lot about the store from being a kid. But, I do remember my grandmother working there.”
Sam's wife was named Yetta, but the family called her Yettie.
“She was a wonderful woman,” says Donna Borofsky. “We were dating, and Pal thought that he might have to break up with me because I wasn't Jewish. She told him not to do that. I credit her with our marriage. She was ahead of her time. We used to go on buying trips together.”
In the 1960s, paper bags for purchasers was not common. Instead, those who purchased items had them wrapped, first with plain brown paper and then red and white striped paper became the store trademark.
“My grandmother worked at the counter,” says Brad, “the string hung above the sales counter. She could wrap those packages incredibly fast; she'd had so much practice. In fact I often think of her because now we still use the same string to tie balloons when we give those away. My grandfather purchased so much string; we're still using it up.”
And then there's the other trademark of Sam's - the popcorn machine. It wouldn't seem like free popcorn would be the kind of thing an outdoor outfitter store would be known for. What's up with that?
Brad explains. “When my father was driving me back and forth to college, we'd pass this restaurant industrial supply store in Worcester. We'd pull up to the traffic light and he'd say, 'I ought to get one of those for the store.' Eventually he did.”
Other changes in focus have been made along the way.
“Back in the 1980s, the surplus business fizzled,” said Brad, “although during the Desert Storm era, we couldn't order enough gas masks. They were flying off the shelves as a novelty item. We transitioned to being an outdoor outfitter, and that's been good for us. People moved from the dress slacks we used to carry to more comfort and functional clothing. The general sportswear trends changed and we changed with them. In college, I studied political science. I learned the clothing business from being in it. The store was my classroom, it can't be beat.”
Even though the store is now known as Sam's Outdoor Outfitters, Brad said “we still carry military items in our camping section of the store, MREs (meals, ready to eat) and that sort of thing.”
Passing the torch
Brad is now the president of the company, Pal the vice president. They closed their store in Bellows Falls a few months ago, and a new store was opened in Hadley, Mass., near two major shopping malls.
“Closing the Bellows Falls store was a difficult decision,” Brad said, “but the Hadley store breathed new life into our future.”
Other changes have come as well.
“We purchase from as many Vermont companies as possible, but the reality is that several of the companies that we represent make their clothing in China. That means that we need to order as much as a year in advance. In the old days, we only needed one season of lead time to purchase our inventory.”
The fourth generation of the Borofsky family is already working the store. Scot's children - Joaquin, 18, and Ansell, 16 - and Brad's daughter, Megan, 16, are all part of the business.
Plenty of celebrities have discovered Sam's Outdoor Outfitters. Ron Howard, Ted Williams, Bill Cosby, Whoopi Goldberg, members of the Kennedy and Shriver families, and many other well-known people have all become shoppers.
The one-time president of Disney Studios, Michael Eisner, used to frequent the store in Bellows Falls.
“His mother lived in Walpole,” Pal said of Eisner. “He loved the store. In fact, he wrote an article about us in his yearly report where he reflected on our attitude, our employees, and our business basics. That was a nice tribute.”
Sam Borofsky would be proud.