Weston Wednesday: In the words of Martin I. Zofness
Editor's Note: In collaboration with the Bartlesville Area History Museum, the Examiner-Enterprise has revived the late Edgar Weston's 'Revisiting the Past' columns that ran in the newspaper from 1997-99. Weston's columns recount the history of Bartlesville as well as Washington, Nowata and Osage counties.
I was born on September 3, 1892, in Lithuania-Russia, a northern region that borders on the east coast of the Baltic Sea, across from Sweden and Denmark. At the age of 12 years, I was apprenticed to a tailor for 4 years without pay or remuneration of any kind, to learn the trade. That period was shortly after the Russia-Japanese War. In Russia, spontaneous outbreaks of violence occurred and the only relief from such deplorable living conditions was to migrate to America where my brother, Jimmie, and other relatives were already living. So, in the spring of 1906, I was smuggled across the border into Germany with a group of other immigrants headed for America where we landed at Ellis Island, in the New York Harbor, for screening by the immigration inspectors, a qualification for entering in the United States.
My brother, having worked in a clothing store as an alteration man, felt that being self-employed in the ownership of a business, would be a step of progress, and in learning of the oncoming statehood of Oklahoma, decided that some place in Indian Territory we would find our future. Therefore, in 1910, we started our venture as store keepers in Clinton, Oklahoma. But very soon discovered that there was no evident hopes for our business survival there, so I remained in the store, and my brother left to search for a new location in Northeastern Oklahoma. When the train from Oklahoma City reached Bartlesville in the evening, he was fascinated by the glow from the smelters furnace fires, and the smoke rolling out from the smoke stacks, which was sufficient evidence of employment and prosperity in Bartlesville.
The fact that most of the people employed at the smelters were Polish immigrants, was also in our favor for locating here. In the Old Country, we lived in a Polish neighborhood and associated with the neighborhood children who spoke only Polish, so brother and I learned to speak Polish quick and fluently. Our place of business became 119 West Second Street and our living quarters was in the back of the store, an economic necessity for us then.
The first person I assumed to be Polish was, Stanley Kazmierzak’s father, who happened to be near the store, so I greeted him in Polish, which somewhat startled him, and he came over to me to find out who I was. In no time, as the saying goes, the rest of the Polish people here knew of us, and their business patronage gave us confidence that we would prosper here.
The Polish people who came here in the early days to work at the smelters, have enjoyed the respect from everyone who dealt with them, and although their wages were not of the upper wage bracket, they lived within their means, in what was known then as “Smelter Town,” in the section of “Frog Hollow” and “Skeeter Row,” and “Pruneville.” This economical way of living was prompted by the forethought of possible emergencies as well as to be able to help their children obtain a higher education should they desire, and many of their children made their way to college, some worked their way through college graduating in the upper groups. My wife taught the second grade at Washington School and had several Polish children in her classroom.
Weston relates: Martin Zofness was a delightful, outgoing businessman that I loved to visit with. In 1915, their store was moved to 313 S. Johnstone and, at lunchtime, I used to go to his around 1:00 p.m., after the noon shoppers had returned to work, and stay until my lunch time ended at 1:30. He always had a smile and warm greeting. He and his son, Charles, were partners in the business at that time and Martin was always ready to share early happenings and historic events with me.
Martin said his first employment was in New York City in the loft “sweat shops” where men and women toiled elbow-to-elbow making clothes in unventilated rooms for four dollars a week. He went to night school in New York City for eight months in a school maintained by the board of education for those who entered at Ellis Island. Once he had learned English, he left the “sweat shop” for a job as a Western Union messenger boy. His commission was one and one-half cents a message delivered or retrieved. He was then employed in the leather goods trade, where he earned from six dollars to seven dollars a week. Then, he made his way to St. Louis where the pay was better in leather goods but the work uncertain and not regular. There, he met his brother, James Zofness, and they agreed to save their money and become businessmen.
That was 1910 and the pair selected Clinton, OK to begin their business; however, they soon discovered there was no hope for business survival there. Bartlesville was their next site selected and 119 W. 2nd Street became their store location in late 1910. Martin told me that the line of clothing that they stocked was work and casual clothing. The three smelters had fifteen hundred employees and their store sold a lot of clothing to the smelter families. He said they were honest in their dealing and loses were minimal. Smelter paydays were the 5th and the 20th of each month and the Zofness Brothers were very busy and enjoyed steady source of income for many years.
When news of Oklahoma oil discoveries reached the people of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Iowa, Indiana and West Virginia, there was an influx of people to try their luck in oil and gas. Some struck it rich and remained to develop companies…like Frank and L.E. Phillips, H.V. Foster, Armais Arutunoff and H.C. Price who found economic stability in this community.
Martin said, “As time passed, our business location and the clothing that we were selling could be better served in a better location.” Jimmie, who had started as a partner, did not desire to continue in the clothing business as his interests turned to oil and gas, drilling some wells in a loose partnership with Earl Beard and Henry Koopman. Their first lease was on land owned by Levi Clark. James Zofness stayed in the oil business and Martin bought out his interest in the clothing store in January 1926.
This article originally appeared on Bartlesville Examiner-Enterprise: Weston Wednesday: In the words of Martin I. Zofness
