Sam Dressner & Joseph Meyer Dressner
April 17, 2009
Sometime in the early 1980s I was interested in learning more about my family and our Eastern European origins. I interviewed a couple of uncles and older cousins. Two of the cousins were older than my father Sam and called him uncle because My father had 11 other brother and sisters and he was the youngest one. Of the twelve in 2009 only one sister still lives from that generation.
My father, Sam, talked about a book that his father, Joseph Meyer Dressner, had written and that someone in the family had it and that there were secrets revealed in the book.
As I went to interview people, I asked them about the book and on one interview one of the cousins actually had the book in written in Yiddish in her drawer. She was not sure she wanted to give me the book and had not read it for a long time. In the end she entrusted me with having the books translated and distributed to family members who wanted to know of the life of our grandfather and great grand father.
Joseph Meyer Dressner was born in 1862 and died the year I was born 1948. Finding someone who could translate the book was no easy task and I did find a person at the Workmans Circle in NYC who was paid for the translation.
To get to America, he writes he “engaged an agent whose job it was to guide people to America.” In 1902 he left his parents and wrote ” My father and mother, may they rest in peace, accompanied me and shed bitter tears, although I consoled them and assured them that I didn’t plan to remain in America”. Well Grandfather Joseph did not return to Europe and I would like to relate more of his story telling how he got to America in another blog.
My hope is that my father Sam, has been reunited with his departed Father, Joseph M Dressner, his mother and all his passed brothers and sisters.
Ira Dressner
www.releasestresstoday.com
wwwl.releasestresssystem.com
www.lifeenergyjewelry.com
www.brainenergyintegration.com
www.captaintumorman.com
www.joedressner.com
www.iradressner.com
My Father Sam and the Power of Prayer
April 5, 2009
<!– /* Style Definitions */ p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal {mso-style-parent:”"; margin:0in; margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; mso-layout-grid-align:none; punctuation-wrap:simple; text-autospace:none; font-size:10.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} p {mso-margin-top-alt:auto; margin-right:0in; mso-margin-bottom-alt:auto; margin-left:0in; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”; mso-fareast-font-family:”Times New Roman”;} @page Section1 {size:8.5in 11.0in; margin:1.0in 1.25in 1.0in 1.25in; mso-header-margin:.5in; mso-footer-margin:.5in; mso-paper-source:0;} div.Section1 {page:Section1;} –> After my father, Sam, had his heart attack, his recovery and went back to work, he decided that he wanted to take another sales trip. I was not working with him at the time and my mother was worried that he was traveling alone and they both asked me to go with him. He decided he wanted to go to the Dominican Republic because he thought there was business there.
I had never been to the Dominican Republic before, didn’t speak a word of Spanish, and wondered how we would get by in a country without a business guide or consultant. This was more or less 30 years ago and I didn’t know the type of courage and heart my father had for doing unorthodox things which would have stopped other people but didn’t stop him. This lesson in doing something and not being totally researched or goggled out was a great example of total entrepreneurship.
When we went to the Dominican Republic he began teaching me about how to sell, how to sniff out new products, how to price, to encourage people to buy over objections and how to speak from the heart. I asked him a million questions and he kindly responded to each one. We began to form a close business relationship which would last until his passing in 2006.
The trip to the Dominican Republic gave as a fresh start and for me a new start in business. I learned to trust his judgment as he learned to appreciate a different point of view that I brought to his business. The week we stayed together set up a relationship that grew deeper as years went by. We were able to begin to talk about our belief in a higher power in the Dominican Republic and that conversation was a threat that was developed throughout both of our lives. He didn’t talk about the fact that he prayed often and that the power of prayer was important to him. Prayer was his other method of reducing stress and he explained to me how he prayed and I listened and respected him for it. He did not tell many other people about his prayers because he knew that many people make fun of personal prayer and pray ritualistically.
The trip to the Dominican Republic has made all the difference in the world to me. My father, Sam, and I established a close relationship, sharing many private moments, that we never told to anyone. His underlying support was crucial in moving on from a relationship that was detrimental to my well being.
Ira Dressner, PCC
www.releasestressstoday.com
www.releasestresssyystem.com
www.lifeenergyjewelry.com
www.energyblueprintformoney.com
www.captaintumorman.com
Sam Dressner and Stress
April 3, 2009
Sam Dressner had a number of unique ways of dealing with stress. When he was a younger man and I was a child. living with him, my mother Irene and my brother Joe we lived in Queens and he worked in the family business All In One Suppliers.
When my father Sam, got stressed out most likely he became angry. You could see the anger rising in his face and neck because he got reder and rerder and is voice raised. Apparently he showed his anger at work and he definitely did at home. He was not the type of man you wanted to cross under any circumstances.
A second way my father Sam worked with strerss was smoking. He may have smoked two to three packages of citarettes each day. At the time they were much cheaper and both he and my mother and my brother Joe smoked.
It was in the fifties throuugh the seventies where smoking was accepted and people did not heed the warning about smoking being a cause of lung cancer or heart attack.
When he was fifty eight or fifty nine he began to get angina and had difficulties breathing. He has a small heart attack and decided to have by-pass heart surgury. This was in the nineteen seventies and I was working at Seton Hall University as an assistant professor of Political Science haveing completed my Ph.D. in Public Administration.
After his heart attack and the bypass surgery he was sixty years old and he made an attempt to stop getting angry. He gave up cigarettes cold turkey and made an attempt to lower his stress or find better ways to let it out. This is a terrible way to live with stress. It was the dammage to his heart from smoking that eventually brought him down. I love him, he was my business partner and I learned about not being an angry person.
Ira Dressner, PCC
www.releasestresssyystem.com
www.lifeenergyjewelry.com
www.energyblueprintformoney.com
www.captaintumorman.com
Sam Dressner
April 2, 2009
My dearly loved father Sam Dressner passed in Nomember 2006. He was almost 88 years old. He was a wonderful man who guided me in becoming an entrepreneur. I am going to write a number of posts about him because of his influence upon me. Every person ought to have such a loving, caring father as I had.
I began to learn about being an entrepreneur when I was a kid. My father worked on the catalog for All In One Suppliers Inc, a store in NYC where I worked with him for over 30 years. Sam Dressner brought home publicity and papers that needed to be stuffed into envelopes and I believe he paid my brother Joe Dressner and myself one penny for stuffing each envelope. I remember doing this activity for an entire weekend and thinking I was making some money to buy comic books. In working with the materials I was beginning to get an idea of what it was like to be in business.
My father, Sam, spent many hours working on the All In One Suppliers catalogue for for than 30 years. I always asked him how he selected products and how he differentiated one product from the next. These were some of the lessons I learned about entrepreneurship.
Knowing that my father approved and encouraged me to be an entrepreneur, find new products for All In One Suppliers as well as for my other interests greatly encouraged me in life.
Next update: How I went from being a college professor to an entrepreneur.
Writing about my father on the blog is bring me a sense of peace and a feeling of being less stressed. Starting the day reflecting on the person who gave me the intuitive sense to know about products and business is remarkable in keeping me focused.
Ira Dressner, PCC
www.releasestresssyystem.com
www.lifeenergyjewelry.com
www.energyblueprintformoney.com
