As the business flourished, so did the marriage of Samuel and Terenia. She bore him five sons—Abraham, Joseph, Anton, Jan and Pitor—and with the birth of each son Samuel opened a new apothecary shop, each one larger than the one before. In the beginning Samuel hired one man to work for him, then two, and soon he had more than two dozen employees.
One day Samuel received a visit from a government official. “We’re lifting some of the restrictions on Jews,” he told Samuel. “We would like you to open an apothecary shop in Krakow.”
And Samuel did. Three years later he had prospered enough to erect his own building in downtown Krakow and to buy Terenia a beautiful house in the city. Samuel had finally achieved his dream of escaping from the ghetto.
But he had dreams far beyond Krakow.
As the boys grew older, Samuel hired tutors for them, and each of the boys learned a different language.
“He’s gone crazy,” Samuel’s mother-in-law said. He’s the laughingstock of the neighborhood, teaching Abraham and Jan English, Joseph German, Anton French and Pitor Italian. Who are they going to speak to? No one here speaks any of those barbaric languages. The boys won’t even be able to talk to one another!”
Samuel merely smiled and said patiently, “It’s part of their education.” He knew to whom his sons would be talking.
By the time the boys reached their middle teens, they had traveled to different countries with their father. On each of his trips Samuel laid the groundwork for his future plans. When Abraham was twenty-one years old, Samuel called the family together and announced, “Abraham is going to America to live.”
“America!” Terenia’s mother shouted. “It’s filled with savages! I will not let you do this to my grandson. The boy is staying here where he will be safe.”
Safe. Samuel thought of the pogroms and Aram, and of his mother’s murder.
“He’s going abroad,” Samuel declared. He turned to Abraham. “You’ll open a factory in New York and be in charge of the business there.”
Abraham said proudly, “Yes, Father.”
Samuel turned to Joseph. “On your twenty-first birthday you will go to Berlin.” Joseph nodded.
Anton said, “And I will go to France. Paris, I hope.”
“Just watch yourself,” Samuel growled. “Some of those gentiles are very beautiful.”
He turned to Jan. “You will go to England.”
Pitor, the youngest son, said eagerly, “And I’m going to Italy,. Papa. How soon can I leave?”
Samuel laughed and replied, “Not tonight, Pitor. You’ll have to wait until you’re twenty-one.”
And thus it worked out. Samuel accompanied his sons abroad and helped them establish offices and factories. Within the next seven years, there were branches of the Roffe family in five foreign countries. It was becoming a dynasty, and Samuel had his lawyer set it up so that, while each company was independent, it was at the same time responsible to the parent company.
“No strangers,” Samuel kept warning the lawyer. “The stock must never leave the family.”
“It won’t,” the lawyer assured him. “But if your sons can’t sell their stock, Samuel, how are they going to get along? I’m sure you’ll want them to live in comfort.”
Samuel nodded. “We’ll arrange for them to live in beautiful homes. They’ll have generous salaries and expense accounts, but everything else must go back into the business. If they ever want to sell the stock, it must be unanimous. The majority of the stock will belong to my oldest son, and his heirs. We’re going to be big. We’re going to be bigger than the Rothschilds.”
Over the years Samuel’s prophecy became a reality. The business grew and prospered. Though the family was widely scattered, Samuel and Terenia saw to it that they remained as closely knit as possible. Their sons returned home for birthdays and high holidays. Their visits were more than festive occasions, however. The boys would closet themselves with their father and discuss business. They had their own private espionage system. Whenever one son in one country heard about a new drug development, he would dispatch couriers to report it to the others, and they would begin manufacturing it themselves, so that in this way they kept constantly ahead of their competitors.