[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 1 (Monday, January 24, 2000)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E2]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IN HONOR OF RUSSELL MANZATT

                                 ______
                                 

                        HON. DENNIS J. KUCINICH

                                of ohio

                    in the house of representatives

                        Monday, January 24, 2000

  Mr. KUCINICH. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in honor of Russell Manzatt. 
He celebrated his 100th birthday on January 1, 2000.
  Russell grew up in Ilasco, Missouri, where his Romanian parents first 
settled. Many different immigrant groups settled here, and Russell 
spoke Hungarian, German, Italian and his native Romanian with his 
playmates. It was his first day of school at the age of five when he 
was given the name Russell because his teacher could not pronounce his 
Christian name, Vasile.
  As a foreigner in a new land, he had to forge his own way. Russell 
always had a job. He started selling subscriptions to The Saturday 
Evening Post and The Country Gentleman. Then he delivered 25-pound 
slabs of ice with a horse and buggy. When his family was threatened 
because their butcher business was becoming too successful, the Manzatt 
family moved to Cleveland.
  The city of Cleveland impressed Russell, with his new home's flush 
toilet to the expanse of Lake Erie. Russell started working again, 
delivering telegrams during the First World War at the age of fifteen. 
But his legs were meant for more than delivering telegrams--Russell won 
a dance contest, went to New York and was cast in a vaudeville chorus 
show. Before the show was about to tour, his homesickness pulled him 
back to Cleveland.
  During the Depression, he was lucky enough to land a job with 
Colgate. Though he didn't know what a ``display man'' was, he answered 
that he could do it. It was when he was setting up a windowfront 
cosmetics display and blocked himself in, that a store owner taught him 
what a real display man actually did. From setting up displays, he 
moved up to being a sales manager in his fifteen years at Colgate until 
he started his own family and company.
  At the Manzatt's West Park Superette, his Colgate contacts helped him 
stock hard-to-get items after World War Two. The success of the store 
grew, and was profitable enough to sell for the Manzatts to buy a 
tavern. While their family lived upstairs from the renovated 
restaurant-bar, a steady clientele of other neighborhood families 
frequented the Rockport Inn. Their three children enjoyed the wooded 
acres behind the family restaurant, where they grew up until they moved 
into careers of their own. At the peak of the Vietnam war, Russell was 
71 and decided to sell the Rockport Inn.
  Instead of enjoying a relaxed retirement, he worked as a top salesman 
of men's clothing until the store closed, at the age of 93. During this 
time, he enjoyed the growth of his family as his three children were 
married, had children, and made him a great-grandparent five times 
over. Though last year, at 99 years old, he decided to stop driving, 
Russell's former dancing legs have enough energy to take him on long 
walks for a haircut or just a cup of coffee.
  My fellow colleagues, please join me in honoring Russell Manzatt.

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