In-Laws: Lessons Learned From a Family Tale of Betrayal and Rift

In April of 1953, my grandfather Alfred Roberts (born Rottenberg) sat down to write a long letter to his three sons (my father and my two uncles.) Two weeks earlier, Alfred’s wife of 19 years, Betty, had died at the tender age of 39 from asthmatic complications.

Alfred’s instructions were that his letter was to be opened only upon his own death (as it happened, 26 years later in 1979, aged 72.) In 1953, Alfred’s sons were too young to read the letter, my father the eldest at 16 and my two uncles 10 and 8.

The letter contains an autobiographical sketch, life advice, and this exhortation to his sons: “do not grieve too hard for me,” because Alfred wanted to convey that despite the loss of his beloved Betty, he had ­­already lived a life full of happiness beyond what he could have expected. There’s an understandable undercurrent of melancholy in the letter as if Alfred’s true life was now over and whatever came next would be a lesser version. A life, but not LIFE.

The letter also carries a sense that from his own heartbreak, Alfred thought he might not survive Betty’s death for very long. So the prospect of his sons’ grief at his death has an imminence one would not expect from a 46 year old man:

“When you read this letter, I will be dead. I cannot know whether you will read it this year or next year or twenty years from now.”

It’s important to know that my grandmother Betty was one of three children of Alexander Block who had created a health and beauty aid company, Block Drug, which by 1953 had become large, profitable, and very valuable. Alfred came from a well-off family, but his father Samuel’s legacy was being a leader of the Jewish community in Brooklyn rather than building a fortune.

Here's what Alfred wrote in the letter about his powerful and wealthy in-laws, the Blocks.

“Your dear grandfather [Alexander, the patriarch] and grandmother Block were not my “in-laws” ---they were another affectionate set of parents. They could not have treated me better, although I am afraid they did than their own sons, your uncles Mel and Leonard. I was brought in to the family business, given the opportunity to prove myself, and fortunately I was able to help make it an even greater success than when I entered it. So, instead of being the husband of a rich wife, I was able to make a career of my own and retain my self-respect.”

Later that same year of 1953, Alexander Block died. Soon after Alexander’s death, his two sons Mel and Leonard kicked Alfred out of the company and bought out Betty’s one third stake (left to her sons, not to Alfred) for what turned out to be a very advantageous price for Mel and Leonard.

The relationships between the Roberts and Block families came to a sudden and complete halt. I only have one side of the story, but I know that my father and, later, my two uncles felt that their two Block uncles had treated their father Alfred very poorly, especially given that he was a recent widower and obviously in a state of great vulnerability and sorrow. To add to the poignancy of the rift, Alfred had met Betty through her brother Mel who had been Alfred’s roommate at Penn. As well, my father’s best friend growing up had been his first cousin on the Block side, Leonard’s son Jimmy Block.

I feel blessed to have Alfred’s letter as an historical family document. I have read it often and it has imparted important lessons to me, some intended, some not.

1)  Writing letters like the one I have from Alfred is an incredible gift to future generations. They help explain where you’ve come from. They also help to explain the lives and behavior of your parents, grandparents, and older relatives. When people write for posterity, they tend to write with great thought. So the best of their candor and wisdom are likely to come through.

At first I questioned why Alfred decided to withhold the letter until he died, even after all his sons grew into adults and had families of their own. But now I think it was a good decision. To properly interpret such a solemn letter, being older is better.

2)  In-laws add to both the potential joys and potential sorrows of family. Some of it is luck, but some of it is realizing that good relations with the in-laws of your children and siblings are incredibly important to family harmony. Act accordingly, as best you can.

3)    While Alfred’s father-in-law Alexander was alive, the Blocks provided Alfred with a second family and a career that gave him “self-respect.” But then after Alexander died came the sudden rift. The seeds of the rift can be found in the letter, in the paragraph I quoted. “[My in-laws] could not have treated me better, although I am afraid they did than their own sons, your uncles Mel and Leonard.”

Alfred was viewed as the bright new penny who came bursting into the family and the family business. Appearances count, perhaps more than they should; in family photos of Alfred with the Blocks, Alfred’s good looks stand out.

If Alfred recognized that he was the favorite, then it must have been flagrant. I can imagine Mel and Leonard’s resentment building over twenty years. The bolded sentence above is an unintentional foreshadowing of the rift.

“Don’t play favorites” is obvious advice, but not everyone follows it or is aware that they may be violating it.

4)    When you mix business and family, or mix money and family, great care is called for. Of course, sometimes it can work out great, but when it goes unexpectedly south, the consequences to family harmony can be devastating.

To complete Alfred’s story in brief, he quickly bounced back and founded his own health and beauty aid company, Roberts Proprietaries, which was relatively small, but successful. He married twice more, to women very different than Betty, who always remained his true love.

I was 17 when Alfred died. I got to know him as a confident man with an acerbic, but very witty sense of humor. I never sensed any gloom about him, but rather joy in his life. My keenest memory of him was his singing along with the radio, during a 90 minute car ride to the Jersey Shore. Just the two of us. This made a great impression on me, because he had an absolutely terrible singing voice, but he just didn’t care.

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