At first glance, the August 7 ceremony marking the renaming of a hospital's children's unit may have seemed unremarkable. A portrait was unveiled and hospital officials acknowledged a donation from the Zaslows, a business family from the Philadelphia area, to establish a pediatric asthma program at the hospital. Commemorative events like this routinely take place at the nation's medical centers, museums, arts institutions and universities, thanks to the generosity of families like the Zaslows, owners of ATD-American, a manufacturer and distributor of office furniture, safety and security products, linens and clothing.
But there was a special twist to this dedication. Although the Zaslows were the main donors to the hospital unit, the facility was not being named in honor of their family. The newly christened Annie Eason Children's Unit honors the woman who worked as a nanny to the three second-generation Zaslow brothers, now in their 80s. And the hospital isn't located in the Zaslows' Philadelphia hometown; it's Vident Roanoke-Chowan Hospital in Ahoskie, N.C., Annie Eason's birthplace. August 7, the date of the dedication, was Eason's birthday; she would have been 106 years old.
“She looked over us, cared for us,” says Arnie Zaslow. “She saw to it that we developed the same kind of values our parents wanted us to have.”
A ‘second mother'
Annie Eason helped raise Arnie Zaslow, now 82, and his two brothers, Jerry, 87, and Spencer, 84, in an atmosphere of love and warmth, the brothers recall. All three Zaslow brothers refer to Eason as their “second mother.” The relationship continued after Eason's retirement in 1978 until her death in 1989.
Eason began working for the Zaslow family in the mid-1920s, according to the brothers' account. Their mother answered a “situation wanted” advertisement that Eason, who had moved to Philadelphia, had placed in the newspaper.
Eason arrived to interview at the Zaslows' Philadelphia home and found Mrs. Zaslow feeding Jerry, who was then a year old.
“I was giving my mother a hard time in the feeding process,” Jerry Zaslow says. “Annie said, ‘Let me take care of it. I'll fatten him up.' That was famous last words,” he adds with a laugh, patting his stomach, “because she sure fattened me up.”
The nanny did more than that. “After my parents became deceased, Annie would call us every week to make certain we weren't arguing or fighting with each other,” Jerry says. “As Arnie said, some people are lucky to have a good mother. We were fortunate to have two good mothers.”
The Zaslows—who have made donations in their own name to medical, educational and religious institutions through their family foundation—researched various ways to honor Eason in her hometown. After touring Vident Roanoke-Chowan Hospital, they concluded that helping the region's children would reflect the values she instilled in them and the impact she had on their lives. The donated funds will be used for a pediatric asthma program to be based at the hospital. According to the North Carolina State Center for Health Statistics, childhood asthma is more prevalent in northeastern North Carolina than in other parts of the state.
The Zaslows donated more than $40,000 to the hospital in Eason's name. Abbot Downing, Wells Fargo & Company's wealth-management arm, which handles the Zaslows' assets, kicked in an additional $10,000.
“Instead of simply selling the unit to the highest bidder, [the hospital] honored an ordinary person, just a local citizen who was perhaps significant by her insignificance,” Arnie Zaslow says. “She was not a famous person, she wasn't a wealthy person, but she was a very good person. So they honored her because of that.”
Mary Lee Savage, Eason's niece, first met the brothers at her aunt's funeral 23 years ago. She says she and her family were deeply touched by the Zaslows' gesture.
“They feel like an extended family to me because they loved her so much,” she says. “I just feel close to them because of what they did for my aunt.”
“One of our objectives in giving the donation in her memory was to show that she was an ordinary person, but she was also extraordinary,” Jerry Zaslow says. “We thought that an ordinary person deserves some kind of recognition. We hope that we set an example for other contributors to give donations in memory of people that may have been ordinary human beings but did extraordinary things in their life.”
Business legacy continues
A few years after Eason assumed her nanny duties, the boys' parents opened Jaffe's Art Linens, a retail shop, on South Street in Philadelphia. The family lived above the store. The neighborhood was on the rough side, says Jerry, so the store became the brothers' playground. As they got older, they went to work in the business, and each went on to enroll at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.
Armed with their new business knowledge, the Zaslows opened a second linen shop in North Philadelphia in the late 1940s. After a few years, according to Jerry, they soured on the retail trade and began exploring their options. Their father recalled his early days working in a business that had found success bidding on government contracts. Within a decade the linen stores had closed in favor of ATD-American, headquartered in an office across the street from the original South Street location.
In 1979 the company moved to the suburbs, buying three stone buildings —an old foundry, lumber yard and stable—in a quiet residential neighborhood in Wyncote, just north of Philadelphia. ATD-American would go on to purchase a pair of adjacent buildings, and today the company's five-building complex is a bright, airy collection of structures linked by winding hallways and a glassed-in walkway joining two of the buildings above a parking area.
About 130 men and women are employed in Wyncote, with an additional 70 staffing a Georgia textile mill that manufactures bed sheets and pillowcases. Thomaston Mills had been an ATD-American supplier; the company purchased it out of bankruptcy in 2001. (Full disclosure: Ken Spector, brother of Family Business editor-in-chief Barbara Spector, is director of operations for ATD-American's textile division.)
Jerry serves as chairman of the board and chief strategist at the company; his brothers are executive vice presidents. “I do see growth, especially in some of the manufacturing we're doing in our plant down south,” Spencer Zaslow says. “It's coming to a point where ‘made in America' means something, more so than it did ten years ago.”
The brothers have an easy relationship, despite their differences. Jerry, the oldest, is a straightforward, cut-to-the-chase kind of guy; middle son Spencer is the quiet one; and Arnie, the self-described “baby,” deadpans jokes almost nonstop.
“They're just delightful,” says Sue Lassiter, the president of Vident Roanoke-Chowan, who met the brothers on their site visit to the hospital and reconnected with them at the naming ceremony. “The fact that they're in a family business, and at their age they're active and engaged, it was a real treat and a privilege to spend some time with them and get to know them.”
The men credit hard work and cooperation as factors in ATD-American's success. They say the way their mother and father raised them to get along as brothers helped them get along as businessmen.
“When we were very young, our parents instilled the principle of family unity and harmony,” Arnie Zaslow says. “We like to say that we were smart enough to pick the right parents, who taught us the values we've used ever since.”
Mike Smolarski, Abbot Downing's interim regional managing director for the Northeast, says the Zaslow family's long tenure as a client of Wells Fargo and its predecessor institutions—more than 80 years— helped spur the firm's supplemental donation to the hospital in Eason's memory. Managing the brothers' assets for the last eight years has allowed him to grow close to them and given him a picture of ATD-American's achievements, he notes.
“They really are remarkable guys,” Smolarski says. “Working in banking over the past several years, you see family businesses that barely make it past the first generation. That they're on the third generation is a testament to their upbringing and the values they instilled in their children. They're still there every day working and participating in the family business and helping it grow. It really is a true American success story.”
While they continue to come to work, Jerry, Spencer and Arnie no longer are involved in day-to-day operations. Six of their nine children, along with a son-in-law, have those responsibilities now. The fourth generation—the brothers' 18 grandchildren, ranging in age from 3 to 25—is getting teed up to take its turn in the business.
“Once in a while one of my sons or [the other brothers'] children will bring the youngsters in for a day,” Spencer says. “They play office.”
The brothers say that the third generation is fully empowered to run the business as it feels best. Like their father, they say, they trust their children to take the values they have passed along and use them to steer ATD-American their way. In turn, the third-generation members seek their parents' counsel often.
“They are making the decisions,” Arnie says firmly. “I commend them. They have the acumen to avail themselves of whatever knowledge or wisdom we may have accrued over the last 50, 60 years. So they come to us and frequently ask our opinions on questions. They are perpetuating the same culture we've enjoyed for our entire lives.”
That's no accident, says Jerry, who sees strength and unity in the divergent branches of the Zaslow family tree.
“They work together,” he states. “My brothers and I were brought up with the idea that it's OK to fight as long as you kiss and make up. We raised our kids the same way. The cousins all get along like brothers and sisters. Things seem to work out.”
You get the feeling that wherever she is, Annie Eason is smiling.
Thomas W. Durso is a freelance writer based in Glenside, Pa.
Copyright 2012 by Family Business Magazine. This article may not be posted online or reproduced in any form, including photocopy, without permssion from the publisher. For reprint information, contact bwenger@familybusinessmagazine.com.