Introduction
So the first thing I did was search Joe Chandller's Excel Spreadsheet version of his family tree. Harold Brill shows up on tree #b, married to Rona Baer. Joe Chandler, Dearest Rachel [one of several Baer anecdotes] A second experience with Sam Fuller occurred in May of 1993 when we went to Israel and passed through Paris. I knew that he was living in Paris, but did not have his address or telephone number, but thought I would like to contact him. I was able to hunt through some telephone books and found he was living at 18 Reuilly and called him. Interestingly, the first comment he made epitomized his view of family relationships when he asked "What do you want?" After we got by that we did have a pleasant few minutes of conversation, but I am left with the distinct impression that stems from one incident related to me by another cousin about him during that cousin's visit to Hollywood and a discussion I also had with his sister, Rose, that he wanted to distance himself from family, or at least, portions thereof. The experience with his sister, Rose Leah, who had married a William Epstein of Jackson Heights, N.Y., came shortly before I met Sam. My Uncle, Irving, had told me of another cousin I had never met and took me over to see her at Miami Beach. She, also, had not seen her brother, Sam, all these years and could not seem to contact him, the circumstances of which seemed to bear out my thought of his avoiding his family. She had an interesting story to tell me. She came from Europe on a ship to Portland, Maine, in 1911, but that coming was a problem. I do not know with whom she came, if anyone, but she was quite young (under ten years of age). The problem was with her papers. She had taken the place of one of the Baer girls (Ruth Baer) on the ship and was carrying Ruth's papers. When Immigration asked her for her name she gave them her real name of Rose. That didn't match the ship's papers and Immigration refused to let her disembark. My father got word of that and went to Immigration and was able to have them release her to him. That is how she got to the United States and she has never forgotten how my father was able to get her off the ship. She even recalls the date in a round about way. It seems that my father had taken with him his first born in a carriage when he came down to get her. My brother Lou was born in 1911.
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