Sam Safran
Age: 101
Born: May 10, 1910
Hometown: Chicago
Residence: Rancho Mirage
Military branch: U.S. Army; Headquarters, 84th Infantry “Railsplitters” Division, Camp Howze, Texas
Years served: Dec. 8, 1942 - Oct. 3, 1944
Rank: Private First Class
Family: Girlfriend Evelyn Silver of Sherman Oaks; wife Elaine (deceased); two children, Shelley Speyer of Indio and Bruce Safran of San Fernando Valley; two grandchildren; one great-grandchild
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Sam Safran, now 101, was drafted into the U.S. Army at the “advanced” age of 32.
Safran had been married for six months and was working as a produce buyer and grocery store manager in Los Angeles.
Wearing a uniform and firing a rifle were the furthest things from his mind.
“What can a man do in the Army at 32?” Safran asked himself.
Safran was able to keep up with the younger guys during basic training and qualified as an expert in rifle shooting.
He was assigned to the 84th Infantry “Railsplitters” Division based at Camp Howze, Texas.
However, “They didn't know what to do with me,” he said.
Safran eventually landed a job as a jeep driver.
“I drove the company commander. Whenever he needed something, I was the one that used to take him.”
Safran's high-ranking passenger nearly got them killed when he ordered Safran to drive too fast up a steep hill.
“The jeep turned over. It put me in the hospital for six weeks,” Safran said.
The 84th Division was ordered overseas, and when it landed in France in early November of 1944, it was immediately sent to the front lines in Belgium, a month before the start of the Battle of the Bulge.
“I was supposed to go with them,” Safran said.
“The company commander said, ‘Sam, you're going overseas to Germany.' I said, ‘The hell I am! I'm not going anywhere. I'm too old to go anyplace.'”
“I stayed, and half my company got killed.”
His company specialized in communications, stringing telephone wire across the battlefield.
One day, the Germans were watching and waiting.
The enemy riddled the company with machine gun fire. They suffered heavy losses.
“I'd have been one of them.”
Shortly after being discharged from the hospital, he was honorably discharged from the U.S. Army.
He and his wife went back to Los Angeles to plan for the next phase of their lives.
“I'm out of the service looking for something to do.”
An old couple had a secondhand furniture store in town, and Safran noticed they didn't do much of anything but sit out in front of the store and spit into the street.
He tried for a long time to get them to sell the business.
“Finally, one day, the old man decides they're going to retire.”
Safran offered again to buy the business, the man agreed, and Safran wrote him a check for $5,000.
Now he had a store — and an inventory of a “bunch of junk,” which he had an auctioneer come by and take away.
After cleaning out the entire space, he wondered to himself, “Now what?”
He ended up going into business with his brother Herman Safran. But they weren't sure what they should sell.
“One day in July we were standing outside, and a guy drives by with a big truck of redwood furniture.”
The men started talking, and the brothers offered to buy the whole truckload of outdoor furnishings.
“We stuck it out in front of the store. We sold every one of those pieces within a week. We said, ‘That's a good idea. Let's try to get into the furniture business.'”
Victory Furniture, established in the 1950s, is still in operation, but under different owners.
Safran expanded into the patio furniture business, operating stores in Orange County area.
He built two apartment buildings and at one time, owned the Del Rey Motel on the Las Vegas strip.
Staff writer Denise Goolsby will profile desert veterans from World War II on Sundays.
Contact her at (760) 778-4587 or via email at denise.goolsby@thedesertsun.com
