Happy Birthday to a Sewing Machine Legend, my Uncle, Marty Schoenberg

I am putting out this short article to celebrate Marty Schoenberg, my uncle, who was born this day 69 years ago. My Uncle possesses two particular traits that I value most highly, which are that he is extremely loving and extremely loyal. He is also one of the hardest-working and most capable human beings I know. I love him very much.

Marty is relevant to The Sewing Machine Newsletter because he is the key link in the chain of sewing machine knowledge between generations of our family.

He was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and immigrated to Richmond, California when he was 7 years old. After moving to America, his father, Ramon, made extra money working a part-time job fixing sewing machines for the Berkeley Sewing Machine Company twice a week, on Thursday nights and Saturdays. Marty, still a young boy at the time, often came along with Ramon. I am very fond of a story Marty tells of how Ramon would have Marty sit on the floor of the repair shop, put an old junker machine in front of him, and hand him a set of screwdrivers. "Take apart everything you can," Ramon said. Marty did as he was told, disassembling machines into hundreds of individual parts, and so began the foundation of a skill set that would serve Marty well for the next 50 years.

In 1974 Marty began working full time fixing sewing machines for the Berkeley Sewing Machine Company. Years later, he invested in a van and some tools and started a one-man business called Sewing Machine Engineering that did traveling sewing machine repair. He eventually recruited his baby brother, Dan Schoenberg (my father), to become a sewing machine salesman. They rented a storefront in El Sobrante, CA, and changed the name of the business to The Sewing Machine Shop.

Over the years, Marty taught my Dad everything he knew about sewing machines, effectively turning my Dad into the sewing machine GOAT. Now my Dad teaches me everything he knows, and I try my best to spread that knowledge in the form of this newsletter. Without Marty, none of it would have happened the way it did.

In honor of Marty’s birthday, I invite you to read a couple of previous articles I’ve published. One is a detailed breakdown of my family’s history and our strange connection to sewing machines that goes back four generations. The other article recounts some funny stories Marty told me about fixing machines for troublesome automobile upholsters back in the 1980s and 1990s.

Stories From My Uncle Marty

Sewing Machines Are In My Blood

Thank you for reading.

-Cale

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