Betsy Knapp

In this episode of How We Love, our guest Betsy Knapp, tells an extraordinary story of triumph over tragedy. Her life is a testament to resilience and reinvention. For anyone striving to turn chaos into clarity and setbacks into soaring victories, listen, learn and be inspired. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Welcome back to How We Love. I am Robin Lane, psychologist and host. My guest today is Betsy Knapp. Betsy is a true role model. She has overcome overwhelming stress. Her journey from personal upheaval to success in both love and business makes her someone to emulate. She teaches us what can be accomplished when resilience, courage, and heart act in concert. Welcome, Betsy. It's a pleasure to have you here as our guest.

SPEAKER_01 0:42

Yes, a pleasure for me also. Thank you for asking me.

SPEAKER_00 0:45

Betsy, let's start with your backstory. I'm sorry. Well, let's start with your backstory because before we get to where you are now in your life, which is a pretty wonderful place, um, let's start with your first marriage. And how old were you when you met your uh husband?

SPEAKER_01 1:09

About uh, well, I I was about 17, 18 years old when I met my first husband. But he was your first love. He was my first love, yes. We were like uh, except we would went I I can't say he was like a high school sweetheart. He went to another school and so did I. We just met socially amongst the crowd that we all hung out with. That's how I met him.

SPEAKER_00 1:33

And how how quickly did it take for you to feel this is the guy I want to spend my life with?

SPEAKER_01 1:39

Uh it's it did take some time because I never really had a steady boyfriend. And what did your parents think of him? Well, at the beginning they liked him, but as the relationship grew, there were a lot of things my parents did not like about him.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

And was that before you got married?

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 2:00

What what did they see that you didn't?

SPEAKER_01 2:03

Well, I think I uh coming from a number one, uh coming from a Jewish background, um he wasn't Jewish. I lived in a neighborhood, I want to say, which was probably predominantly Jewish. Uh my mother was one of uh ten, she was seven sisters and three brothers, and basically nobody really got married and went out with anybody who wasn't Jewish. Everybody, all my cousins basically, and my aunts and uncles, everybody married somebody who was Jewish.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

Ah, I see. So that was the reason. So that was the beginning. So you married him in spite of the family saying they weren't happy about it.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

I really didn't take that into consideration. I I I heard my mother, but I was marrying Jim for other reasons.

SPEAKER_00 2:52

Because you were so in love.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

I was I was in love, so in love when I think about it, no, but he had some characteristics that I actually admired and I wanted to learn from him. And what were they? Uh uh, first of all, I loved his brain, his mind. I was uh I was uh I didn't really pay attention much in school. Uh we didn't really have any money to do any kind of activities. I uh I loved the fact that he he read a lot. My parents really never read. I never really read. Uh he I loved his brain, actually. That's that was the most that was the most um engaging thing, and I think I felt fell in love with his mind. He came separate. What'd he look like?

SPEAKER_00 3:43

What did he look like, by the way?

SPEAKER_01 3:45

Well, as people say, well, movies star qualities was the expression.

SPEAKER_00 3:51

So he was very handsome too.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Very hand, yes, movies star qualities.

SPEAKER_00 3:55

Yeah, yes, so it wasn't just his brain.

SPEAKER_01 3:58

No, but you know, I did I that didn't I dismiss that.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

You know, I loved his life's basic, it's not possible to dismiss a handsome man.

SPEAKER_01 4:09

It was, but I like I said, I oh you know, people that liked me or my I went out on a few dates. I always thought the person I was with was handsome, so it was never really anything I was really that was that important to me. I just gravitated towards, let's say, handsome men.

SPEAKER_00 4:27

And so you got married, and did your family? I eloped, but I eloped. You eloped, you eloped. Yes, yes. You were dating five years already. Oh my goodness. Yeah, yeah. So you eloped because your family was so against it, and and so was his family, so was his family. I mean, yes, basically every was. And what would did you have a career or job at that time?

SPEAKER_01 4:55

Um I think I was I put myself uh oh, I was a lab technician for a while, and then I put myself through to a community college because sadly my mother, when I said to my mother about going to college, my mother had the uh saying to me that she didn't think that I was college material. Meaning I yeah, meaning I have a pretty face, and she always thought I was a little bit of a floozy. And maybe if he wanted to, uh the best thing she was gonna say is she wanted to, she sent me to nursing school in hope that I would marry a doctor, a typical Jewish mother, but yes, it didn't turn out that way.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

Yes, that's a Jewish dream. So that's so you did you did you finish nursing school when you got married?

SPEAKER_01 5:48

I actually finished uh nursing school, uh a one-year nursing school in uh the old New York hospital. It was a practical nurse certificate that I got, and then I wanted to go on further because I think my graduation class was the last one in hospitals. You know, nursing schools used to be in the hospitals in the city, you didn't have to go to college for that. And then I went, then I started to go to uh Kingsborough Community College in the late afternoons, you know, after a day's work. And that took me five years to graduate at two-year college, but my mother did not want to pay for me, and she thought this is a complete waste of time. So it took me five years to get out of a two-year school.

SPEAKER_00 6:29

So you got married?

SPEAKER_01 6:31

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Right, be before you finished school or after you finished school?

SPEAKER_01 6:35

Uh well, my last year in school. I got married, and um, I want to say I was got married and almost before I was already pregnant with my daughter Nicole. So I never went to the graduation.

SPEAKER_00 6:50

So you were already pregnant?

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:53

And you were 23 at that time, 23, 24?

SPEAKER_01 6:57

23, it's about 23, 24, yes.

SPEAKER_00 6:59

Uh-huh. And so what was life like when you had a baby and a new husband?

SPEAKER_01 7:04

Uh life was life life was was good. Again, you know, he came from a wealthy family. I came from um Oh, you didn't mention that. He came from a wealthy family. I came from a we want to say middle class family, but we lived in an apartment, um, the far Rockaways, uh three-bedroom apartment. Uh, we had I shared with my sister, my older sister shared with my brother. So we were always crammed. And but I had family issues, so it wasn't like um I had a great life living in Far Rockaway. I had my my own personal histories with my mother and my father's behaviors. Yes. There was a lot of that.

SPEAKER_00 7:47

So now you're married, and where are you living?

SPEAKER_01 7:51

I lived in Forest Hills Gardens for the first year, and then I moved to Greenwich.

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Well, for people who don't know, those are both beautiful areas. So your life, your life changed beautifully.

SPEAKER_01 8:06

Uh yes, but you know, yes, it did change, but sadly at the end. Well, let's not get to the end. Let's get it. I don't know if we'll get to the end today, but yes, it did not change. Yes, I had a lovely uh had a good first two or three years, no more than three. But you had a second marriage.

SPEAKER_00 8:27

You had three children. Four children, I have four. Four children. I had four girls. So if the marriage was you're saying that you started noticing problems after the third year?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

Um I noticed problems not I would say after the second year, the way he was acting. What what did you see? What did you say? On coming home, uh he he he was um involved in his father's business. They were Wall Street brokers, and um things weren't going good there. It's just a way to just sum it up. I mean, it's a it's a story in itself. He lost everything. It was one of those typical Wall Street stories that you hear. What do you mean? Like like a uh like a Bernie Matto type story. What do you mean? Can you be a little specific? Well, my father-in-law uh controlled everything, kept a lot of secrets from his head, Jim had a brother Tony, kept secrets, and was doing a lot of uh basically things that were not uh up and up. And you mean corrupt? Up and up and corrupt, yes. Yes, and that led to uh although Jim would always deny it, but that led to um Jim being unfaithful, Jim becoming somebody I I didn't recognize anymore.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Your husband became unfaithful within two years of marriage?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

Yes, yes. That's yeah, unusual. Yes. Well, I don't know if it's unusual, but I that early on. I thought it, like I said, I felt that I didn't have enough to go on my own. He gave me a very nice lifestyle. I never did turn the cheek because I always knew. I confronted him on many occasions.

SPEAKER_00 10:27

How did you find out that he was cheating?

SPEAKER_01 10:30

Oh well, I think he he would love to leave traps for me. I of course, you know, the easy credit card slip. Let's say I would hang up the clothes the next morning, he would forget maybe the receipt was in his pocket, but I felt that this was all intentional. He wanted me to know.

SPEAKER_00 10:47

What what was that like for you, Betsy?

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Well, I was totally devastated because I lived with a guy who lied to me every day, so I had to pretend that when he told me it was no, that I was exaggerating, I had to just accept it. He was yeah. Plus, um he's Italian and he was Italian, and uh I lived in fear of him, actually. My love turned into a fear. What do you mean, fear of him? You thought he would hurt you physically? No, I felt that if I was going to say anything, he would never hurt me physically, but he had a temper. He would, let's say, uh bang things, throw things. I overheard him with threatening uh, let's say somebody who worked for him. He just he turned into somebody I did not know.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

I want to understand something. So you're telling me this about this man who you were fearful of, and yet you went on and had more children with him. Why was that?

SPEAKER_01 11:48

Well, because he played, I guess the the only way to say is that I was he played me. He knew how to warm my heart. He knew the few little things that I needed, and he gave it. Give me an example. Um, I was able when I came to Greenwich, I had a very nice house, not a not a big house, but I had some creature comforts. Uh, I always had somebody to help me with the kids for a while there. Uh I was young and impressionable. I I had a fancy car. You know, so everything that has happened to me, even in that period, I look back and understand why I did what I did. I'm never angry of the choices I made.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Well, you wouldn't have your daughters.

SPEAKER_01 12:35

My daughters and my learning experience was another thing. And then actually, through all that time, I knew I needed help. I knew I couldn't get help because Jim would never, let's say, give me money to see a psychiatrist. So that's when it began that I had to really start to work on myself and see out who what I was made of.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

But now we're moving to what years, like the eighth year. How many years were you in?

SPEAKER_01 13:03

Uh the end of Jim and I was 1988. We got married. That was a total end of Jim. I think I got married, I got married to Jim in like 1970, and um I was finally able to get divorced Jim, I think, in 1988, but you know, Jim is a 18 years, and in those 18 years. But three of those years we definitely spent apart.

SPEAKER_00 13:29

Okay, so there was 15 years that you lived together and you had four children, and there's something that you haven't talked about in any depth, which is that he wound up going to jail, correct? That's correct. Or could you tell us that story?

SPEAKER_01 13:45

You know, it it it's I could tell the story, but the story was it's a story between him and his father, actually. His father set him up, his father uh made Jim steal stocks. Um and he made him steal stocks? How do you steal stocks? They were brokerage, it's pieces of paper, you know, stock print, certificates, they called them in those days. So, in other words, you by saying they you steal stocks. You should have yeah, he m he shouldn't have done that at the end when they were having trouble. Uh his father told him, uh, I want we're gonna take uh these stocks and we're gonna cash it in. It wasn't their stocks to cash in.

SPEAKER_00 14:27

Real sense.

SPEAKER_01 14:28

Yeah, they're not gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

It was other people, so they that's correct.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

I mean, this is a story that people know from from not only my husband, but you know, you've heard these stories before.

SPEAKER_00 14:38

Well, I haven't.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Oh, okay. So tell me. No, I it's it's it's it's it's not that it's painful, but it's so convoluted that that it when it got to that point. This is a problem that Jim had for Jim and his family and his mother and father. That whole that whole nucleus was never addressed.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

You mean they were they were all corrupt?

SPEAKER_01 15:02

No, the father was corrupt. The father was violent to his mother, and in turn, um there was some violence between the two brothers. It was it was an unhealthy, you know, uh dynamics. But when you say, Well, it took me so long, well, how do you learn that unless you live through it? No one's gonna teach you that. You have to live it. Well, I would imagine that novel's not gonna tell you how to read how to uh act or a book. You don't have that answer there.

SPEAKER_00 15:35

That's an experience I had to have. But I would imagine that during the time when he was starting to steal stocks, his behavior around the house.

SPEAKER_01 15:45

It's not that he was stealing stocks. He was, you know, sometimes he was, you know, I don't really know because I wasn't that involved. He would people say he rigged the the stock market, he made some poor choices. Uh so I don't know. Jim Jim had his own demons. I couldn't focus on Jim. I at the end, when I saw things are changing, I knew that something was going to explode. So I had I had to start to focus on myself.

SPEAKER_00 16:10

And the reason you couldn't focus because you had four kids.

SPEAKER_01 16:13

That's right.

SPEAKER_00 16:14

Right. So the you yeah. So but when you felt something was going to explode, what was that like?

SPEAKER_01 16:20

And what when it when it did explode, um what would what was that like? That was like I I'm glad it did, because this guy was so powerful that if it meant my husband going to jail, to me, that was my card for freedom. I never cried. When I had to turn him over, I never cried. Why was that? Because he was he he knew how to manipulate people because of his he's just a charming guy, smart people loved him everywhere you went. I hardly even went out with the guy because I I I couldn't I couldn't stand him in a social setting, how he acted. Very bravado, you know, which was all a bunch of lies.

SPEAKER_00 17:12

Yeah, you mean he was always busy charming other people?

SPEAKER_01 17:16

That's correct.

SPEAKER_00 17:17

Yes. Yeah. So when how did you find out that he was, I mean, your husband's going to jail. What is that like? It's a buildup.

SPEAKER_01 17:27

It doesn't happen overnight. We, you know, on an he was, he had a uh when this happened, you know, this is an old story uh of Wall Street. A lot of people who are still in Wall Street knew the story. Uh I never thought I was praying that he would get locked up. I was praying they put this guy away because he could get his ultimatum if even when I felt that I did want to leave, I was able to leave by myself. But financially, how were you going to manage? I didn't manage. That's right. I couldn't manage. But I never even got that option. If I it wasn't even the money, he wouldn't let me take the kids. He was so powerful. I stayed. There were no such things as, you know, uh shelters or, you know, uh, you know, you set go to some place, you'll get some sort of subs, you know, subsidy. I I my mother sometimes gave me money. I didn't want to keep telling my mother. My mother lived up here when she was alive, not too far from me. I I I had to take it on my own. I at that time that every decision I made was planning for what's going to come.

SPEAKER_00 18:37

So when you lock up. So, Betsy, when you went to jail, what were you how financially were you managing? What did you do? I I had to sell whatever I had.

SPEAKER_01 18:50

I had some beautiful jewelry I sold, uh, some paintings I sold.

SPEAKER_00 18:56

And but you had four children. I mean, that wouldn't be. I rented every room in my house. I'm sorry, say say that again.

SPEAKER_01 19:04

I rented rooms in my house. You rented rooms in your house? I moved myself and my girls down to the basement of the house I'm presently living in. Wow. Yeah. Wow. There's rooms for rent, but I couldn't say it because I live in a private area, so I wasn't able to say that.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Oh my god, what a you went from one extreme to another extreme.

SPEAKER_01 19:28

Well, the most important thing is because I uh that uh was I wanted to hold on to the house. I I found out even then that my house, that Jim never really paid the mortgages, and my house, when Jim was when I had to surrender Jim, uh the next day, a big uh, I think it was a deputy sheriff that came and put a poster on my tree, but they don't do those anymore. Uh my house was being foreclosed in the next three months. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 19:56

And so you took in borders, essentially.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Yes, rooms for rent on a weekly basis.

SPEAKER_00 20:03

And how did that go?

SPEAKER_01 20:04

Very well.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 20:07

I rented every room. It happened to be the summertime, it was in May. So I lived in Greenwich where I live, um, and walking distance to the train, and um I'm near the water and the beaches, and people love to come out and spend that their uh weekends in Greenwich or the summers. It worked out well.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

I rented every room on a weekly basis. By the way, did people in the community know what was going on? I mean, how did people I had a neighbor who knew?

SPEAKER_01 20:37

I oh, the one blessing in disguise, I lived in on Dead End Street. So there were only four houses. One neighbor knew, uh, and the other the other neighbors really didn't know because that that was their second home and they lived in New York City. So, but they didn't really care. I I've not to this day, I don't even know my neighbors, but that's it was okay. It was okay.

SPEAKER_00 21:02

Well, I mean, you were a very busy woman, you had four children. It must have been an overwhelming time, and you've now you've changed your house into a boarding house.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

During that time, you know, during that time, I went to work. I immediately surrendered gym, I think, on a Monday evening. By Tuesday morning, I was already working a a job. There were there was times when I was working five jobs in a week. What do you mean? What? What do you mean, five jobs in a week? Well, one one, uh I never those times uh I think um the job market was uh sorted down. I think that that's those are like the 70s, late 70s, you know, stock market. It wasn't a lot of opportunities there, so I took a lot of part time work. But it did, it did, you know, formulate to about 40 hours. I went back to um I worked for a special, I went worked for a lawyer in town. I worked in a psychiatric unit on the weekends. I worked uh taking care of private duty cases also during the week. I was a rep for Christian Deagle legware. And I sold cosmetics at Bloomingdales for Estee Lauda. And that was a week's work. Oh my God. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

How did you keep it all straight? Hold on. And on top of which, you're also renting rooms out in your house. So you have to take care of the people who are in your house.

SPEAKER_01 22:33

So uh they can leave whenever they wanted. And they basically it was my my house, my kitchen is central location. They were allowed to use my kitchen at certain hours. I didn't care. But when uh my kids came home, of course, we had the priority. And um that was it. No parties could they have anybody over, you know, no girlfriend or boyfriend, and I never rented to any couples. Why was that? Because I didn't I didn't want anybody, you know, I just didn't want it in the house. I didn't want to expose my girls to any of that, you know. Oh, you mean sex? No. My oldest girl at that time, Nicole, was only um thinking Nicole was maybe in junior high school, going into high school.

SPEAKER_00 23:15

And how did they how did they take this, their dad being in jail?

SPEAKER_01 23:22

Actually, sorry, but actually, one must meet all my girls because my girls are probably, if you think I'm strong, they're just as strong as me. Uh, and I my girls knew what I had to do. I gave them an some alternatives. The most important thing that I had said to them, that they wanted to stay in Greenwich and they wanted to stay in the house. I told them I would have to do certain things. We would have to live in the basement. And I also said, if you do one thing, if you get into any trouble, I will not be there to bail you out. And do not embarrass me any more than I have been. And that was it. And I explained the story, and it was in the headlines, it was on television, in the local New York Times, did interviews. Uh, actually, famous people called me to write a book. Alan Dershowitz called me, they wanted to do a study on me and Jim or write a book about it. I said no. Everything was no, everything was no. And my line to my girls was this don't be mad at dad. Dad has all to do to take care of himself, and that was it. And not one of my girls cried after that.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

And to this day, I think he's alive, I don't know, obviously, and he never reached out to the girls. He was an injured.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

No, that's shocking. Of all the wow, shocking. Yeah, yeah. So how did you I I mean, I can barely grasp, frankly, all that you had to do. It just seems overwhelming to me. I don't I don't know that I could have done it. I really don't. But then your life moved on. You uh rented to somebody who is now your husband. Could you tell us that story?

SPEAKER_01 25:15

Well, the one time the cute story was um, you know, the rooms were being rented, and um the art told you many jobs that I had had. So one day my daughter wanted to go to visit her friends, uh Denise. And we drove, I drove her, I was working in a 3 to 11 shift in a nursing home here in Greenwich. I said, but Felice, who's going to take you home? And she said, You see that guy over there, Mom? That's Denise's mother's fiance. So this guy that she made me look at, the cute story was he had long hair, he wore a beard, uh, a mustache, dungarees, sneakers, everything that to me is against what I think of as a guy, because my first husband, like I said, he was like movie star quality, he was wearing Gucci loafers every day, he was wearing Brooks Brother shirts, cashmere, everything. So I said to Felice, I said, and I looked at my daughter Felice, I said, Oh my god. I said, Felice, don't ever bring anything like that home to me. And we laugh. We had a fantastic laugh. She goes, why, mom? I said, if nothing else, the sneakers. She goes, you're right. And I said, the glasses, you must be blind as a bat, you know? And beard? How could you kiss anybody with a beard? She goes, You're right, you're right. No sooner, and uh no sooner when um two weeks pass, and I put an ad in the local newspaper, rooms for rent. So it was from if you came on a Monday, you left on a, you had to pay every Monday, whatever day of the week it was. So I had written to all the rooms, and then it was a Sunday evening, and he comes to the door. Bob comes to the door, and I'm telling you, I also my during that time, my father, my father, that's another story, passed away, so I was wearing, you know, that black ribbon that the Jewish people wear when they cut it, when they put the body in the grave. So uh when I entered the door and he said, Oh, I know you, he goes to me. So I said, You know me? He goes, yeah. He goes, I know about this house. This house is being foreclosed. I said, So big deal, the house is being foreclosed. He goes, and I know the original owner. So I said, Oh, and he goes, yeah. So he goes, well, the original owner says that you're in deep trouble. I said, I said, listen, buddy, do you want the room? You know? He goes, What do you mean? I said, Do you or don't you want the room? And he goes, um, because you're so mean to me. I said, I saw I said, um, do you want the room? He goes, yes. So I said to him, he goes, Well, how much is the room? So in the newspaper it said 100 to 125. I said, for you, it's 150. Until I knew I knew I was going to marry him. It's like Cupid hit me back in my shoulder. I still have the pain. And I said, and I and tears were rolling down my eyes. And he said to me, Oh, I know, Mrs. Massiello, while you're crying. I said, Hey, buddy, you have no drift while I'm crying. You know? Why were you crying? Because I knew I was gonna marry this guy. I didn't want him.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

What uh wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. What do you mean you knew you were gonna marry this person? Betsy, let me finish. Did you not tell me that he was engaged to someone else? Yes, he was. Obviously, he said that day they broke off the engagement. Well, what was it about him? You you found you didn't like the way he dressed, you couldn't stand his beard. What was it about him that made you feel that you were going to marry this guy in an instant?

SPEAKER_01 29:07

He almost came with like he almost came camouflaged. That he really also he didn't know who he was. There was something about the guy. I don't know what it was, but but I just knew it. I said, boy, if you ever shaved and and and and got regular contacts in his eyes, he's a good looking guy behind all this, you know. But maybe it's it's it's it's it's it's a very long story, but anyway.

SPEAKER_00 29:32

Well, please tell me the story because I can't I can't tell you.

SPEAKER_01 29:52

There were legitimate reasons why he might have think thought I was crying, but th none of them was that reason. What was crying was I was gonna marry this guy, and this was totally the opposite thing that I would have to look at.

SPEAKER_00 30:05

Betsy, was it a warmth that came to him? What was the feeling that you had? I don't know. There was just something about he was he was he was so directed.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

He he knew he was very thorough. He just, I needed someone who was, he's a thorough guy. He knew what he wanted. He says, I'm going to stay here. He said, What happens if I leave? He goes, I'm uh will you give me my money back if I say four days? I said, No, I don't give anybody's money back. You have a full week here. Whether you stay here or not, that's your you have that room for a week.

SPEAKER_00 30:40

I still don't understand what connection. I don't know what that part was. You don't know you yourself don't know what the con you don't know what the connection was that you felt.

SPEAKER_01 30:51

Not really, but um no, I don't know what it was. Was I madly in love with that moment? Absolutely no. No. Also he's younger than I am. I wasn't interested. Uh I knew that um I think Valisa told me that they're gonna get married, and um, I think he wants to have children with uh Denise's mother. And with me, it was like, no way, buddy. You know, I'm done. No more for me. So how did it, how did it proceed? Well, you know, so then he did rent the room for you know a couple of weeks, and one day he said to my daughter, Nicole and Felice, oh G, G, Mom, G, Mom, that guy really wants you to be nice to him. I said, Well, I don't know. So then she, and they said that he likes you, mom. I said, Well, so I said, um, I'll see Felice. So then he said to Nicole one day, my oldest girl, he goes, What's gonna make your mother be nice to me? She goes, Well, first of all, you can't wear sneakers in front of my mom. Gotta put on regular shoes. She can't stand people with a beard and a mustache. You gotta cut that and shave it. You gotta get a haircut. And you gotta wear contacts because you have really bad eyes. So Nicole said, if you want, I will take you, uh, pick me up at Greenwich High School and get out about 2:30, we'll go down Greenwich Avenue and we'll do a makeover. Is that what happened?

SPEAKER_00 32:24

Oh my god. And and so they did the makeover.

SPEAKER_01 32:28

And what happened when he did the makeover, but then also he's very handy, Bob. And my house, when Jim had left, I was doing some some construction downstairs in one of my rooms, but everything was put on hold because all my money was um frozen. And he said to me, he goes, Oh, I'm in construction. And he goes, Um, I could fix a couple of things in that room for you. I said, Oh, you can. And I was again, I wasn't really nice. I said, Well, what does that mean? I said, I have no money. I'm not going to pay you anything. I do not take it off the rent either. So he goes, No, he goes, I'm on one thing. He goes, I would love for you to make me a breakfast. I understand you're you're a fabulous cook. I said, That's all you want me to do? He goes, yeah. I said, I only have Saturday from the hours of eight to two o'clock because I'm working 3 to 11. And I and he said, I said, we'll meet here Saturday in the kitchen. So he goes down and show him the project, and I think it was in less than five minutes. And he goes, I was I'm done. And I said, he's done with the putting the doors up already. I said, I didn't even put the flame on the fried potatoes, you know? So if I get that, I said, Well, I'm done. And then I said to myself, oh, then he comes up, he goes, Well, I said, like what else? And he says, All these other little things, Betsy. And then I said to myself, I better reconsider this guy. Then I started to be a little bit nicer. A lot of things that were left around the house that needed to be done. I knew that Bob could do it, and he did do it. Yeah, he helped me out.

SPEAKER_00 34:05

So we became friends. And when did it transfer from friends to lovers?

SPEAKER_01 34:10

Well, uh he got himself, like I said, physically, he got himself together. And um we had a couple of ups and downs. He says, please, uh, let's go out. And we started a date. And was he still living in the house at that time? Living in the house. And he just looked, uh, you know, you know Bob's looks, and just one night, it was like, whoa, look what's look what he looks like there, you know. So I think uh, I don't maybe it was about six months already. And then I yeah, he asked me out, and then we had a great night. I came home, I slept with him in my net, my old, my old master bedroom, and I and he said to me, I'm in love with you, Betsy. I said, just calm yourself down, you're not in love with me. Yeah. What you really have to do is you have to move downstairs in the basement with me so we can make some more money and rent your room out. He said, You're kidding me. I said, No, no, I'm not kidding you.

SPEAKER_00 35:11

So he wait a minute. So in that basement was your four daughters and Bob?

SPEAKER_01 35:17

And me.

SPEAKER_00 35:18

I have a full uh was that that must have been in the back basement.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

I have three rooms, I uh they're different now, but I have three rooms downstairs. Yeah, two girls in each room, and me in the big room, and Bob in the room with you, yeah, and the well, the crib, because Alexis was still in the crib at that time.

SPEAKER_00 35:36

Oh my god. I I I don't know how you did all that, Betsy. I really don't. And were you at that time, were you working five jobs?

SPEAKER_01 35:45

Yes, so is Bob. Bob was in Bob had a full-time job in the city, and in the evening, sometimes he got home like three, four o'clock in the afternoon, and he went on and did a lot of side work, side jobs. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_00 35:59

My God. And so when when did you two decide this is going to be forever?

SPEAKER_01 36:07

That took many years. That that took many, that took at least a year or two years. There's too much that was happening during that time. We were trying to save the house, how to save the house. But we couldn't, we couldn't. Um my house was being foreclosed, so all the money that I had from the renters, I paid into a trustee. I filed personal bankruptcy. I had we were gone, we had to have a court hearing because the bank was going to take the house. So I tried to do good by putting the money in escrow, and I I got a lawyer took my case in Bridgeport. And uh all that money we were saving to pay off the mortgage, but it was a little bit of a dent, and Bob didn't have the credentials to uh get a mortgage for the house. So that's my house was only my house was only worth uh everybody wanted my house. My house was worth 250,000, but I couldn't sell the house for cash because I didn't know how many liens were on my house. I had many, many liens. So I was afraid if I took the cash for 250, I would might wind up owing more money. So I never took that.

SPEAKER_00 37:13

How were you how were we able to save your house?

SPEAKER_01 37:16

Well, through many, through many different stories back and forth, it's too much because we'll be here till tomorrow morning, so I have to cut some of this stuff out. Uh when the they had I had heard that um Bob was on the phone with his friend and said that he loved living in Greenwich, and he said he had $10,000 and to invest, and uh he doesn't know what he's gonna do with the money. I overheard him on the phone. He got off the phone. I said, I have a I have a proposition for you. I need you to go to to Richford uh housing court with me and tell the court that you are going to uh you're interested in buying my house, but right now you're if if we do not make the mortgages good, you have money to show that you could take it from your mortgage bar, your money. So he goes, so what do I get in turn as a result of that? I said, if and when we can refinance the house, you will be the owner of my house. And you will get any money that you put in. You will be my partner, because I'll never be able to get a mortgage, but you will be able to. I had made it up, by the way. And then in 19, I think it was 1988, it became when they had the mortgages, you didn't have to verify how much you made. Remember that time at all? No. I was not aware of any of that. The time in the 80s that the government said, on you didn't have to you didn't have to report, you just had to report that you had a job and made X amount of money a month. They were giving mortgages out. I called Bob at work. I said, You can apply. I heard on the radio, I want you to apply it to uh, I think it was Chemical Bank, see if you can get a mortgage on the house, because now the real estate in Greenwich was a real estate boom. Everyone wanted to live in Greenwich. So I had 200 and let's say $38,000 lien on my house. My house got reassessed when the housing market went up for over $532,000. So we had equity in the house, and Bob applied for a mortgage and got it.

SPEAKER_00 39:30

And now where are you with so we're able?

SPEAKER_01 39:34

So we were able to go to the court, and I uh we we were going to pay the mortgage off, pay all the liens off, and then the house is going to belong to Bob. So I kept, you'd have I went to the courthouse. I said, okay, Mrs. Massiello, you're in bankruptcy, but do you did you ever you have to come up with a plan? I said, I got the plan today. And the lawyer said Mrs. Massiello had uh is going to sell the house to Robert Knapp, and he he already has the money in escrow. He got a mortgage bop, and we're here to pay off all the creditors. And that's what happened. And the bank went crazy. The lawyers went crazy for the bank because now they would they know they wanted that other 250,000. They wanted to take my house over. But in the state of Connecticut, if you had girls that was a family certain age, they couldn't do that. So Bob bought the house. That was one chapter that ended.

SPEAKER_00 40:31

And when did you and Bob get married?

SPEAKER_01 40:35

I think it was two years after that.

SPEAKER_00 40:37

And then you started a new business together.

SPEAKER_01 40:39

Yeah, yes. I I actually think we should leave this for another day, my business, because I think this is so so much to to uh to absorb.

SPEAKER_00 40:48

All right, but one thing I want everyone to know is that you and Bob now you're happily married and you are in a very successful business in Greenwich. All right, Bessie, thank you so much. You really are exactly what I said a true role model. Goodbye. I love you. Bye, darling.