Hyman Krakover

Los Angles deaf man Hyman Krakover - From the Harry G. Lang Collection At SMECC...
We believe he obtained it from the Marsters collection.

Barry S. states: " I lived in Los Angeles for a short time and was acquainted with Hyman, but
that was before TTYs came in fashion. A regular fellow and a quiet time,
not the one to attract attention to himself. He faded away from the scene
by the time I became Exec Dir. Am surprised about him because it was Joe
Slotnick who was a prime mover with the TTY machines in the Los Angeles
area. Really don't know too much about Hyman's involvement."

Joe Slotnick tells us: "...Photo of Hyman Krakover shows him in his workshop in his garage in Beverly Hills. I myself taught him the fundamentals of M15/19 machines operation and helped set him up in his workshop. He died some 20 or so years ago, I believe. When Joel L. Webber Sr. applied to me to "learn them machines" I instructed him to go to Krakover and learn the rudiments. Webber was more or less the first purely manual deaf person I ever met face to face; he used ASL. (He is also gone nowadays) Krakover was a lipreader and easier for me to communicate with. Later Webber complained that he was learning nothing from Krakover, so I rolled up my sleeves, took out pencil and paper and showed Webber the basics in my own garage. I say that my knowledge of and use of sign language sprang up from working with Webber... Watching him scribbling away his order to waiter in a restaurant I scratched my head and said to myself: "Hey, that guy makes no bones about being deaf, while I myself try very hard to hide it!" My speech is not perfect, but the practiced person (i. e., been around deaf persons) can tell I am deaf. My lipreading likewise has gone down due to age and weaker eyes... As I get older I am more accepting of the fact that it is a cruel world of hearing people out there for us deaf people! Ha

I have some stories about our TTY days. I recall the time Marsters borrowed a big stake truck from his nurse's husband's construction company (Marsters was an orthodontist with a successful practise) and he and I drove it up to the Bay area one weekend where we picked up Bob Weitbrecht and went to an AT&T warehouse. We loaded the truck with lots of M15's and M19's and drove it back to Los Angeles (like as not you may have a photo of me and my young son - he's now 51 years old - posing on top of this truck?). I smile when I remember Marsters checking in at the motel office and asking for "a room for truckers?"