House Oversight — Estate records
HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_022058
James Patterson 2 4
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CHAPTER 20 Jeffrey Epstein: 1953-1969 Jeffrey Epstein's mother, Paula, was the daughter of Max and Lena Stolofsky, who arrived in the United States as Lithua- nian refugees. Relatives on that side of the family who remained in the old country would all perish in the course of Adolf Hitler's campaign to exterminate European Jewry. Epstein's father, Seymour, was a manual laborer, like his father before him. Seymour's parents, Julius and Bessie Epstein, had emigrated from Russia and landed in Brooklyn, both of them with eighth-grade educations. They lived in Crown Heights, where Julius owned a house-wrecking company. Before landing a job with the city, Seymour had worked with his father. They were kind people, says Epstein's childhood friend Gary Grossberg. Seymour was there for him at a difficult time, Gross- berg says. When Grossberg was young, his parents divorced, and 89 JAMES PATTERSON his father moved out of Brooklyn. Seymour and Paula took Gary in. Often they referred to him as their third son. "Paula was a wonderful mother and homemaker," Grossberg remembers, "despite the fact that she had a full-time job." Epstein, as a kid, was "chubby, with curly hair and a high, `hee-hee' kind of laugh," Beverly Donatelli recalls.* Beverly was two years older than Epstein, but thanks to his precocious tal- ents, which allowed him to skip two grades, they graduated from Brooklyn's Lafayette High School together, in 1969. "He was advanced," Beverly remembers. "He tutored my girl- friend and myself in the summer. He taught me geometry in just two months." When Beverly thinks of Epstein now, she recalls gentler times— long strolls down the Coney Island boardwalk, roller-coaster rides, stolen kisses. "That last year in school, I think he kind of loved me," she says. "One night on the beach he kissed me. In fact, our history teacher made up a mock wedding invitation for Jeffrey and myself to show to the class. That seems pretty inappropriate now. […]