South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-10-19
DRIVER OF TRUCK
BECOMES SINGER
Morris HOrnfieId After Many
Experiences is Started on
Road to Fame.
BY Gotham Knickerbocker.


NEW YORK. oct. IA beautiful
voice may be born anywhere.
Several days ago a horny handed
truck driver, a short, heavy chested,
dark complexioned young man. sat on
a bench in lower Riverside. park He
was temporarily out Of a job. and per-
haps his dreams went back to the
morning 16 years before when he bid
his old home in Roumania goodbye.
Signing, he got up from his bench
and walked across w. Seventy-Second
st. He heard a beautiful girls voice
singing an opera tune and himself be-
gan 10 hum "Donia," a Roumanian
love song. The singing of the girl
charmed him. Again and again he
passed the house, summoning cour-
age.
The maid employed in the Aborn
school for opera glasses opened the
door 20 find a rough looking man on
the steps. He hesitated, seemed on
the point Of leaving, and finally blurt-
ed
II. too, can sing. ] want to sing for
them up there"
Maid Closes the Door
Thinking this some strange new
kind OF beggar. the maid closed the
door. But soon the bell rang again
and the truck drivers plea was over
heard by Mrs. Alice Parker, a vocal
instructor.
let him try" she said.
A few minutes later passersby In
the street stopped TO listen TO wonder.
full notes Of songs in an unknown
tongue pouring from the Aborn rooms.
The truck driver sang "Naptatrito
Plassinse," and other Roumanian IA
vorites, and then without the piano he
roared forth when the Sands Of the
Desert Grow Cold"
At the end, when everybody had
applauded. Mrs. Parker asked her
visitor TO come the next day and sing
for Milton AbOrn.
Two hours before the appointment
n furniture van stopped before the
door. IL was the truck driver. He
had got another job and was not
overlooking the bread and butter for
his wife and himself while pursuing
the muse.
Mr.. Aborn heard him and wondered.
Then he began to figure. The result
was that Morris HOrnfeld, his name
shortened to Horn, went out OF the
studio with a 1ve-year contract under
his coat. He starts as a pupil OF Mr..
Aborn at So a week and when his
equally I'm his earnings.
Now Sees 81 900 a Week.
So Morris, the poor truck driver, has
a prospect OF $1,000 a week a few
years hence. Music folk who had
heard him say his voice is to be class
ed with Caruso's. While his six-inch
Ehest expansion means extreme power,
he is capable OF the greatest tender
ness when his song requires II.
The story of his life which Horn re-
lated to Mr.. AbOrn sounds like fiction.
He is 30 years old. His father and
mother, who kept an inn in Galatz,
Roumania. were murdered by robbers
when he was a baby and relatives
brought him up.
When IL years old he walked to a
port and sail I'D to New Y ork. 4 society
sent him to Hartford, Conn, where
ne was apprenticed to a shoemaker
who beat him He ran away. sold
peaches and vegetables on the streets
Of New York, ran errands, got job as
a motorman, was a street cleaner ana
even a professional boxer at Ike Fed
9nsky's club
Everywhere sang| said Morris.
Il could not live without singing. My
wife, Yetta, would sometimes shoe me
out OF the fiat, she got so tired OF It.
No, / never have been inside an
opera house. But / have heard Caruso
sing on a photograph and 1 have tried
% initiate him.
Mr. Aborn says no vaudeville man
ager will get his find" away from
lim. Hhe thinks that some day Nor
is Horn viii make the rafters Of the
Metropolitan opera house tremble.