A Collection of Half-Dollars

He was 21, penniless and alone, when he arrived in 1906 from Russia. A gnome of a man, Charles Fraiman put a pack on his back and peddled old clothes from door to door in the outskirts of Philadelphia, until he had enough money to buy a horse and wagon and go into the junk business. He used to say he made $1.50 a day--50-c- for his horse, 50-c- for himself, and 50-c- for his savings.

The half-dollars he saved grew steadily, and for good reason. Fraiman lived like a pauper. His home was surrounded by his junkyard near Hatboro, Pa., 15 miles north of Philadelphia. He used an outhouse, burned wood in his stove, ate out of cans. He paid a marriage broker only $15 of the promised $50 fee for finding him a wife, on the theory that it might not work out. It didn't, not after she was extravagant enough on one occasion to squander $1 for a taxi ride home.

Fraiman's miserly motivation was simple enough. He wanted to help Jewish boys get the learning in school that he had wrested by himself from his Bible and unabridged dictionary. Some 20 years ago, he made a special trip to New York City's Yeshiva University to walk the halls of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary and to talk hesitantly with the scholars.

Last month, 74 and alone, Junkman Fraiman died in Philadelphia's Lankenau Hospital of coronary thrombosis. Last week Yeshiva officials blinked at the totally unexpected news that he had left the university some $250,000. Try as they might, no one could remember the little man who had paid Yeshiva a visit two decades ago.

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