Abraham, the first American to reach the New York area, spent his days on the west coast and was one of the first settlers to the region.
His descendants have a long tradition of making trips, and Abraham’s was one.
“I’ve seen so many people in this area that I’ve known my whole life,” he said.
Abraham’s family moved to New York when he was 10 years old, and in his later years, he was a self-proclaimed “furry friend of all furries.”
His first trip was to a petting zoo in the Bronx, where he found a “little guy with a tail,” he recalled.
“That’s how I got my name,” he told The Sun.
A year later, Abraham got a job at the New York Post, and after the war, he went to work for the Post’s New York Times bureau in Washington, D.C. “My job was to write the newspaper.
I got a little bit of a reputation for being a real paper man,” he added.
In the 1940s and 50s, Abraham’s brother, Abe, was a writer and editor in New York, and he taught his family to be writers.
He also gave Abraham’s mother a job as a news editor.
While his family lived in New Jersey and California, Abraham moved to Manhattan in 1962 to be closer to his family and the new city.
“I had the opportunity to get a job with the National Enquirer,” he remembered.
The Enquirers ran stories about Abraham, and the family took pride in their accomplishments, but in 1965, Abraham was charged with breaking a newspaper’s ethics code.
He was convicted and sent to prison for three years.
As he was spending time behind bars, Abraham made the trip to New Orleans, Louisiana, where his wife and daughter were staying.
“We’d seen it a lot of times, so I wanted to go back to New Jersey,” he reminisced.
When he returned, he took his family along for the trip.
A few years later, he decided to take a trip to see his family.
Abraham’s daughter and son-in-law were planning to return to New England, but he wanted to visit his family in New England.
He decided to use his brother’s boat, which had been built in 1856.
He went down to New Hampshire to make the trip, and was surprised to see how many people had stopped by.
“There were people there, they were excited to see us,” he recounted.
Later that year, Abraham and his family returned to New Mexico, and his son and daughter-in law, along with a few of his friends, stayed for the night.
On their first night in New Mexico after the trip was over, Abraham said, he felt that his family had “become something of a family.”
“There was a sense of belonging,” he continued.
“And I think that’s what you find in a family.
There’s a sense that you’ve known each other your whole life.
You don’t always feel like you belong.”
The next day, Abraham went to the family’s camp, where the family was staying, and they made a reservation.
Abraham and the other members of his family stayed for two nights, while his wife, a New England woman named Mary, and her two children slept in the tent.
“It’s a really special feeling when you’re with a family and you can get to know them and they can talk to you,” he explained.
It was only the second time in their lives that Abraham and Mary had been able to make it back to the New England area.
He said that after the experience, he became “really, really close to my family and to New Zealand.”
When the family finally made it back, Abraham found himself standing in a line of people waiting to see the family.
“You don’t want to be standing in line like that,” he lamented.
There were about 200 people waiting, and at first, he thought, “Oh my God, I have to tell them something.”
He asked his son, who was the driver, “Why are you in a long line?”
The driver replied, “Because there’s no way they can find us.”
But after a few minutes, he began to laugh.
“It was just a big laugh,” he noted.
“This is what you get when you try to go on an adventure.”
After making a few more stops along the way, Abraham finally saw his family again.
“They were very grateful for the visit,” he reflected.
“In the middle of the night, you can’t get any sleep.”
In 2016, Abraham wrote a memoir about his life in New Hampshire called The New Jersey Family.
His book was recently selected for a National Book Award. Read