Pieces of Kings Mountain History

David Neisler shared a story with the Herald last week about the life of Arnold Shulman, a child whose family brought him to Kings Mountain, where they were enumerated in Route 6 during the 1940 census. All the adults in the home worked as partners in Shulman’s Department Stores,

Born in Pennsylvania on August 11, 1925, Arnold would have been approximately 15-years old when the census was taken.

Arnold was the son of Herman Shulman who was not living with the family in 1940. All the adults in the home were born in Russia. Despite the hardships Arnold faced in childhood, he led an amazing life.

Below is the story

David shared:

How the grandson of a local merchant became one of Hollywood’s most successful screenwriters

Although he lived in Kings Mountain only a few years during the early 1930s, Sam Schulman was well-known in our community as a successful merchant, operating Schulman Department

Stores in Cherryville, Bessemer City, and Kings Mountain.

In 1937, the family faced a crisis when Sam’s son Herman lost his young wife to a ruptured appendix. A few weeks later, Herman abruptly abandoned his only child, an eleven-year boy named Arnold, forcing the family to ship him off to his Grandfather Sam, who now lived near Bessemer City.

It proved to be an unnerving experience for the frightened young boy. “My grandfather never looked at me, never spoke to me,” Arnold Schulman later told the Writers Guild Foundation, “he put no sheets on my bed, no plate out for me to eat. I would wait until after he was asleep to sneak into the kitchen and scrape the food from around the bowl so he wouldn’t see that any food was missing.”

After taking this treatment for a few weeks, eleven-year-old Arnold Schulman hitchhiked his way from Gaston County to New York City where he lived in the basement of the New York City Library, stealing food during the day and hiding in the book carrels at night. Each evening, he would read books to pass away the time, dreaming of becoming a writer.

“I couldn’t understand most of the words,” Arnold recalled, “so I decided to return to Bessemer City and get an education. I don’t think my grandfather had even realized I had left.”

Arnold Schulman became an outstanding member of the Class of 1941 at Bessemer City High School, earning an academic scholarship to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

In a 1974 interview with The Gastonia Gazette, his English teacher, Helen Neal of Kings Mountain, recalled the future writer as “a most enjoyable pupil...he was always well-liked by his classmates.”

Schulman’s stay at the University of North Carolina was brief. He soon entered the United States Navy, eventually becoming an aerial photographer in the Pacific during World War II. After the conflict Schulman traveled to New York City where he took classes in playwriting at the American Theatre Wing. His first big break occurred in 1959 when director Frank Capra purchased his play A Hole in the Head as a vehicle for Frank Sinatra. The movie was a hit, earning the young playwright nearly $200,000.