He came back full of ideas that were in vogue and all the rage in the United States at that time. One of them was not to work as an employee, but to be an independent person running his own business. This became an “idee fix” with him, an obsession that he pursed all his life, he could never contemplate the idea of working as an employee. This was one of the curses that guided all his actions and we (his children), lived the disasters that this aberration drove him to; our impression was this was like living an hallucination. We witnessed his defeats, and the misery they brought with them.
I believe that there was not a job he did not try, but he was an honest man, without a blemish. Truthful beyond belief, he believed in 'a man's word is his bond' and that everybody was equally honest; the result was he invariably became a victim of all his partners in the ventures he undertook and of those he employed (he was always cheated). He undertook all sorts of work; he was a grain merchant in Venado Tuerto and Villa Constitucion, Province of Santa Fe, he was ruined. He had a farm in Guamini, where I was born and after 9 years he was ruined again. My father had not only lost his money, he also lost the money his parents and in laws had loaned him.
My father never mentions what their circumstances were in Guamini, or how they got back to Buenos Aires. From my own visit to Guamini I know that the railway had already got there, the station was there and so was the 'almacen' (grocer or general warehouse) from which they would have got their supplies.
My grandmother once told me that when everything went pear shaped, she said to her Robert: "I have had enough of this, I am going back”, She quietly got things ready and with the children and luggage, went back to Buenos Aires in 'carreta'(a 2 wheeled bullock cart covered with cow hide). It took three weeks to get back.
