Me & Issy: A Four Seasons Romance

by Rosalie Wise Sharp

Overview

The rags to riches tale of a larger-than-life romance of over seven decades

Me & Issy is a love story about how a troubled and deprived child grew up and chanced to meet a man who worshipped her, brought her a fantasy life of four boys and extraordinary opulence — and banished her self-doubt. She in her turn was awestruck and mystified by his acumen and daring during his founding of the Four Seasons Hotels.

Beginning with her childhood in North Toronto, in a very Jewish home surrounded by non-Jews, Rosalie enchants us with anecdotes about her family, Isadore Sharp’s family, and the growth of their own in the light of the expanding Four Seasons chain. How did she go to the Ontario College of Art & Design while simultaneously raising four rambunctious boys? How did Issy open hotel after hotel with only his collateral of confidence and charisma? Rosalie is a rapt follower of his astonishing success and the first fan of his legendary town hall talks to 40,000 employees.

And with success came tragedy. The devastating death of their son Chris shook them, but they coped. Here, all of Rosalie’s life is opened up for viewing, the good and the bad, the success and the failures, but especially her inspired romance with Issy. In the words of their second eldest son, Greg, “Their mutual love and respect growing stronger over the past 69 years is as extraordinary as it is beautiful.”

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781770417120
Publisher:	ECW Press
Publication date:	09/06/2022
Edition description:	No Edition
Pages:	280
Product dimensions:	6.50(w) x 8.75(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Rosalie Wise Sharp was born and raised in North Toronto, where she currently lives. Rosalie is an interior designer, writer, painter, and mother. She is the editor of Growing Up Jewish and the author of Rifke; Ceramics, Ethics & Scandal; and China to Light Up a House. Her website RosalieWiseSharp.com, showing 225 of her paintings, was created by Greg Sharp.

Read an Excerpt

In this, the year of the pandemic, Issy has been rooting around in his past to understand his success. Why did he never have a fear of failure? What were the way posts? Recently Issy’s high school friend, Herb Noble, came to dinner bringing a binder full of items describing why Isadore was the most popular kid at school. This was a shock to Issy, who has never had, he says, any “ego.” Why was it that the principal of Forest Hill Collegiate Institute asked him to be the spokesperson to garner student support for an indoor skating rink? And the day my father locked me out, Issy instinctively acted responsibly by speaking to him immediately and making such a winning case, maybe because his parents taught him to do what needed to be done, as soon as possible. Issy credits this visit to my father as another of the landmarks for his success that he’s just dug up from his youth.

It took five years of begging, borrowing, and debating, to produce the first hotel, which happened only because of Issy’s persuasive charisma, which to him is a mystery he’s trying to figure out now that there is a lull. Perhaps it’s his self-confidence just short of loftiness rather like Lil Sharp, or maybe it’s the low-key appeal that makes him so likeable. Sometimes while we were driving around the city, instead of paying attention to the road, he would be craning his neck out the car window, looking for possible sites. Now he had two jobs: building apartment towers all day, and at night sitting at a typewriter in our spare room with one finger pecking out proposals for hotels on various sites he had on hold. These three-page prospectuses would then be packaged in a colourful cardboard folder, and the next hurdle was to find investors. So Issy would park himself regularly on the doorstep of Cecil Forsythe, of Great-West Life Insurance, and pester him for money. After three years of proposals, Forsythe — who of course had taken a liking to Issy — finally caved in and pledged half the financing. With the promise from the trades to hold off on their pay, and with $90,000 each from Issy and two partners — his brother-in-law Eddie Creed and a friend, Murray Koffler. Another friend, Wally Cohen, to his everlasting regret failed to invest.

Table of Contents

Introduction 7

Chapter 1 Snooping around in the Past 11

Chapter 2 Girl Meets Boy 29

Chapter 3 Paths across the Sky 49

Chapter 4 Growing Up the Hard Way 69

Chapter 5 None of the World's Goods 95

Chapter 6 The Wind in the Willows 117

Chapter 7 The Lost Genes 129

Chapter 8 High School Capers 141

Chapter 9 Go Together like a Horse and Carriage 155

Chapter 10 Our Dream House 173

Chapter 11 What Flower Is That? 203

Chapter 12 Disaster at Its Worst 209

Chapter 13 Not a Decorator 219

Chapter 14 A Train across India 239

Chapter 15 Our Last House 253

Chapter 16 260 Oil-on-Canvasses 269

Acknowledgements 279

Editorial Reviews

Behind every successful man, there is a ... ? In her case, Rosalie Sharp has always stood right next to her legendary husband. Giving us a portrait of both symbiosis and substance, it is all here: love, loss, and hospitality.” — Shinan Govani, Toronto Star columnist

“Yes, I had always heard stories about Isadore Sharp, the founder of the Four Seasons Hotel chain. However, I knew nothing about his backstory. His wife Rosalie left no stone unturned in her magnificent memoir.” — The Jewish Standard

“Me & Issy: A Four Seasons Romance is quite simply an inspiring and enjoyable memoir. Leaving no stone unturned, the author Rosalie Wise Sharp is honest and forthright in laying out her life to the world. Readers will appreciate the conversational style and will immediately feel at home with the author, as if they were sipping tea from her beautiful china, sharing secrets of her love life.” — The Miramichi Reader

“Me & Issy: A Four Seasons Romance by Rosalie Wise Sharp is an overview of a life well-lived, taking the good with the bad, and enjoying life to the fullest despite its challenges. Now being married for almost 70 years, there are many lessons to take away from this book and this couple, and luckily Rosalie wraps it up in an entertaining package.” — I’ve Read This blog

From the Publisher