Salamon DeZara first learned the salesman skills that would eventually find a home in his successful carpet company as a teenager when he dropped out of school to work for a wholesaler in a large open-air bazaar in his native Istanbul.
“His family was poor and lived in a poor Jewish section of Istanbul,” said his oldest son, Max, “so he only had a 6th grade education because he quit school to help support his family.”
Mr. DeZara, 81, of Chicago, retired founder of Luna Carpet Co., died of a heart attack Friday, Oct. 21, in Rush University Medical Center.
The long journey to his retirement from Luna–started as an in-home shopping plastic slipcover company run out of his two-bedroom apartment on Chicago’s West Side–began in a Turkish market.
Mr. DeZara was drafted into the Turkish army at 18 and after his discharge four years later, he opened a button business in the bazaar, often traveling to Greece, France and other parts of Europe to sell his wares.
In 1956 he immigrated to Chicago to live with his sister, Ester Hannan. A few months after his arrival, he met his first wife, Mercedes, and the couple married the following year, settling into a studio apartment next to the “L” tracks. Nine months later, the first of their three sons was born.
Mr. DeZara taught himself English through conversations with his wife and neighbors.
His first job in Chicago was working for minimum wage in a bookbinding factory. A few months later, he found a man with a clothing store who gave him clothes on consignment that he peddled door to door on weekends. The next year a friend connected him with a plastic slipcover company, where he was hired as a cutter and deliveryman. He worked there during the week when not at the factory.
In 1958 he quit his factory job and launched his company, naming it Luna, which means moon in Spanish, in memory of the moon over the water in his native country. He peddled clothes on weekends until 1960.
Mr. DeZara was a Sephardic Jew, whose ancestors fled Spain during the Spanish Inquisition and then were welcomed by the Ottoman Empire.
Although he spoke several languages, Mr. DeZara relied on his native Spanish to build a clientele for Luna that focused exclusively on the Hispanic community, whose members called him Senor Luna.
Within a couple of years, he rented a small storefront on Armitage Avenue in the Northwest Side and began advertising on WCIU-Ch. 26, which until about 15 years ago offered strictly Spanish programming. He quickly became a friend of the station’s then-general manager, Peter Zomoya.
“He was an unusual man, very compassionate and caring man,” Zomoya said. “No matter who came across him, they were impressed.” Until recently, the two men often would go out to lunch, and served as each other’s sounding board when they had a problem.
Mr. DeZara bought a building at 3141 Fullerton Ave. for his business in the 1960s and a few years later added carpets to the business. He expanded into another building next door in the mid-1980s and retired in 1988, giving the business to his two younger sons, who had joined the company a few years earlier.
“He created a household brand name in the Hispanic community and my brothers built on that success and turned Luna into a household name in the general market,” Max DeZara said. The company now operates out of its warehouse in Bellwood.
After divorcing his first wife, he married his second wife, Yolanda, in 1981. They divorced four years later. About 10 years ago, he became the devoted companion of Olga Moreland, who died last year.
Besides his son and sister, he is survived by two other sons, Morrie and Steve; and five grandchildren.
Services have been held.
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bsherlock@tribune.com
