Faith is very important my life. I was born and brought up a catholic. At six years old I started to go to catholic school, Saint Jerome’s in Brooklyn. The good nuns were nice to me for two reasons: I was a smart little kid, and I was poor.

I was the one who was asked to come into the convent when I was in sixth or seventh grade to wax the floors. Afterwards I would get a chocolate and cookies! I was the kid who erased the board. I did very well in school and I like to school. In summers when I was out of school I couldn’t wait to get back there. There was nothing to do.

With all my degrees, and 85% plus average I was not a star. I know I should have worked harder than I did but I enjoyed it.

These days we have a seventh day Adventists and other people come to the door. I tell them I appreciate what they’re doing and that I am a practicing Roman catholic, and have been for 70 years. I congratulate them on their effort and tell them that some of our neighbors might be more interested in their stuff.

The biggest thing that my faith gave me, and I always knew it throughout my career, was a sense of right and wrong. I never had a problem where I had to compromise, thank god, to the wrong. Maybe I wasn’t tested enough. But anytime I was tested I would advocate that we didn’t do it because it wasn’t right.

So I give Moses credit for the Ten Commandments. I think they work. My mother used to say to me: “you have to have a very, very good memory if you are going to lie!”

A couple of my kids went to catholic grammar school. We moved around so much that some of them went to public schools; good public schools, thank goodness. They were all brought up in their religion when they were in the family. I’ve got five kids; three of them are divorced.

They all say that they got a good sense of values from the family. My first mother-in-law used to say that people fall into love too fast and fall out of love to easily.