Edith Schnitzer Goodman was the daughter of Sam and Rose Schnitzer. Her father started his life in Oregon as a junk peddler and ended it as the owner of the vast Schnitzer Steel Corporation. Edith had six siblings: brothers Manuel, Morris, Gilbert, Harold and Leonard and sister Molly Schnitzer (Levine). She was a graduate of Lincoln …
Read MoreIn 1916, Bernice met Henry Feldman in New York when she was 19. They subsequently married and moved to Portland. Henry’s parents were born in Germany and settled in Portland when they immigrated to the United States. He had four siblings, all of whom lived in Portland: Joseph, Henry, Gus and Elise (who married Herbert …
Read MoreSylvan Durkheimer was born March 14, 1893 in Burns, Oregon. Both of his grandfathers immigrated to the United States in their early teens to escape the military draft in Germany. His paternal grandfather, Kaufman Durkheimer, came to the US from Bavaria in 1839 and to Portland in 1865 by boat around South America. His maternal grandfather, …
Read MoreStuart Durkheimer was the second son of Sylvan and Dorothy Durkheimer. His paternal grandfather had come from Bavaria in the mid-19th century and was one of the early Jewish pioneers in Oregon. Stuart and his siblings, James, Marian (Jaffe) and Eloise (Spiegel) grew up in Northwest Portland and attended Chapman Elementary and Lincoln High School. The family …
Read MoreFelice Lauterstein Driesen was born in Portland, Oregon on February 17, 1919 to a family that had been in Portland for several generations already. Her grandfather, Rabbi Henry Nathan Heller was born in Pressburg, Austria-Hungary from a family with a long rabbinical history. A trained musician, he attended the Conservatory of Music in Copenhagen under …
Read MoreMarguerite Swett Dilsheimer was born on March 20, 1904. Marguerite’s family were Jewish pioneers in Oregon. Her mother, Julia Segal Swett had five sisters: Molly Segal, Bess Segal Bogen (Idaho), Esther Segal Goldman (Kansas City), Ann Segal, Evelyn Segal Savinar. Marguerite’s father, Isaac Swett was eight years old when their family arrived in Oregon. Isaac and …
Read MoreMoses (Scotty) Cohen was born on March 10, 1902 in Glasgow, Scotland. He immigrated to Portland in 1911 with his mother and siblings; his father came to Portland five years earlier. Scotty lived with his father, mother, five brothers and three sisters in a small apartment in South Portland. His family was very poor. Scotty’s father …
Read MoreHarriet Bodner was born on June 17, 1920 in Portland, Oregon to Helen and Victor Hoeflich. After they divorced in 1925 Victor moved to New York where he was a musician and later a successful manufacturer of party favors. Hannah changed their last name back to Goodman and moved in with her parents, Dora and Charles …
Read MoreHannah Mihlstin Bodner was born in New York on December 31, 1891 to immigrant parents who had come to America separately from Hungary and Austria and had met in New York. Shortly after Hannah was born, they moved to Tacoma, WA, where her father worked as a roofer and builder. He was offered a job with …
Read MoreGeorge Bodner was born on April 13, 1919 in Portland, to Jacob and Hannah Mihlstin Bodner. He had two brothers, Herbert and Robert. George’s father owned his own tailoring business on NW 23rd and Savier, and as a child George lived in a mixed gentile/Jewish neighborhood behind the tailor shop. The family moved to New York …
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