Frances Aiken Wolfe

Frankel:  Good morning. I will ask you to begin by stating your full name, place and date of your birth.
WOLFE:  My full name is Adrienne Francis Wolfe. We dropped the Adrienne immediately. I was born in Pocatello, Idaho and I lived in Ogden, Utah until I was 16 when I moved to Portland, Oregon.

Frankel: And when were you born?
WOLFE: February 12, 1924.

Frankel: So tell me a little bit about how your family got to Pocatello, Idaho where you were born.
WOLFE: My father worked for the Union Pacific railroad. He was with the dining car department. They were living in Ogden, where my two brothers were born, and the depot burned down. They transferred him to Pocatello, Idaho and that’s how I was born there.

Frankel: Can you name the names of your parents?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. My father’s name was Frank Bethel Aiken and my mother’s name was Miriam Boskowitz Aiken.

Frankel: Before the tape was on you were telling me about your grandparents, who were the first ones to have….
WOLFE: My grandfather came west and opened a small dry goods store in Union, Oregon where my mother was born. All the family were born in Union. I am not sure, I guess eventually, as they did in those days (there were so many depressions) they moved to Portland.

Frankel: Do you recall when he moved to Union?
WOLFE: Oh, I have no recollection of that. I wasn’t born then. All those things should have been with aunts or with my mother.

Frankel: What was the name of your grandfather and grandmother?
WOLFE: My grandmother’s name was Sarah Boskowitz and my grandfather’s name was Isaac Boskowitz.

Frankel: How many children did they have?
WOLFE: They had, let me see. My mother, Miriam, Anselm, Mina, and Fred.

Frankel: Four children. Was your mother the oldest?
WOLFE: No, my mother was the youngest.

Frankel: And when they moved to Portland did he continue his business?
WOLFE: I don’t know. He died, I think, a few years after that. He wasn’t well and he developed gangrene and died of that, my grandfather.

Frankel: And your paternal grandparents?
WOLFE: I knew very little. My grandfather Aiken died as a very young man of some disease. He lived in Indiana. My father was born in Evansville, Indiana. And my grandmother on the Aiken side, I don’t remember when she died, but I have two aunts; my father had two sisters and brother there. But I never met them.

Frankel: So you grew up in Pocatello?
WOLFE: No, my father, when I was a year and half old, went back to Ogden.

Frankel: Did you have any extended family in Ogden?
WOLFE: No, just my mother and father, my two brothers and myself.

Frankel: So that constituted your family. What are the names of your brothers?
WOLFE: My brother was Henry David Aiken and my other brother was Edward Isaac Aiken.

Frankel: And what are your earliest memories?
WOLFE: Oh, growing up I had a wonderful childhood. I could bore you for a long, long time. My dad working for the Union Pacific Railroad, all the railroads decided when, after World War I to open up places in Yellowstone. Northern Pacific had one entrance, Great Northern had another and my dad, working for Union Pacific was at West Yellowstone. They came up there in the summertime. At that time they set up boxcars and that is what they lived in. The people worked and they lived there every summer. I had a wonderful childhood there.

Frankel: So the whole family moved there in the summer?
WOLFE: Yes, we did. Finally they built a small depot and a dining lodge. My father ran that. Eventually they built this absolutely magnificent dining lodge, which I remember with great happiness. It was very primitive, and a wonderful childhood. There were no sidewalks in West Yellowstone and the roads were rocky. Being brought up by the Union Pacific we did have running water and toilets. Everybody else had outhouses. I was up there every year from the time I was a little girl. We spent every summer from June until the beginning of September when school started and we went back down to Ogden.

Frankel: What kind of Jewish life was there?
WOLFE: Well, in Ogden there was a very small synagogue. We had about 12 Jewish families. Sometimes you would have religious school and sometimes you wouldn’t. The men did the religious school [teaching] and if they weren’t too tired, we had classes and if they were too tired we didn’t, because they worked very hard. I want to add this: I had the good fortune of having lived there. I had friends who were Presbyterians, Mormons, and every group. People I know find that the Mormons are difficult. I was very fortunate. I had very close friends and I went to their dances at the wards and all. I was very fortunate in my childhood.

Frankel: People knew you were Jewish?
WOLFE: Oh, heavens! Everybody knew we were Jewish. Only once in my life did I ever run into antisemitism. That was a teacher when I was in junior high school (in Ogden) and my mother…I came home and told my mother and she went marching over to the school and the next day there was an assembly. They didn’t pick on the teacher but they said, “We have heard that there was a problem and we won’t stand for that.”

Frankel: What exactly had happened?
WOLFE: We were talking about Shakespeare and Shylock and I can’t remember exactly her words, but she made some derogatory remark. And that is the only time from living in Ogden that I remember running into antisemitism.

Frankel: So did you know they other 12 Jewish families?
WOLFE: Oh, yes of course. We celebrated Hanukkah and Passover. Many times my father, he ran the dining room at the depot. He wasn’t always able to have dinner with us, or lunch. He worked long, hard hours and he was blessed in keeping his job during the depression. That was very fortunate. They kept cutting his salary, but at least he was able to work.

Frankel: At home did you have Friday nights?
WOLFE: Mother always lit the candles. Occasionally, it depended if the men would take turns, sometimes you would walk down to the little shul and they were just too tired. When you live in a small town it is entirely different than living in a city. People are very often surprised at what didn’t happen and what very often couldn’t happen. 

Frankel: Was your family politically involved?
WOLFE: My mother was a little bit. My dad didn’t really have time to be involved. But my mother was. We would talk about politics and we always listened to the news every night on the radio. We sat around the dining room table and did our studies. We would have the radio on and we would hear all the things that were happening in the world.

Frankel: Your brothers were older than you?
WOLFE: Yes, one brother was eleven years older and one was nine. I always said to my mother, “Oh, I was the mistake.” She said, “You were not.” She never would admit it. [laughs]

Frankel: And did they encounter antisemitism? Your brothers?
WOLFE: Not that I know of. You know, when there is that tremendous gap in age. But I never heard them say.

Frankel: Did they have bar mitzvahs?
WOLFE: No. There were no bar mitzvahs, even of the other boys. We could have gone down to Salt Lake, but that was quite a trip in those days. We didn’t own a car. And people just didn’t have the time. The time was tough.

Frankel: Were they taught more than you were taught, in terms of Hebrew and writing?
WOLFE: Maybe they were, that I am not aware of.

Frankel: Did you keep in touch with your family in Oregon?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. Mother definitely corresponded all the time. 

Frankel: Would they come and visit?
WOLFE: No, they never did. I think it is hard for people to understand, unless you lived when we lived. You didn’t just pick up and go on the train. I came to Portland as a child and my brothers would come and visit. But the family didn’t come and visit us because they had to earn a living. So I would come down quite often in the summer, from West Yellowstone they would put me on the train. The conductors knew me and the porters knew me and boy, they kept an eye on me. I would spend three weeks and then go back to Yellowstone and spend the rest of the summer.

Frankel: So who was here that you would come to visit?
WOLFE: My aunt Minna Boskowitz and Uncle Anselm Boskowitz. My grandmother died when I was six. And then I had my great aunt, who lived on Northwest Johnson.

Frankel: So did you have cousins?
WOLFE: No, no cousins. These people were not married.

Frankel: Even Anselm?
WOLFE: Uncle Anselm was not married. He and Aunt Minna were brother and sister. There was another brother called Fred. My great-grandmother had quite a number of children but I never met them. They died long before I was born.

Frankel: Was Zionism a part of your life?
WOLFE: No, no it wasn’t. Oh, Uncle Ans was very active in Zionism. But not my family. It is very difficult to make people understand. When you are being brought up in a small community, people would talk about it but there was not this… When you live in a town with 10 or 11 Jewish families, there was not the opportunity. People didn’t. You maybe read about it in the paper, but even that, when you were my age, you weren’t aware of those things.

Frankel: So, moving to Portland at the age of 16, had you graduated already?
WOLFE: No, I came in the middle and went to Lincoln High School.

Frankel: Did your whole family move?
WOLFE: Just my mother and myself. My brother Edward was already here and my brother Henry lived in Boston, Massachusetts at school.

Frankel: So what was it like? Did your mother have to work?
WOLFE: My great aunts were very elderly. They wrote her after my father died and they said that they really needed help and if she would come we could live there with them. It was a big house. So we moved up here.

Frankel: Can you recall what year you moved?
WOLFE: Let’s see, I am now 85 (in a month or two). I was still 15. It was just before World War II.

Frankel: Where was the house that you moved into?
WOLFE: On Northwest Johnson just above 20th. I can’t remember the address.

Frankel: What was it like? Portland was a big city in comparison.
WOLFE: It was fine. I had been up here back and forth. I was very fortunate at a very young age, in meeting my dear husband, Howard. I did know two or three other people. I will say that people were very kind to me when I moved to Portland, at school and so forth.

Frankel: Do you recall children from the neighborhood? Were there Jewish families around?
WOLFE: Oh, there were a few but they were all older and had their lives established. If I had any advice to give a parent, it would be never move when your children are a certain age. Particularly in the middle school years.

Frankel: From an educational point of view, was Lincoln much harder than the school you had been at?
WOLFE: No, I wouldn’t say it was. It was different. In those days you could graduate either in January or in June. Very shortly thereafter they changed that.

Frankel: Speaking of education, did your mother and father both finish high school?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. They both completed school.

Frankel: Did they go on to college?
WOLFE: No, no, no.

Frankel: How about your brothers?
WOLFE: My brother Ed went to the University of Utah. He graduated there. Henry went down to California. He got a scholarship.

Frankel: And how about you?
WOLFE: I went to the University of Washington for two years. Then the war came along and “love conquered all.” [laughs]

Frankel: Moving to Portland, did your Jewish life become more [active]?
WOLFE: Oh, yes, definitely. My great-grandfather was one of the founders of Beth Israel so my mother took me and we joined. It was difficult for people, particularly some of the older teachers to accept me because my Jewish education was different. I had some, but I didn’t have this long… And some of them (I won’t name them but I can remember them vividly, though) were not exactly pleasant in accepting me coming to religious school when I was that age. But they didn’t know my mother. [laughs]

Frankel: Did you have a confirmation?
WOLFE: No, I came here long after confirmation. I was almost 16. I had the last year or two of high school and that was it.

Frankel: Who was the rabbi at Beth Israel when you got there?
WOLFE: Berkowitz.

Frankel: And what other institutions were you involved in? Did you go to the Jewish Community Center?
WOLFE: Well, my uncle Anselm Boskowitz was one of the founders of the Jewish Community Center. But I was not up there because we didn’t live there and it was much more difficult to get back and forth. I did some swimming and things like that. I remember Mickey Hirschberg with the swimming. But I was not active there.

Frankel: Do you recall going to South Portland?
WOLFE: Oh, yes! The wonderful thing on the High Holidays was that a group of us would walk from synagogue to synagogue. It was fun. On Yom Kippur.

Frankel: Can you describe some of those visits?
WOLFE: We would go in and I could never understand why the men and women were separated because we didn’t do that in Reform. That was something that I thought – I will be perfectly honest – was sort of barbaric, but they still do it. I was brought up by a very thinking mother. My father was too. Mother did not believe in that kind of, as she used to say, “nonsense.” So we would go there and I was always shocked because I knew that on Yom Kippur you were not supposed to spend money and I would see them in the Orthodox shul writing out (well I didn’t realize then that that was the way, eventually my brain absorbed the fact, that that was the way they raised money). You pledged then, in those days. At that age, I didn’t approve. I thought if that’s the way it is then that’s the way it is and you just don’t do that. In fact, I can remember when my great-aunts went to Temple on the High Holidays they only carried keys in their purse. They never carried money.

Frankel: That was at Temple Beth Israel?
WOLFE: Yes. They were my great-grandfather’s children.

Frankel: So how was it living in the household when you moved to Portland? Who was there?
WOLFE: My four great-aunts, Aunt Viola, Aunt Bertha, Aunt Bessie and Aunt Flora. There was another sister, Sophie, but she died before I was born. I was there every summer. It was  more difficult, in a way, but they were wonderful people. They were wonderful women. I always thought, what a waste. These lovely women should have been married, raising wonderful children.

Frankel: Were they educated?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. I don’t know if they all graduated from school but they all read [voraciously]. I can remember watching them reading their papers and they had books. They would sit around the dining room table reading.

Frankel: Did they influence your life?
WOLFE: Oh, in many ways. Aunt Bertha and Aunt Viola probably made the biggest impression. Aunt Bertha was a woman of absolutely brilliant mind. It was a tragedy she couldn’t go on to school. [begins to cry] I’m sorry, but sometimes when I think about these women….

WOLFE: Aunt Bessie was the sort of nervous, high-strung one. Aunt Viola was another brilliant one. She was quite deaf but she had a brilliant mind. Aunt Flora was the oldest of the sisters and she could be difficult. I will put it that way. [laughs]

Frankel: But your mother got along with them?
WOLFE: Oh, yes; she had been with them so many years [before] coming up here to Portland. They just loved her and she loved them. They were wonderful women.

Frankel: Was there much of a cultural life? Was there music in your home?
WOLFE: Yes, they listened to the radio. They listened to the symphonies. There was one day a week when Toscanini had his programs and they would listen to that.

Frankel: Did they work?
WOLFE: No, they never worked.

Frankel: So who supported them?
WOLFE: They supported themselves by being very smart in the stock market. Aunt Bertha was an absolutely brilliant woman. They were left money by their mother and father but they did not have a lot. They paid for their house. Everything was paid for and they always lived together.

Frankel: And your uncle Anselm?
WOLFE: Oh, he and Aunt Minna lived together. They lived with my grandmother on NW Flanders in the Dayton Apartments, which they lived in for God knows how many years. I would visit there part of the time.

Frankel: You mentioned that you met your husband. Where and when did you meet?
WOLFE: [laughs] I met dear Howard. We were invited to a party. It was the summer. Aunt Minna and Uncle Anselm… In those days Lake Oswego had many summer homes. They had cabins and things. These people who owned Dan Marks, Victor and Rennie Block, asked them out. So they went out. I don’t remember how they got out there because Uncle Anselm never drove and neither did Aunt Minna. I went along. And Howard, who had just finished his freshman year at Reed was there. We were the only young ones. Everyone else was too old. So we started talking and you know. Well, we said goodbye and I never thought I would see him again. Well a few days later some of his relatives came to visit from Baltimore, Maryland and they came to see Aunt Minna and Uncle Anselm, whom they knew very well. So he drove them. Then we started dating a little bit that summer.

Frankel: Why did you choose to go to the University of Washington?
WOLFE: I wanted to get away from Portland. Like they do now – kids want to get away. So I went to the University of Washington for two years.

Frankel: Was it also on a scholarship?
WOLFE: No. My mother really scraped to send me there.

Frankel: And while you were still in high school did you have to work?
WOLFE: No, mother never asked me to work. She was a great believer in you should have your childhood. People would say to my mother, “You should have taught Frances to cook.” And she said, “She will have a whole lifetime to learn to cook.”

Frankel: What was it like being in college?
WOLFE: That was during the war so the dormitories were full of servicemen who were from the Navy. They were being trained to be officers and so forth. There were not huge dormitories like there are now, so I joined a Jewish sorority so I could find a place to live. That is the only reason I did. Sororities and fraternities were totally alien to my thoughts but I did it for a place to live. I have several friends who said the same thing.

Frankel: Where were you when Pearl Harbor was hit?
WOLFE: I was here in Portland. Remember that was 1941. I was still young then.

Frankel: Do you remember that day?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. As the phone rang and somebody said Pearl Harbor has been bombed (apparently they had had the radio on). We turned the radio on and I think we sat around the radio for several days just listening and listening and listening.

Frankel: When were you aware of what was going on to the Jews in Europe?
WOLFE: Oh, very definitely. My Uncle Ans brought many, many, many German families over. He saw what was happening and he made sure that quite a number of families, ours and some other people came here. He went to many, many Jewish families in Portland, begging them to bring families over and they couldn’t believe what was going to happen. They literally didn’t believe it. I’m sure you have read books about this. Volumes have been written about it. First that the Jews wouldn’t leave and second that people here could not believe that it was going to happen. By the time they recognized it… It is too bad. I have one cousin in Montreal. Her parents got her out. They sent her to England but they didn’t make it out. We are still very close. But she just begged them. The people to take them. One was that times were tough. How were they going to take care of them? And also that they just couldn’t grasp it.

Frankel: Who, from your family, was in Europe?
WOLFE: Oh, there were quite a number of Boskowitzes.

Frankel: Do you recall meeting them?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. My cousin Hedwig Sheuer, Solly Sheuer, and Rachel Rosenthal and her husband. Oh, yes. Out of the Rosenthals we got Jack Rosenthal, who became…. Jack was Rachel and Manfred’s son, who went back to New York, as you know. Ernest, who was Solly and Hedwig’s son still keeps in contact. He lives in California. The cousins who stayed in the east I have only met one of them. They came west to visit.

Frankel: I had asked earlier whether you were familiar with South Portland. What was it like? Can you describe it to me?
WOLFE: Well, I didn’t go into South Portland that often because we were up in Northwest. Mother loved to go to Korsun’s and go and visit and she bought things there. We would take the street car up there because we didn’t have a car. Mr. Korsun then moved up to Northwest Portland, but she never bought meat there.

Frankel: Was there a divide between eastern European Jews and the Germans?
WOLFE: Oh, in the beginning, when my mother was young, yes. But I was not as aware of it. At my age they were beginning to mingle and intermarry. Things were happening then when I was younger. You can’t compare that.

Frankel: Did you have close friends or relatives who served in the Army during World War II?
WOLFE: Yes, my husband. He was in for a long time. And many of our friends. My brother Ed served in the Navy. My brother Henry didn’t serve. I don’t remember him going into the service.

Frankel: And what did you major in at the University of Washington?
WOLFE: I was going to be in drama. I was very dramatic at a certain point [laughs], but I never did anything with it. Once the war was over and we got married, I was busy.

Frankel: So the reason you didn’t finish was that…
WOLFE: That Howard was drafted and was going overseas. He worked, after he graduated from Reed, out at the Oregon Shipyards for a couple of years.

Frankel: Before he was drafted?
WOLFE: Yes. The shipyards tried to keep him out as long as they could. He had a good job there.

Frankel: What did he major in at Reed?
WOLFE: He wanted to be a doctor. But in those days, as you well know, there was lots of… I think up here on the hill they only took about 10 Jews. It was true all over the country and he couldn’t afford to go away.

Frankel: When did you get married?
WOLFE: We got married in 1941. We were very fortunate. Howard was stationed up at Port Townsend, Washington, in the lab up there. We were together for nearly a year. We were very lucky.

Frankel: What did you do during that time?
WOLFE: I worked for the hospital part of the time and then I got pneumonia and if it hadn’t been for sulfa you wouldn’t be talking to me now. It was a great thing because in those days very few people survived pneumonia.

Frankel: And after that year?
WOLFE: After that year I came back to Portland. By that time my aunts were all gone. Aunt Minna and Uncle Ans were still alive and living at the Dayton. Mother had moved into a small apartment and was very happy, but here came Frances home again! So we moved into another apartment – a bigger one.

Frankel: I’m sorry, where was Howard?
WOLFE: Oh, no. This was after Port Townsend. We were there a year and then he went overseas.

Frankel: Where was he?
WOLFE: He first went down to Camp Stone in California for a short time and then to Texas, to Camp Barkley. From there he took a group of black soldiers to the embarkation in New York. When he got to Atlanta, Georgia and they were told that they had to eat in the kitchen, my husband was absolutely livid. There were German prisoners sitting out in front!

Frankel: What did he do?
WOLFE: Well he raised hell but it didn’t do any good, of course.

Frankel: Was he shipped overseas?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. He was there for three and a half years. He was in England. He came back once with a shipload of injured soldiers. They landed in Nova Scotia. He came home for about a week and then went back over to England. From England he landed at Normandy. He would tell you; very few survived on that landing. He was one of the fortunate ones.

Frankel: So you moved in with your mother.
WOLFE: I stayed with my mother until Howard came back. He was sent to the South Pacific, too because he was essential. Technically, he had the points to get out but he was needed.

Frankel: What did you do when you came back to Portland?
WOLFE: I went to work for the US Bank. I was in the statement department. In those days, everybody came to get their statements. You didn’t get them mailed because there was only one branch. I was there until Howard came home.

Frankel: Did your mother have to work?
WOLFE: No. She worked some, for a store up on 23rd for a while. She worked for several years.

Frankel: What was your social life?
WOLFE: During the war?

Frankel: Yes, while your husband was gone?
WOLFE: Well, a bunch of us would go out and have dinner. And then a lot of us did the USO dances. We would go and dance and then afterwards we would go home. That was a very sad time.

Frankel: Jewishly, how involved were you?
WOLFE: You know, I went to synagogue. But I wasn’t that involved. During the war things were so different. Being involved in this and that. I went to a couple of Jewish dances at the old Community Center, but most of the time I was doing the USO and the Red Cross and things like that.

Frankel: Who were the Jewish leaders at the time?
WOLFE: Oh, don’t ask me that. I can’t remember. I really can’t. I went to services and so forth but I wasn’t involved in that way. I remember some of the presidents of Beth Israel and I remember the fact that women “labored in the vineyard” at Beth Israel, which is true of all synagogues, but that they didn’t receive recognition until much later. I am now doing some research on that.

Frankel: Really, fascinating. But your uncle was doing some work with anti-defamation.
WOLFE: Oh, yes, the Anti-Defamation League. Absolutely. Uncle Ans was really a most unusual man. He never married, as you know. He went to services regularly on Friday nights and Saturday mornings and was very active in Jewish causes. 

Frankel: You mentioned that your uncle was a Zionist.
WOLFE: Yes, and that was unusual for German Jews. He believed. And the great tragedy of Uncle Ans was that he had all of these great beliefs. His idiosyncrasy when he came to eating. It wasn’t kosher or anything; it was just a weird diet he had. His belief in Jews and Judaism, Zionism and things like that.

Frankel: Was he alive when the State of Israel became independent in 1948?
WOLFE: Yes, he was. 

Frankel: Did he ever travel to Israel?
WOLFE: No, and we all begged him. We would go with him. He could have taken tours. But he would not go. I don’t know why.

Frankel: How did he make a living?
WOLFE: My uncle made a living by selling women’s belts. He made a very good living selling women’s belts. He traveled. He didn’t drive but he had two or three friends who were traveling salesmen (which there were many of in those days), and he rode with them and sold women’s belts in Oregon and Washington.

Frankel: Did he have a store?
WOLFE: No. He had an office downtown where he worked. He never worked on Saturday. He always worked on Sundays. 

Frankel: Did you ever help him in his business?
WOLFE: Oh, a little bit. I would go down and fool around and sort the belts but I never did anything.

Frankel: So back to his involvement in the Anti-Defamation League. Do you recall any of those activities?
WOLFE: No, I really don’t. But for his time he was most unusual.

Frankel: And did you celebrate holidays together?
WOLFE: Oh yes. Mother was the cook and Aunt Minna was a good cook but she couldn’t put things together as well. Aunt Minna was a school teacher in eastern Oregon. She was mother and Uncle’s sister. She had sort of a nervous breakdown and she never went back to work. I don’t know the ins and outs of that. She was a wonderful woman – very well read. She loved concerts, like my mother. A wonderful woman. 

Frankel: What did you do for vacations?
WOLFE: We didn’t do anything for vacations. We couldn’t afford it. People didn’t really then. The first time I went to the beach I went with my brother Ed and his wife Rhoda, and Rita and Lou Lubliner. I saw the ocean.

Frankel: Did your mother learn how to drive?
WOLFE: Never, and she said it was the most stupid mistake she ever made in her life. My aunties offered for her to learn to drive and they would buy her a car but she was terrified of that idea. She later said everybody should learn to drive. 

Frankel: When did you learn to drive?
WOLFE: I got my license, believe it or not, when I was in my 30s. I didn’t learn to drive, I don’t know why. I was busy. Howard drove and took me places. Then I learned to drive and I haven’t stopped driving since. I love it.

Frankel: So when Howard came back from the Army.
WOLFE: OK. He was in for four years. I begged him to go back to school on the G.I. Bill and he said he just wanted to settle down. He got a job with the allergy clinic, in their laboratory. 

Frankel: Doing?
WOLFE: He ran the laboratory. They made their own antigens. They did everything.

Frankel: Had he been trained?
WOLFE: Oh, yes, he majored in science at Reed. And he has always taken classes at college. When he retired he started taking classes at Portland State and he has been going every since.

Frankel: Where did you live then?
WOLFE: Our first house was on Northeast 102nd. We did not want to live on the west side. We had been brought up on the west side. We had an acre of ground and in those days, Northeast 102nd was very much fruit trees, berry bushes, etc. One day I saw some men down on our property and I went down and said, “What are you doing here?” They were getting ready to put in the Banfield Freeway. We immediately decided that we were not going to stay where there was going to be a freeway. At that time 102nd was beginning to get a little busy. Howard wanted to move into town. He was tired of driving everyday. He wanted to take the bus. He said it was a waste of money to let a car sit in the garage all day. So under protest (I wanted to go out further and get some acreage) we moved into town and we moved into Northeast 30th. We lived in that house for 52 years.

Frankel: Do you have children?
WOLFE: Oh, yes, we had two sons. Steven, who now lives in Norway. He teaches at the University of Trumso, which is above the Arctic Circle. He has been there for 10 years and he will be there for another 10 years. They don’t have to retire there until they are 70. 

Frankel: What does he teach?
WOLFE: He teaches English literature and American literature.

Frankel: Is he married?
WOLFE: Yes, he is married to a lovely girl, Jill. Then we have a son, Ken, who is not married.

Frankel: What did you do on the weekends when you were married?
WOLFE: Oh, we had lots of friends. We all had small children (my mother was a wonderful babysitter).

Frankel: Did she live with you?
WOLFE: Oh, no! Mother would not live with anybody. She was very independent. But she was a godsend to me because I was a severe asthmatic and I would get migraine headaches. She would come over and take over. I don’t know what I would have done without her.

Frankel: So when you moved, and even when you lived on 102nd, were you involved Jewishly?
WOLFE: Oh, well, we would come to services on the High Holidays. Oh, yes. We belonged to Temple. We wouldn’t have thought of being otherwise. It was just that I wanted to be “out” and doing something different.

Frankel: What about Friday nights?
WOLFE: Oh yeah, we would light the candles and things like that. But when we had a small son and that, you only think of going all the way in for the High Holidays.

Frankel: And were your children given a Jewish education?
WOLFE: Oh, definitely. When we moved into town Steven was five and Ken came along six months later. Oh yes. Howard and I were religious school teachers and he was active with the adult classes and the high school. He was involved in all aspects. And I taught religious school.

Frankel: Politically did you become more involved?
WOLFE: Me? I became very involved politically. I did work for the election boards. I went door to door getting people. I have been an ardent Democrat, so is Howard. 

Frankel: Did you belong to any Jewish organizations?
WOLFE: Oh yes, the Council of Jewish Women, Beth Israel Sisterhood…

Frankel: You were married in 1941. Do you remember when the State of Israel became independent in 1948?
WOLFE: Yes, I remember it. There was a big celebration and so forth. It was a very exciting time.

Frankel: Personally, was it significant to you?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. It could not have helped being significant in the sense that it was someplace where people could go. We did have relatives there. Uncle Ans found a couple of distant relatives who had moved there. I remember there were services in all of the synagogues and big celebrations.

Frankel: One of the things about the war still, did you have any Japanese friends?
WOLFE: In high school I had several Japanese friends. After high school I didn’t see them again, you see. They went off to school or went off to do something and we…

Frankel: But with the internment. Were you aware?
WOLFE: I think because of the war and the Japanese, there were some people who objected to the internment but I think it is difficult for some people to understand today. They fear what could happen. It was a terrible thing that we did but at that moment it was a worry. Because of what happened at Pearl Harbor and we had no defenses at all.

Frankel: Do you remember talking about it at home?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. You couldn’t help but talk about it. It was in the newspaper all the time and on the radio all the time. It was an impossibility to escape the war. 

Frankel: But I mean the internment specifically.
WOLFE: Yes, we talked about it.

Frankel: You said your sons were involved in religious school. Did they go to Jewish summer camps?
WOLFE: One son did and the other, no. They were both very involved athletically with Little League and what have you. When Steven came home from camp he said it was great fun but I would rather stay home and play with my friends.

Frankel: Did you ever travel to Israel?
WOLFE: No. I have never been to Israel. It is difficult to get Howard to travel. We have traveled, don’t misunderstand me. In the States we have traveled quite a bit. At one time we didn’t have the money and as time passed there were other things. We spent a lot of time in our summers at the beach. It is a wonderful place to take children.

Frankel: And your children, were they involved in Jewish organizations? 
WOLFE: They were as young children. They are not anymore.

Frankel: Did they ever travel to Israel?
WOLFE: Ken did. Ken took a year off between his sophomore and junior year. He saved his money and traveled around through Europe and he went to Israel and worked on a kibbutz for seven or eight weeks. Steven by that time … he married just after college and there was no money for them to go anyplace.

Frankel: How has the community changed?
WOLFE: Portland! It is a big metropolitan city today. Before, Portland was a very small town. I have always loved Portland but it was Small Town.

Frankel: Compared to what?
WOLFE: Compared to, well I lived with Howard in San Francisco for a little while and I’ve traveled.

Frankel: When was that?
WOLFE: Oh, that was during the war. We were just there a short time but the whole feeling was different. Then, living in Seattle; Seattle was always more progressive than Portland. So there was always this small town feeling here which we certainly don’t have anymore, thank goodness.

Frankel: And Jewishly, how has it changed?
WOLFE: It is getting to be…. You know the old Jewish story about the three men who were lost on a desert island and when they were rescued there were ten synagogues? Well that is just what has happened to Portland. If you don’t like it, you go and form your own synagogue. Sometimes I find it vastly amusing. When I came here there were just four or five.

Frankel: Are you still affiliated?
WOLFE: Oh, yes, we still belong.

Frankel: So just looking at that congregation, how has that changed?
WOLFE: Well, it has changed when each rabbi has come. I don’t know anything about the religious school because I am not teaching anymore, but it has changed. The young people are active in things. I’m sure it is the same in every synagogue. You just can’t compare it with what it was. Different groups come in from different backgrounds. People move here from out of town and they leave their imprint. It is the way it should be.

Frankel: In terms of the role of women, how have things changed?
WOLFE: Well, now the Sisterhoods of the country are recognized. I will be honest with you, I don’t think most synagogues could survive without the women and their labor and what they produce.

Frankel: You said you were doing some research. On what is that?
WOLFE: I am going to start by going through the bulletins as far back as we have them, finding out what women are doing.

I forgot to add one thing: When Mother lived in Ogden, my aunties subscribed to the Scribe and it came regularly. Mother would read it right away and immediately look to see who had died. [laughs] That is always a tradition, I think. But she did have that contact with Portland. And then we came to visit often, too.

Frankel: The Boskowitzes came from Germany?
WOLFE: Yes.

Frankel: Where in Germany?
WOLFE: Gosh, I should have my cousin Sabina here. I cannot think of the name now.

Frankel: Was it one family member who left there?
WOLFE: No. My grandfather came. I will tell you about my great-grandparents. I thought this was such a touching thing. My great-grandfather came and settled in the South. That was Henry F. Block. He was the second president of Temple Beth Israel. He was engaged to my great-grandmother and he wanted to establish a business. He went to the South. I remember my grandmother telling me this story. My great-grandmother came. Her parents brought her to New York. My great-grandfather and great-grandmother were married at Temple Emanuel in New York. [chokes up] This is the part that is so sad, but it happened all the time. She kissed her mother and father goodbye three or four days later and they went back to Germany and they went south and they never saw each other again. You couldn’t afford to travel then in those distances.

Frankel: But how unusual that they would travel with her to New York.
WOLFE: They brought her to New York. They did not want to send her alone. Then they moved south and he established a business. And when he saw that the Civil War was coming he left. He felt very strongly about the Blacks. They went around the Horn and came to San Francisco and from there they came to Portland. There are hundreds of stories like that.

Frankel: Are there any heirlooms that have been passed down in the family?
WOLFE: No. They didn’t have a lot of heirlooms. I have a silver bowl that I remember my great-aunts had in a certain place. They put the mail there every day until everyone had read it.

Frankel: Do you know where the bowl came from?
WOLFE: I have no idea. I have a wonderful planter that I put plants in that my great-aunts had. I can still see it in their house on Johnson.

Frankel: And from your uncle?
WOLFE: Uncle Ans and Aunt Minna? I have a few things of theirs. When we moved from our home, where all those things were. You just can’t keep all those things when you are moving to an apartment. Two of our sons took some of the things. But Steven and Jill live in Norway and our grandchildren took some. But they didn’t want the silver. They aren’t interested.

Frankel: Were there any letters.
WOLFE: Not that I remember. My mother was not sentimental. She would throw things out. She was a very down-to-earth person and as she moved from apartment to apartment there just wasn’t places to store things.

Frankel: And when your uncle passed away did anyone take over his business?
WOLFE: Oh, he was long retired. He was 90 when he died and he had been out of that for a long, long time.

Frankel: Is there anything else that you would like to add?
WOLFE: No. You can turn it off and I will tell you one other thing.

[Tape is turned off and then on again]

WOLFE: When I was growing up, I had this wonderful opportunity of being brought up in a town where my friends were of many different faiths. I would visit. If we didn’t go to Sunday School (which wasn’t that often) I would go to the Methodist Church Sunday School, the Presbyterian, the Mormon, I would visit all of them. That gave me such a wonderful feeling. I have a different concept about people. We had neighbors who were devout Catholics and Mother would say, “Ah, Mrs. Widell is going to mass.” I would say, “How do you know?” and she would say, “She has that walk.” [laughs] They were wonderful people.

Frankel: Can you tell me a little about the Fleischner, Mayer? Were they Jewish-owned?
WOLFE: Oh, yes. It was a Jewish company. I don’t know very much about them. There must be something in the Historical about Fleischner, Mayer.

Frankel: How long did your mother work for them?
WOLFE: Several years. Then she met my father and that part I don’t want on the tape.

Frankel: Then is there anything else you would like to add?
WOLFE: I don’t think so. I have been happy in Portland. It is a much more interesting place than it was before, I think. And I think that people who are my age would agree, as you grow older and your friends die, and you are down to a very few, as that song says, that is the difficult time. There needs to be much more activity in the total Jewish community for people over the age of 60. They have activities up at the center but there is a whole different feeling. There needs to be lots of activities. There are people coming in to the community. They can’t say oh, they have the Jewish Community Center. Not everybody wants to go to the Jewish Community Center. When you get to a certain point you are not going to go up there as much. That would be my final statement.

Frankel: Thank you very much.
WOLFE: Oh, I talked an awful lot, I’m sorry.