Harry Gevurtz

Feldman: Harry, who was the first member of your family to come to the United States, and approximately when did they come? 
GEVURTZ: My father was the first member of my family to come to the United States. As a boy he ran away from home. He was a member of a large family that was near starvation. He came from a small town called Torin, in Poland, the area which was close to the German border. He by some method got to a ship that went to England. And he lived as a boy in the Jewish ghetto until he acquired sufficient funds to take another sailing ship, where he sailed steerage to the United States. 

Feldman: Where in England? 
GEVURTZ: He was in London. 

Feldman: I see, and what year was this? Do you know?
GEVURTZ: I do not know exactly, but I say about 1855 in through there. After living in a New York ghetto, too, and with the help of the early Jewish settlers there, he acquired sufficient funds to again sail by ship steerage to the Pacific coast, where he landed in San Francisco. My mother, probably several years at a later date than mentioned, was born in Kolmar province, Posen, in Germany. She was also the youngest child in her family. 

Feldman: What was her maiden name? 
GEVURTZ: Her maiden name was Gerson. Her name was Cecelia Gerson. She came directly from Germany to San Francisco. Her main reason for coming to this country was because she had a brother, Henry Gerson, who was one of early Portland pioneers and had already settled here. Both my mother and my father lived in San Francisco at the same time; they had not been acquainted then, but became acquainted later in Portland. 

Feldman: Yes. When did they come to Portland? 
GEVURTZ: My father came to Portland in the late 1870s, I would say about 1876 or 1877, and my mother was already here living at the home of her brother, Henry Gerson. They were introduced and met each other on and off some time, and then they were married in 1886 at the home of her brother, Henry Gerson, by Rabbi Jacob Bloch who was the rabbi then of Temple Beth Israel, just preceding the famous Rabbi Stephen S. Wise. I fortunately have in my possession the wedding certificate in an ornate gold frame. 

Feldman: Harry, when and where were you born? 
GEVURTZ: I was born in Portland, Oregon, January 8, 1897, and I was born in a home on the corner of what is now SW Park and Yamhill Streets. I lived there only one year when our family moved to the corner of SW 11th and Salmon Streets. About the age of four we moved to what turned out to be the home of most of my childhood, which was a well-known address of those days, 225 Tenth Street, which is on SW Tenth between SW Salmon and Main, where there is an eight-story brick building now. 

Feldman: Harry, tell me a little bit about the neighborhood that you lived in. 
GEVURTZ: This neighborhood at that time was quite a well-known residential area. It was pretty close to downtown, which was on Morrison Street, and extended south from Morrison up through Tenth Street and what is known as the Park Blocks to about Columbia and Clay. That was considered a particular residential neighborhood. East and west it extended from Broadway to SW 14th Street. The people in this neighborhood were almost all Portlanders of some years of standing and were very friendly and neighborly. The block just south of us was the home of Abe Meier of Meier & Frank and two sons, Harold and Allen, both of whom I played with from time to time. Also across from them was the location of the Ladd-Corbett homes, the whole block, which is now occupied by the Masonic Temple. Just south of there was the public school, which was originally called Park School, which burned down during the time I was attending. Afterwards it was built, and we went to school again under the name of Ladd [spells out] School, because the property was originally given by the Ladd family. It is now the site of the Portland Art Museum, and the space between the Masonic Temple and the Art Museum, where there is a great sculpture, was the famous playground where we usually spent our recess. The usual thing I remember, or you might say recall, was that several years ago, a former schoolmate, Jack O’Brien, discovered that an American flag in the possession of a former schoolteacher, Miss Smith, was the same flag that was given by our class in 1910 when we graduated and each member put their name on the sides of the flag. Mr. O’Brien and two of my early boyhood friends, William Hazeltine and Harold Cate, and Miss Smith went to a school board meeting where we presented this flag back to the school board. One of the school board members, knowing this occasion was going to be on the agenda, read the roster of the entire class of 1910, which brought back great memories of names we had forgotten about. 

Feldman: You were going to tell me a little bit about your neighbors. 
GEVURTZ: The neighbors were all very friendly. In the evening in the summer when we would come out on our big porch veranda, many of them would drop by, going for walks, and visit, which was the type of neighborhood it was. On the block just north of ours, in the middle of this block, was the home of the famous Stone family. The father had been a well-known early Portland jeweler located on SW First and Morrison, and the family was quite talented. Lillian Stone, who became a Mrs. Breed, was a great piano player, and Madeline was a violinist and a singer. Up until a few years ago [she] appeared occasionally. The son was Jerome Stone, who become the first of Portland’s jazz musicians as a teacher. Jerry Stone and I played a lot in his rather mansion-like home, because the whole third floor was devoted to his toys and playthings. Now, right next door to us, on the corner of Tenth and Main, was a big driveway for carriages, a carriage entrance, where Dr. Nichols, who was a famous Portland physician at the time, lived, and it was great fun for us to see him drive up in his carriage and alight. At the back of his home was the stable where he kept his horses and his carriages. Further up the street, just opposite the Ladd School mentioned before, was the well known drugstore named Byerly’s, which was famous for us kids because it contained a large assortment of penny candy. One of our great treats was to go into Byerly’s drugstore. Up one block south and one block to the east, on that corner was the home of a gentleman who passed away years ago, named Isaac Kaufman. His family, his widow and his children, were very well known in Portland circles, particularly his son Leonard Kaufman. Leonard Kaufman became very well known around Portland and was in certain establishments where there were restaurants and food and drink and social gatherings. He later had a daughter named Edna, who was the most beautiful child, and all in the neighborhood admired her golden, flaxen hair. The Kaufmans brought out a cousin from Germany who always spoke with a certain accent, and even does to this day, and she is the wife, now the widow, of a dentist, Dr. Lawrence Rosenthal Sr. 

We used to play every evening, yes, right after supper. We had a gang that would go up to the next corner, where I used to live, and we would play “run sheep run” on the four corners. Some of those fellows, two of them were ministers’ sons, let’s see, Crawford- Young, and Brauer, they both were very well known [mumbles].

Feldman: What was the name? 
GEVURTZ: The Reverend [J. Whitcomb Brauer] at the White Temple. They’re the old [their own?] venerables that was six or seven Brauers in a row, and the other church, I can’t remember the name, was Crawford-Young. They both lived there and we used to play this “run sheep run” with them, and I can’t remember the other guy. But that’s three out of four. 

Feldman:  Was there anything that was missing in the neighborhood? 
GEVURTZ: No, I wouldn’t think so. 

Feldman: You had grocery stores, and…? 
GEVURTZ: Oh, like that. Well, it was residential. There wasn’t anything grocery…well, yes, on Tenth and Jefferson there was groceries. But see, the Jewish people in those days… Now, not meaning we weren’t particularly clannish, Jewishly. We were quite friendly with all the people. But what happened was, Jewish people had a way of buying from a guy named Sam Margulis [doesn’t sound like this, but can’t make it out on tape] who had a grocery store in NW Portland. He used to come around and take your orders and deliver them. 

Feldman: Which Margulis was that, do you remember? 
GEVURTZ: Well, the only relation he’s got is a Mrs. Cohen [Lela Cohen]. Let’s see, Arnold Cohen, this fellow had a big automobile agency, very distinct from others. He married a gentile, Lela Cohen, she’s still alive. But his sister married this Arnold Cohen who had the Oldsmobile agency…married this Mrs. Margulis. They’re related, and still today when Lela Cohen gives a party she always has her. But they’re not related to this Margulis at all. 

Feldman: Was there anything you didn’t like about the neighborhood? 
GEVURTZ: I wouldn’t say so. Those were really what you call happy days. I can’t think of anything I didn’t like about the neighborhood. 

Feldman: Were there ever any hard times in your neighborhood? 
GEVURTZ: Not when we lived there. That was all generally prosperous times. Not at that time.

There was the big, red electric cars that they put in while we was living there. The big electric cars, trains that used to go down the Willamette Valley — electric, what they called the big, red cars. They used to come up Tenth and turn right on Salmon near our house and made a big screech, but I didn’t consider that anything. We didn’t like it, but I wouldn’t say anything. The Council of Jewish Women met one block down on Tenth and Taylor. That’s where the Council of Jewish Women and Mrs. Blumauer in those early days, that’s where they used to meet, my mother, too. They had coffee klatches, you know. She had cards printed, every fourth Friday of the month. 

Feldman: You mean as invitations for people to come? 
GEVURTZ: You had a certain day where you… 

Feldman: Had open house. 
GEVURTZ: But you had that printed on cards so you didn’t conflict with somebody else. And you handed those cards out because your close friends knew that — like, we were friendly with the Riches and…well, they’re now Senders, but their name was Rothschilds before they married Senders…the Rothschilds, and the Riches, and the Goldsmiths — we had a nice circle of Jewish friends, coffee klatches. But I couldn’t think of anything I didn’t like about the neighborhood. 

Feldman: Harry, did you have any brothers or sisters? 
GEVURTZ: I came from a family of directly related, five brothers and sisters. The oldest brother was Louis Gevurtz, now departed, a widow, Belle, alive. A second was a twin sister, Mrs. Lillian Brandt, who is still alive, eighty-seven years old, and who has recently gone to live in the Robison Home. The third was Fanny Gevurtz Crohn [spells out], widow of Sid Crohn, a diamond importer. She has passed away. The next in age was my brother Milton, three and a half years my senior, who has passed away several years ago, and then myself. My father –

Feldman: – What was his name? Your father was Isaac, right?
GEVERTZ: Isaac Gevurtz. [He] had three sons by a previous marriage, but who lived with us, and they were Phillip, Alexander and Matthew. They all were associated with him in business. They are all dead; their widows are all dead. Their children are all departed. Several of them are quite prominent, including Dr. William Gevurtz, who made a big name during World War II. 

Feldman: Here in Portland? 
GEVURTZ: No, living out of California, but in the Navy. He was responsible for saving the lives of thirty or forty men from a burning sea and was written up in the Saturday Evening Post. My only living one is a girl interested in dance called Madeline by us, but her middle name is Bernice, and she goes by the professional name of Bernice Gavers [spells out] and has been dance mistress of the New York Metropolitan. [She] has been with many prominent dance groups as the leader and is now head of the department of dance at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City. 

Feldman: This was the daughter of one of your stepbrothers? 
GEVURTZ: Daughter of my stepbrother Matthew. She’s the only one of the many children of those families who is still alive, and I’m in communication with her from time to time. I would like to say that I have a very unusual longtime friendship with two now-men my same age, but with whom I became friendly at the age of six when we both started school, which was then called the Park School, later Ladd. They are William Hazeltine, retired businessman and former director of the First National Bank, and Harold Cake, formerly president of the Equitable Savings & Loan, now also retired. We see each other fairly frequently, particularly on such occasions as each other’s birthday. We have kept in touch with the activities of our families. Both Bill and Harold lost their first wives and are now happily remarried, and both have fairly large families. This is a great friendship which I cherish very much. As far as business friends, as I was in business quite a few years, but… 

Feldman: Furniture business wasn’t it? 
GEVURTZ: I was not originally in the furniture business that my father started. But after World War I, when my brother Milton came home from the war and I came home from the war, we started a little business of our own, being wholesalers of men’s work clothes. By working very, very hard, after quite a few years we moved to another location on the corner of NW Fifth and Couch. 

Feldman:  Where were you originally? 
GEVURTZ: We were originally on NW Fifth between Couch and Davis, in a small loft on the third floor of a wholesale dry-goods firm from San Francisco called Al Finkelstein & Company.

Feldman: What was the name of your firm? 
GEVURTZ: The name of the firm at that time we just took “Manufacturers Clearance Company,” but after we moved to this location I just mentioned,  at the corner of NW Fifth and Couch, we changed our name to Gevurtz Brothers and started to prosper. This business went on for quite a few years. I was with my brother Milton for seventeen years, after which I sold out my share. He continued for several years later, actually until his death. But after three years of semi-retirement, I again returned to the furniture business under, now under the leadership of my brother Louis, and I stayed with him in various executive positions for thirty years. I retired four years ago with a large engraved plaque. 

Feldman: We were talking about some of your business friends. 
GEVURTZ: Most of my business friends are either retired or…I have kind of grown away from them, being I do not go to work day-by-day as formerly. But one of my friends from business and from outside activities is Mr. Ford Watkins, who I am very happy to say is being honored by the next annual dinner of the national conference of Christians and Jews, as the honoree for this year. Mr. Watkins and I became acquainted quite early, both because of this work and because of our business relationships with the First National Bank. This has continued over a great many years, and I have a large admiration for him. Unfortunately our last few meetings [were] rather dulled by the fact that Mr. Watkins’ wife has recently passed away. My dad was in business as Gevurtz Furniture Company, and his oldest son, Phillip Gevurtz, they were responsible for building the Multnomah Hotel, the Mallory, and the Carlton, and the early [apartments like the Highland Court]. Of course, in those days it was well remembered, but then time passed away, but a lot of people still associate their name with Multnomah Hotel. 

Feldman: You built it as an investment? 
GEVURTZ: Well, this is what happened in all these places. We would go to somebody who had the property, for instance Multnomah was the called Thompson Estate, and we would take a lease, and then we would build a hotel. Then we would furnish it, that was one of the advantages that [unclear], and we ran them. 

Feldman: Which three Hotels? 
GEVURTZ: Mallory, the Multnomah, and the Carlton, which was torn down, and all the early apartment houses in northwest Portland, including the Highland Court, which is still there. Some of those apartments are named after a member of the family. For instance, the Celia Apartments right across the street, that’s my mother. The Lillian Apartments on SW Mill, that’s my sister Lillian. The Foster Hotel that they are just remodeling now to get the drunks into a better place, that was our advertising man. Now, did you want to ask me about what stands out in my memory as the most important things in my life?

Feldman: Yes. 
GEVURTZ: Well, I would say making a living, and the Americanization (as I was born an American), education… Well, I went to Lincoln High School and two years in Reed College until World War I broke up my education and I never returned. I’ve been very interested in sports. 

Feldman: Where did you serve in the war? Where was your unit? 
GEVURTZ: I was in what was called the Coast Artillery Corps, which during the war was responsible for firing the big heavy guns, artillery. Guns that fired near the end of the war from railroad embankments, guns that were taken off of naval ships. That was our particular training. But I didn’t go overseas, and the reason was that at the early part of the war, World War I, I was rejected by the Navy and the Army because in those days they insisted that you have a certain amount of good sight, and I wore glasses since a boy. I still have the rejection slips. But after the war was on for quite a while, Bill Hazeltine, my boyhood friend, and I noticed that the state of Oregon was holding officer’s training camps at the campus at the University of Oregon. So Bill and I enlisted in this training camp and went down there. It was very suitable arrangements for us because the living quarters were very bad, but Bill, who had just graduated from the University of Oregon and was a big man in his fraternity, was able to secure reasonable living quarters for us in the gym. We graduated from our class in artillery, and those that were able to pass physically were automatically sent to the officer’s training camp at Fort Monroe, Virginia, to learn to man heavy guns. 

Bill and I were both rejected again for eyesight, and we came back to Portland, and we just joined the National Guard to keep in trim when we noticed that the Coast Artillery Corp was asking for recruits for men at Fort Stevens, Oregon, which was in that category of armament. We both went down to our draft boards and became enlisted men, and we became privates at Fort Stevens, Oregon. Bill, who not only couldn’t see very well but was also colorblind, and they made him signal officer at Fort Canby, across the bay at the mouth of the Columbia, which was always a standing joke between us. I was in camp a few days when I caught the flu and was hospitalized. After four days in the hospital, I was discharged and ordered with my squad to march with full packs on a training trip. I was returned to the hospital, discovered [that] because of the shortness of my first visit I had pneumonia. That night I was put out on the porch with a heavy jacket and was kept under ice packs during the night. Later I was told I was out of my head during the night, and I wish I could find out the name of the hospital corpsman who I found out stayed with me most of the night and kept pouring ice cubes on me to keep me alive. The following morning I became conscious, was brought inside, and had all kind[s] of purple breaking out on my skin. I was put in an isolation ward and was recovering a little when upon my examination it was found I had spinal meningitis. I was then put in the spinal meningitis isolation ward with thirteen other men and had various stages of temperature up and down. My spine was punctured and fluid taken out from time to time. Of the thirteen men there, seven died, and of the remaining six, I was the only one who was not completely affected in one way or another, either loss of hearing or loss of the use of a leg. Peculiarly, of the thirteen men, I was the only one from the city; they were all strong, country boys. I attribute the fact that I had been in training at the officer’s training camp and was in very fine physical condition as one of the reasons I survived. I did not get out until the war was over. They were shutting the infirmary, and I was ordered to Letterman General Hospital in San Francisco for further care, when the captain in charge of the ward, a medical doctor from Astoria, Oregon was kind enough to give me an examination, which I did not exactly pass. But knowing that I would receive better attention at home, [he] permitted me to be discharged. I came home, was in bed for many months, and later went to southern California for six months in the sunshine, from where I believe I recuperated. 

Feldman: Let’s talk about how you met your wife, when and where. Your wife’s name is Pearl, isn’t it? 
GEVURTZ: My wife’s name was Pearl Baron, and she was born in Utah of a family that immigrated there in the early days. She and her family were very active in the Jewish Community at Salt Lake, which was a very closely-knit group. It happened that one of the closest friends was a family named Fulop [spells out]. Mr. Fulop had moved to Portland and had convinced Pearl’s father, Mr. Henry Baron, to move to Portland also, where they established a wholesale men’s clothing firm called Baron & Fulop, peculiarly on the same corner of NW Fifth and Couch where my brother Milton and I later had our business. I did not know the Barons at all. They lived on NW Northrup, at the corner of 25th. But she often speaks of her girlhood and friends that she made, including many prominent Portland Jewish…

Feldman:  Oh, that’s all right. We don’t want to go into that now, only your relationship with her.
GEVURTZ: Well, I first met Pearl, peculiarly, when I was teaching Temple Beth Israel religious school under Jonah B. Wise. I was a student at Reed College at the time, and I asked Jonah, who was my friend and under whom I had been bar mitzvahed, whether he knew of any method of raising funds to keep going to school. He told me I could take his confirmation class, which was rather a shock to me because I had been out of touch with things of that nature. But he gave me a book and told me to read the book and stay one lesson ahead of the class. In the class were many people that are well known in Portland: Mrs. Burton Lipman, who was Miriam Shamansky at the time; Marion Sichel, who became Marion Weiler; Jean and Jeanette Meier, who were from the Abe and Julius Meier families, but who moved to San Francisco later) Leland Lowenson, who has recently retired from his own business; Larry Franklin, who doesn’t live here, but became quite a well-known pianist; Newton Langerman, who is still in Portland; and a girl named Holzman [unclear]. I can’t think of her name, but I know she became a Mrs. Stone and lives in San Francisco. 

Feldman: How much did you get paid in those years for teaching Sunday school? 
GEVURTZ: Well, we got a sum which consisted of $10 for the first year, $12.50 the next, and $15 the third. And that was the maximum that you could get. But it seemed a sizable sum on account of the difference in the money of those days. Pearl Baron was in this class, and she was a standout girl because we had no Sunday school room in the old temple and the confirmation class had to use the temple sanctuary itself. This large space made it difficult to keep them together. Many of the girls, whose families I knew well, didn’t take it seriously. The boys did. And one girl, who seemed to be most ladylike and quite pretty, with long, brown curls, was Pearl Baron. Of course, at the time I did not know she was going to become my wife. I did not see Pearl for many years later. At that time, the Jewish Community Center, which was called the B’nai B’rith Building then, used to have fireside chats and meetings and entertainment on Sunday nights, including a little dancing. I was going up there by streetcar, and you transferred to the 13th Street car on 13th and Washington and went that direction. On that car on a particular night was Pearl, and she introduced me to her younger brother, Shirley Baron, who is now –

Feldman: – Her younger sister, you mean?
GEVURTZ: Her younger brother, Shirley Baron, who is now Dr. S.H. Baron, a very well-known doctor in San Francisco. We went in together, and as long as we had, I recalled this had been the girl I had taught in Sunday School a number of years earlier, and I asked her to dance. That was the start of our relationship, and it ended about three or four years later in our marriage. 

Feldman: When were you married? 
GEVURTZ: We were married on June 12th, 1924. So, this year on June 12th, we will have been married fifty years. 

Feldman: Fantastic. Let’s talk about your early membership in the Jewish Community Center for a minute. 
GEVURTZ: When I was going to high school, the Jewish Community Center offered a very good place for recreation and athletic activities, and I used to go there regularly. We had a basketball team which was called the Oregonia Club. Actually, we were juniors. The senior Oregonia Club, which included all of the active young men of Temple Beth Israel, had the senior club, and we were the juniors, and we played there.

Feldman: Can you recall some of the members of your team, their names? 
GEVURTZ: Yes. On our team was Sanford Sichel, who has passed away, but of the well-known Sichel family of Portland; Leon Goldsmith, who became Dr. Leon Goldsmith; Arthur Hoffman, who became Dr. Arthur Hoffman and is very active in Los Angeles, still practicing, and former head of the Cedars of Lebanon Hospital; Lew Herns, who has passed away. We had a boy from Vancouver, Washington called Nate Shandling. He was our star. The Shandlings were a well-known Jewish family in Vancouver. Nate was a good athlete and later became a professional baseball catcher. That’s all I remember of our team. I think we only had five or six. Later on, we had another team there, as I was older, called the B’nai B’rith Amateur Club. 

Feldman: What year was that? 
GEVURTZ: That would be when I was about high school age, so…

Feldman:  That’s all right, we can figure it out later.
GEVURTZ: It would be about 1912. We were sponsored by a well-known Portland sportsman, Henry A. Metzger, who furnished us with the uniforms and other expenses. He was the former husband of Flora Fleishner, who later became the wife of Rabbi Henry Berkowitz. In later years I played handball when I was working with my brother at Gevurtz Furniture Company. We used to play at noontime. One of the greatest thrills I had is when Herman Cohen and myself won the doubles handball championship, mainly due to the activities of Mr. Cohn.

Feldman: At the Jewish Community Center. 
GEVURTZ: At the Jewish Community Center. And I still have the cup, the little silver cup. Then later on we became known, famous in the handball court for the four Harrys (we played together), the other three Harrys being Harry Kenin, Harry Mittleman, and Harry Herzog, both of whom the last two are still alive. 

Feldman: You said that you are one of the original members that’s still alive. Where was the Jewish Community Center located then? 
GEVURTZ: The Jewish Community Center was on SW 13th near Montgomery and was recently torn down. It was sold to Portland State. A few years ago the management up there decided that they would like to check and see who of the original membership still lived, and they found out it was Anselm Boskowitz (who recently passed away), Milton Margulis, and myself. We are the originals. The activities up there culturally consisted of putting on lots of plays, and one of the most famous was given to raise funds for the B’nai B’rith Camp, the land of which was given by the Julius Meier family, but the buildings of which had to be paid for out of a fundraising event. So the Building put on a very big show at the Heilig Theater, then the main theatrical building, for two nights. They employed a coach from Seattle named Mr. Giles, and we put on a play called Welcome Strangers, the programs of which the Building still has. The lead in Welcome Strangers was played by Mr. Ike Davis, who is still in Portland, a well-known liquor agent. The second lead was played by myself, and most of the play consisted of dialogue between us. It was a howling success, as we had to work and practice very hard under the professional coach, in addition to which they sold tickets at very high prices, including box seats and candy during the performances. A large sum was raised, and it was really the start of the B’nai B’rith Camp. 

Feldman: What is your memory of some of your happiest experiences in Portland? 
GEVURTZ: My happiest experiences include our 30th anniversary party, where we hired a big place out on Southeast called Jack ’n Jill’s. We took over the entire place for the evening with a big buffet and bar and dancing, and we had a grand, glorious evening. The rabbi came and…

Feldman: Which rabbi?
GEVURTZ: Henry Berkowitz. And he made a nice speech about us. Then, at my 50th birthday, we had a party at the Multnomah Hotel and had a private room and a stag. I was rather inebriated at the time and was unable to make a reply to a beautiful poem and gift by the men and a speech given by Julius Zell. But Rabbi Berkowitz came to the occasion and responded for me, and we never forgot the occasion. In fact, we became such friends that when he returned from the Hebrew Union College meeting where he had made the principal speech, and I had asked him how it came off, he always responded with a cute remark, saying, “Modesty prevents me from telling you how great it was.” The other well-known occasion in my memory is my 70th birthday, which was not too terribly long ago, but which was given at the Benson Hotel, again a stag, and which resulted in many friends and well-wishers, and which also resulted in some of my close personal friends sending funds to Temple Beth Israel for me to use in some project I might designate, and which I have been using up in small quantities in the arts and crafts fund for the religious school. That is still in existence, although not publicized. We still have around $800 in the fund, which I hope to use soon. 

Feldman: You were saying that among your happiest memories as a boy was going every summer to Seaview, Washington. 
GEVURTZ: Yes, we had our home in Seaview, Washington, in a location which is a little bit north of Seaview, at a station under the old Ilwaco Railroad and Navigation train, called originally Centerville and then changed to Beach Center. This location consisted of people, mainly from Portland, who all owned their own homes. So we became acquainted with families every summer. We would go down there the first day after school was out on the steamer T. J. Potter, the famous excursion boat, and we would only come home the day before school started. This was great fun. We would go in the ocean, and as you know, you go by the tides. So it was great fun among the young people, who collected into a gang, to notify each other what time we were going. We would all gather on the beach and go in together. The same would apply to bonfires, which we held every four or five nights, and it was great fun building these bonfires, trying to see if we could have the biggest bonfire on the beach. You would look all the way down to Long Beach on one side and up to Seaview and north on the other side, hoping you’d have the biggest bonfire. You popped popcorn over the fire, or you put potatoes in the coals so they became roasted. Then you would bring up logs alongside, not too close to the fire, but just at a safe distance to be warm, and then you would sing songs. 

Feldman: Were your neighbors up there mostly Jewish? 
GEVURTZ: Not this group; none of them were Jewish. But they were the same people who came year in and year out. There were a few Jewish people who came to a hotel not too far away called the Sunset Hotel, like the Riches and a few families, and the Krauses. But generally speaking, these friendships lasted throughout the years, and some of the people I still see. Not far from us was a house owned by people called Barbey, the head of the house of which was a locksmith in Portland, Oregon. The reason I mentioned it is that the daughters of Mr. Barbey are still around Portland, some married and some not, and we are still friendly with them, one particularly in the Reed College Alumni, which I am active [in]. The son of the family, Dan Barbey, was one of us boys, a little bit older than me, about the age of my brother Milton. He became the famous Admiral Dan Barbey during World War II, who was responsible for some of the great navy victories in the south Pacific. He has been extolled. When he came home and was on leave from the Navy, it was rumored that Dan Barbey was coming over to see my mother, who was very fond of him, and we all were standing in great respect waiting to see this great naval hero. He came up to my mother and saluted, and my mother looked at him and said, “Why, Danny boy, you look kinda pale” [Feldman laughs].

Feldman: Harry, let me ask you, do you have any children? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, I have a daughter, Joanne, who was born April 30th, 1940 [unclear] in Portland here, and she grew up as a child in this house. She went to Catlin Gable School in the neighborhood, and then at high school age went to Lincoln High School. She was quite active in Lincoln High School, was editor of the Cardinal, the school paper, and she was in the National Merit Scholarship group and was selected for admission to any of the Big Six eastern ladies’ colleges, and also to Stanford. She went to Stanford a very short time, became ill and returned to Portland. Later she went to Portland State College, where she went two years, when she became married to Larry Usher. Later she was divorced and finished her two years and received a degree from Portland State. 

Feldman: In what field? 
GEVURTZ: In the field of psychology, a psychology major. Well, at about that time she met Herman Birch, who was teaching in psychology, in which he has a PhD, at the University of Portland. They have been married six or seven years, and they live in Costa Mesa, California. 

Feldman: Do they have any children? 
GEVURTZ: She has one child, Lauren [spells out]. He teaches at the University of California at Irvine, which is close to their residence, and she is taking courses at Irvine, and also as of late, they have become active in the activities, from a management standpoint, of Weight Watchers [laughs]. 

Feldman: Harry, you were telling me about when the talking movies first came to Portland. 
GEVURTZ: Yes, the first talking movie came to Portland in 1927, and it opened up at the Blue Mouse Theater, which at that time was located on what is now SW 11th and Washington Streets. 

Feldman: What was the name of the movie?
GEVURTZ: The name of the movie was The Jazz Singer by Al Jolson. Harry Kenin and I went to the opening performance, and we never forgot these opening lines, which were like this: “Folks, I’m gonna sing for you a mammy song. Now John McCormick, the famous radio singer, he sings Mother McCrea, and surely that’s a mammy song. So with your kind per- mission folks, I’m going to sing for you a mammy song… [singing] Mammy” [Feldman laughs].

Feldman: Harry, in your long and useful life, you’ve been very active in civic activities. Let’s talk a little bit about your temple presidency. When were you president of the Temple Beth Israel? 
GEVURTZ: I was president of the Temple Beth Israel in 1959 and 1960, a two-year term. Later on, when there was a certain period of time in which it was difficult to find a leader who was ready, at that particular time, to step into the presidency, I was asked to return. So I was president again in 1966 to 1967. This was the first time in the history of the temple that any man was president twice. 

Feldman: Could you tell me a little bit about some of the activities that the temple did during your first presidency? 
GEVURTZ: During my first presidency I was fortunate to have Rabbi Nodel, who was very active in communal affairs and kept up the spirits and membership of the temple in a good manner. During my second presidency, or I should say, just at the end of my first presidency, Rabbi Nodel expressed his desire to take a rabbi position in St. Louis, Missouri, and we were very busy with trying to secure a new rabbi. We interviewed a great many rabbis during that time, and I had to present them. On some occasions I was forced, with the aid of other members of the board, to conduct the services myself. During my second time as president, my sister Fanny Gevurtz Crohn passed away, and as executor of her will, and under my previous suggestion, she left the temple a sum sufficient to reorganize and re- build the temple altar, which was very inconveniently arranged, and to establish it in a lower basis as it rests now with new arrangement and carpeting. But the main purpose she had in mind was to furnish completely new ark doors instead of the old curtains. The beautiful bronze ark doors which are at the temple now and which everyone admires, which indicates a picture of Moses and the burning bush, given in memory of my sister and her husband, and the dedication of this and the rearrangement of the temple fortunately came during my own presidency. 

Feldman: Who designed the temple doors? Frederick Littman, wasn’t it?
GEVURTZ: Yes, Frederick Littman designed them, and he himself has said this is one of the most beautiful and interesting jobs that he has ever done. Everybody admires them. 

Feldman: Can you think of any other activities that stand out during your presidency? 
GEVURTZ: Well, when I…

[The audio for this next section of the transcript is missing and there is a break in the audio. See below for where the audio resumes.]

Feldman: In the other tape we started to talk about some of your activities at the temple. 
GEVURTZ: Yes, I originally became interested in the temple activities from a leadership standpoint when Rabbi Berkowitz was the rabbi and he appointed me historian of the Men’s Club. This was not a serious title, but a title which permitted me to read the minutes of the proceedings, which we read in a facetious manner. The members got quite a kick out of this to such extent that Dr. Jerome Holzman later had me make copies of all of the minutes that were read, and he collected them into book form. One of the most interesting minutes that I read was that [of] a joint meeting between our Men’s Club and the Trinity Episcopal Church. The minutes that I read were about our previous meeting at the Multnomah Hotel where Bishop Dagwell was the chief speaker. I took him off by saying his speech could have been summarized by the expression, “Some of my best friends are Jews.” Bishop Dagwell got such a kick out of this that he almost fell out of his chair laughing. Later I became the president of the Men’s Club, I haven’t got the exact date, but Rabbi Berkowitz certainly was a great help to me because often when our program was not completely arranged and I became nervous at the last minute he would say, “Don’t worry. I’ll always come up with something for you.” And he did. Included in my activities after my presidency, or just preceding it when I was vice president, the temple in 1953 held their 100th anniversary with a huge banquet at the Multnomah Hotel, and I served as vice-chairman of that affair. 

Feldman: Do you remember who the chairman was? 
GEVURTZ: The chairman was Frank Fink. Later, after my presidencies (the two which I mentioned previously), I became president of the Pacific Northwest Region of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. This was in the years 1962 and 1964, and also in these two years I became a member of the National Board of the Union of American Hebrew Congregations. Following the expiration of this term, Rabbi Joseph Glazier, the executive secretary, had a Temple Friday night gathering and presented me with a beautiful kiddush cup, one of my prized possessions. 

Feldman: Do you remember any of the activities of that organization while you were active in it? What were some of the projects they were working on? 
GEVURTZ: Well, the main idea of the region was to try to coordinate the activities of the Reform synagogues, one in Portland, two in Seattle at that time, one in Tacoma and one in Spokane. We held conferences which discussed the matter of lay leadership, of participation of various members in the activities, such as religious school, the men’s clubs, and it would put a lot of emphasis on youth activities. Because during the time that we met at various conventions in the various cities, we also always had a gathering of the youth groups, and we discussed their problems, which they brought up before the board, and also the problems of the sisterhood. And we were often able to give valuable advice because most of the members who attended these regional meetings were past presidents of their own synagogues or those who were most active in their own synagogue. One of the activities which I participated in, and which has a certain religious connotation, is the National Conference of Christians and Jews. Since its very beginning I have been a board member. I was appointed to it by the late David Robinson, who was not only past president of Temple Beth Israel, but the consulting chairman for the Anti-Defamation League, and he got me interested in his work. During the years 1959 and l960, and 1961 and 1962, I became the Jewish co-chairman, which means that you were the chairman representing the Jewish people, along with the chairman representing the Catholic people and another chairman representing the Protestants. 

Feldman: Do you remember the name of the Catholic and Protestant chairmen at the time? 
GEVURTZ: The Catholic co-chairman was Ford Watkins of the First National Bank, a very close friend of mine and the man who is being honored this year as Brotherhood Honoree of the Year. The Protestant co-chairman was Mr. Dave Abrams of the U.S National Bank. We all succeeded in taking our turns as president chairman. And in the year 1963 and 1964 I became the presiding chairman, which means you also preside at the Brotherhood dinner and give the award to the honoree. It was quite unusual that it was my experience during one of these years to give the award to Tom McCall just previous to his running for Secretary of State, and as you know, he has become the governor. Whenever I see him and we have a short discussion, he never fails to mention the fact that I gave him the Brotherhood Award in the year that I was presiding chairman. Preceding the formation of the National Conference of Christians and Jews, for several years the same general idea was being fostered by a group called the Interfaith Council and also consisted of the leaders of the three denominations, and it was my honor during the period of the existence of the Interfaith Council that I was one of the recipients of the Brotherhood Award. My other activities revolved to quite an extent around the B’nai B’rith Lodge. I am an early time member of the B’nai B’rith Lodge and have been a member for 55 years according to my membership card. In my youthful days I became the adviser to the youth organization of the B’nai B’rith called the AZA. This group of young people was encouraged by the Lodge, but most of the work of leadership depended upon the adviser. Mr. Harry Kenin, who was very active in civic and in lodge affairs, was the first adviser. It was my privilege to be the second adviser, and when I left the group presented me with a beautiful onyx-base pen and pencil and also a watch charm that you can wear on a bracelet made of platinum, which is also inscribed to me. I will never forget these young fellows. They are Portland young fellows that I remember and was friendly with and helped advise; many of them are prominent people around Portland now. 

Feldman: Can you remember some of their names? 
GEVURTZ: Among them is Saul Siegel, who is a very well known lawyer, and a young chap named Popick. I can’t remember his name because always just called him “Captain” because he was captain of the basketball team, and he is a very well-known accountant. I think there is a young man named Sussman, who is in business, and the others I believe are scattered and not in my recollection, with the exception of David Ostermill, who is on our debating team and won the championship in San Francisco and who has been a friend for years.  He still is one of the leading merchandisers with Gevurtz Furniture Company. 

Feldman: Do you remember any of the activities that the AZA did during those years? 
GEVURTZ: Outside of the social gatherings and the dances and participating in a certain amount of religious study, the other activities were athletics. And they always had a very fine basketball team. In fact, just preceding me, the three members of the AZA basketball team later went to the University of Oregon and played on the first team. They held a gathering of the teams for the championship, usually always in San Francisco or Los Angeles, and we had trouble raising money to send the team. We used to go by train, doubling up, two in a lower birth and two in an upper berth, and sometimes one in a hammock. The time that I remember the best was when we won all the championships in San Francisco with Captain Popick on the basketball team, including Saul Siegel the attorney I mentioned before, and George Campf, who is a young businessman in Portland. Then we won the debating team on which one of them was David Ostermill, whom I mentioned before, and then we won the oratorical contest, which was unusual because San Francisco had a orator who was one of the champion college orators in his day.

Feldman: You were competing against other groups? 
GEVURTZ: We were competing against AZA groups in Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. The oratorical contest was won by David Eisenberg, who is still in Portland in a very responsible position with Jantzen. My great pleasure was to preside as chairman of the 100th anniversary of Portland Lodge B’nai B’rith held in the Sheraton Hotel in 1967. We had one of the leading men from the national B’nai B’rith and also the leaders of the district to which Portland belonged, District Number 4, and this ended in a beautiful night followed by an orchestra for music and dancing. The other activities which I engaged in recently were of a contributory nature because of my time and experience. Following World War II there was organized in Portland the Multnomah County Veterans Service Committee, which had to do with trying to render service to the veterans who came home, many of whom were out of jobs, and some in hard financial circumstances. This was a committee of various Portland people, and it was a tradition that one Jewish man served. Mr. Max Hirsch, who was the selector, selected by me to succeed Harold Wendel on this committee. He did a lot of good work in this group. It was very self-rewarding. 

Feldman: What type of work did you do? 
GEVURTZ: We opened an office and had various veterans come to us with their problems, either employment, or problems of necessities of life, or problems of health because of wartime service. So we worked a lot with the Veterans Administration. In fact, we had people from the Veterans Administration and the Oregon Employment Service on our committee, and we got the employment service to set up the special division for returning veterans, something which they had not contemplated previously. We went to the hospital, and we checked with the doctors of the veterans who were wounded to see and hope that they had good care. One of the main problems that we endeavored to alleviate was the lack of employment. Many firms had closed their job openings during their absence, and we called on many employers and in many cases got them to give back the jobs to the veterans — jobs that they held previously or to create new jobs. More recently we have organized the Multnomah County Committee to employ the handicapped. I became interested in this early by appointment, and for several years I served as their chairman. This has to do with trying to get [jobs for] people who are handicapped — hurt because of the war activities or just because of natural defects, like loss of sight or loss of arms and loss of hearing. We have worked very hard to see that these people get employment. We have encouraged the employers to try to realize that these kinds of people were equipped and have been trained through the vocational rehabilitation division of the State of Oregon to hold certain types of jobs. We tried to point out that these are very steady employees; they do not jump from job to job. They become very proficient. They are very steady, they are very honest, and they are very appreciative. This is the type of work I am very much interested in. Lately I became chairman for the second time. I am now just a member of the committee, but this is one of my greatest interests. My most current activity is connected with the Northwest Pilot Project on NW Everett Street where they have a home as headquarters. Father Peter Paulsen is the head of it, and incidentally it’s a home in which the Stern family, which I mentioned much earlier — they lived on 11th Street in my boyhood, moved eventually from there, and owned this home. I think that the final heirs of the Stern family donated this home for use. They have many different activities there such as counseling and trying to check into families that are quite poor to make sure that they get taken care of in that way. I know that Temple Beth Israel through its sisterhood has a Loaves and Fishes program. 

Feldman: What is that? 
GEVURTZ: That is a program in public housing areas of which there are two on Everett, one on the corner of 11th and one between 20th and 21Street. Twice a week the Sisterhood takes turns along with other organizations to serve meals to the people there to make sure that they get at least one hearty, well-cooked, plentiful meal on that day. They also have a program called Meals on Wheels, and I think the Sisterhood helps on that. They take meals to those who cannot get out of their home[s]. My particular activity is in the department of transportation, and I give my car, as much as can, to take people from their home[s. These people are incapacitated and either cannot drive themselves or are not wealthy enough to own a car. We take them either to the hospitals like the University of Oregon Medical School Outpatient Clinic, or we take them to various places for therapy, or we take them to places where they just have to go to doctor’s offices, and on occasion we take them to some stores where they can do shopping and bring them home. I am on call there, and they call me quite frequently. The people that we take are very, very thankful and appreciate it a great deal, and it is a source of a certain personal satisfaction to know that you are helping those that are less fortunate. 

Feldman: Harry, are you familiar with any of the help that was given to the victims of the Holocaust that came to Portland? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, we had a committee organized among the various people, not necessarily connected with the religious organizations per se, that met at the Jewish Center to discuss the problems of these people, and in a way to see how much we could possibly help. The actual taking of individual cases was taken by certain people such as my brother Louis, who helped several people that came. I remember that he helped them establish small businesses or got them jobs. Then, through the Jewish Benevolent Society, an old organization established years and years ago which had a certain amount of money, he was the man who decided who should have loans to open up little businesses or have loans to buy a modest home, etc. These people were very happy that there was such an organization where they all knew they could come to. We called them the “newcomers.”

I think the organization was called Friends of the Newcomers; it was a regular official name, and we held very many meetings trying to decide on policy. But we didn’t spend so much time on policy as on where there were opportunities to assist them, and we always managed to find enough money, though they were modest sums. We always found we could raise enough money to get them started. One of the leaders I remember was Max Hirsch, who always remembered he was [an] immigrant young man from Germany years ago. To furnish some kind of pleasure the newcomers had a little group of their own organization. They wanted to get together and have some pleasure and fun other than the seriousness they were naturally involved in. There were dances and entertainment at least once a month, sometimes more often. 

Feldman: Did they call themselves the Friendship Club? 
GEVURTZ: I think they called themselves the Friendship Club. It sounds very familiar. I was part of a group that helped put on these affairs for their entertainment and mingling with the rest of us because we didn’t just want them to be there among themselves, we wanted the regular Portland people to become acquainted with them and to be their friends. There were two girls, I can only think of their last name, Gross; they were the leaders of this, and they kept after my wife and I all the time to be sure and be there and help provide the entertainment. If we couldn’t arrange dances, we would see that somebody else could. We went there regularly, and I met some very fine people among the newcomers. 

Feldman: Do you remember any of the newcomers particularly? 
GEVURTZ: This one lady I remember quite well, Lore Labby, but her name was Lore Caro then. She was a delightful young lady, and in fact we became very close. When we went down to the beach in summertime, when my daughter Joanne was just a little child, Lore went with us, and she stayed with us. And she loved the beach and all that, and she was really part of our family during that time. We have never forgotten our close friendship with her. There were plenty of others who came and grew up. Some of the young people were in my classes in Temple Beth Israel religious school, and very often now I see some of these people. They are not only into American society, but in Portland affairs, and you don’t think of them certainly as newcomers any more because they are a substantial portion of our Jewish and Portland community. 

Feldman: Very good. Harry, you started to tell me the last time we met that you were actively involved in finding a new rabbi. Was it after Rabbi Berkowitz left? 
GEVURTZ: No, it was after Rabbi Nodel left. I didn’t really have too much notice on Rabbi Nodel’s leaving. He had arranged to go to St. Louis despite all of our efforts to urge him to stay on with a better remuneration, etc. He had made up his mind to go anyway. So we were left searching for a new rabbi. This was rather difficult. The Union of American Hebrew Congregations furnishes you list of prospects through their home office, but this often is not very complete, and we did use them for the first two or three applicants. The way we did it was we had an applicant come out, and he would give a Friday night and Saturday morning service. He also would meet with the committee to be interviewed, a committee which consisted of myself and the officers of the synagogue plus all the past presidents available. After we had two or three, we decided then to search on our own by getting leads from other people about rabbis from other communities who might want to come to Portland. For a while none of the rabbis that we heard seemed to be just quite 100%, and as long as we didn’t have one, we thought we might just as well go along the best we could until we would get what we thought was the proper person. We had an interim rabbi during the Holidays coming up from the Hebrew Union College branch in Los Angeles.  He was very satisfactory, but he was committed to his position. 

Feldman: Do you remember his name? You said that that man is now the head of the Hebrew Union College, but you couldn’t get him because he was committed where he was. 
GEVURTZ: He was committed where he was. The one who we almost appointed was assistant in Temple Emanuel in San Francisco. He would have taken the position except that he wanted to make many changes in our method of religious observance, and so members of the committee did not vote for him. Finally, we got down to almost the end of the list when someone suggested that we had a letter from a man who was second in command in Emanuel and had graduated just two years before from Hebrew Union College. It seemed that upon investigation we found that Temple Emanuel always took the man for this assistantship who was the leading graduate in rabbinical studies. This put a different light upon the subject, and we telephoned New York, through the offices of Peter Mark’s father.

We then communicated as far as possible with the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, who did not particularly recommend this young man as opposed to many more experienced rabbis who had been interviewed and who had come out, but had not quite been acceptable. We therefore invited Rabbi Rose to come out and go through the usual process of Friday night service, Saturday morning service, and an interview. We were quite impressed, not only with his reputation and records in New York, but by the fact that though he was a young man. We realized that we had taken young men before, such as Jonah B. Wise, who had built up their reputation and their mark in Portland, Oregon. It seemed to us that this young man might do likewise. He came out and met with the board, and there was quite a discussion. We had a few people who were rather ardent Zionists, and they were on our committee. At that time Emanuel had not taken a very favorable position on the establishment of the State of Israel, and they were worried about him for that reason. I discussed this with him personally and found that this was not the case with him. In fact, as a student at the Hebrew Union College he had spent some time in Israel. So I waited until [after] all the arguments of the two people aforementioned as strongly against him, and I held my ammunition. Then I told them my experience with him and that I felt that he was the one. My argument prevailed, and he was selected with simply one not voting for the above-mentioned reason. 

Feldman: How many members were on your selection committee? 
GEVURTZ: There were the five officers, and the president of the Sisterhood, and the president of the Men’s Club, then the past presidents [who] at that time consisted of about four past presidents that were available. He was practically unanimously selected, and that was my experience. My next experience with him was to discuss arrangements, which I did with permission of the board, on an individual basis. When we got through and the matter seemed to be completely satisfactory to both of us, I put out my hand and shook his hand, and he said, “What is this?” I said, “That concludes our agreement.” He said, “Don’t you have a contract or anything like that?” I said, “ Portland, Oregon, rabbis have never had a contract; we just simply shake hands.” He looked at me rather amazedly, and I said, “Maybe in the east everything has to be written down very carefully, but out here in the west we just shake hands and that’s as good as any bond.” 

Feldman: All right. You said that you remembered the name of the rabbi who you wanted to select who came up from California to conduct your holiday services. 
GEVURTZ: The rabbi’s name is Alfred Gottschalk, and he was just delightful here and made very many great friends. The congregation practically descended upon me to secure him, and I could not because of his commitment. He had made a commitment back east on the basis that he at one time would probably rise from the head of the department in California to something greater. It certainly worked out, because two or three years ago he became the head of the Hebrew Union College and he is one of the leading rabbis, not only of the nation, but is known all over the world. And he never forgot Portland and the experience here. We constantly communicate with good wishes on both sides. 

Feldman: Do you have a little more information about money that your sister left? Your sister’s name was? 
GEVURTZ: Fanny Gevurtz Crohn, widow of Sid Crohn. As I stated before, I helped draw up her will. She had no children, and she wanted to do some good in the Jewish Portland community. In addition to the sums I mentioned before that she left to Temple Beth Israel, and which resulted in the beautiful, bronze ark doors, she left a large sum of money for the Robison Home for the Aged, at that time called the Robison Jewish Home for the Aged. The money was supposed to be for an elevator that they thought they needed when they built the building.

They found out they did not need the elevator later, but they could use the money. I was able to secure permission from myself to change the gift as executor of the estate, and we presented the Jewish Home with their Arts and Crafts division, which extends way out at the front of the building, beautifully organized with large fluorescent lights and all the tables and materials. This is one of the delights of the Robison Home, and this part of the home is named in honor of my sister. I meant to say something more about my other sister, Lillian Grant, age 87, still living presently at the Robison Home. After she was married a number of years, they purchased a home on Arlington Heights which all of Portland became acquainted with because it was called “The Castle.” It was built with stones representing a castle and a turret on top, and the entrance to it came from a side street, and when you wanted to enter there you came through the side street, and there was a moat around it representing European castles. And to get into the garage you had to lower the drawbridge, and then your car would enter into the garage. This home was built at a very big expense, and the original builder lost it because he did not have sufficient funds. 

Feldman: Was the original builder Pigget? Is that the one they call Pigget’s castle? 
GEVURTZ: No, Pigget’s castle is the one way up in South Portland. No, I don’t know the name of the builder, but I know that he lost it, and then it was unoccupied for a period of time because they couldn’t find a purchaser. During the period of this time it was one of the showplaces of Portland, and they charged people 25 cents per person to go in and to go through the castle because of the beauty of it, the huge fireplace, and in the basement, like would be in a castle, was a pool, not like the modern pools, but built in the shape of a dungeon of a castle, but in this case it was a swimming pool. They lived there from 1930 when Mr. Grant and his wife, my sister, purchased it until he passed away in 1940 and my sister sold it in 1942. It is still a beautiful home and people often driving by refer to it as “The Castle.”

Feldman: Thank you very much, Harry. That was most interesting. And with your permission, if we need any amplification of any of this material, I would like to come back some time in the future. 
GEVURTZ: That will be all right. And I want to thank you very much for coming here and spending so much time with me and my reminiscences of Portland and activities. 

Feldman: Thank you. You started to tell me a story about Mr. Rich.
GEVURTZ: Yes, Sy S. Rich was an old-time Portland cigar merchant. Originally, the cigar store was in front of Trautman’s Saloon on Morrison Street between 3rd and 4th, right across the street from the Royal Bakery, which was well known to all Portland people in those days, particularly when you would come down in the late afternoon and take your father as businessmen and see other children of businessmen and have cream puffs and hot chocolate. Mr. Rich later on moved up to the corner of 4th and Morrison and had his cigar store there. He got into the habit of closing up exactly at the same time every night and took his bag of cash, which was considerable. Then he would walk over to his other store on 6th and Washington Street and pick up the cash there. Then, what he would do was to take an Owl Car home, which left on every hour, and I presume it was probably the two o’clock street car, which went right up Washington Street. He would get off on the corner of 21st and start to walk north. At that time, I was living in the Marlboro Apartments on the corner of NW 21st and Flanders. Right outside the side of our apartment house were two large trees, very leafy in nature, and therefore it was very dark at this particular spot. On the evening or early morning that I am talking about, Mr. Rich was finally held up. It was not unusual because he came for years, got off the same Owl Car and walked the same street, which was very dark, and walked by this particularly dark spot. The robber stuck a gun in his back and called him by name and said, “Mr. Rich, give me that bag of money. I know you’ve got the funds from both your cigar stores.” Mr. Rich started to argue with the man and pleaded not to give up the money, and the robber said, “You better quit talking or I am going to have to hit you over the head.” With that statement, Mr. Rich turned around to him, and he said, “You look like a pretty nice fellow; I’ll tell you what I’ll do. You take the bag of money and I split it with you fifty-fifty.” 

Feldman: You started to tell me about another activity in which you were active. 
GEVURTZ: Yes. Quite a few years ago David Robinson, who was quite a leader in Jewish activities, came to me and said that he had been in contact with Father Tobin who was a very well -known leader among the Catholic people of Portland and quite liberal in his views and quite interested in the black people of Portland, who were not doing very good in those days, particularly as regarding employment. Dave explained to me, in a meeting with Father Tobin, that the only real jobs that they could be sure of getting was as janitors and laborers in the field of cleaning up, and that type of work. And among black women, it was just as maids and washerwomen, and so forth. Dave wanted to leave this work because he was very busy with his Anti-Defamation League activities, and he asked me to take his place. I began holding regular meetings with Father Tobin and two or three leaders from the black people, particularly those who seemed to have more than average education. Our object was to get employment for black people in jobs other than those described above. We started out by attempting to contact department stores and ask them to put some employees in sales work, because heretofore they only had a few as janitors. Meier & Frank Company refused to discuss the matter with us at the time, and so we went to Lipman, Wolfe, whose leader and president was Harold Wendel, well known in Portland Jewish circles. Mr. Wendel was not completely negative, but very uncertain as to the possibility of doing this, and said that if we ever put one black person to work there, he was pretty sure that there would be a large number of trusted employees who would want to quit working near this employee. To my astonishment, Father Tobin replied to Mr. Wendel that Rabbi [sic] Tobin and Harry Gevurtz would see to it that any person who might want to quit under these circumstances would be interviewed by us and would be convinced not to quit work. This took me quite by surprise, as I certainly did not feel that I was equipped, not being a man of the cloth, such as Father Tobin. But the statement was made, and under those circumstances and with further difficult meetings and conversations, we managed to get the first negro man employed in Lipman, Wolfe on the first floor where he could be seen by everybody that came in, whether to his department or not. I held my breath, as I felt sure I was going to be called upon to use persuasion, but the argument that Father Tobin had given was evidently legitimate because we did not have this problem. We felt it a great victory. We then proceeded by several means of attack to let Meier & Frank’s know that there was a negro working in Lipman, Wolfe’s. We surreptitiously informed them that we thought that the negro people would certainly be more interested in doing business at such a store. Therefore, shortly afterwards, Meier & Frank’s called Father Tobin and I, and asked us to recommend a negro for employment in their store. We did so, and this was the beginning for employment of negroes in the retail establishments in Portland. From this small beginning many negroes began to get employment in various capacities, some of them reaching as far as assistant managers of departments, and at least the problem that seemed insurmountable was accomplished in this manner. 

Feldman: What was the name of the group that you and Father Tobin formed? 
GEVURTZ: It was called the Committee on Principles and Practices, and we usually met in the Catholic Parish House. Father Tobin, being active in trying to secure negro membership in the Catholic Church, always managed to get two or three negro leaders working with us, which was important because when we wanted to recommend a negro for the position, we wanted to be pretty sure that they were qualified and would make a go of it on that basis. 

Feldman: Very good. Thank You.

[Michele Glazer and Harry Gevurtz are looking at photographs] 

GEVURTZ: This first photograph is the Citizenship Acknowledgement by the State of Oregon, County of Multnomah, for my father, Isaac Gevurtz, when he became a citizen in 1884. 

Glazer: Have you ever seen that before? 
GEVURTZ: No, I have never seen this before. 

Glazer: So you don’t know any of the facts? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t know the facts, but I know that he had come to Portland, Oregon, at least five years before this. 

Glazer: Why did he wait so long to get it? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t know why. It might be that he was very busy studying to be an American. Being very devoted to this country, being that he had had difficult times in Europe and in England as a young man, and possibly he wanted to make sure that he was capable of answering any questions regarding the United States and his love for this country. 

Glazer: Was there any reason besides the poverty that he left Poland? 
GEVURTZ: I think the main reason was poverty. He was a very young boy, and I don’t believe that he knew much about the governing factors of the country, whether it was the opposite of a democracy, dictatorship. I just think that he had enough get up and go, that he decided that he wasn’t going to live in poverty the rest of his life, like his older brother seemed to be doing. 

Glazer: Did all of his brothers stay there, or is he the only one that came? 
GEVURTZ: After he came to the United States he brought out two brothers. One was named Henry, who is buried near him in the cemetery, and a younger brother that may have even been born after he left the country, named Peter Gevurtz. He came out and lived here all of his life, first in Astoria, Oregon, and then in Los Angeles, California, where he was in the movie business. But he’s been dead now for quite a few years. 

Glazer: Did he have any trouble getting that, that you know? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t know that he had any trouble. It’s been so many years before I was born, and he didn’t refer to it very much. The only thing that he referred to in connection with things like this was his great love for the freedom of the United States and how different it was, and how it was an opportunity for even a poor boy, an immigrant, to come to this country and make a living and be an upright citizen. 

Glazer: Do you share those feelings? 
GEVURTZ: I certainly do. We personally have always worked hard along those lines, and that’s one reason I have a strong feeling for Judaism, because Judaism teaches the finest principles — humility, justice, honesty, fairness and mainly brotherhood of all people. 

Glazer: Did your parents bring you up to be strong, strong Jewish? 
GEVURTZ: My parents let me be exposed to Judaism a great deal, and by their example and by their charity and honesty, I realized that these were important Jewish factors as well as American factors. But they did not teach me in the old-fashioned methods of Orthodox Jews. My father was active in both the Conservative and the Reform, but particularly when Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, who became one of the most famous Jewish personalities, was rabbi of Temple Beth Israel when I was a boy. My father then became very active in Temple Beth Israel. I went to the Sunday School there, and we got strong Jewish feelings though it was not as strong in a completely Jewish way as Orthodox Jewish. 

Glazer: How do you mean? 
GEVURTZ: Well, it was much easier for us to grow up into a community in a synagogue where you rubbed elbows with other young people that were born in this country more than they were born in foreign countries. You could understand the ethical and moral teachings of the Prophets, for instance, in the English translations. You had an advantage over he foreign-born that belonged to the Orthodox, even though the principles applied, of course, to all Jews. 

Glazer: You said that your father taught you humility. Can you give me any examples? 
GEVURTZ: Well, my father did a lot of good as soon as his business prospered. Selling on credit, very often the credit department, being business-like, would want to foreclose on the furniture for lack of payment, which is a normal procedure. I know that on many occasions my father insisted on looking over the records of these possible foreclosures, and insisted that they not be foreclosed and extended the time, as long as they wanted. Sometimes they never did pay. I have seen people come into the store when I was a boy and thank him and kiss his hand for allowing them to continue to have the furniture, although legally they could have foreclosed and taken it back. He sent funds to his relatives in Poland, who were still on a very bad financial basis and were not actually getting along very well. He constantly sent funds over there to alleviate as much as possible their poverty. Actually, it was true to some extent of my mother’s relatives in Germany, although they were not poor by any sense. But they always let him know when there were occasions like marriages and graduations and he was very generous to them. He made trips three times to Germany to see his wife’s family and once into Poland. On each occasion he was very generous, and we used to read these wonderful letters of thanks. 

Glazer: Did you ever go there? 
GEVURTZ: No, I never went. When I was in Europe it was the time of Hitler, and I avoided Germany and Italy and visited the other countries of Europe. 

Glazer: Were you there on vacation? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, there on a vacation trip. At that time my mother had relatives who had escaped from Germany and had reached Holland. We went over and helped them because they escaped with no worldly possessions. Another young man, one of her sister’s family, escaped and got to Shanghai. My brother Milton and I furnished him the funds to get to South America and then helped him start a business in Colombia, and he got along all right. 

Glazer: You have a real strong sense of family. 
GEVURTZ: We have a very strong sense of family. It was because our early days as children; we were all one family and we always were considerate of each other. When we used to have dinner around the table with the whole family we always recounted what each one has been doing during the day, and on our progress. We were complimented when we did things well and perhaps criticized when we didn’t do so well, but we always respected our [parents]. My mother was very genteel and kindly and was known as one of the sweetest ladies in Portland. That’s been said of her. My father had such a fine reputation in business, but at home, as a father, he was quite strict and wanted to know what we had been doing during the day. If we had done something he considered wrong, we were disciplined. Though we didn’t like it at the time, we learned to grow up to love and respect our parents and the other members of our family. 

Glazer: [question unclear]
GEVURTZ: I don’t know too much about this particular…

Glazer: What does it say? He was formerly a citizen of Russia? 
GEVURTZ: Yes. That’s a funny thing. That’s wrong. 

Glazer: Is it? 
GEVURTZ: It was Poland. 

Glazer: His naturalization papers are wrong. It says that he was from Russia, but he says he was from Poland. 
GEVURTZ: I know the town that he came from. 

Glazer: It says he was 16. What was the town that he came from? 
GEVURTZ: It was called…

Glazer: I think it’s probably in the transcript. 
GEVURTZ: Wait a minute…I was thinking of it — Lublin [spells out]; it’s pronounced Lublín. 

Glazer: Was that a little village or a big city? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t think it was big in those days. It was just a city. It grew into a big city, but it was small. 

Glazer: That’s interesting — that they would make a mistake on it. It said he was 16 years when he came.
GEVURTZ: It said he was 16 when he came to this country? 

Glazer: Yes, in 1867. 
GEVURTZ: You see, by that time he had already been to England and New York, and somebody in the family said they think that he went to Philadelphia. I don’t know, but I know San Francisco. He was there quite a few years. 

Glazer: Was he involved in the Gold Rush? 
GEVURTZ: No, it was after the Gold Rush. They had prosperity, though. San Francisco was growing like anything. 

Glazer: It says that he was 16 when he came but that he became a citizen when he was 32, so that was 16 years. Why did he wait so long? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t know. I couldn’t answer you on that. In 1886, that’s when he married my mother. You see, in those days the synagogue used to give you your certificate instead of getting it at City Hall and stuff like that. This was at Temple Beth Israel. 

Glazer: This was on paper, or was this a plaque? Or what was it? 
GEVURTZ: It’s a regular strong paper, what do you call it? parchment. I just kept this. Did you see the frame it’s in? 

Glazer: No, I hadn’t seen it. 
GEVURTZ: Oh, it’s a beautiful frame. Today antiquers would go crazy over a frame like that, that old. 

Glazer: Is this Hebrew? 
GEVURTZ: Yes. I can’t read it but it’s Hebrew. One of the two men who signed it, see, Joe Friedenthal, this fellow, by marriage [unclear]…I guess his grandson’s wife, we just visited her down in Carmel Valley, Elizabeth Friedenthal. Does it say Sol? 

Glazer: Yes, is he alive? 
GEVURTZ: No, I am talking about his grandson’s wife. 

Glazer: Do you know anything about the color? 
GEVURTZ: No, but the temple had this. You see it says, happiness, sincerity, fidelity, union, prosperity. This is beautiful in the great big gold frame. All I know about this, and I couldn’t talk to you long about this, is that my mother came to San Francisco, too, but she didn’t know him in San Francisco because he had been married to someone else. But she came to Portland to visit her brother. She came from a family of about six girls and one son, her brother; and he lived in Portland, Henry Gerson. He was an old timer in Portland. 

Glazer: What did he do? 
GEVURTZ: He had a cigar business, retail cigar business. Henry Gerson, called Gerson & Hart. Mr. Hart was an old-timer too, Sol Hart. They started this cigar business with Mr. Gerson, and they were doing very well. I know where it was; it was right on Third Street, right on Third and Washington. I remember it was when I was a boy because they still had it. He had his sister visiting him, and like in those days, everybody got mated up, so they met him and they made the match. My mother was a very good-looking woman. 

Glazer: Yes, she was. 
GEVURTZ: She [already] had quite a family, but when she was younger she was very good looking, and they made the match. And they both came from Poland, near Germany, not far from each other. My mother lived in that part of Germany which was near Poland called East Prussia — coal mines — and he lived in Lublin. I am pretty sure that’s why he has a German name. So they didn’t know each other, these two separate families. My father’s family was all right and my mother’s family was all right; they were in the fur business. They weren’t real rich, but they were comfortable. 

Glazer: Her family was Jewish also? 
GEVURTZ: Oh, yes. You see, most of the German Jews were not Orthodox, only to a slight degree. It was the German Jews who founded Reform Judaism in the United States. It was the Jews from Germany because they were a little more progressive thinking. I am not making it sound like it is great and the other is no good, but they were a little more forward thinking, a little more educated, because they were a little more prosperous. When you were prosperous in those days, that’s where you get your education, so they founded Reform Judaism, so the German Jews were not deeply Orthodox. They began to think a little more progressive, and when they got to this country they put English in the prayer book. She had quite an influence on my father, and that’s why pretty soon they became interested in Reform and all of us went to Sunday School. I went when I was about six years old. 

Glazer: Where did you go to Sunday School? 
GEVURTZ: Temple Beth Israel, the same place I started. It is not the same building, but the old building was on 12th and Main; it burned out. I started there when the famous Stephen Wise that I told you about was there [unclear]. There was a cute thing, I think I’ll go into that part when you said, were they charitable and were they this and that. I mentioned this several times. In those days there wasn’t organized Jewish charities. Charities were more around the synagogues. The rabbis would tell whether there was someone poor and unfortunate, and they would go and shnorr money around personally. 

Glazer: What’s shnorr? 
GEVURTZ: Grabbing charity, asking people for charity. So this Stephen S. Wise, he left Portland and went to New York and became one of the greatest figures in the United States, in fact all over the world of Zionism. He graduated right here in Portland. But he used to have his own charity deal going. My father used to tell the story, they had this shnorring. Stephen Wise would come in at the door; you could see people come in. My father was about in the middle of the store. He saw Stephen Wise come in, and he said, “Now, Isaac, never mind. Don’t tell me the story about somebody’s hard luck. How much? That’s all I want to know, is how much?” [unclear] And whatever he asked, he always got. And you know, sometimes he asked pretty sizeable sums for those days. He went to the merchants. He would go around and collect money for whatever purposes somebody less fortunate needed. 

Glazer: Where were your parents married? 
GEVURTZ: Here in Portland, Oregon. 

Glazer: But what church? 
GEVURTZ: Temple Beth Israel. The rabbi’s name of Temple Beth Israel is here. It’s Rabbi Jacob Bloch. 

Glazer: How long was Rabbi Bloch there? 
GEVURTZ: Rabbi Bloch was here about, I would be guessing, about five or ten years. I would have to generalize, because that was long before my time. He signed it someplace. Here it is, Rabbi Jacob Bloch [spells out]. 

Glazer: Do you know anything about him? 
GEVURTZ: No, no. That was long before my time. I was born in 1897. 

Glazer: I wonder if you had heard anything about him. 
GEVURTZ: Well, his picture is up there in the temple with the rabbis. He was one of those venerable, dedicated religious leaders. I have heard talk about him, but I don’t know anything about him. Don’t think you would find anybody alive today who could recall him. 

Glazer: What kind of talk did you hear about him? 
GEVURTZ: I think just that he was a plain, kindly, religious, motivated rabbi. He was well-loved by everybody, but details I don’t know. I don’t think anybody knows. Get that book, The Ties Between, at the temple; there would probably be a write-up about him. 

Glazer: Is this a standard decoration? Did it mean anything?
GEVURTZ: I don’t know. This was one of the marriages in temple. You see, there aren’t many people around anymore that would have anything like that or would recall it. There were many people in Portland who were married by Rabbi Bloch, I mean the descendants today, but I don’t think anybody has kept it. 

Glazer: Where is the original? 
GEVURTZ: That’s the one I got. They had this on display, downstairs; it was hanging up, alongside with a little note on the side, the marriage of Cecelia Gerson and Isaac Gevurtz, 1886, by Rabbi Bloch. Because you see, it’s hard to see through the glass and it’s small, so people were looking at it but didn’t know what it was, and so then I asked them to put up that little sign, not for any personal reasons, but people would know what it was. 

Glazer: OK. This is a family picture. Do you know when this was taken? 
GEVURTZ: I can tell you, yes. I was about five years old, about 1902. 

Glazer: How about identifying everybody by name for the story, for background. 
GEVURTZ: Yes. Do you want it on the machine? 

Glazer: Yes. 
GEVURTZ: Are you ready now? This family picture I am looking at designates the family when I was about five years old. I’m the little boy down at the bottom. I’ll recall who these people are from left to right. Starting at the top row, this is my half-brother Mathew Gevurtz. He is the only one that has any family living of all my half-brothers. She is Bernice Gevurtz, a very fine teacher of dance at the University of Utah in Salt Lake. We communicate with her about once or twice a year, and we are still quite friendly. She is unmarried but [an] extremely popular young lady. The next gentleman is Phillip Gevurtz, my oldest half-brother and his wife Mae [spells out]. Phillip Gevurtz became very active in the store and did a lot of things for the city of Portland. As he grew up and became active in Portland civic and business affairs, he decided to go into several ventures in the name of the store, the most important of which was the building of the Multnomah Hotel, which was, at that time, the most beautiful and stylish hotel on the Pacific Coast. It’s now occupied by the United States government on SW Oak Street between Third and Fourth and is still very beautiful. At the grand opening of the Multnomah Hotel, the whole city of Portland turned out. 

Most of the people in those early days came up in carriages, but there were some automobiles. All the leading people, including the mayor of Portland, the governor of the state, all the high society people of Portland came. He hired away the manager of the Portland Hotel, which was a venerable hotel and the finest in style, a man well known as a hotel manager named Pop Bauer, and he became the manager of the Multnomah Hotel. It is still there, but as I said, occupied by the United States government. Next is his wife, Mae, who became known as the club woman in Portland. She belonged to more women’s organizations than anybody in Portland, in fact, in many states, and had quite a reputation as a parliamentarian. They had one son, Dr. William Gevurtz, who became famous during World War II as a Navy physician on a fighting ship that rescued 20 or 30 people from burning waters in the South Pacific and saved the lives of many of them due to his direction. The next man is Alex Gevurtz, who was associated with my father. He was quite a dignified gentleman. His wife was known as Sadie Miller, which is a very well-known old family in Portland, including Alex Miller, who was very active in mercantile and Temple Beth Israel affairs. Then his son Harold followed, and today his grandson of the Millers is Alan Miller, who is active in business affairs and still runs their old-time clothing store, Miller Clothing Company. On the second row you will find my father, Isaac Gevurtz, about which I have said quite a bit. He has a dignified appearance. He was upright and outstanding, very kind and sweet, and was a very fine businessman. Upon his death in 1917, we still have the article from the Oregonian that refers to him as one of Portland’s most distinguished and revered businessmen. Next is my older sister, Lillian Gevurtz, who is married to Sanford Brandt. They live in Atlanta, Georgia. She was known around Portland as the first woman to drive an automobile. Previous to that she had been riding horses, and then a horse and buggy, around Portland through the streets that were not paved, mainly out of our home at a very well-known address, 225 Tenth Street, which is the site now of an office building. When she and Sanford Brandt were active, they also were the first residents of the home on the heights called Arlington Heights, called The Castle, which was built by a man in a wonderful European style, castle style, with a moat and drawbridge. It was a very unusual building and visited by people for experiences. The owner was unable to finance it after he completed it, and it was bought by my sister and her husband. 

Glazer: What was the name of the man who built it, do you know? 
GEVURTZ: I do not remember his name, but it was a showplace of Portland. It is still there on Arlington Heights, and it is a beautiful place. The next girl is my sister Fanny, who married a man by the name of Sig Crohn, formerly of Seattle. He was in the wholesale jewelry business. They enjoyed a very wonderful, happy life. They had no children. When my sister Fanny died, I was the executor of her estate, and she made some very fine bequests. One of them, especially, is the beautiful bronze ark doors at Temple Beth Israel that depict the burning bush, Moses at the burning bush, which are opened now at every service because they contain the spot where the Torahs sit, the most religious and revered spot in the synagogue. Another one of her bequests was to the Robison Home for the Aged, the Jewish Robison Home, resulted in then building the present Arts and Crafts section, which is a great help to the elderly people there. They use it, and it was noted that this was her gift. She gave these gifts particularly and had them publicized by me later because she hoped that other people in their wills would leave money to such worthy projects. The next person in the second row is my mother, Mrs. Isaac Gevurtz, formerly Cecelia Gerson. She came from Germany as a young lady and went to San Francisco, visited people there. There was a very nice Jewish community there at that time, and soon she came to Portland to visit her brother, Mr. Henry Gerson, who had been in Portland for quite a few years and had been in a successful cigar business under the name of Gerson & Hart. Sol Hart, his partner, was also one of Oregon’s early pioneers. 

The last person in the second row is my brother Louis [spells out], who takes the place of being my oldest brother, being a part of the complete family of later years. He grew up in Portland and finished high school, and there were not many who went to colleges in those days. He went right into the store and became a very successful merchant. When Isaac Gevurtz and Sons decided that they wanted an additional store, they placed him in the managership of Gevurtz Brothers, pictures and ads of which I have, and also the various mementos of things that they gave away in those days. The few that I have left now are very valuable because they are antiques. The store was on the corner of what is now SW Union Avenue and Burnside. The building is still there, the building that was built for him, and it is now occupied by Fishel’s, but the building is cut in half because Burnside Street was widened. Fishel’s operates one-half, but it is still the original building. The bottom row consists of two boys. The one on the right is my brother Milton, who is three and a half years my senior. He, like the rest of the five, graduated from Lincoln High School, although when he graduated and the others, it was called Portland High School. He did not go to college, but he went into business. In World War I he joined the ordnance corps and spent a good deal of the time in the east in the ordnance headquarters. He became a lieutenant and was never allowed to go overseas because he became an instructor at Camp Hancock, Georgia. The other one on the left of him is myself. This picture was taken when I was about five years old. I was born on the corner of what are now Park and Yamhill Streets in January, 1897. So this January I will be 80 years old. I am the only one that is left of the original family as shown in this picture. 

Glazer: Were you born in a hospital, or were you actually born in the house? 
GEVURTZ: I was actually born in the house, and just for fun’s sake everyone told me it was a cold Friday morning. They had trouble. I think the river had frozen over. They had to go down and chop ice out of the river to get anything that was cold enough. 

Glazer: I think we’ve had a lot of information. 
GEVURTZ: You’ve got it. That’s what I was wondering, whether it was going to be repetitious. 

Glazer: Well, how about if I don’t have it, I’ll call you. 
GEVURTZ: Because I have different activities, like the temple, the National Council of Christians and Jews, gentile things that I… 

Glazer: Yes, I think Mrs. Feldman got a lot of that. 
GEVURTZ: Yes, she probably did. 

Glazer: So if I don’t have something, I’ll call you. 
GEVURTZ: I showed you a lot of the various mementos. 

Glazer:  Do you remember what years the various people were born? Offhand. 
GEVURTZ: Well, I was born in 1897. If you go three years before that you get Milton. There’s a year and a half, or to make it easy, two years difference between 97. Add three, add two more, and there is only –

Glazer: – That’s Fanny.
GEVURTZ: Yes, and there is only one year difference here. Now, they’re twins. 

Glazer: How many years old than you? 
GEVURTZ: Six. They’re twins. 

Glazer: You were born in 1897, and they were born in 1891.What about the other people? 
GEVURTZ: Well, I don’t have their exact dates because they were born in San Francisco and were here as little boys when my father came up. I would guess, well, here’s the youngest in the middle. I know that. I probably would say – when did I say my dad came to Portland? Well, I know it would be in the ’70s. Oh, let’s see, he came here about 1878. Now, in 1878 he would have been a little boy. Now, are you trying to get the age, or the year?

Glazer: Both.
GEVURTZ: Well, what year did you say they were born?

Glazer: 1891.
GEVURTZ: 1891 [mumbles]. They were little boys in 1880. That’s about all I can say. Oldest, middle, youngest. 

Glazer: You don’t know how much older he was than your sister? 
GEVURTZ: No, I don’t know. They were born in 1880. He was already in 1880 five or six years old, and there was about a year difference between all three of them. 

Glazer: Where was this picture taken? 
GEVURTZ: In Portland. 

Glazer: Was that your home? 
GEVURTZ: No, the photographer’s. I can see the photographer’s drapes and stuff in the back. No, that was a professional taken in his studio. 

Glazer: Do you remember when that was done? 
GEVURTZ: Well, I think I was about five years old. 

Glazer: Do you remember actually sitting for it or anything? 
GEVURTZ: Just sort of. There’s a picture of me here. This is my first year in school. This is taken a block from the Park School. I remember this outfit real well, the stripes and the stuff up there and the cap. So this was taken in 1897, and when you figure that out, I was about five years old. I am older here. See, I’m six here. That looks like I would be about four there, I guess, wouldn’t I be? No, I started school, and I graduated in 1910. It usually takes six years to go through school. Well, I was born in 1897, and it’s about 1901, and this is about 1902 or 1903, and this is about 1891. The family picture was about two years later. I know this was six. I remember it being taken. I remember the guy coming over to the house. See, I know where that fence is. That was right across the street on the corner of Tenth and Main. 

Glazer: Shirley said you knew a funny story about that one. 
GEVURTZ: Yes. The funny story was this. You see, what they used to do, these fellows that sold photographs, it was a gimmick. They would go around and take pictures of kids, usually coming home from school or something, and the kids would say fine, take a picture. It sounded fine, big shot. Then they would show up after the picture was taken, a day or two afterwards, at the home. They’d asked you where you lived, get the address, and it was always close by. So then the fellow rang the doorbell, and I was in the back of the house. My mother went to the door, and I listened, and he said, “Well, he ordered this picture. He ordered it.” She said, “I didn’t order it. I didn’t know anything about a picture. What do you mean?” He said, “Isn’t that your son?” She said, “Yes, that’s him.” Then she called me in, and I said the fellow wanted to take my picture, and I thought it was all right. He said, “Then you’ve got to buy the picture. He ordered it.” So that’s how I got the picture, and when my dad came home he gave me a licking. In other words, I didn’t go to have my picture taken; this was a sales gimmick. The photographers did that. And I know exactly where it is. There is a parking lot up there now on the corner of SW Tenth and Main. Our home was on Salmon between… I was born there, but we only lived there about a year. Do you know downtown very well? You know on Yamhill Street as you come down from Tenth to West Park and then Ninth and the next block is a pigeonhole on the right-hand side. It’s not working now, but there was a big pigeonhole. There was a family hotel on the corner, and we lived in the house next door. It was there for quite a few years. They just tore it down when they built that [unclear]. That’s where I was born. Then we moved to 11th and Salmon, which is now also a parking lot, [for] about two or three years. Then we lived on Tenth, between Salmon and… that’s where we all grew up, because my dad bought the property and built the home. That’s where we spent most of our youth. 

Glazer: On Tenth and Salmon. What is that now? 
GEVURTZ: Well, there’s a Woodmen of the World. There’s a lodge building there called the Woodman’s Building. It’s about an eight-story building, and it covers both the corners. Well, now, our lot was on the inside. There was an old, old house somebody built on the corner. We built a new modern house. Now, adjoining us was a whole quarter of a block, were two famous doctors, Parks and Nichols. They had their stables in the back, and they had a carriage entrance that you would drive in, and they always drove up in horses with the coachmen. They were very, very classy people. I remember that, of course, for that was right next door. When I was living there, we had wooden sidewalks and unpaved streets. Even when we had the first automobile that my sister Lillian drove, that wasn’t a paved street. We had to crank a two-cylinder car. We cranked it on the side. I wish we had it now; it would be worth a fortune. Can you think of anything else? 

Glazer: Well, you didn’t say anything about those. 
GEVURTZ: Well, this is my father’s store and a directory of 1886. Do you want to tape anything on this? 

Glazer: Well, what was the old store like? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t know. You see, by the time I grew up, it had already moved to First and Yamhill. This is on Front and Yamhill. You see, all streets went up from Burnside, 20 to a block. So you will find that’s nine blocks from Burnside, going south, and I wouldn’t be surprised – there’s an old building there, all painted up real nice; I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s the same building. I wouldn’t be surprised. Now, in the early days my father lived above the store, and you know, for a long time I never knew that he had clothing and furnishings. At the time we moved to First and Yamhill, which was the place that Meier & Frank’s just moved out of, by the way. They moved out to Fifth and Morrison. They moved uptown, and my dad went in. They only had furniture, but later on the installment business was so good they added men’s and women’s clothing and jewelry when they opened up the store on the east side. 

Glazer: Did your father ever talk about the first one? 
GEVURTZ: No. Oh, I tell you, the only thing I can remember him saying was when he went in there, there were just a few city people, but most of the business was from small farms. They came from the surrounding country, like Tualatin now, and Tigard. They used to come down what is now Canyon Road. That was a corduroy road in the old days. That was the entrance from the Tualatin Valley, they called it. 

Glazer: Was it called Corduroy Road? 
GEVURTZ: No, it was made in corduroy; it wasn’t paved. It was made of wooden planks like this, and they called it corduroy. Now, this is one thing that I remember about that. He said, when he had this store, that a lot of the business was not for money. There was a lot of trading. They used to bring in produce that they grew, milk, and different things. Not completely, but to a large extent, and then he would sell that off. 

Glazer: Why did he do that? 
GEVURTZ: Because most of the farmers had very little money. 

Glazer: When did he stop?
GEVURTZ: I think when he moved to First and Yamhill. At that time, in those days, a lot of the people that had stores took in trade because they didn’t always have money. Now that’s about the only thing I remember him talking about that; that’s the only thing I remember. 

Glazer: Do you know why he stopped doing it? 
GEVURTZ: I guess when he moved up to the store, he enlarged. You see, he had secondhand furniture. When we moved to First and Yamhill, there was very little used furniture. That store I remember very well. I used to play down there a lot. They had a little secondhand furniture, but very little, practically none, and I guess this is just an expansion. You see, this store on First and Yamhill was much bigger. In fact, it was big enough that Meier & Frank’s had been occupying it, their early department store. They moved to Fifth and Morrison, a quarter of a block. I remember that’s all they had, a four-story building. Everybody thought they were way uptown as far as Fifth Street. He moved in there in the same location, and he used to come down, Abe Meier – he was one of the sons of the original Meier. They had big plate-glass windows. [He wrote in chalk] “Meier & Frank has moved to Fifth and Morrison Street,” and my dad would get mad. He didn’t want to advertise Meier & Frank. So he came down and caught him a couple of mornings and gave him a good licking. That’s my dad’s story on that. 

Glazer: The regular [Chief] Jones store, that was the original name of that? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t know. This was all news to me when I saw the directory. [Next sentence unclear.] 

Glazer: What’s a daisy stove? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, it’s a wood stove. You know, all the stoves were wood; there wasn’t any gas or electricity in those early days. Daisy was a brand. 

Glazer: Where did this come from? 
GEVURTZ: Portland City Directory of 1886. You see, Portland City Directory on top and the year of this directory, which was on the front. Have you got it out there? 

Glazer: I’ve never seen it. 
GEVURTZ: She should have shown you that directory. That was in the case, and it’s 1886. 

Glazer: Was this for advertising? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, in the back of the directory. You see, in the front of the directory, it’s got the names and all that, and if you paid for it you could get your name in bold print. Yes, my father’s is in there. Then it’s turned to where you put ads in the back of the directory. It was like advertising in the newspaper. This is the ad in the back. A lot of famous names are in there in the back. Meier & Frank’s were in there, and Lipman Wolfe’s, and Roberts Brothers. 

Glazer: Did you know all those people? 
GEVURTZ: Oh, sure. 

Glazer: Do you know Leo Levenson, by any chance? 
GEVURTZ: Oh, yes. Sure. 

Glazer: I did an interview with him. 
GEVURTZ: I sure know him. I think he comes later, though, I presume. I can’t think of anything more. Now this, I started to tell you in there, the Center Players. Well, I’ll tell you what happened. This is the Jewish Community Center. When I was a member – this summer I am celebrating my 60th, and I am still playing a little volleyball. We’re going to have a volleyball brunch, and I am going to invite the guys for bagels and lox. They’d like that, you know. Somewhere when the building can set the date, because it will be 60 years. When I played 50 years I got a cup, got a little cup. We used to have a volleyball banquet at the end of the season. We were all one bunch. Now there are different come-and-go guys. What we did, we used to have a dinner, so when I played 50 years, ten years ago, they surprised me with a little cup. It says, “60 years of volley ball, keep them rolling.” A little cup. I still have the cup. A fellow by the name of Herman Cohen and I got another little cup; we won at handball at one time. That’s about, more than 50 years ago, about 55 years ago in the old building. 

Glazer: Where was the old building? 
GEVURTZ: It was on 13th Street. They sold it to the city because they had taken…that’s 13th Street, just this side of…Montgomery’s entrance to the freeway is there. So they bought the property and it’s a great big parking lot in there now. It goes all the way from 13th to 12th. I think it is mainly Portland State people use it. 

Glazer: Is that just within the last ten years or so? 
GEVURTZ: No. Now, let’s see, it says out there, when the building out there was built. Yes, I guess it was built about ten years ago. Now what happened at that camp, the B’nai B’rith Camp, it tells about this show [unclear]. You see, this was only the public because most of the tickets were sold amongst the Jewish people. All of the city of Portland participated in this. The congregations had nothing to do with it. Otherwise, people were a little selective in the early days. Those that belonged to certain synagogues didn’t have too much to do with the others; it was very separated. But for things like this the whole city would get in, particularly the wealthy people. They made them charge you $50 for the best tickets. It was a fundraising thing. Well, what they did was, the Julius Meier family (Julius Meier, who used to be governor of Oregon, of the Meier & Frank Company) he gave the property down there where the camp is. He gave them the site. He owned the property, but that didn’t do them much good. There were trees and stuff that had to be cleared, cabins built. 

Glazer: Where was this? 
GEVURTZ: Down at the Jewish camp, on Devil’s Lake. Oh, you don’t know about the Jewish Camp. 

Glazer: No. 
GEVURTZ: They have a very fine camp now, down at Devil’s Lake. They run a camp for young people in the summer time, adults go, and all that. Well, Julius Meier gave this beautiful site at Devil’s Lake which is near the Oregon Coast, but they didn’t have any money to do anything with it, so we were doing a little amateur dramatics around, monkeying around, and they decided to put on a big deal, big city-wide Jewish deal. They hired the Heilig Theater [unclear]. Now, it’s still a movie up there on Broadway and Taylor. Is it Fox? Yes. That movie was originally the Heilig Theater. That’s where all the big shows came, all the travelling shows and so forth came. Big shows. So we rented it for two nights, and a fellow by the name of Jarvis, the director. We brought him down from Seattle. He was a professional director. Now, we were all amateurs. This Welcome Stranger is a show about a Jewish fellow who comes to a small town and all that, and not too well received. There’s antisemitism but he makes a big success… Anyway, it’s a real hokum story. Very interesting story. They decided to have a cast of fellows from… Here is the Stranger, Ike Davis. He’s still in town. He’s nice; I see him very often. I got the second lead. I’m the gentile guy in town and the only one who is sympathetic. I told about one of my half-brothers being married to a Miller. That’s the Miller son. There’s [unclear] my wife, and Abe Rosenberg. He lives in Palm Springs. He comes to Portland once in a while. This is Weider, he’s in town. 

Glazer:  What does he do? 
GEVURTZ: He’s the manager of – what is that apartment house? King Towers. Schnitzers owns it, and he is the manager. 

Glazer: Are Irving and Sidney Weider brothers? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, but I don’t know where he is. She’s married to someone in town. She’s still in town, but I can’t think of her married name. Sam Soble could tell you. Sam Soble works at Directors, and he’s related. He could tell you; that’s his sister. Well, anyway, they put on this big show, two nights, and we raised enough money to do that. I think it was about maybe $50,000, and in that time, you know, that was like $200,000 now. And of course, the building still keeps this because this was the old building, and this is what started the B’nai B’rith Camp. 

Glazer: This was just for two days? You raised the money? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, Thursday and Saturday nights, not on Friday night. They sold the whole house out, and they sold the tickets for big money. Instead of being $3, $4 or $5 a ticket, they charged people $10 for the cheapest seat, $50 for box seats, and they had a program and they sold ads. They sold candy up and down the aisles, candy for five times what it was worth. It was fundraising, but it was a very successful show. Got big write-ups in the paper. 

Glazer: Rave reviews? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, it got rave reviews. This guy worked us to death. You know, we had to go after work, and this guy killed us. He was a professional director. 

Glazer: Did the group disband? Was this just a one-time thing? 
GEVURTZ: Well, they had amateur shows up at the Jewish Center from then on. We had regular little shows, but nothing like this. 

Glazer: Were they all fundraising shows, the little ones? 
GEVURTZ: No, the other ones were, you know, like dancing, gymnastics, just another factor around the building. 

Glazer: Did you participate in them? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, I was in a few, for a while. 

Glazer: Did you ever think of being an actor? 
GEVURTZ: No. This was real, really serious. This guy here, I’ve seen him. He’s up here now. He spends this time of the year in Palm Springs. I saw him the other day and we had a lot of fun because he took a part, Ed Hooker, and this guy and I are having a dialogue on the stage. The way it works out, he is supposed to interfere by coming in and break up our thing and get into a conversation. Well, the first night, he and I are talking away. I am waiting for this guy to break in, and you know, the doors in the scenery, they don’t open in, they always open towards you.

Glazer: In the what?
GEVURTZ: In the scenery, on the stage. They always open the other way, so you can come in. Otherwise it would look funny to see the back of a door, the artificial door. So this guy is supposed to come in, and he was so excited – everything was sold out and they had a huge crowd out there – this guy can’t get in. Now the way they do that, so you won’t go the wrong way, they put a little clip across it so the door can’t go any other way. You’ve got to bring it towards you. And I look over for this guy because he didn’t break in, and the scenery is shaking. I thought, my God, what’s going to happen? I realized that this guy wants to come in like you do normally. Instead of that you are supposed to pull it in, but he didn’t. Finally, the director’s running around and around in the back, and he quit shaking and came in, and we started the conversation. So the second night, by that time I felt like a veteran…so the second night what happened was, he comes in all right…and his name is Ed Hooker in the thing. So he comes in, and instead of his saying something to break up the conversation, I turn around and I said, “Hello Ed. I see you got in all right tonight.” Well, this guy was nonplussed, and he couldn’t remember his line. It was a dirty trick to play, but I thought he knew the line so well. I threw that in extra, because he wasn’t shaking. I mentioned it to him the other day. Anyway, that was that.

Glazer: What year was this?
GEVURTZ: 1925. Yes. Because I was married one year. We were married in 1924, and this was a year after we got married. It’s been 52 years now. The reason I brought these things out is these guys used to write different articles, and every once in a while they would have some stuff. 

Glazer: Where did Giles come from? 
GEVURTZ: Seattle. He was a professional coach. Oh yes, this guy, he still writes today. Do you read Doug Baker’s column? 

Glazer: Occasionally. 
GEVURTZ: This is where he wrote in, I’ve been talking to him about Bill Gevurtz, and he had said something about Gevurtz, and I had took a bottle down to show him. So he put an article in there about the wine, claiming that it was spelled differently, and he took out a German dictionary and it is spelled differently in there. This guy used to write Mill Ends. This was very, very good stuff. Oh, yes. He was kidding me about wearing a muffler. So this guy, he wrote an article about Mill Ends. He said heavy scarf and heavy topcoat [unclear]… this guy used to work for the Journal. They had a building right down on First and Yamhill, and they used to come by and try to get dope for articles. He once had a little picture of a basketball game at Oregon State College. A guy drew a picture, he had a guy draw a picture. What happened was that I went up there, and as we parked the car and started going into this basketball game, it was raining, not too strong. I had a hat on. Geez, I wasn’t going to get wet. Just as I got up near the steps, they were taking pictures of the crowd going in. I looked at all these guys. None of them wore hats – you know these college guys, young fellows – so I quick grabbed my hat and stuck it underneath there. I told this guy about it, you know I was just talking, so a couple of days comes out the picture. He had a sketch of the fellow going up the steps of Gill Coliseum with his hat like this, and it was raining outside. He tells the story of how this guy isn’t going to get caught wearing a hat in the midst of all these guys. 

Well, can you think of anything you need? You said if you don’t have enough about this kind of stuff, you know, different positions I held and so forth, why, you can get it. I don’t remember talking to her. Probably she seemed more kind of interested in incidents, some of them humorous, and stuff like that, all through the years. I acquired quite a few. We didn’t talk too much about this kind of stuff, you know, what positions were held, National Conference, Chairman of the 100th anniversary, Vice-Chairman of Temple Beth Israel’s 100th anniversary, which was, oh boy, a big banquet at the Multnomah. Do you know where the Multnomah Hotel is? 

Glazer: I think I know where it is. I’ve never been in it. 
GEVURTZ: You ought to go by it, even walk in. But of course, the days we had it as a hotel it was plush, and down in the basement they had the most marvelous dinner club called the fountain. Pearl, what was that fountain in the basement of the Multnomah Hotel called…? Arcadian Gardens, that was the place to go. In the center there was a beautiful fountain. The entire basement of that place – it was a big place – if you wanted to have a big affair or something. All Portland’s society, they got there. The Portland Hotel was good, but then it was old. They kept it nice, though. All right. So, you call me if you want anything.

Glazer: How long were you there? 
GEVURTZ: Three years. 

Glazer: What years were those? When was that?
GEVURTZ: World War I, after World War I, at the end. That would be… I was there for three years. We were married in 1925. Three years I was at Rich’s, that would be 1919 to 1922, following World War I. I had been quite ill with pneumonia and spinal meningitis, and I was supposed to be outdoors, so I went to Los Angeles and stayed the first winter. Then in the spring of the year I came back, and I was still supposed to be outdoors. I wasn’t working. I was a very good friend of Eugene Rich, the son of the owner Sy S. Rich, and he was visiting out in Portland from Columbia University in New York. We went to various places, like the baseball games, and in the evening, about once a week, there were fights on the east side of Portland. One night we came back from the fights, and 
Mr. Sy Rich was sitting in his store on SW Sixth and Washington Streets instead of the clerk who was supposed to be there. He had closed up his store on 21st and Morrison Street earlier. He had a look of consternation on his face because his employee that worked up till 12:00am had quit alongside the man who worked from 12:00am all night until 8:00am the next morning, and he didn’t know what to do. Now Eugene Rich knew something about his father’s business. So he said he would stay there and cover the emergency, and he would work a few days from the afternoon until 12:00am at night until he had to go back to college. But there was no one to work all night. Mr. Rich looked at me because he knew that I was not working, and I said, “No, no” before he could ask me. “I can’t do that. And my mother would never let me do that anyway,” because I was still living at home. However, I promised him I would work that night just to help him out, and waking up my mother at home, she was quite alarmed. I did work all night until 8:00 am the next morning. 

When I called up the next day, Mr. Rich got hold of me and said that he could not get anybody to work all night, and would I help him out for a few days. I did that, and the result of it was I worked all through the balance of the late summer and through the next winter all night. I was very unused to it. I did not know the prices of the cigars, or the magazines or the cigarettes that were there. So when people came in to buy late at night, particularly those who were taking the Owl streetcars home, I had to ask them the price of things. It seemed to work out all right. One of the problems I had, it got so cold that when I hit the old-fashioned register with my gloves on, I often rang up various kinds of astronomical amounts which I never took in. When it got to be next spring and I decided I didn’t want to work there anymore, Mr. Jess Rich, Sy’s son, who was the manager of the store, implored me to work for them and stay on a daytime basis, which I did. 

I worked there for the next three years. It was fun working there. It wasn’t difficult. I learned all about the business, and Mr. Rich Sr. pretty soon asked me to do the buying for the two stores, which became a sort of prestigious type of job, as I was catered to by the salesmen. Very often I would get time off, and I would go to a baseball game, or in the nights I could always go to the fights. The main fights at that time were held out at Milwaukie. Pretty soon they gave us the tickets to sell and also to sell the tickets out at Milwaukie, and so I became very well identified with the promoters and very often drove out with them before the fights. Sometimes I even knew who was going to win the fight before it started by listening to them. 

We had several unusual incidents. One of them was that one of the main fights, a nationally known heavyweight, ended before the first round in a knock out. The customers were all complaining, and the management decided that they would give them free tickets for the next fight. There was no way of telling who had these tickets; it was supposed to be an honor matter. So Jess Rich and I went out there, and [it was] surprising the number of people who came and said they had tickets for the previous fight. We had to supply them with new tickets. Many of them we knew quite well and knew that they had never even been to the first fight. The promoters of the fight could never figure out why there were two seats in the front row that never seemed to be sold, were turned in, even though the fights seemed to be a sellout. This was because after the third or fourth fight, just before the semi-final and final fights, Jess and I used to tear the tickets in half and keep the stubs, and we sat in those seats ourselves. I don’t know whether they ever found out why those seats were not sold. Then another enjoyable time we had there was when several people came to work there after I did. They were people I knew, like – especially Fred Woods, a very well-known young man in Portland. He was working with me. It was on an open corner on SW Sixth and Washington. Very often people would come by and ask for locations because they were confused, particularly asking for the Wilcox Building, which had an entrance on Sixth Street instead of Washington, where we would face out. We would tell them, “We think this building is near here, somewhere, but we are not sure.” After bending back and forth for quite awhile we would stand and point to the building across the street and say, “Oh, there it is.” They would look at us in amazement because the building entrance was actually on Sixth Street, and we were standing looking at it all the time we were talking. Another thing was, the building had its own name. It was just a little two-story building called Lafayette Building, but it had a small entranceway, which could be unnoticed upstairs. There was a lady that dealt in surgery for girls who did not want to have babies, Dr. Eckley. And so quite a few men would come by, or women sometimes, and look kind of furtively around and say “Where’s the Lafayette Building?” We would stand outside there on the sidewalk and say, “I don’t know. We have heard of it, but we don’t know exactly where it is.” After a long conversation and keeping them waiting, we would turn around and say, “I think you are standing in it,” and this would always evoke a certain amount of caustic comments. 

Another thing that Fred Wood and I did, people would love to come in and ask for back issues of magazines or newspapers. We had no basement, but he would hide behind the counter and bend over and stoop down, and go down and down and speak in a hoarse voice and say, “What was that issue again?” We would bandy back and forth with this, and finally he would come up or say “He didn’t have it.” And I would say, “What were you doing down there?” “I was looking in the basement,” he would say, and I would say “You know damn well there isn’t any basement.” Then, of course, the customer then thought we were kind of crazy, too. The last incident I will recall is [when] after Fred Wood left there was a man by the name of Sol Rose who came and worked with us. Sol then took the night shift, the all-night shift, but he loved to go out during the day and have a good time and so forth. By the time he came to work at 12:00am, he usually was quite tired, but there wasn’t too much doing, and he supposedly did the job. One time when Mr. Rich came back from his store on Fourth and Morrison Street, around 1:00am, which he usually did the cash receipts of the day, he found in back of the counter —instead of Mr. Sol Rose, was a man who drove a taxi who spoke very poor English with a very strong Swedish accent. He said, “Mr. Olsen, what are you doing in back of this counter here, for goodness sake?” He said, “I’m watching the trade. I’m taking in the money. Don’t worry, Mr. Rich.” “Do you know anything about this?” “No, I don’t.” “Well,” he said, “where is Mr. Rose?” He said, “Well, Mr. Rose came down, and he was so tired and sleepy he is sleeping out in my taxicab now and I am watching the store.” So that was the end of Mr. Rose. 

Glazer: Is Mr. Eugene Rich the man who works there now? 
GEVURTZ: No, Eugene Rich went back to Columbia University and had several big positions. He is now retired and living in Florida, but Jess Rich, his brother, is still in Rich’s Cigar Store. He celebrated his 80th birthday several years back.