Mary Friedman Rosenberg

Semler: Mrs. Rosenberg, I understand that you were born in New York City. Would you tell me why your family decided to come West and what you remember about it?
ROSENBERG: Yes. From what I have heard, as conversational background, my uncle Mr. Lichtgarn, who later established the Oregon Sign Company . . .

Semler: What’s his first name?
ROSENBERG: Abraham Lichtgarn. He has passed away. Perhaps you know the Lichtgarns. You know Joyce was a grandchild of his, too. He came out here for the fair in 1905 and took his family. I think there must have been six children, and Mr. Lichtgarn and my mother were brother and sister. And so he kept writing, and they corresponded, and naturally he wanted the family to come out here.

Semler: Did he begin in the sign business, Abraham, as soon as he came here?
ROSENBERG: I think so. I’m quite sure he did.

Semler: Do you know what your father did when he came here?
ROSENBERG: He was a barber.

Semler: Do you know where you lived when you came here, or what do you remember about the places you lived in?
ROSENBERG: Yes. We lived right near what is Cleveland High School now. It was a grammar school in those days. It was a Clinton Kelly school. It wasn’t a structure like that. I believe it was wood. The house is still there, too. It’s on 26th, just about a block north of Cleveland High School. We lived there quite a few years, and then later we moved on the West Side, after we started high school.

Semler: You moved to that Southeast area as soon as you came to Portland?
ROSENBERG: Yes. My uncle’s family lived Southeast, too. They lived further out; they lived more up on the hill. My cousins all went to Creston when they started school. Some of them hadn’t even started school

Semler: That’s quite far out.
ROSENBERG: Yes. It’s kind of in that area. You know where Creston School is right up the — you go up Powell . . .

Semler: It’s just above 39th, I think.
ROSENBERG: But they lived on, I think it was 42nd.

Semler: Were there very many Jewish families living in that area then?
ROSENBERG: No. I think I remember somebody named Weinstein. But there wasn’t — of course, we were down on 26th. I can remember Yom Kippur because my cousins and my uncle and my aunt, they would walk from their house to our house, and then we would join forces — we were more religious then than we are today — and walk to the synagogue.

Semler: This was a long walk
ROSENBERG: It sure was for little kids.

Semler: You walked across the bridge all the way to the West Side?
ROSENBERG: Yes. Then we stayed on the West Side. We stayed with friends of my family, the Sherricks. We used to stay there overnight, then we would go home. The next day you can ride on the streetcar. I don’t remember anybody not walking. Everybody did in those days.

Semler: What was it like being the only Jewish family in the area, or one of the only Jewish families?
ROSENBERG: I’ll tell you [laughs], we never knew the difference for a while, until somebody yelled at us. They used to call us “Christ killer.” I didn’t know who Christ was. I’d never heard of Christ. I hadn’t gone to school yet. I think we didn’t know enough to know what antisemitism was, coming from New York. You just didn’t know it. We just knew these were different people. But as time went on, because we lived there, we made many fine friends, wonderful friends, and they perhaps were ignorant, too. They had never seen a Jew, either, and perhaps it had no association. I’m not criticizing theme, either. My mother made it a point to always invite them in for holidays. Our teachers were always invited for lunch or dinner during the holidays, and they realized that we didn’t have horns and we were the same as everybody else. So I just ignored it. If the kids didn’t want to play with me, I just told them I could play by myself, too. 

Semler: So you had some problems, but you didn’t think they were really too bad.
ROSENBERG: No. I imagine — and I’m sure my cousins, they must have had the same problem — had it been real bad we wouldn’t have stayed there. We didn’t own the house; we were renting. My family wanted us to have a place that had ground. It had a garden. It had fruit trees. It was so different than anything you would see in New York. I don’t remember this, but my mother said we first came in the summertime, and in wintertime when it snowed, we knew what snow was, and then in the spring when the trees had blossoms on, we thought that was snow again because we had never seen a tree with blossoms on.

Semler: Isn’t that funny.
ROSENBERG: When you live in New York, you don’t see anything like that.

Semler: Did your mother and father like to garden?
ROSENBERG: My mother did. We had all kinds of fruit trees — we didn’t plant them; they were there — and flowers. Nature took care of them, I think [laughs]. And you know, the gentile neighbors were very nice after they found out we were just like everybody else. They would teach us various things. We had a beautiful — I wouldn’t say we had a beautiful lawn like people have today, but — I remember the picket fence it had, because I used to swing on the gate. And rosebushes all along. You don’t see those types of roses now; they were moss roses.

Semler: And they climb on your fence, don’t they?
ROSENBERG: Not too much. They aren’t climbers. But the moss roses are really old fashioned. I don’t think they raise anything like that anymore. 

Semler: Do you remember when you moved to the West Side? 
ROSENBERG: Yes. I think it was in 1914 or something like that because we went through the ninth grade. We stayed there and went through school there, at the Clinton Kelly, and graduated there.

Semler: Now you were about four or five when you came to Portland? And then when you were ready to go to high school you moved to the West Side?
ROSENBERG:  Yes. My sister had been going. She had been taking the streetcar. But my mother felt that it was time that we should get into a Jewish element, so we moved to the West Side. Maury Sussman lived right in back of us. I think it was on First Street near Pennoyer. I often drive by to see if the house is still there.

Semler: That’s interesting because so many of them are gone. 
ROSENBERG: Well, it’s out of the way. It’s not too far from the Neighborhood House, Kesser Israel. We went to town and went to the synagogue, and my sister and I started Ahavai Sholom Sunday School. You could take the streetcar, and we learned to do that and stop at the Royal Bakery — there was a Royal Bakery, I remember that, on Morrison Street. That’s where everybody stopped and got something. 

Semler: And then you went to Sunday School?
ROSENBERG:  No, that was on the way home. Carfare was just a nickel in those days. My cousins went, too. We usually were always together every Sunday. You wanted to be with your own, with Jewish people.

Semler: Are these the Lichtgarns you are talking about? Now have they moved out to the West Side?
ROSENBERG: No, they always stayed on the East Side. It was different with them. They owned their home. There were nine children. They had a larger ground. They had a horse, and they needed to really be out a ways where they could keep horse. They had a buggy. We’d go on picnics. But we moved to the West Side. We wanted to go to the Center, and my brothers, they had to go to Hebrew school. I met my husband that summer at a Jewish picnic [laughs]. 

Semler: When you were 14 or 15?
ROSENBERG: We always knew that we would get married someday. It was love at first sight.

Semler: How long was it then, tell me, before you married?
ROSENBERG: We went together about five years.

Semler: Can you tell me what you remember about South Portland and your neighborhood during the years you lived there?
ROSENBERG: That part of the town hasn’t really changed this much. Now if you wanted to go to the butcher shop and Shank’s grocery, there was the gulch and you’d walk down First Street. Of course, you wouldn’t know the Shanks, but they were kind of like my grandfather. He was old and had a white beard. I don’t think people were as old as they looked. They always had a bandana on their head, that little — I don’t imagine health laws would have passed those places in those days. You had to go to a Jewish grocery store, and you had to go to a Jewish butcher shop, and you were drawn to anything Jewish.

Semler: Were there grocery shops and butcher shops that were not Jewish in the area?
ROSENBERG: There was one, just one. Kessel and Frei, I think the name was. They were right  across — but that was just for gentile people, and once in a while if somebody thought they saw somebody go in, it was the unpardonable sin [laughs].

Semler: Were there a lot of non-Jewish people who lived there at that time? I am really not familiar with  . . .
ROSENBERG: Yes, there were. There were Italians, and there were other people. Now from what I understand, they were friendly, though. I don’t think there was any sort of — not that we ever experienced. Our neighbors were mostly all Jewish around there. There were a few gentile people. We would go there and use the phone a lot of times. But on the whole, I think, most of the people around there were Jewish. I’m trying to think who lived around there. There was a Gevurtz who lived next door to us. Martha [Yorrick?], I think. And there was somebody Minsky. And I know Maurice Sussman, they lived in the back. 

You see, there was a high gulch like, and there was a red train that went on a trestle that went that way, so although there were houses that way, you didn’t very often go across that red train, back to the railroad tracks. We were always told not to cross the railroad tracks, not to go that way. There was a little bridge that you walked on. Our parents were always worried about us, so we did [not cross the tracks?], but we walked on the bridge lots of times. I think that’s where they have that area that’s all filled in, where they have that racetrack. That was a real deep, deep gulch. I think they used to call it Baker Street. There were Jewish people that lived down there, too. People had trucks and things. I think it was more convenient for them. They could approach it from another street. It must have been a convenient place for them to live.

Semler: Was the trestle actually on Barbur Boulevard?
ROSENBERG: Yes.

Semler: Then they would live on the other side of Barbur Boulevard.
ROSENBERG: It was below, see? It was really quite deep, but they could approach it from another street. People had cordwood in those days. They’d get this great big cordwood. It was piled in front of the houses, and then you’d get a man to come and saw it, but he had to have a saw with a horse and everything. One of the men had one of these, and this was a convenient place for him to live. It was a big machinery thing, and a place where he could keep a horse, too, because they didn’t have motors and things like that. Even the butcher, he had a sleigh and a horse which he would deliver meat when the snow was on. And then their kids would take it on Sundays or nights, and we’d go sleighing on it on Corbett Street. It was a good hill. We had a lot of fun; we were all poor people.

Semler: So nobody knew the difference?
ROSENBERG: No. You could get season tickets to the Baker Stock Company for 35 cents a seat on Sunday at matinee. It was a lot of fun. I think we had more fun in those days than the kids do today.

Semler: That could be. Do you have memories of the Neighborhood House?
ROSENBERG: Yes. That was really my first contact with Jewish kids because we were the only Jews in our school. There weren’t any others. Sometimes I think I was stupid. I didn’t know whether I was unhappy or not; I didn’t know the difference. I think maybe my sister did more than I did. Kids would come over and play. Little children don’t know the difference. They have dolls or they have skates, and they don’t know if they are skating with somebody who is Christian or not unless their families embed that into their system. 

I remember when my brother, the one who has just passed away, got scarlet fever when he was just little, and my other little brother was just a baby, about a year old. In those days they slapped a big quarantine, a great big red sign on your house and you were in for six weeks. You couldn’t go out of the house or anything. I stayed to watch my little brother so he wouldn’t get near my other brother. A gentile neighbor, a lovely person, took my sister in, because she was older and she was in a higher grade, and she would have more to lose than I would. She stayed there the whole six weeks, and one of the things I always remember, my mother worried what would my sister eat. This woman said, “Don’t worry, I’ll never give her meat. You don’t have to worry.” Then she’d give her things that did not have meat. She understood and respected it. My father stayed on the West Side with a Jewish family during that time, too. They don’t do that now, I don’t think; I think scarlet fever isn’t that prevalent. But this was my experience that I remember. 

Though there are problems, no doubt, and antisemitism, but I don’t think we ever felt it that way. There are cranks, I suppose, at times, but nobody ever — years later, after I was married, two or three of these people that were my mother’s contemporaries, Christian women, would come all the way and take buses and come and stay with me, take care of Meliss, babysit, and were insulted if they went to my — I had my sewing in the closet. “Who’s been doing your mending?” And I said, “Well, once in a while . . ..” “That isn’t right. You know that we expect to do that.” I didn’t pay them; they didn’t want to be paid. But they wanted the privilege of doing my mending [laughs]. I really think there’s two sides. You give a little. You have to learn to take a little, too. You can’t be ruffled at all times. I think it takes a certain amount of intelligence, too. 

Semler: What do you remember about the things you did at the Neighborhood House?
ROSENBERG: I just loved the Neighborhood House. I am almost heartsick now over it. You see, we went there all the time as kids. The room right next to when you come in — have you been at the Neighborhood House much? As you come in, the room to your right, and then there’s another room. That had little gas stoves all around the room and a little cupboard below it, and every little girl had her place, and the different Council women would come and teach you how to cook, basic fundamentals. 

The thing that I always remember from cooking, there were a few of the Jewish girls there that — you see, I was a newcomer. I had come from the — and I had not gone to school with them. And they would vie for who was going to wash my dishes. We were supposed to clean up our own things, and they would grab my dishes to wash them and clean them up. They would get scolded all the time because they were doing that and I was supposed to do it. I didn’t tell them to do it; they just wanted to do it [laughs]. And I remember, then you’d have to wash out your little dish towel and hang that up. 

But it was good basic training. We had never done anything at home. I think we were spoiled. Not that we were rich or anything like that. But [inaudible] said, “[Gey, Gey?], go play.” So we didn’t make our bed, we didn’t wash the dishes. “Go, go, go. That’s alright.” I never learned to cook, and my mother was a marvelous cook and baker. “That’s all right. You’ll cook when you get married. You don’t have to do it now.” So it really was a fun experience. Then they had a Mrs. Citron. I remember she used to come and teach us how to sew. And me, who had never sewn — I still don’t — I made two dresses. 

It was a lovely experience. You wouldn’t remember Mrs. Blumauer, but she’d always have me talk at the Council. They had a lunch once a month, and for me to come and tell them what we are doing. I don’t know why me. Later on, the South Parkway boys — they had been in existence — I think back in 1916 is when they started their club.

Semler: Were they young boys, like ten or 12 years old, who started the club?
ROSENBERG: I imagine. They were just a bunch of kids. The biggest part of them had been newsboys. I think most of them had been newsboys. Later on, I had met my husband, and of course he was in South Parkway.

Selmer:  Had he been a newsboy?
ROSENBERG: No. You see, he had come from England. That’s where he was born. And he said in England Jewish boys did not sell papers, even if they were desperately poor. They had done other things; they were delivery boys. Later on, Jewish boys did here, but he said he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. He had come here with his dad at first to make a lot of money to send for the rest of the family, but they all stayed in England.

Semler:  Do you know how old he was when he came?
ROSENBERG: About 12.

Semler: Do you have some idea of the year?
ROSENBERG: I wouldn’t know, maybe 1909 or 1910. I didn’t know him then. When I met him, he was maybe 16 or so. Anyhow, the boys had this Parkway Club going. It was small, but they were together. They had affairs. But an organization, I always felt that — they would just get together. They’d have a meeting, and they would play basketball, and that was the extent of it more or less. I always felt it needed a woman’s touch — it needed something. An organization must have something social to bolster it. I used to go and talk to Miss Lowenberg, and she used to tell me we ought to start something here. So we talked to Mrs. Blumauer, and she said, “If you want to start something, you ought to take a class in Robert’s Rules of Order and learn how to run an organization.” And so we did. We got the book, and four or five of us would attend a class once a week so that we knew what we were doing.

Semler: Was Mrs. Blumauer the instructor?
ROSENBERG: Yes. She was a wonderful, wonderful person. There aren’t too many people like her.

Semler: Would you say something about her, describe her?
ROSENBERG: I would say that she was one of the kindest women. She was really the backbone, to me, of Neighborhood House. She was charming. She was sweet. She was understanding. She must have had relatives here. There were a few Blumauers. Of course, Blumauer was her married name. I think Mr. Kahn, who started the Robison Home . . . 

[Recording pauses then resumes] 

Her name was S.M. Blumauer. I saw a lot of her. I’m sure somebody will remember her.

Selmer: Yes, her name has come up, but it’s nice to have someone with a personal memory of her.
ROSENBERG: She was a wonderful person. I saw a lot of her. She was at the Neighborhood House so much. She drew many of us out, but I feel that I got a lot out of her. I really learned how to handle an organization, which I never would have — you think you know everything, but you don’t. She said, “We’ll start from scratch. We’ll have a class on Robert’s Rules of Order.” And she gave of her time, came to the Neighborhood House. It had to be in the afternoon, to suit her, naturally. So later on, after we kind of had our bearings, I decided that we ought to have a Women’s Group, and I established one. I went to the [Board?] and spoke to them of the necessity of joining forces, in a sense, but having another branch, and it met with their approval. They gave us five dollars to go out and buy cards and stamps [laughs].

Selmer:  Do you remember what year that was?
ROSENBERG: 1922.

Semler: And you were the South Parkway Women, were you?
ROSENBERG: I sent out a few cards to just a few — I didn’t know too many of these people myself. I just went to them to find out who was going with a girl or who was married. You see, I was married already. Then we had our first meeting, and they naturally wanted me to take the presidency, which I did. Then we sent out cards and we got going. And you know what we did, the first thing I thought was necessary, we started in January and I wanted a real nice, big seder. We’d all be together. 

Naturally, we wouldn’t do it the first seder because everybody had their own family. So we used the gymnasium there; we filled it. We had D. Solis Cohen do the services. We approached him, and he was thrilled to do it for us. The members came, and they could bring their families. It had to be strictly ultra, ultra kosher, too. [Inaudible] gave us dishes that had never been touched, and we got glasses that had never been touched. I look back, and I don’t know how we ever did it, but I felt it had to be the right way or it wasn’t going to be done.

Semler: Do you remember some of the other people who were involved in it with you?
ROSENBERG: Yes. Emma Sussman, she used to be an Enkelis girl, she and I went to Mrs. Rosen, Nettie Director’s mother. Now her mother had a grocery store on First Street. We went to her and talked to her because we had to have kosher, kosher chickens. And then there was a woman, a Mrs. Hafter, that cooked for Jewish weddings and kept a real kosher home. This was an innovation back that many years ago. She cooked the chicken soup, brought the knedls. They told us that the glasses would have to soak three days before you could use them to make them fit for Passover. But we did have the most beautiful seder conducted by — of course, you wouldn’t know who D. Solis Cohen was, but he was an outstanding man in this community.

Semler: If you would like to say anything about him, we would be interested to hear it. 
ROSENBERG: He was a lawyer, but he was a wonderful Jew. He was very much tied up in the Neighborhood House, and projects. Now I don’t know whether D. Solis Cohen was of a Sephardic background or not, that I don’t know, but I remember Billy Hasson sat with him, and they both did the chanting and the services. I remember that time I even had my mother come and my sister. If you knew how many were coming — you have seen the gym at the Neighborhood House, you know how big it is, and if you had that full, you had a lot of people. 

Semler: An awful lot.
ROSENBERG:  Yes. I think the South Parkway boys were doing a good job, but I think having the women, which broadened the spectrum, where they went out in the community and involved themselves in other things — and of course, the boys were getting out a program. They were doing their part for the children up there. They established a day camp.

Semler: Where did they establish it, at the Neighborhood House?
ROSENBERG: They had a day camp there. In fact, that’s where Toinette and Vic first met; they were counselors there.

Semler: At the Neighborhood House?
ROSENBERG: Yes, they started going together when they were both day camp counselors at the Neighborhood House. But then outside of paying for that, the boys would give scholarships to other children, not usually Jewish children, unless there was really a need, because Jewish children could go to B’nai B’rith camp or someplace. But there were a lot of Black children, a lot of poor children. And they still to this day maintain that program. They used to, back in those days, have a minstrel show once a year and raise a lot of money. Not so much the production. They would take over the Lincoln Theatre. I don’t know if you remember that on Third Street.

Semler: I do.
ROSENBERG: They would get out a program, a book that would raise maybe $5,000-$6,000 or more. This money all went for underprivileged children.

Semler: You mean they sent them to different camps like BB . . .?
ROSENBERG: Yes, any camp that they could. Every Thanksgiving, they put up a big Thanksgiving dinner there, and every Christmas — I laugh. I said, “Isn’t this is funny? We’re Jewish, and we have to worry about them having a Christmas tree.” They had a tree for them. There was lots of poverty up in that part of town.

Semler: And this was actually done at the Neighborhood House, but for the Christian members of the community?
ROSENBERG: Yes. I went to some of them. We’d go up there and partake and be with them so that they don’t think that you’re just on the outside looking in, or just giving. You have to sometimes socialize with them to make them feel that you really are not only giving, but that you are trying to receive, too. So we’d sit down and eat Thanksgiving dinner with them. They wouldn’t have it right on Thanksgiving Day. The boys put out thousands of dollars. All of their own money, really, went for projects like that. They always had a minstrel show. My husband was always in it, my brothers, Mel Blanc.

Semler: What did your husband do in it?
ROSENBERG: He sang. He had a lovely voice. And my brothers sang. They were South Parkway members. When we had our anniversaries, Mel Blanc always would come up, and when he’s here, he always leaves money. He always sends money for that program. So in that part of the city, usually the underprivileged children were taken care of pretty well. I don’t know what’s happening now. We have left the building, and I really have been very unhappy over it. We have been there so many years, and it’s been a part of us. We had Valentine Parties, climb up on ladders and hang hearts from the — it wasn’t a beautiful place, but it was home. I can remember way, way back when they first opened the Neighborhood House . . . 

Semler: Do you remember when that was?
ROSENBERG: No, I can’t remember.

Semler: But that was after you moved to the West Side?
ROSENBERG: No, I remember we came once a month on Saturday. They must have notified people because I don’t know how we knew to come. They’d have — today they’d call it an oneg Shabbat, perhaps — they’d have mothers and children, and everybody would sit in that room, and they had chairs all around, and the children all sat on the floor. They’d have different children dance, like a little program. Once a month. They had some wonderful things going on there. It’s really too bad that it all kind of died out. Everybody came from far and wide because it was an ingathering. We saw all these people. It was a nice, comfortable feeling. Everything was Jewish. Then, of course, they had refreshments. Miss Lowenberg was wonderful. She was strict, but she really pulled a lot of people out of the dark.

Semler: Miss Lowenberg was the director. What was her first name?
ROSENBERG: Ida.

Semler: And she had a sister?
ROSENBERG: Yes, [Zerlina?]. She was the one in the library. And she had a sister, Mrs. Goodman, and her daughter was Laddie Trachtenberg. She used to fill in there. And you know, a lot of boys that were going to Reed, that were studying, they put in time there at the desk. I remember Dr. Enkelis, when he was going to school. I remember Louis Gurian. There were a lot of people. And it had something. It was tied up with Judaism, and you felt like you were going home every time you went there. After I was married, I lived clear down on Fifth Street. We used to walk down to the Neighborhood House and back and think nothing of it because there was that pull. Nobody would do it today.

Semler: I’m rather curious, when was the Jewish Community Center actually built?
ROSENBERG: You mean the one on 13th? I don’t remember, but I think you could find out.

Semler: I wondered if, when it was built, a lot of people who used to go to the Neighborhood House then went to the Jewish Community Center instead?
ROSENBERG: They might have, a certain faction. After they had later on, then the Ramblers organization was born. It was just different. Perhaps it was a little younger group because that came after the South Parkway, the Ramblers did. The thing was with the Ramblers, they never had a woman’s auxiliary, and I don’t think an organization functions well unless it does. I think it helps to have somebody to plan things and do things. Men are not good at that. Women push more. Men go out and bring in the money, but women will devise methods, things that you do with it. Of course, they were starting to talk about the Robison Home, and naturally we presented them, Mr. Kahn, with a nice check at that time.

Semler: Do you remember what year that was?
ROSENBERG: I really wouldn’t remember. It must have been when they were building. I remember we had a dinner at the Berg Chalet, and I remember that we invited him, and I think we gave him a check for $1,500. In those days, the dues were only 25 cents a month. We had to do a lot of things to raise that kind of money, in small amounts. And during the summer we didn’t charge for dues because we weren’t having any meetings. We weren’t in session. And the men, they gave them a nice check, too.

Semler: Now this was when they were just beginning to build the Robison Home. There was no Robison Home. Was the old people’s home called something different before that one was built? 
ROSENBERG: No, there wasn’t. You know what they had in those days? They had a house down on Third Street — I don’t know if it was Third and Jackson or College, along there — there was just a house, a two-story house, and it wasn’t very good. It just had a wood stove. I think a lot of them cooked there. It was nothing in comparison.

Semler: Was Mr. Kahn involved with that?
ROSENBERG: Yes. In fact, the chapel that they have — I don’t know if you have ever been in the chapel there — that’s in memory of his wife, Germaine. 

Semler: But he was involved with that old house on Third, and then he was instrumental . . .
ROSENBERG: I don’t know if he had anything to do with that house on Third Street. I doubt it.

Semler: But he was instrumental in the building of the Robison Home.
ROSENBERG: I am positive that he was Mrs. Blumauer’s brother. Now you could check that out, but I think so.

Semler: Do you know his first name? 
ROSENBERG: I am trying to think.

Semler: But Germaine Kahn was his wife.
ROSENBERG: There were a couple of nieces. Claire has passed away already. I think there’s a sister that lives here someplace. I can’t think of her name. When you don’t see people for years, you get out of contact. If you got hold of Laddie Trachtenberg, she could give you a lot of information.

Semler: We already did. We’re like detectives. When we hear a name, we try to follow it up. What year were you married? 
ROSENBERG: 1920.

Semler: And you lived on Fifth then?
ROSENBERG: Yes. The place isn’t there now. Mel Blanc’s folks owned a four-plex. They lived downstairs. I lived over them. That was my first contact with radio. They’d rigged up some earphones, and stretched it upstairs to my bedroom, and we could listen — an old crystal set. And I went to his bar mitzvah.

Semler: This was when you were living there. On Fifth and what, do you remember?
ROSENBERG: Either College or Jackson. It was Jackson because College was next to Hall, I think. I’m sure it was Jackson.

Semler: How long did you live there?
ROSENBERG: Meliss was born there. I imagine about seven years, anyhow.

Semler: And your activities at that time really socially centered around the Neighborhood House.
ROSENBERG: They were always around the Neighborhood House. Everybody was at the Neighborhood House because everybody more or less lived in that area. There was a certain something. It was almost like going home. It was automatic. You just dropped in to the Neighborhood House, and there were always kids. And of course the basketball games — my brother played basketball. I went to all of them, and I dragged Meliss when she was a baby. She went to all of them, and she didn’t know what she was at! 

There was a lot of spirit. I don’t think they have it anymore. I don’t think it’s the same today. Maybe they have too many outside things. But this was the whole of it, the Neighborhood House. We had our games, our parties — we had lots of parties in the Neighborhood House. They were wonderful about encouraging parties and classes of any kind that you wanted. Of course, for the immigrants, people that came over, they did have Americanization classes. They’ve really done some wonderful work in the community.

Semler: Do you remember any of the people who were involved as teachers at the Neighborhood House?
ROSENBERG: There was a Mrs. — some relation to Mrs. Blumauer. Maybe it was a Mrs. Kahn. It might have been her sister-in-law. She used to come and teach the Americanization classes. I never went to them, but I know a lot of people that did. They would learn English. And they had a medical clinic there. There were people that went there. Just like you take your child now to a pediatrician, they took them there and there wasn’t any charge. They even had a surgical dispensary. Now Rose Zidell, maybe this shouldn’t be repeated perhaps, but she told me she had her tonsils taken out there. And my brother-in-law had his tonsils taken out there. They had so many services. They had a wonderful, wonderful program.

Semler: You mean right at the Neighborhood House?
ROSENBERG: Yes. They had a regular clinic there. 
 
Semler: I knew they had a clinic, but I didn’t know they had a surgery. Do you remember some of the doctors who were involved?
ROSENBERG: No. That was before I had children. But Rose said she went there. My brother-in-law Joe, he went. He says, “I don’t know how good it was. They told me I almost bled to death.” It didn’t kill him, so I guess they were all right [laughs].

There was just a wealth of pictures there. I don’t know what happened to all the pictures they had at the Neighborhood House. Now that we’re gone, I don’t know what’s happened to everything. There were pictures of people that everybody knows, when they were children. They had so many programs. Dance programs. There was activity. A child didn’t need to go anyplace else but the Neighborhood House.

Semler: And you feel that, for most of them, they really didn’t go anyplace else.
ROSENBERG: I don’t think you really needed to. My friends didn’t, I know that. When you left your home, you went to the Neighborhood House. There was always something going on, some activity. You could always stop and talk to Mrs. Loewenberg or Laddie. It was so warm. I tell you the truth, you don’t feel the same way at the Center. It’s just not like — you grow up someplace when you’re a kid, and you go to all the games. It was social. There was a certain warmness, a certain climate. I don’t know what it is, but so many people tell me the same thing, so it can’t just be me. They don’t feel it here. Maybe this is part of progress, I don’t know, but you went there and there was always something planned. 

I did not have a telephone when we were first married. Miss Loewenberg, the one who had the library, was just a darling person. She would walk all the way down to my place when I lived on 5th and Jackson to tell me that they were going to have a speaker at the library one afternoon, they were going to have tea for her, and wouldn’t I come. That was extending yourself a lot to walk from up there — the library was on First Street then — and to come down. I said, “This is awful for you to . . ..” But she said, “I wanted you to come. How else was I going to reach you?” You see, that was the difference. There was the contact, the warmth. And most of the people that I grew up with feel the same way.

Semler: You told me, too, you went to Ahavai Sholom as a girl. What do you remember about that and who the rabbi was?
ROSENBERG: Rabbi Abramson. Weinbaum taught. In fact, one of Rabbi Abramson’s sons, I remember, was in my class, and I think he died, too. I don’t remember what it was. My sister went, too. We went to Neveh Zedek, but Neveh Zedek never had the Sunday school. I went through the same thing when I had my children. Though we still belonged to Neveh Zedek, I always sent the children to Ahavai Sholom because I always thought they had a better Sunday School. In fact, Neveh Zedek’s was poor. When you’re laying the foundation, you have to do that when they’re young.

Semler: So Neveh Zedek did have a Sunday school in those early years, but it wasn’t as good as Ahavai Sholom.
ROSENBERG: It wasn’t anything. 

Semler: Tell me, when did you move to the East Side, after you and your husband were married?
Rosenberg: Before Toinette was born. It must have been 1929, then. 

Semler: Had a lot of your friends moved to that area? Was that why you moved?
ROSENBERG: The move was just like now. Everybody is going Southwest, more or less. But at that time, people who lived in South Portland, if they moved, they went one place, and that was Irvington. So when we moved, we naturally moved to Irvington.

Semler: After you moved to the East Side, did you still stay as much in contact with the Neighborhood House as you did before?
ROSENBERG: Yes, we did, and it wasn’t that easy because we didn’t have a car, and we were dependent — when you lived on the West Side, you walked to the Neighborhood House. If you think of Fifth and Jackson and walking to the Neighborhood House, today you’d think it’s a long way, but you thought nothing of it in those days. When you’re thinking of crossing the river and crossing the bridge, you’re not going to walk to the Neighborhood House. But we always went. Sometimes we would have to take turns. Sometimes my husband goes, if we didn’t have a sitter with the children, but we were always going and kept in very close contact with that. There were people we always worked together with, and gone through many — we were kids together, grew up together, had children.