Benson, Seymour, 2006

A.N.: My name is Arthur Nassau and I am of the Jewish Historical Society in Hartford

and we are interviewing Seymor Benson at 96 Kenmore Road Bloomfield. Today is

2006, November 10th.

A.N.: Seymour I understand that your father came to this country when he was very

young.

S.B.: Eight years old

A.N.: Under what circumstances did he come here?

S.B.: He came with his father, his mother had died and he came with his grandmother

who absolutely raised him. And he grew up in east side of New York. His father was a,

had a sweatshop, that manufactured ladies blouses. And Goppers tried to unionize his

father’s shop at that time and I guess that my grandfather was a stubborn old coo. And he

broke him. Anyway my father when he worked for his, when he was growing up he was

responsible for picking up fabric and collecting money and everything for his father.

And when his father went out of business he worked for Maurice Rentner who was then

and now I understand one of the top ladies dress manufacturer in the country. And that’s

what he did, he used to go on errands and pick up money and everything else. Anyway

when he was seventeen years old, Baronder Hirsch found him, which gave money to

Jewish boys to settle the land. My father decided he wanted to become a farmer. And

initially the first farm he looked at was Bishops Corner where the Shell Station is now.

I would assume that would be the North East Corner. And everybody said “How do you

go to Colchester?” You know how the Russians go to Coney Island, Brighton Beach now

because one person is there and they go there because their friends are there. Anyway he

ended up in Colchester. He had a farm on the New London Turnpike and actually. He

tried to keep route 2 from going through because it would effect his business and route

eventually went through my father’s pasture land. Of course he had a house that still

stay, still remains and the barn was on the other side of the road. And the farm was sort

of a way station for people caught on their way to the beach. They would stop by the

farm to relieve themselves and get something to drink. Anyway, my father became a

farmer. He met my mother. My grandparents, the Nelevers; came to Colchester in 1880.

they were the second Jewish settlers.

A.N. What type of farming was it?

S.B. Connecticut farming, whatever you could do make a living. They had chickens,

cows, a few cows; and little truck farming in the summer time. And that’s interesting,

my father in order to supplement his farming when they were building the New London

Turnpike, the ten curves, he leased or rented his horse and wagon and his body helped

make that road. One of the stories that my father told me that the Marlborough was

rattlesnake area. And apparently a little rattlesnake got into the feedbag, and when he put

it on the horses for their feed, the horses took off down the road because that little snake

scared the living daylights out of them. Also in order to supplement his farm income, he

came an appraiser for the federal land bank in East Hamden. I’ll come back to that in a

few minutes. My father became very friendly with dean Jones, the head of the

Agricultural School at UConn in those days and the dean was looking for somebody who

had the ability to keep good records and my father built the first chicken coop in

specifications from UConn and kept records for that. Anyway, I’ll tell you a couple of

little stories about Colchester before I get back to the East Hamden bank. My father

knew that there was a KKK in Colchester. And they wanted he and Zeida Goldberg who

were sort of leaders of the Jewish community there. And they wanted to know who their

adversaries were. So they heard one night there was going to be a KKK meeting and

they took these hickory switches and they jumped the KKK at night and these hickory

switches would make a mark on the skin even through clothing. And they switched their

arms and face and the next morning when they went into town they would know who was

in the KKK. And also my father was basically a self learned man; he went to a couple of

years to school my father was a very, very learned man in Talmud. And one of the great

things about my father, he could talk to kings, princes, potentates and a ditch digger with

great result.

A.N. What was your father’s name?

S.B. Louis D. Benson. We finally got to that, right? My mother was Sara Nelaver

Benson. As I mentioned before, my parents are named after my grandfather whom I

never knew of course. My mother’s side of the family incidentally there were seven boys

and five of use were Seymours. Seymour number three and I’m Seymour number five,

the only ones left. Anyway, we get back to Colchester; so people like my father

volunteered to help people, city people become citizens. And my father tells a story

about a man, a can’t remember his name; Moshylevsky or something like that and they

always would wait for a judge who would be very liberal to make these people citizens.

So my father tells about this man, he comes before the judge; and he doesn’t know any

answers to any of the questions. Nothing about the Constitution and everything. So, the

judge turns around and points to the American flag, and asks the man Moshe, if he knew

what that was; and that he did know and said that was the flag of the U.S. The judge

asked what colors are on the American Flag. He says he don’t know, the judge says is

one color red? He (Moshe) say yes, I think it’s red. Is one color white? (Moshe) says I

think it’s white. And he says can you please tell me the last next color, the last color and

the third color in the flag. He (Moshe) thinks a while I then says, “I think green”. Of

course he didn’t get it, he didn’t get his citizenship. Now, in those days according to

what I hear, people survived by signing notes, lone notes for each other and incidentally

my father tells me the story about the horse thieves. My dad used to say if he wanted to

buy a cow, he’d go to Arthur Nassau and he’d say Arthur what do you want for that cow?

And Arthur would say I want $20 and Miss Louis Benson would say I’ll give you $10.

And you settle on $15. Only once you settled on the price, that you would ask the man

what he made as a profit? This is a profit, how much profit do you want? $20? But they

then settled on $10 and they settled on $15. And only then did you ask him what did you

pay for the cow? And then they were honest, contrary to what people think about horse

traders. Anyway, my father had a..when we were on the farm, my sister “milled it” went

to a one room schoolhouse in Colchester. And she had a little Shepard pony named

Laddy, and that pony would take my sister to school everyday and come back and knock

on the door and know that my sister got to school. Well this is a true story, and my father

claimed that that pony could open up any lock that was ever made, put his rear end up

against it and moved it until he got the door open. Now back to the signing of notes for

each other and that how people survived back in those days. He became very friendly

with the officers of East Hamden bank and he even signed notes for them. And

occasionally somebody would ask to sign a note but they didn’t know how much. So you

signed it in blank! Well, bankers would sign this note for 4 or $5000 and two of the

officers ended up in Federal Prison. My father left the farm because my mother was not

in good health and the farming was a little too difficult for her. And he came to Hartford.

A.N. Let me just stop for one minute. When you said that people would stop by the farm

on their way to the shore, did they entertain did they have meals?

S.B. Yea, they didn’t charge anything. My parents were very wonderful hosts. They

truly were.

A.N.: It wasn’t commercial?

S.B. No, no. However, Benny Leonard and Barney Ross trained at my father’s farm.

And I think that’s how my father got to know Kit Kaplan who he eventually put into the

insurance business. So they did anything to make a living in those days. It was tough

going.

A.N. So they left the farm roughly in what year?

S.B. I think when I was one year old. So that was back in 1928. They came to Hartford

and they lived in an apartment house on Main Street. And I have a uncle Sam who

worked for “S. Klein” in the square in New York. And he was known as Little Caesar,

he did most of the buying for the Kleins and my father of course knew the dress business

and my business was well known in that business and they opened up a dress store on

Main Street corner across from G Fox and Co. And they brought styles to Hartford that

the Har tford women never seen before. And they were making money. They were

drawing $500 a

week plus after six months it was quite a bit of profit.

A.N.: Do you know that name of the store?

S.B. Yeah, it was Benson’s..And now these guys of the officers of the East Hampton

Bank, a couple of which ended up in prison. Back in those days no one would go

Bankrupt. My father tells a story when he paid off his share of the debt, he had a wife

and two kids and two dollars in change in his pocket. How he got to Abe Goldstein who

was a general agent for the bankers national life insurance company. He went to him and

he gave him a rate book and he patted him on the back and said “God Bless You, go out

and sell your friends and relatives!” And my father became a field supervisor for the

United Life and Accident and that was the glass family with a general agents here in

Hartford. And he traveled about fifteen states, appointing general agents and managers

and tried to settle problems that came up with different agencies and everything else.

Eventually at one time about seventy percent about all general agencies United Life and

Accident were appointed by my father. Anyway he eventually got his own agency for the

state mutual life. In other words, there were only two Jewish general agencies and they

were general agents of minor companies of the time. My father became the first Jewish

general agent in the state for a major company and that was the State Mutual Life. And of

course he was very well respected amongst his peers. And my dad was a, people came to

me and I thought he was a part time life insurance agent and a full time...wait what am I

looking for, don’t get old Arthur. People would come with all type of problems, family

problems, money problems, and they respected Louis Benson because he was very

objective and didn’t tell them not exactly what they wanted to hear. He told them what

he thought should be done. And as I say, he was very well respected amongst the, of

course the, one of the first things he did when he came to Hartford, he joined the

Emannuel Synagogue. My recollection was, I didn’t know anything about the Main

Street Apartment. I remember when we moved to Garfield Street early in the ‘30s. And

then we moved up to Colbert Street and then my father retired and he built a home in

Neptune Park in New London.

A.N.: What are you earliest recollections of growing up in Hartford?

S.B. Well, the North end, I remember going to Northwest School. And Kenney Park and

the “Lookout” and the park and everybody in the North End seemed to collect at Kenney

Park especially during the break on Yom Kippur. And on Garfield Street, it was an

interesting street, the bottom was on Granby St. where there was Tabor Cadillac and

Nabisco. They would give us broken boxes of cookies. And Tabor Cadillac the cars

would come on freight train. They were protected from being scratched by cardboard.

We would take the cardboard and use it in the winter time as a sled sliding down the hill

over the hard river which was frozen at that time. The hard river of course was better

known as the Park River officially but everybody knew it as the hard river.

A.N.: did you have early Hebrew School?

S.B. Yeah, I went to Hebrew School, I went to Jacob “185 on the counter“ Lieberman

who operated from his home on Blue Hills Avenue, couple of houses in from West Point

Parkway.

A.N.: Morris “Prakell” was on that West Point Parkway

S.B.: Yeah, he was on West Point Parkway but I remember going to one of my first Bar

Mitzvahs, at the Mount Sinai Hospital which was 500 Blue Hills Avenue. There was a

home for young boys. I don’t remember well what it was called. But I remember going

to my first Bar Mitzvah, and in those days Bar Mitzvahs were on Monday and Thursday.

And the family came in with a bottle of Pickle Herring, Gefilte Fish and a bottle of Four

Roses. And that was a Bar Mitzvah. Not the fancy things that we have today, of course.

Now we’ll go back to my “Nelaver” family in Colchester. Like I’ve said they came to

Colchester in 1880. I personally only knew two of my grandparents because I was named

after one my grandfather who was long gone before I came onto the scene. And of

course my father’s mother I never knew. And my bubbie died when I believe I was 8

years old. And if she had lived longer, my Yiddish would be a lot better. Even though

both my parents spoke wonderful Yiddish. I would have had asked them to speak more

Yiddish to me but whatever Yiddish I really learned was talking to my bubbie and she

was very sickly and I never spent much time with her. My grandfather and my father

were never on the best terms and he didn’t spend much time with us. So I didn’t get to

see much of him.

A.N.: What was your grandfather’s name?

S.B.: My grandfather’s name was Loeb Benson.

A.N.: do you still have family members on the farm?

S.B. Yeah, I still have kid cousins living still on the farm. They were in the poultry

business but recently got out. But the farm still exists.

A.N.: So let’s go back to Hartford. And you’re growing up at a child, you go to Hebrew

school during the week. Yeah, I went naturally to Hebrew School. Shortly after my

folks went to Hartford, they joined the Emmauel Synagogue. I went to NorthWest

School and of course then after to Weaver High School and ended up at UConn.

A.N.: were you Bar Mitzvahed at the Emmanuel?

S.B.: yes

A.N.: who was your teacher there?

S.B.: Mr. Morris Royceman. We had a great class back then, 40, 45 member s in our

confirmation class. In those days, the Emmanuel Synagogue had membership with at

least a thousand people. And Morris Royceman and Pearl Gibbor and even one year I

had Phylis Abrams who was a young girl teaching. I don’t remember what year it was.

In those days we met on Saturday and Mr. ROyceman was a funny man, he was a great

mathematician. And naturally on Saturday he couldn’t write so you had to keep your

own records, so the start of every class on Saturday morning you would tell him what

your score was , 0s or 100s, and if he couldn’t give you the percentage in a matter of ten seconds. You’d get ten 100s. It was funny. We went into the sanctuary at the end of the

service and Rabbi Silverman would have a discussion with the class and if you could

answer his questions you would get ten 100s. So I personally never did much in my

study work but I did read the sedrah and I was able to answer these questions. So I come

in towards the end of the semester and have 150 100s and 10 zeros. It was guys like

Bernie Slater and Merrill Stein who had 10 100s and no zeros. And he made it very

interesting. Then eventually Larry Rustin and myself we were very fortunate because we

became hat check boys at the Emmanuel and in those days you could have three

functions on a weekend, Saturday morning, you would have a Bar Mitzvah, because of

course we didn’t work in the morning, and at night there would be a bar mitzvah party or

a wedding and on Sunday there could be two weddings! And at that time, we used to get

three dollars for each session though we shouldn’t take it though occasionally we would

get a few bucks and tips. So on the weekend I could earn $20 which was probably more

than what the other people would get working 40 to 50 hours a week depending on those

days. And we had a wonderful time.

A.N.: Where did you go to college?

S.B.: I went to UConn. I was in the first civilian class in 1946 after the war and straight A

students all wanted to go to the Wharton School. But straight A students couldn’t get

into the school because they were taking servicemen. Ended up at UConn and I had a

great time there and actually it turned out good for me because being in the life insurance

business, 99% of my contacts were in the state of Connecticut. And I remember we had

in 1946, 28 pieces in the UConn band. We marched in the Yale Bowl with 28 seven

ranks of four; followed by the Yale band with their blue blazers and grey trousers and

white “?”. And about 150 people. We probably had almost as many people on that big

14 foot diameter bass drum we had in the whole band! We had a wonderful time and in

those days they used to play basketball in the Armory. And the Armory in the first year

when I went up to UConn there was only 1,100 of us on campus. Following year they

were building the south campus there and the next year a couple thousand came up from

“Fort Trumbull” when we became a bigger institution. So they played basketball in the

Armory and the Armory held 500 people. And in those days, based on your student

activity ticket; they had odd and even number games. If the last number of your student

activity was an even number then you went to the game. But in that particular year, the

Rhode Island UConn was a great rivalry in those days was an even ticket. And the big

thing that went on in campus was trying to forge your three into an eight! Because I

never had a problem getting into ball games because of course I was in the band. But that

year that Rhodie-UConn game was a fantastic game. UConn ended up winning 83-78

and the lead had changed hands a dozen times, and tied and it was a great ballgame.

A.N.: What Jewish activities were there on campus?

S.B.: We had Hillel and in the morning Rabbi “Zigman” was the Hillel Rabbi and we met in

the basement of the Wilbur Cross Library. And we had a minyan every morning. We

really did! One of the people from the Hartford area and became very active in the Beth

El Synagogue was Milton Widdham. And on Friday night we met at the Storrs Church

and we had a service followed by a Shabbat.



A.N.: Was it a student run service?

S.B.: Yes…we had people who could conduct the service although I don’t remember their

names for some reason. But Rabbi Zigman was there.

A.N.: What did you after you graduated?

S.B.: Personally, I went back to school since I accelerated at UConn in three years. I thought it

was better off to get as much education before I went off into the army. I graduated on

Sunday and on Monday I was in the office trying to sell life insurance. I didn’t get into

service. This was 1949. I didn’t get into service until 1952 in the Korean conflict.

A.N.: Were there any combat situations?

S.B.: No, I was fortunate enough to have a office job in ‘Campicket’ Virginia. It was a

medical replacement training center. And when they closed that operation down I was

assigned to Fort Sam in Houston, Texas. But which I never served. I was about 15, 20

miles from San Antonio on the ‘biffrack’ area called Camp ‘Bullis’.

A.N.: Now, when your service was over you went back into the insurance office?

S.B.: Yes, as a matter of fact I was doing business while I was in service.

A.N.: Now I know that you have a life long interest in philantrophy, Jewish organization. Can

you tell us some more about that?

S.B.: Yeah, my father would always preach to us, you gotta’…he used agricultural terms. You

gotta’ plant the tree for the next generation. You gotta’ sow seeds before you reap the

harvest. And based on that kind of upbringing I got involved very, very early in the

Federation. I was in the YBP, very active in that; and I became campaign chairman with

Ray Hoffenberg, may he rest in peace.

A.N.: Now why YBP?

S.B.: We were chairman of the YBP campaign. And then a couple of years later, Irvin Kessler

who was the administrator of the Federation and came to me and asked me to become the

chairman of the Greater Hartford division. We had about 8,000 cards at that time and

maybe 6,000 was in the Greater Hartford division. We dealt with the small towns: East

Hartford, Windsor and Bloomfield. And I was the youngest member of the Federation

Board. And I think I was also the first to become a life member of the Federation. And a

lot of times I thought I was a full time community person. And a part time insurance

agent. At one time I was president of the Emmanuel, president of the Hartford Life Fund

“Underwriters” and a president of the Life Association all at the same time. So I always

wanted to do my share.



A.N.: Aside from your active life and Jewish organization and professional organization, I

understand that you were always athletic, enjoyed active interests.

S.B.: Yeah, I probably worked out every day of my life. I was a jogger when I was 7 or 8 years

old when your parents paid $2 for a pair of Keds sneaks. And I think that’s when my

skeletal problems probably started. I was a jogger when people didn’t know how to spell

jogger! And then in High School I was active, I played on the Weaver Football Team, I

was on the track team. And then up at UConn I did anything in the Fall but I played a lot

of intramural sports when I was up at UConn. And when I got out of UConn, of course I

was a member of the YMCA since I was a little boy. I remember I would play sandlot

football with little boys who apparently, there’s a space in your hip that closes as you get

older. And I remember we would play sandlot ball up at the look out. After

Thanksgiving the ground was as hard as a rock and I got hit and apparently that space

grew; so for a few years I had an inch and a half lift on it. And so I joined the YMCA , a

member of the YMCA and I was already able to swim when I was 7 or 8 years old. And

I got special dispensation, I could swim at the Y when boys in the boys division could

swim at certain time. But I could swim at any time. I used to get out from school and get

on “Parmount” and Ashley Street, here I am; eight or nine, ten years old and go to the Y

and at this time in the year when it gets dark early I’d cross over to the street to the corner

of High and Asylum where the Guard Hotel was then. You never thought you had

anything to worry about back in those days. Today if your children go out on the corner

movie, you’re worrying till they come home! And I was a member of the Y for many,

many well over 25 consecutive years; and I used to say to them that although I never had

a beautiful body I was at least in decent shape. And I used to say to them, you ought to

use me as your promotion material, you too can look like this after 25 consecutive years.

So after, handball became my game, and I played handball. I main handball buddy was

Buddy Peckerman from Shepard Steel, and then Buddy became a ‘parkersonian’ and I

had big skeletal problems, spinal fusion and a wounded knee and things like that. We

continued going to the Y; we’d walk around Bushnell Park, we’d go do some exercises

and then when Buddy couldn’t come down anymore; it was much more convenient for

me to work out with the Univ. of Hartford. I work out now with the Univ. of Hartford.

My routine was to dive every morning at Emmanuel and then from there I would go to

the University to workout.

A.N.: We haven’t yet talked to much about your personal life..you were married.

S.B.: I was an old bachelor, I was 32 when I got married. And I married Roselyn Swarzberg.

And unfortunately, Roselyn died when I was 50 years old. We had to children: Michael

and Ruth. My son Michael has become a very learned, young Talmudic; although I don’t

really call him a Talmudic scholar even at this age. Anyway, I had two children and then

I was fortunate enough after Roselyn’s death to meet Marilaine Kassow Epstein, and we

were married and we have been married 28 years. Marylaine had three children, and we

now have 8 grandchildren and two great grandchildren.

A.N.: Well Seymour I want to thank you very much for spending this time with us and is there

anything else that you can think of would you like to add to this before we close?

S.B.: Well, I appreciate what you are doing because I wanted to get this on the record primarily

for my father because he was truly a wonderful man. He was very, very well respected in

the Hartford community; not only in the Jewish community but his professional

community and he was very bright. He was self learned and I have great memories of

him. And of course I am happy because he moved to New London and I eventually

bought my own home there where I now spend five months a year, enjoying the beach.

A.N.: Is that the same house that he originally had?

S.B.: No, I ended up selling his house to my sister and brother in law. And then I bought a

house after my father died, I tried to keep my mother but she was a very bad parkinsonian

and she had early hardening of the arteries, she was semi senile in her middle sixties.

And I tried to keep her in New London. Keep her in New London with help. After a

while…so we used to go down every weekend to give the woman a day off and even

though my mother’s house was like our house it wasn’t our house. And I ended up

buying a hundred year old Victorian house across the street which I have now owned for

about 35 years. One day my mother was getting worse and we needed two people, a

night time person and a day time person. And one day which was one of the blackest

days of my life, I got a call from the night time person telling me that she thinks my

mother is being abused by the day time person. I mean as I say it was a very, very black

day. When I finally settled down a bit, I said there’s nothing new under the sun. I’m

going to call Marty Freeman who was the administrator of the Hebrew Home. And talk

to him. And Marty said, you take your sisters down to New London and verify the fact

that your mother is being abused and if she is, you bring her here. He says we’ll find

room for her if we can’t do this for you who has done so much for the community then

what’s it all about. But that’s what we did and my mother ended up with 15 years in the

Hebrew Home. Marilaine’s father Louis was there for many years. In fact, Marylaine

and I got our money’s worth. My mother was in one room and across the way was

Marylaine’s aunt Sara and Louis was in the third room. So we got our money’s worth

from the Hebrew Home.

A.N.: Well again, I want to thank you very much for spending your time this morning. And we

really appreciate it and we’re going to close this interview at this point.

S.B.: Thank you very much Arthur!