Stern, Gladys Goodman_1975/8/7, Oral History, August 7, 1975

Today’s date is August 7, 1975. My name is Elaine Lowengard and I am about to interview Gladys Goodman Stern who lives at 45 Beverly Road in West Hartford. You will hear me refer to Mrs. Stern as Aunt Gladys. She is not a relative of mine but it was the custom when I was growing up for me to address my parent’s close friends as aunt and uncle even though there is no relationship. EL: I think we’ll start with your grandparents and start with your parents and grandparents, Gladys and I would like to start I think with your Goodman part of your family. Would you tell me something about your father and about his parents? GS: My father was born in Hartford. He left home at the age of 13 because his mother had died, his father remarried and he found his home an unhappy one. EL: Where he lived, do you know when he left home? Did he go to relatives? GS: He did not go to relatives. And I don’t know where he lived when he was growing up. He fended for himself. I never heard him tell where he lived in those intervening years. His name was Joseph Goodman. He had a full brother and sister. His brother’s name was Henry, and his sister’s name was Lena. She subsequently married a man named Jacobs and lived out her married life in Chicago. There are half brothers and sisters that grew up in Hartford. Do you want me to tell anything about L______. I don’t think it is important. EL: Do you want to talk about your father’s occupation? GS: My father grew up in the era of the development of the high bicycle the motorcycle and the automobile. At one point in his career ran bicycle races I believe high bicycle races in the old Charter Oak Park. EL: It was the south part of West Hartford I think. Wasn’t it? GS: It might have been in West Hartford. I don’t know whether it was part of West Hartford in those days of not. West Hartford didn’t really count that much. EL: No GS: Subsequently this interest led him into a publishing business and he was publisher and owner of magazines of Bicycling World, Motorcycle World and then consequently the Automobile World and that went on for many years as these industries developed. EL Now were these published in Hartford or were they published somewhere else? GS: They were published in New York. EL: OK GS: At one point in his life he spent five days a week in New York and was here every weekend as I was growing up. EL: Did he commute on a bicycle? GS: No. EL: And from there you said something about his being interested in the Pope Hartford. GS: Well the Pope Hartford, which was an automobile, was developed in Hartford at that time and he was closely associated with some of the Pope family. He of course moved to Hartford in ____. He did a great deal of advertising and publicity. EL: You mentioned he retired at age 59. GS: He associated himself with the Frank ____ Publishing Company in New York and at his convenience and his desire he would place articles, advertising with men. He and my mother in those days did a great deal of traveling. EL: Can you tell me anything about your father’s education? Do you know anything about that? GS: I doubt if he went very far beyond his early years. EL: You mean grammar school? GS: Grammar school. EL: He never mentioned what school he had attended or anything? GS: No. EL: Ok. Now how about his activities? Do you recall, was he a religious man, did he belong to the temple or go to services? GS: He belonged to the temple, he was on the Board of Trustees at one period in his life. I don’t remember his being particularly religious except it was taken as a matter of course. We belonged to the only synagogue we knew about which was the old Charter Oak Synagogue, Beth Israel as did all the Jews who lived in the southern part of the city in those days. EL: OK. Now let’s go to your mother’s family and then we’ll go to your life as a girl growing up in Hartford. GS: Well, my mother was the daughter of Aaron Stern and Emma Plaut Stern. My grandfather was born in Germany in 1831. He left Germany at the age of about 20 to escape military service and my grandmother, my future grandmother, was on the same sailing vessel. It took six weeks to reach Hartford from Germany. They subsequently married and there were seven children born to them, three sons, Moses, Samuel and Isaac, and Isaac died in the very early days. There were four daughters, Rose, who was my mother, Julia, who married Henry Talheimer, Minnie who married Felix Lyon and Bill who married Samuel Kron. EL: Do you know why the family came to Hartford, why your grandparents came to Hartford? GS: I presume they came to Hartford because my grandmother was a Plaut and there were relatives in New York but there also were relatives in Hartford who apparently ran a dry goods store and I presume that was what brought them to Hartford because subsequently my grandfather earned his living by driving a horse and wagon through the river towns selling dry goods. EL: What do you recall of religious life on the part of your mother’s family? Do you have any recollection? GS: Well as long as I can remember they were affiliated with Temple Beth Israel. I can remember my grandfather who was as regular attendant as services especially on Saturday morning as he grew older and a good ____. And myself I can remember back to Rabbi Meyer Elkin and Howie Edelson and then EL: Now when were your parents married? GS: 1892 on the 11th of October, 1892 and subsequently there were 4 children of that marriage of whom I’m the oldest. I have a sister who married Henry Tallheimer of New Haven, she is 4 years younger. I have a brother, Joseph Goodman who is a dermatologist and lives in Massachusetts. My youngest brother is Allan Goodman who is a distributor of liquor, liquor distributor in Hartford. EL: Ok and you were born in 1894, the 6th of August 1894. EL: OK, and where did you live as a young girl? GS: As a young girl I lived and was brought up on Congress Street the corner of Congress and Morris Street in the south part of Hartford. EL: Do you recall any other languages besides English being spoken in the home and did your parents speak German? GS: My mother always spoke German to the maids that we had in those days because most of them came over from Germany for unknown reason. EL: So you had servants in the house to do the cooking or cleaning or laundry? GS: Everything there usually were two as we were growing up as children. EL: Did you have any household responsibilities? Did you have to take care of your little brothers or anything like that? GS: My mother and father traveled a great deal and I was always left in charge. EL: Which meant what? GS: Just to be sure that everybody kept in line and there was somebody there to assume some sort of responsibility I presume. EL: Now how about your education, your early schooling first of all? GS: My early schooling starting at kindergarten and Shaw School on Hudson Street from which I graduated and went on to the Hartford High School, the only high school that existed in Hartford in those days and I graduated in the class of 1912. EL: Did you ever consider going to college or continuing? GS: I considered going to college where I lived a little closer to the _____ era. I was sent away to school for two years in Auburndale, Massachusetts to a school called LaSalle Seminary. El: And you finished that? GS: Of course, it was a two year instruction. EL: And what was your class at Hartford Public High? GS: 1912 EL: OK. Now what other activities did you, what religious activities did you have, did you go to religious school? GS: I went to religious school once a week as I remember in those days we went on Sunday morning. EL: Were there any social activities through the temple? GS: Not that I remember. EL: How about the Torah Club? I remember that picture of all of your in costumes GS: The activities I think were special occasions especially or the young who were growing up in those days like a Washington’s Birthday Party. EL: Well that the one thing I am thinking of because if that picture that we have and you are there all dressed up in a grand costume. GS: But aside from that I don’t remember any sociabilities. We used to have clubs among our own intimates as I recall now at which we met on Sunday afternoons and as I can remember seems to me ______________ EL: Dances like teenagers today. What about lessons and other kinds of things? GS: The usual piano lessons and I took, which was unusual in those days, from a Negro gentleman by the name of R. Agustus Austin who was the protégé of Mrs. Dudley Warner. EL: Was that Mrs. Charles W. Warner? GS: Mrs. Charles W. Warner. EL: Now did he come to your house or did you go GS: No he had a studio in the Brown Thompson Building. EL: Did you walk there, how did you get there? GS: I presume I went on the trolley car. EL: Oh, of course, up Main Street. GS: Up Main Street. EL: And dancing school too? GS: There was dancing school, and I remember my dancing school teacher, the first one was Mrs. Riley, Miss Riley, and she was when she gave up a Miss McClain who subsequently became Mrs. Zacher of Hartford, took over. EL: Now was this a dancing school for Jewish children? GS: Oh, no. For everybody and it was in Pithgon Hall. I’m serious. EL: Oh goodness. GS: In the afternoons it was in the day town I am not sure whether it was Saturday afternoon or something of that sort. I presume I don’t actually remember which day of the week it was. EL: What do you remember about holidays, important holidays, religious? GS: What sort of holidays? EL: Well what sort of holidays did you celebrate? What did you do at Christmas? Was that recognized as a holiday by your family? GS: I think so to a degree. Not to a great degree. EL: Well there wasn’t any school of course? GS: There was no school. There was not the amount of Christmas that I remember that takes place today nor was it as commercialized. EL: What about Jewish holidays? GS: They were mostly celebrated in the temple as I remember, rather than in the home. EL: You said something about 4th of July GS: That was always an exciting day. In the whole community I can remember getting up at 4 o’clock in the morning to go out and shoot off fire crackers in those days. It was a great holiday. EL: And what other recreation did you have besides shooting off fire crackers which I gather you just did once a year? GS: I would say it was neighborhood recreation. EL: Were there a lot of Jewish families on Congress Street, just all kinds of people? GS: All kinds but quite a few Jewish people and I think it was the early days of the automobile it seems to me as I was growing up. EL: Did your family have a Pope Hartford? GS: My father had one of the early Pope Hartfords and always chauffeured he would never drive a car. EL: He never learned to drive? GS: Never learned to drive. EL: After all his interests. GS: He always claimed his eyesight was bad. EL: Well mostly now, when you were a child, did you travel in the car or did you use the trolley or GS: We used the trolley. EL: Now what do you remember about other religious observances? Your family went to temple of Jewish holidays, did they go when your grandfather went every week? GS: Oh yes. EL: Did anyone keep a kosher house for example? GS: No. I think I told you that my grandfather said that unless he had learned to eat ham that he couldn’t have existed on his trips down the river towns because that’s about all that used to be available in those days. EL: Do you remember did you have matzah for Passover? GS: Oh yes. EL: You did? GS: Oh yes. It was observed but I don’t really recall the ceremony that is perhaps being observed I think that the Jewish religion has come back to much more of the symbolism than EL: Ok would you say something then about your life after you graduated from LaSalle? GS: I came back into the community. I married shortly after that and lived in Rye, New York for a very short period because of the outbreak of the First World War and then my husband went into the service as a volunteer and spent 14 months in France at which time I went back to live with my family, my mother and father. And in those days I can remember being very busy at Hartford Dispensary and then milk stations at the Council of Jewish Women ran in those days. And other activities, I was on the Jewish Welfare Board with your father. EL: That was during World War I. Well you talk about the Council of Jewish Women, you were a member there and you were very active in that? GS: Yes, I’ve been a member of that for well over 50 years. EL: And what kinds of activities did you do, you ran a milk station you said? GS: Well in the early days we counseled Jewish women that was the instigator of a milk station and they used to bring, mothers brought their babies to be weighed and examined and given milk provided which they were not able to EL: The milk station was really like a well baby clinic? GS: That’s right. EL: The beginning of welfare? GS: Yes EL: You don’t recall just when you joined the National Council of Jewish Women? GS: Well I presume it was a soon as I was EL: Which was in? GS: 1815, maybe it was 1916 when I came back here. EL: That would have been Hartford? How did you happen to join? Did your mother belong? GS: I don’t know. My mother was an active Sisterhood member all her life and a member of the Deborahs. In fact my grandmother, Emma Stern, was one of the original members of the Deborahs, Ladies Deborah Society. EL: OK. I’m just looking to see what else - GS: Oh I had children, one daughter she was born in 1919, December 1919 and she has married a man name Albert Cahn from Kansas City and has become a member In Los Angeles. She has two children, a son Robert 30 years old now and a daughter Deborah, who is 26. EL: And where do they live? GS: Robert is living in Florida now and teaching at the University of Miami, a mathematician, and Deborah is living in Berkeley. EL: We really covered the whole continent. I did want to ask you one thing and that was – were you aware since your family was well established in Hartford, were you aware of the great number of immigrants, Jewish immigrants who were coming into the city in the early years of the century when you were just a young girl? GS: I wasn’t particular aware except for the activities of the Council of Jewish Women was very active in running so-called Americanization classes that were given at the old city hall for all these immigrants who wished to learn English and become American citizens and they as a group coming into the community I was not aware EL: And one more thing, what do you think as perhaps the greatest contrast between your life and say the lives of your grandchildren? What do you see different? GS: Well, I think Hartford and New England was much more cauterized when I grew up and that gentile community was just opening up to Jews and allowing Jews to find there place in the community. EL: Do you think your grandchildren GS: I tell my grandchildren this they can’t understand it. EL: Was not an issue? GS: This was not an issue in their lives. But it may be that they are not in New England. EL: I don’t know it is hard to measure when there is a difference in time and a difference in geography but I would suspect that would be a difference. OK, well thank you very much this has been very interesting. That’s a conclusion of an interview of Gladys Goodman Stern, Mrs. Francis Edward Stern which was conducted at her house at 45 Beverly Road in West Hartford on August 7, 1975. The day after her 81st birthday the interviewer was Elaine Lowengard.