Title, Melvin_1975/5/28, Oral History, May 28, 1975

ST: Good evening, today is May 28, 1975. We are at the Hartford Jewish Community Center. My name if Samuel Hartman Title and I am about to interview my father Melvin Weisman Title for the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford. Good evening Dad. MT: Good evening Samuel. ST: I guess all interviews really should start at the beginning so where were you born? MT: Well, most people think I was born in Hartford but really I was born in Springfield, Massachusetts on the 24th of November 1897. I would like to say at this time that my parents, and I think this is very important because what you do relates itself to your forebearers. My mother’s family, the Weisman family, came to Hartford in 1882 from Poland and lived on Front Street and my grandfather opened a grocery store on Morgan Street. Unfortunately, he died after six years in this country and is now buried in Adas Israel Cemetery out in Zion Hill. My father came to America, also from Poland, in 1884 via London. He spent a few months in London before coming to Hartford. And I would mark this at the age of 14, all alone, no family, no relatives. I wonder what our boys and girls would do at 14. He came to Hartford because he had a lancemen here by the name of Schwartz who had preceded him here and he docked in Boston, took the train to Hartford, found his friend who immediately found him a job and of all the places he found a job for my father it was a screw shop on Sheldon Street. Now I don’t know whether any of you people know, the building is still down there, well that didn’t suit my dad. He stayed there maybe a couple of weeks, maybe four weeks. And he became friendly with a man by the name of Goldberg, Jacob Goldberg, who was a peddler and he had come to Hartford a few years back and started out with a pack on his back and had now reached a point where he had a horse, a wagon and a stock of merchandise to go out into the country and my father was hired by Goldberg to be a helper, helping meant feeding the horse, currying the horse, an errand boy, a jack-of-all trades. That continued on for a few years and my father saved a little money and, incidentally, I would say he was 17 years old at the time, there was a barber shop for sale on Front Street that was owned by a couple of Italians and my father bought the barber shop. He continued to run the barber shop while he was still peddling or being a peddlers assistant, let’s put it that way. Well Mr. Goldberg died and my father took over the route. Now the route consisted of leaving Hartford a Monday morning, going perhaps to Windsor, Windsor Locks, Suffield and then come back to Hartford to be back on Friday night to go to shul. And next Monday morning they’d start out and they’d go to Granby, Simsbury, they had a regular route. Well my father continued that business and it’s interesting to know what kind of merchandise they had. Well, they all kinds of patented drugs that he bought from the Sisson Drug Company. Now these are old time firms here. Dry good he used to buy from L. S. Goldsmith & Company. I don’t know whether any of you people remember that firm. Mr. Kanuk, L. S. Kanuk, had a place on State Street that sold all kinds of farm equipment, hatchets and saws, nails and what not. And my father would stock up and he’s continue on the route and along the line, of course, he met the lady that eventually became my mother, his wife, Leah Wiesman. Dad learned that there was another barber shop for sale in Springfield and he bought that barber shop and he always prided himself on being the first chain barber shop owner. He knew nothing about being a barber but he was an enterprising young fellow. He then, you know he worked hard and he saved his money. And he bought a first piece of property in Springfield, Massachusetts on what was known at White Avenue, it was a row of tenement houses. This was in the Jewish neighborhood. White Avenue is now known as Columbus Boulevard. If you go north into Springfield you get onto Columbus Boulevard. That used to be White Avenue. This building is in back of where Forbes & Wallace fronts on Main Street, White Avenue was right in back of their store. Well this continued on until 1890. He became engaged to my mother and in 1891 Leah and Henry became Leah and Henry Title. My father then bought other property. Of course I’ve been told this, you know over and over by both him and my mother. He bought property on Bond Street, which was not a Jewish section, another row of tenement houses. Any he bought some houses on Ferry Street where some of the more affluent Jews of the time in Springfield lived and in 91 my mother and father were married. My father sold the peddlers group and they were married incidentally, you might be interested in this, in the American Hall. At that time there were two places, Germania Hall and American Hall. American Hall was on Central Road in a building, it was an old house. It now houses the Marble Pillar Restaurant or saloon or whatever you want to call it. But upstairs was the American Hall and that’s where the wedding took place. Well my father had interests in Springfield so they moved to Springfield and my brother Ray was born in Springfield in 1893. I was born in 1897. My father continued the real estate business. He was doing fairly well and an opportunity came along, I’m skipping along because we want to get through here, in 1904 a man came into a store that was run by Harry and David Daniels, H&D Daniels, they were in the mens’ clothing business, in Hartford where the Constitution Bank is on Trumbull Street and on Main Street in Springfield. My uncle, Joe Rich, worked for them. This traveling salesman came into the store and said Joe you’re a young fellow, there is a store for sale in Hartford that’s owned by Weiners, not the Weiners that are here now, but there name Weiner. On Asylum Street at the corner of Trumbull, which is directly across where the Civic Center is now, and he said you can buy the store, the store and the fixtures for $5,000. Well Uncle Joe didn’t have $5,000. I guess he was making 18 bucks a week or so. So he went to my father and my father knew nothing about the clothing business and he said he would like to get that store so my father took the train and he came down to Hartford and he made the deal and he bought the store which became known at Title and Rich, that was my Uncle Rich and my father Title and the Riches moved back, well it was 1903 they moved back here immediately after they bought the store and my father was commuting. But that was a little difficult, commuting from Springfield, so in 1904 my father sold all of the property, the barber shop, everything, and he came back to give his undivided attention to the clothing business. Which he continued in until he passed on. ST: I want to point out, Dad mentioned uncle Joe. Uncle Joe was married to my grandmother Title’s youngest sister, Ethel Weisman, because he will mention other uncles who also my grandfather employed and they were also married to my grandmother’s sisters. Now you are back in Hartford, Dad and where did you go to school? MT: Well I came back to Hartford and I went to the Northwest School. My father bought a house on Oakland Terrace and then he bought another one that the Riches lived in on Oakland Terrace and I went to the Northwest School from which I was graduated in 1910 and then onto Hartford High School. At that time Hartford High was the only high school on Hopkins Street is of course now torn down and is just a memory. ST: When Papa and Nanny Title moved back to Hartford were they religious when they came back and joined a synagogue? MT: Well yes. My father was a member of Adas Israel as a young man, he continued when he came back, he continued for a while in Adas Israel. But we joined Beth Israel, Congregation Beth Israel was located on Charter Oak Avenue and the rabbi at that time was Rabbi Meyer Elkin. ST: Also, this is always a very popular question, I know. In this period of time from 1904 to 1914 did you find much religious prejudice in the Hartford. MT: Well, there’s always religious prejudice in people who are anti-Semites, and who were anti-Catholic. We didn’t find it too severe. There was always anti-Semitism. I think I found more of that feeling when I got out into the college world. There seemed to be a sharper rift between the students at least I’m skipping now from high school to the time that I entered Trinity. Trinity at the time was a small provincial college. Now let’s be honest about it, with a small, very small body, headed by a wonderful minister Brabel Sweeten Luther, an Episcopal minister. Which is equivalent to a Catholic, you know that’s a very high form of Protestantism. It was not an easy time for the few Jewish students who were at the college. I am happy to say, today it is altogether different. SM: Let’s go back just a little bit. What events stick out in your mind concerning your family from the time they returned to Hartford in 1904 and let’s say 1914 when you went to Truinity? MT: Well, one of the most impressionable things that hit me was that after the store was opened on Asylum Street we witnessed a, what they called at the time, a financial end in 1907. This was my first experience of social action. My father and mother, my Aunt Ethel, decided they’d do something about the people who were out of work. Well how do you go about doing it? There was not organization at that time in Hartford. At that time there was no United Jewish Charity. That came a little later. So they decided that they were going to feed some of these men and women who were out of work and didn’t have anything to eat. My father went down to Windsor Street to Braunwein’s Bakery and he ordered 600 loaves of bread every day. It didn’t cost very much, only 2-1/2 cents a loaf. My mother would come down and on the gas places that the tailors used to use to heat the irons to do the pressing and what not, it had these large tin washing boilers that they used to was their clothes in. A boiler goes in. and they’d cook up some coffee in those things and put them in a pot and the men would come in an alleyway and pick up a cup of coffee and a loaf of bread and some sugar and they were happy to get it because there was no charity in Hartford at that time to take care of it. The other 200 loaves were given out to boys and girls who would come in the front of the store. Now remember I was only 10 years old but it did make a big impression upon me. They would give sugar, a package of coffee and bread to take home for those who couldn’t come to the store and this continued for about seven weeks. Unfortunately we misplaced a lot of the pictures and stores that were in the Hartford Courant and the Hartford Times and at the time there was even the Hartford Post. I don’t know whether any of you people remember the Hartford Post but I do. And there was clippings we had as far west as St. Louis Post Dispatch. So that was one of the items, Sam, that certainly stuck in my mind. I’m doing something for somebody else. SM: When you went to Trinity, what activities did you participate in while you were there? MT: Well, I played baseball. I was on the baseball team and I thought that was quite an accomplishment. I just went to classes. I did lead a couple of the clubs out there but as I said before, there was not the openness or the opportunity for a Jewish boy at that time to participate in all the activities. SM: Well now we are going to move on to your business career. What made you decide to go into the insurance business? MT: While I was going to Trinity I got a job with the Aetna Life, made 40 cents an hour in spare time. That was pretty good pay for a novice. Then I recruited a couple of other fellows for them and I became the foreman and for 50 cents an hour. And I worked for the Aetna Life for, well I worked part-time up until 1918, I was graduated from college and then I was inducted into the army. They had an ROTC and I was really a corporal in the ROTC. That was pretty good. Then I went down to Camp Lee to officers training school, was discharged, I think the 30th of November. I was lucky because I had a good friend, a captain down there who had gone to Trinity and he saw I got out fast. And I came back home and I worked again for the Aetna until October 20th when I said I don’t want to work for somebody else, I want to work for myself so I went into business myself at 252 Asylum Street. I always remember I went down to what was Commerce Street in those days. Well it’s still there but there no buildings that Barney, Barney Goldberg, I don’t know if that name rings. He had a second hand place. So I went down there and I bought a second hand desk and a second hand cabinet and a couple of send hand chairs and I was in the insurance business. I didn’t have any business but it was in the insurance business. At least it said on the door Melvin W. Title, Insurance. ST: We still have the desk and the chairs. When did you meet mother? MT: Well I guess I met her, now wait a minute. Ya, we lived on the same street. We both lived on Oakland Terrace and our families were very good friends. I met her casually. I would say in 1905 or 06. Somewhere in there. You know I didn’t pay much attention to her at that time. ST: When were you and mother married? MT: We were married April 29th, 1924, 51 years ago. And we look pretty good even if we are that old. ST: Many of your civic activities have been well documented. How did you actually, apart from the fact that Papa Title fed some people in 1907 from the store, did you get started really in the activities in Hartford? MT: I’d like to relate one story that goes back to 1920, following the First World War. Remember there was a great anti-Semitic sweep over Eastern Europe and Henry Morganthal, Sr., not the present Henry, but the old man that was the ambassador to Turkey, along with some gentlemen in New York decided they were going to do something about the Jews of Eastern Europe to give them some relief. And he came to Hartford and organized a campaign to raise money and he enlisted as chairman of that campaign, Alfred Silverman and Sam Fastner. Now those are two men who came to Hartford from New York and we called them the newcomers and along with them they had and has the man who was to become my father-in-law Morris Hartman, Sol Berman, Abe Goldstein. I don’t know whether these names mean anything to you people but they do to me and, oh, I could go on and name, oh Herman Koppelman was very active in the committee and why they selected me to be the secretary maybe that was to keep me quiet, but I was the secretary of that committee. And there was quite some work done. We had a meeting at the Grand Theater which was at Needhams Corner, originally a burlesque house and believe it or not that was the first campaign that ever raised any considerable amount of money. We gathered $90,000 which was a lot of money in those days. But as I say that was a one shot affair. The job that was supposed to have been done didn’t work out the way the people in New York, Chicago, Julius Rosenwall was very much interested in. You know he wanted to bring a lot of people to the Crimia you will recall. It didn’t work out. I mean this wasn’t Palestine. That was my first experience, Sam, really with trying to do something for my own people. ST: You’ve also been very well known for your leadership in Tumble Brook Country Club and I think the people would be interested to know how the Club was formed originally. MT: Well we could be here all night. Tumble Brook Country Club which has been a focal center for all Jewish activities in Hartford when it involved money came into being in 1922 it was formed from a nucleus known as the Toro Club. Now the Toro Club was founded in 1903. You talk about anti-Semitism, the reason that the Toro Club was founded because a Jew couldn’t get into the Hartford Club or the Hartford Golf Club or even if it was the Italian-American Club. No Jew could get into it. So a group of gentlemen got together and they said we are going to have our own club. And the man who was the first president, and this is interesting, was William Rothschild, who was a partner in the firm known as Hartfall and Rothschild, also in the mens, they were the best mens clothing store in Hartford. Incidentally, William Rothschild’s father was the first president of the B’nai Brith in 1847. Now these people were the old time German and Dutch Jews who formed the Toro Club. These were the people who had come to Hartford in the 1840s and had considerable substance. I see the daughter of one of those men sitting right here, Gladys Goodman Stern, the Hartman family. Oh I could go on and name the people who formed the Toro Club named after, incidentally you folks who are interested in history Judah Toro. Judah Toro was a merchant from New Orleans. Now I don’t know whether you people know about it but you ought to know about it. If you go up to the Historical Society in Waltham you’ll learn plenty about it. The club was founded and organized in 1903, went into operation in the end of 1904, I think it was, on Prospect Street where the Travelers Tower is now located. They rented a house owned by a Dr. Howe for $75 a month and we as kids had some wonderful time. I think there’s a picture back there of Washington’s birthday party that we had when we were all dressed up. This is a long, long time ago but the Toro Club’s major business bought a house on Farmington Avenue where Udolf’s Clothing Store is on the corner of Whitney Street. We renovated that in 1920 and stayed there until that ugly word anti-Semitism came up again. It seemed that in Hartford there was one country club, or golf club that took Jewish members, the Sequin Golf Club which is now known as Indian Hill. It was no great shakes but it was at least a place that a man who wanted to play golf might play. And there were men of our faith who had been admitted, Mr. Goodman, my father-in-law, Gus Hartman, George Auerbach, John Sudarsky, Henry and Albert Mark who I could name maybe a dozen out of 300 or 350. There were two men that wanted to join, one was Albert Newfield, who was the brother-in-law of the Hartmans that belonged and Philip Hammeslau, who was the nephew of Benjamin and Phillip Haas. It was suggested that they put their names in for membership and a man I will not mention his name, who was supposed to have great influence at the Sequin said Rolel Gottleib he was a leading banker in Hartford, they will definitely be admitted. But lo and behold a meeting was held and the O’Briens and the Depasquales and so forth were all admitted but the Hammeslau and Newfield were not admitted. And Mr. Ben Haas, I said Phillip Haas, it was William Haas, I’m sorry. Ben Haas, who was a bachelor, was irate, and he asked to have a meeting of the people of the Toro Club to see if we couldn’t get some money together and have our own club. I remember I was the secretary of the Toro Club at that time and Albert Newfield was the president they called a meeting and little Ben Haas, he was a very short man, with a big ponch sit up there and he said we’re gonna have a _______________. He had a violent temper. He said we’re gonna have this country club and he said I’m prepared to give $2,500 to the fund. And he said I got Mr. Mo Fox to agree to do that he said I got Sam Hartman, and Adolph Hartman who are friends in the tobacco business to give $2,000 apiece and I think Mr. Goodman will put up $2,000 and then they turned to the young fellows who were interested and said what are you going to do? Well we didn’t have very much to do but we felt sort of well we better put it on the line so very meekly we’d say $500. We raised a total of $99,500, we bought what is known as the Miller Farm, we built nine holes of , Sam, we built a club house for $67,000 and now you can’t build one room for $67,000. And we started Tumble Brook. And that’s the story of how Tumble Brook, oh it’s much longer than that but I think you’ve heard enough. ST: Just to clear up a point for future reference, Dad speaks of Samuel Hartman, Samuel Hartman was my mother’s grandfather which would make it my grandfather and that is why my name is Samuel Hartman Title. Obviously you had one wonderful child. How many more did you have? MT: I have another one out there equally as wonderful, Elaine Title Lowengard, who is the best daughter I ever had. ST: And the only one. After you were married to mother, where did you live then? MT: We lived on Prospect Avenue and from Prospect Avenue we went to Belnap Road and from Belnap Road we lived on High Ridge Road and I guest we’ll stay there until Weinstein carries us off. ST: Incidentally, the house that my father and mother lived in on Prospect Avenue is now inhabited by my sister. You have been associated with many organization such as Mt. Sinai Hospital, Temple Beth Israel, Hartford Jewish Federation, Jewish Community Center, National Jewish Welfare Board, would you like to elaborate on how you got involved in so many different things and what you did for those organizations? MT: I guess I was a busy body. That’s how I got mixed up in all of these things. No, but I enjoy working with people. When you enjoy working with people, people are happy with you and you’re happy with people you’re willing to work along and do things. Incidentally, I showed Zeke Melrose scope I guess it was when we were planning to build, to raise the money to build this building. Zeke was the president of the Community Center and he said you got to be the chairman of the drive to get the million, two hundred thousand or whatever it is so I twisted his arm to be the president so I had to take the job and in Hartford it’s fun raising money. ST: That depends who you are talking to. MT: Well it is for the most part it’s fun to raise money and anybody that has been in it because Hartford is a wonderful city. ST: I would like to ask you, when were you first involved, this is in time, with Mt. Sinai Hospital? MT: Well I got back to Mt. Sinai Hospital when it was on Capitol Avenue. I was the head of the committee known as the Medical Conference Committee. I didn’t know anything about it but I was a chairman of a committee that was supposed to select the men who were to be the doctors to practice in the hospital and I inherited that again from Alfred Silverman who had moved back to New York. And it was very interesting work because we didn’t have the regulations that we have now. That place on Capitol Avenue, well it couldn’t be used for a veterinarian hospital today let alone a hospital for human beings, but it was a place where a Jewish patient could be treated warmly, the Jewish doctors who had quite some difficulty in those days practicing in the hospitals, again that ugly thing that comes up from time to time and as I say I’ve been connected with the hospital from practically its inception. And we were very fortunately, I might ad, we selected a man to become the superintendent of the hospital, Dr. Isadore Geetter. There is none who was ever any better, and did a great job and now the young fellows, including my son, have inherited a great institution and it is one of the best if you can possibly imagine and that’s why Hartford is a great city, because we have a great hospital, a great community center, a great home for the aged and we have an overall organization that’s sort of the super arm, the Federation. Having been blessed with great leadership is all of those organizations. ST: I want to ask you about your relationships and your affiliations with Temple Beth Israel, how did you get started in being active in the Temple? MT: Well, I was Bar Mitzvah there. You know when I was Bar Mitzvahed this was not a customary thing in Reform Judaism. You see there had been a swing from here to here and now it’s going way back here again. But I did go, I mentioned Rabbi Elkin, Rabbi Ebertson came here and I spent two years with him preparing for my Bar Mitzvah because my mother and my grandmother wanted me to be Bar Mitzvahed and from there I went on to be confirmed. I went to the religious school of course, such as it was in those days, religious education in those days was not what it is today and I didn’t become active in the affairs of Beth Israel in the management end until your mother’s father, Morris Hartman died. He had been president and he had been on the Board of Trustees so you couldn’t have too many people from the same family at one time so when he passed on they prevailed upon me to go on the board and a couple of years I was the president and I had sustained interest in the synagogue and I hope that I will continue to have interest in not only Beth Israel but any synagogue because I think they are all worthy institutions that are worthy of the support whether you’re orthodox and your leading a conservative reform because after all we are all Jews. ST: I would like to have you relate some of your experiences with the Hartford Jewish Federation and its predecessor organization? MT: Well the Hartford Jewish Welfare Fund was the predecessor of the Federation. Years back we did have what was known as the United Jewish Charities. I’ve mentioned that. Ben Haas again, was the leading light in the United Jewish Charities and that went on for quite a few years and like many organizations when you lose a strong leader the organization seems to waiver and then in 1940 the Hartford Jewish Welfare came into being. Hartford Jewish Welfare Fun came into being. Donald Kattenberg, now many of you people don’t remember, he comes from an old line family up in Boston that are very, very civic minded leaders in the community and he and a chap by the name of Al Keller. I think most of you people probably remember Keller, he was a very fine gentleman. Unfortunately he died very young. They organized an institution or a society called the Jewish Welfare Fund and they tried to attract some people into it and they didn’t succeed I don’t know why. I don’t know whether it was because they, again newcomers to the community but it was a good idea and I gor involved in it, Eddie and Sam Suisman, Jerry and Sol Cohen. Oh, I could go on mentioning, Francis Stern, if I remember correctly. Bunk Bordon. We said we’ve got to try to get something going here and we had a fellow by the name of Leo Galin as a professional who didn’t stay here too long because he did so well for Hartford that Los Angeles hired him. He was succeeded by a great fellow, Bernard Gottlieb and he did get the community solidified and that is how I got into the Federation and I served my time on the board as president, chairman of the campaigns and what not but I have a lot of fun doing it and I hope all the young people who are around today will have as much fun as I have had in these various organizations. ST: Now I would like you to say a few more words about the Jewish Community Center and its prior organizations. MT: Well, I was connected with what was known, not as the Jewish Community Center, as the YM and YWHA down on Pleasant Street in the Talmud Torah from there it went to Ann Street if I remember correctly, upstairs and we stayed in business until again something happened. Our director ran off with the treasurer. I mean with the treasury. And we had nothing for many years in the way of YMHA. We really should have because one thing I was very proud of, we had the best basketball team. Mo Cohen was on it. And the Suismans and Sam Pico I can name the different men. And the Federation was going along very nicely and this we have to all this quits because we are going on here in definitely. In 1948 we had an opportunity, I had an opportunity, to buy a building on Asylum Avenue which is now known as 999 Asylum Avenue, there is an office building there, across from the Security Insurance company, Orren Kilborne had his General Electric business there and he was moving to East Hartford and a real estate fellow by the name of Curtis Liverbrook came to me and said here is an opportunity to buy a building for offices and whatnot. He said and it’s a great bargain. Well I went out to see it and right next door was a big op[en lot that belonged to Dr. Landry. He said you could buy the lot and the building for $85,000. I went to the Federation. First I had to talk to a few people and I knew that they had $100,000 in reserve that they had put away, known as reserve for bad debts, each year we would budget $20,000 for uncollectible funds, or $30,000 and we throw it in. And it was $100,000 that was available. So in the spring of ’48 because it was just before Jerry Cohen died, and I don’t know whether he was the president of the Federation or Eddie Suisman was at the time. I said this would be a great place for the Community Center. Well they agreed upon that but we had to convince the Board of Directors of the Federation that they should steal the $100,000 from the reserve fund to do it but good politicians that they were they got the money and we bought that property for $85,000 and we housed the Community Center in it. Oh, I remember, Dorothy Silverman gave us the money to furnish the first lounge and she furnished it as if she was furnishing her apartment and you couldn’t say anything to the wonderful lady who gave us this gift but she had, you know, furniture that you would like to have in your living room. You know a community center gets a pretty tough usage. Or it did last for 5 or 6 years. We were bulging at the seams. We had an opportunity to buy this complex here. Not where this building is but where the Federation is located, belonged to Clayton Gengras. It was about five acres of land and that building for $175,000. I found Harry Gampel and Dave Chase and Mr. Beckerman and they paid us $250,000 for the place down there on Asylum Avenue. We bought this for $175,000 and then I told you Zeke prevailed upon me to head a campaign to raise a million, I don’t know, 200 thousand, something like that. It doesn’t matter because I say we got the money. But we were shy a little land, and this is a very interesting story that I’d like to have on the record, and I think with that we’ll call it quits. We needed a little more land and as you know north of us, St. Thomas Seminary, that have tons and tons of land, we’re negotiating know to buy some of the land. Well I called up Monsignor Mullin, who I see very often now, who is secretary to Archbishop O’Brien and asked if I might not have an appointment with him to try to buy an acre or two of land to let us spread out a little more. Well I finally got an appointment with the Archbishop and he was not where the nice Chancery was now but it was that old broken down building and I think he bought his desk from Barneys. He had this long desk he sat here Mullin here and I took Irving Stich who was chairman of the building committee along with me and I told the Archbishop that we wanted to buy two or three acres of land. That meant 100 to 150 feet on Bloomfield Avenue and 800 feet, it runs 800 feet deep back here which is 100 by 800 is a couple of acres and 150x800 would be three acres. And he listened and he talked to me that he was the biggest real estate operator in Connecticut and he owned more property than anybody else. Well they proved that the Archdiocese does own more real estate than anybody else in the state of Connecticut. And I didn’t know whether I was making any impression or not. And he excused himself, he said you’ll hear from me. Well a week went by and I didn’t here for I called Mullins and I said I haven’t heard from the Archbishop. He says that’s a good sign. He said because if he was going to say no he would say it in 24 hours. So I waited another week went by. I called Mullin again. He says you’ll be hearing from him. Because I suppose he has his schedule. Mullin called me and I came out and he said no we are not going to sell you any land. Well I went down like that. He said the Archdiocese never sells we only buy. He said, but I am going to give you 50 feet for which I was, at that time I was happy to get the 50x800 and he said this is a present to our new neighbors, the Hartford Jewish Community Center. And you notice there is a plaque out here that marks that and notes it. And there is a picture there of my giving him a plaque and the dedication of this building and I thought this was a change when we talk about anti-Semitism. Now remember, this is only 40 years later that I’m relating the different that has happened in our wonderful community and today well there is still some of that feeling by en large it is evaporated, at least I think so. SM: Now very quickly, so we can get it onto the tapes. You have relayed in quite deep detail your activities in the Jewish community but also you are quite active in many non-Jewish civic organizations and I would like to just to name them so that we can have them down. MT: Well, I served on the Board of the Greater Hartford Chamber of Commerce and fortunate for years to be on the Board of Directors of the Guarantee Bank and Trust Company. I am still a trustee of the YMCA. Over the years I had a lot of things that happened to me that couldn’t have happened if it weren’t for a lot of people who helped me and worked with me. Trinity College, in the last 25 years, there’s been a tremendous change, tremendous, and one of the highlights, well there were two, one was 1961, when I was notified I was going to get the Iganbrough Trophy which is the highest award the college can give to any living alumnus. Then in 1968m when Dr. Jacobs asked me to come to his office and he said would you be willing to receive Doctor of Laws Honorus Cous, would I be willing to receive it? I said well I guest I would. I can go on a talk about different things, the National Conference of Christians and Jews to get the National Brotherhood Award in the later years of your life is a great joy. Really Sam, I think that we’ve worn these people out. ST: Well, I think dad, that I think you have covered your life pretty completely so I’ll close. This is Samuel Hartman Title and I have just finished interviewing my father Melvin Weisman Title at the Jewish Historical Society meeting on May 28, 1975.