Torchinsky, Anna_1976/3/22, Oral History, 1976 - 1976

Today is Monday, March 22, 1976. This is Emma Cohen and I am about to interview Mrs. Anna Torchinsky, Mrs. Abraham Torchinsky, who is a long-time resident of Hartford and who is particularly going to tell us about her father, Aaron Yossel Susselman. EC: Good afternoon Mrs. Torchinsky. Actually since you are a lansman of mine and your family came from the same country, same town in Poland, Lithuania that my family came from I feel really very, very much closer than I would ordinarily. So tell me, where were you born, what do you remember of where you were born, when did you come here? Tell us a little bit about your beginnings? AT: I was born in 1896 in _____ Poland at Lithuania or Poland as it was called then. And my father lived left for this country 10 days afterwards. EC: After you were born? AT: After I was born. And he came to this country in 1896 and he started out as a peddler of notions and small things for the baskets. Until he saved up enough money to send for the family. That was 3-1/2 years later, in 1899. EC: Why did her come to Hartford? AT: We had here my mother’s sister and he husband Philip and Nita Resin. And he had a pants factory here in Hartford. EC: At that time? AT: At that time. So my father kept on with the dry goods business as a peddler for another couple of years. My mother died nine months after arriving in this country. There was an epidemic of something like the flu at that time and it took many pregnant women. EC: Were you the only child at that time? AT: No, my two brothers and I came with my mother from the old country and my father had gotten a tenement for us and the boys started school immediately. EC: Where did you live? AT: We lived on pleasant Street opposite that entrance, there was a court in there. I don’t remember the name of it on Pleasant Street. EC: Was that near Market Street? AT: Between Market and Village. And after my mother passed on I went to live my aunt and uncle, Mr. and Mrs. Grossman because they didn’t have any children and I was a little girl. My father had to go out to peddle so it was impossible for me stay home. My two brothers went to school and after school they used to come there also. EC: To your aunt? AT: To my aunt. EC: Where did they go to school? AT: It was that time the Second Art School then they changed it to Henry Farmer. My mother made me a year older so that I could enter school EC: You’re talking about your stepmother? AT: No my real mother. My real mother, before she died, after we got here she registered me as a year older so that I could start kindergarten. So that I would also be in school. We all had to learn the language, it was important. EC: Do you have any recollection of what it was like when you first came over? AT: Yes. At that time we still had the floods from in the spring that spring and they went around with boats from the Connecticut River right up to past Windsor Street. It flooded so they had to use rowboats. It was a hard time for everybody but somehow or other the people used to gather and communal, everybody had an interest in everybody else’s welfare. It wasn’t one for themselves alone. Wherever help could be given it was given readily. EC: Well, there were no organizations to speak of? AT: Not yet. When my father saw that the boys wouldn’t have a way of learning Hebrew he went out and he looked up Mr. David Traub who was living in Norwich at the time, I think, and he brought him to Hartford and set him up and he went out and collected as many boys as he could to go to this Hebrew school. EC: What year was that? Do you remember? AT: That would be, my mother died in 1901 she died, so that would be around that time. EC: Shortly after? AT: Yes, around in there. EC: Remember, when he came here there were no Hebrew schools? AT: Nothing, they were talking about putting up the Lipisher Shul maybe it was at the synagogue on Market Street. EC: I think it was put up a little but earlier. AT: Yeah, but I mean to say it, but there was no school attached to it. Mr. Traub got settled in Hartford and then later he lived I think on Market Street at the time, then he moved to Pleasant Street and they started the, the women started collected money and they started the First Talmud Torah which was on the corner of Pleasant and Winthrop Streets for many years. EC: What building was that in? AT: That was the building right on the corner. Later it was sold to Glotzer for the tires. They got the money, they built the Talmud Torah across, the big Talmud Torah, across the street. EC: I see. AT: Also during that time EC: But it was a special building for the Talmud AT: Special building for the Talmud Torah – that’s somebody’s home, it was there and we had a large auditorium, hall, and we used to put up all the Jewish holidays plays and whatever children could do that was taught to us. We had Mr. Traub and Mr. Epstein and I think a Mr. Neititch. EC: Were your teachers? AT: Were teachers. EC: Did you go to the school? AT: Yes, I went to the school and Mrs. Finklestein, what was her maiden name. EC: Nettie. AT: Nettle Finklestein EC: Goldman AT: Goldman, Ya. She was there and my brothers and George Cohen. He was an attorney. Ya, he passed on. And most of all the Jews that were there, there was no such thing rich Jew, poor Jew, if they had a son they went to the Talmud Torah. Unless they wanted a private teacher later. And that’s how we all mingled together. EC: Now Anna, I am just going to go back a little bit then we’ll pick that up again. When you went to live with your aunt where was that? AT: She lived on Windsor Street. They had a tenement next to his factory. And there is the factory they had many immigrants working in the factory. The men on the machines and many Italians girls used to work as finishers by hand and the lining that’s on and then afterwards you got to button the shirt but they used to – EC: no, this was, then he sold to the stores AT: He sold – he had a big business, he sold to the stores, he sold all over the New England states. EC: I see. How long did he stay in business? AT: He was there until, I think he was on Windsor Street I think until about 1908. Then he moved to North Main Street, the business. And we moved up to Goodwin Place. Then later on the living brought us to move to Florence Neese Street was on Florence Street. EC: You’re talking about your uncle’s business? AT: No. the residence of my uncle. EC: Of your uncle? AT: Of my uncle’s. He was a very learned many too. Only EC: Now what was his first name? AT: Feivel EC: Feivel Resnick AT: And then for some reason he had to get out of North Main Street, I don’t remember what the cause was and he opened the store on Asylum Street and I still went, that was already when I was in the ninth grade. EC: That was at the North School too? AT: Yes. He passed away in 1910. EC: And the business went out or somebody AT: No, no we just disposed of the _______ it created. EC: In other words he was one of the early manufacturers of Hartford? AT: Yes there was Mr. Richman used to have a factory of housedresses or blouses and things and he went in ______. Then the Lipman boys opened their housedress business on Windsor Street and most of the people were doing charitable work collecting, especially on Thursdays, they’d go out and collect when the women go shopping on Windsor Street and all that because at one time the Jewish shopping was on Front Street. EC: That was earlier? AT: Earlier and later on it moved towards, it moved to Windsor Street. EC: Perhaps you tell just what was Windsor Street like in this period? AT: Windsor Street in this period, starting at the corner of Edams Corner there was it came down, there was a triangle in the middle of Windsor Street coming down from Main Street. One side was Windsor Street and one side was Village Street. And on that corner there was a little park to which everybody in the immediate neighborhood on Friday nights we used to go there EC: To this park? AT: To this little park. Then later on the Pallotti built a big building at that corner and had his bank there and they used to go to cross over the tracks to Riverside Park. They used to have concerts there and everybody we used to go and people would, you’d hear them singing and talking and it was so beautiful. EC: Now were these only Jews or were there other people there? AT: Other people, Italian from Front Street and Walden Street in through there. That section turned more Italian and the Jews were gathering more toward Windsor Street and up further. A little later on they moved as far north as Bellevue Street and before that they were mostly in that Front Street. Then after Uncle Resnick died and the business was closed my aunt Resnick opened a little dry goods store on Windsor Street. I helped her. And I stayed with her in the store til about 1914 I think, 13, then for some reason or other misunderstanding of some sort, I went to live with my oldest brother in New York. Where I found a job. EC: Now how far had you gone in school here? AT: I graduated the Second North School, that’s the ninth grade. EC: The ninth grade? AT: Ya. I worked there EC: Did you get any other training after that? AT: Not there, after that. In 1915 I came, between 14 and 15, I came back and went to the Merchant of Business School and I graduated as a bookkeeper and a typist. EC: From that school? AT: From that school. I also, before I could get in, before I started there, I used to go to my high school for bookkeeping EC: In Hartford or New York? AT: In Hartford. No nothing in New York. And I got a job in Y. Smith’s first, in the jewelry department. While I was going to high school. But that following fall when schools opened I started at the Merchant School and I graduated from there and I got a job with Max Karp, he had a bag and paper business. He was selling also the bottled ammonia and bluing. I worked for him for about a year and then I went to work for Smith and Kelman as their bookkeeper. I was with them for 7 or 8 years. EC: What were they? AT: Wholesale grocers. EC: Oh, okay. This was a Jewish firm? AT: Yes. When I came back from New York I went to live in my father’s house and made it my home there. EC: That was where now? AT: On Winthrop Street. EC: On Winthrop Street, near Pleasant? AT: Near Pleasant. He had the store and he had three rooms in the back. EC: Now that’s interesting, how they lived. AT: Yes three rooms in the back, their bedroom, the kitchen and the living room, the couch and the folding bed. EC: This is where you slept? AT: This is where I slept, my sister and I. My sister Rose Kramer she was a sweet short little girl. I think my brother lived on Wesleyan at that time. EC: You had two brothers you said? What were their names? AT: My oldest brother Louie, after my mother died he came to live with Aunt Resnick he had caught pneumonia and wasn’t feeling well so she took him in to nurse him back to health and he stayed with us. My broth Jack, Zaidel as he was known all over, stayed with Pop until he was about 17, 18 when he went to Michigan. He met his girl friend here in Hartford, Fanny Rosenberg. Her people moved to Michigan, to Jackson, Michigan. EC: What did both of your brothers do? AT: Well my oldest brother Louie was with S. W. Krop at the aluminum and brass manufacturer of pots and pans and different and ornaments. And he was with him for a number of years as a salesman. EC: Where is that? AT: He started off in Brooklyn, New York then they moved to Manhattan. He had his living that way and he was with him for many years as his salesman. He even got married and still EC: And your other brother? AT: My other brother, Jack, who married Fanny, EC: May I ask you this, did any of them, did they go to high school or college? AT: My brother Jack went to high school and I don’t remember whether he graduated of not because he left to go to Michigan. But EC: Both of your brother went to high school? AT: No. My oldest brother didn’t. My oldest had a self educated after a certain number of years in grammar school. EC: I see. AT: But after my mother died about not quite a year later my father remarried and they had two children, Rose and Samuel. Rose grew up and went to school and graduated high school and was working for Rosows., in their office. My brother Samuel, he was nicknamed Willie, everybody calls him Willie. He graduated high school and he went to Storrs EC: Uconn AT: Uconn in Storrs at that time it was the agriculture. He was with his friend Ely Lifshitz and they were pretty friendly. They used to doven every morning and well they used to send them kosher food and then when they graduated Storrs he. I don’t know whether he graduated or not he transferred to Wesleyen because he used to play the saxaphone in the Bond Hotel evenings and he found it hard commuting from Storrs to the Bond Hotel so he transferred to Wesleyan and he studied chemistry there and he graduated there Phi Beta Kappa and he was assistant to the professor there. And then he wanted to go to Yale but at that time they couldn’t see to give him a scholarship so he went to Albany Medical School and there he studied to be a doctor. He went in studying his medical and after he graduated he studied psychiatry, he became a psychiatrist. EC: Is he in Hartford? AT: He’s in San Francisco. He went from Albany, the war broke out and he was transferred to a hospital on Long Island. He was there for a time EC: This is World War II? AT: World War II and then he applied and he transferred him to San Francisco and he got married and they live in San Francisco to this day. EC: Now to go back a little bit. What was your environment like? Was it a religious environment? AT: My father, may he rest in peace, was a very learned person. He closed the store Friday afternoon and dolled up and go to the synagogue. The time I remember he used to go to the little synagogue of Mayo Avenue on Friday night. EC: On Mayo Avenue, that’s quite a distance? AT: Yes, and there after dovening he used to study the Reverend Sobolovsky. And come home whatever time and we had EC: Well did the children go with him? AT: No, once in a while he would go into the Shoma Torah on Winthrop Street and then he’d go in the evening after supper and go to the other place something like that. But there was always a book of learning in front of him whether it was in shul or in the store it made no difference. People would come in with problems and ask him and he’d sit down. A customer would come in EC: What kind of a store? AT: A little grocery store. They’d come in, just a minute, I’m taking a half dozen rolls, mark it down. Remember he’s mark it down, if he didn’t it was on the books. He’d forget about it. If there was anything that anyone needed, for instance if there was a bris in the city they’d call him up, he’d leave the store with my stepmother would take care of it and he’d try and raise a few dollars with a _______. Mostly he was sending for most of the boys and they thought it was a good thing to have. He used to raise money for different charities for different things that were needed for different people. He, I don’t remember whether a brought Rabbi Hurwitz to Hartford at that time, there was some sort of a question that had to be answered and they were discussing it, the Hamachta. EC: When Rabbi Hurwitz first came to Hartford you think he was responsible for? AT: Yes, he had something to do with it. What, I don’t remember. He also brought Rabbi Weinberg to Hartford when they needed another rabbi for some reason. While in the store different things would come up there was an occasion when people would come to Hartford, Jewish people, Mishalo EC: What is a Mishalo? AT: A Mishalo is a man who comes to collect money for different organizations and he would have where to stay so my father got together with a group and they started the ____________ so that the people whoever they were wouldn’t have to be housed in a private home that couldn’t take care of them. There that person got a meal, his supper, he could take a bath is he wanted and get clean clothes if he didn’t have any with him that they’d supply. And then from Michya they’d go into the synagogues and EC: Any particular one? AT: Any one they wanted to and generally the people would announce that today we have a Mishula and the people who were dovening EC: Now who was he collecting for? AT: He would be collecting for any organization or even if he was EC: I mean in Hartford? AT: No, different places. Often it was Israel, often it was New York or some terrorist some places. They people that would be dovening would drop in a few coins in the box and that they give to the Mishula. Also there was a case of some stranger passed on during the night and there was no relative to claim the body so he had to be given a Jewish burial so Pa called together a group and they started the ______ and that’s how they got together, the Jewish women made the shrouds and ______ and they were able to give him a Jewish burial. And from that time on that organization was kept up. EC: You don’t know how Jewish burials be formed? AT: I don’t know how. But for strangers EC: Oh, I see for strangers. AT: See for strangers ____ they needed to take care of it. And while he was in the store he did very many charitable things aside from our own Jewish organizations. If there was a hardship regardless of faith or anything he would try to help them out like a little story that happened across the street from he came back from the synagogue and he saw a crowd of people around and if there was crying in the center he said want’s wrong and he found out that this person was being repossessed from the apartment that he was is. She needed $14 in order to make a down payment on another place so my father said, this happened to be a Italian group of people. Everybody donated a half dollar and there wouldn’t be any problem. As soon as he said that they disappeared. And the woman with a number of children began to cry and so he said EC: No husband? AT: I don’t know. He only saw her. Whether the husband was working somewhere or not there I don’t know. So he took her across the street and he gave her the $14 and told her to go get herself the apartment and move in and whenever she has a few extra pennies to come in and pay him off. She did pay him off. She and her family remembered Papa for many years. And that was that. The kids used to come home from, we had a good will club on Eli Street. EC: And what was that? AT: That was a gathering for all kinds of boys. It was a good will club. It wasn’t Jewish. It was a city organization. But used to come Chanuka regardless of who they were, white, colored, other nationalities, the Jewish man got the candle, come on he gives pennies. No matter who was there he got a penny for Chanuka. EC: For all the children? AT: All the children. So they knew it. They used to watch for_____ man Chanuka gelt. They were good kids. Some of them used to come in a steal the candy that was beside the point. EC: We’ll pick up where we left off with your father. AT: For instance if a person needed, came into town he said what’s wrong with your eyes? The man had rims around the eyes reddish he says I can’t see too good. Pa wrote a note to Morris Mancoll, he was already Dr. Morris Mancoll and he said do for him what you can if he can’t pay I’ll pay. EC: He was very generous, you father. AT: Ya, and that’s how Morris told me that I didn’t know about it. We happened to be reminiscing and in another case where another man a different time came in and he was looking for a job it was during also some sort of a depression at that time. He found a job as a waiter in the Bond Hotel. But he needed the outfit in order to get the job so Pa wrote a note to Mr. Zeligman and told him to give this man whatever he needed. EC: After Zeligman had his AT: He had a clothing store of some sort on North Main Street. Mr. Zeligman called up Pa and said that this came to an amount of $35 and this man don’t have a cent. Are you sure. He says, hey I’m good for it I’ll pay you if he doesn’t. So the man went away. He got a job as a waiter in the Bond Hotel and within two weeks he collected enough tips to pay for this outfit and paid off the man. EC: In other words they justified your father’s AT: Oh yes. EC: As I look at this picture of your father it is such a beautiful picture of him probably reading the Torah, the bible, he was a scholar but did he ever have a different AT: He could have been – he didn’t want it. He could have been a rabbi. Because he was very strict about the meat. EC: But when he came here he didn’t AT: He studied here. EC: Oh, he studied in this country for the ritual slaughtering AT: Yes. EC: But in Europe he didn’t? AT: I don’t know how far. EC: Where did he get smicha, you don’t know that? AT: I think he got that in Europe. EC: In Europe. In other words he could have been a rabbi. AT: Ya. If he wanted to. But he said no. He preferred working and not taking money from somebody for services that something he would not accept. For instance he used to teach or learn in the Ados Israel and they were so pleased with it they wanted to pay him for it, he said no I don’t want any. EC: Did he ever give lessons to children? AT: No, not to children. With the grown up men. EC: He just studied with the grown ups? AT: Whether they knew or they didn’t he told them so that they’d get interested and want read and study. That’s how he did it. Even with Sam Steinberg he used to come downstairs, we lived in the same building. Sam lived in our building upstairs on Vine and Vineland Terrace and he used to come down of Friday night and study with Pa because he. Because when Steinberg came to this country he didn’t get much chance to learn and he wanted to. As long as they wanted to learn he was ready to help out. And explain things, for instance I came in one Friday night and I was listening in the distance and the way he explained the things that I learned when I was a kid, they were so far advanced it was EC: Now you studied, you said, in Mr. Traub’s ______, or little school, and what kind of stuff did you study there? AT: I went as far as Koumish. From EC: Here you learned to read Hebrew and Yiddish too. AT: Mostly it was talking Hebrew too. EC: And you learned to talk some? AT: Some but I don’t EC: As far as your continuing after that you didn’t AT: No. EC: How many years would you say you were studying? AT: Well I must have studied mostly during grammar school, during those years. EC: Your brothers AT: My brothers went through the Bar Mitzvahs and they didn’t study anywhere else but they studied with that group and then when that broke up they studied privately with Rabbi Saching and he studied privately. That is my youngest brother. My older brothers were already out of the house. EC: Your home of course was an observant home? AT: It was observant but he was smart enough and wise enough to realize that he could not domineer the younger generation. For instance I worked for Wise Smith and I had to work on Saturday. I had to get up in the morning and I was a hard riser. He’d wake me up in the morning. He knew I was gonna go to work EC: He wasn’t happy about it? AT: He wasn’t happy about it but he knew I’d have more aggravation if I was late. It was more of a sin to make me aggravate than to wake me up. EC: Would you say that today you, your family are observant AT: We are observant, we know what it is. EC: Your brothers as well? AT: My brothers are not. I only have one brother left. My youngest brother and he lives in San Francisco I don’t know if his life but I don’t think he is. We’re the more conservative type of Jewish ordinary family in fact we used to be members of Agudas Achim Synagogue, my husband and his father made _______ and we were there for 50 years members, they were. EC: Not you and your father and everybody? AT: And they we joined maybe 45 years, and then we joined the Emanuel for the convenience. At that time we couldn’t drive. We moved out so that we couldn’t walk to the Agudas Achim and we were not supposed to ride and I couldn’t walk that distance so we joined the Emanuel so that we could ride on Saturday. That was the way life was at that time. EC: Was there much Zionist activity in your home? AT: I was very much interested in Zionism. I belonged to the Maccabian Club. I used to do a lot of collecting and side work, whatever was necessary at that time to raise money. EC: What was the Maccabian Club like? AT: It was a group of young Jewish people, boys and girls, and we used to EC: What age group would you say? AT: We were all more of less in the working group already EC: 16, 17? AT: I would say through there, 16, 17, 20s, you know. Depending, George Cohen was the president and Zimmerman was active and Mrs. Zimmerman, and Eva Goldstein and the Scharr girls were very active. And a number of us used and we’d go to conventions and do different things. There was a bubbling activity. When Hertzel came to Hartford EC: Hertzel came to Hartford? AT: Yes, he spoke here at Hartford. EC: Are you talking about Theodore Hertzel? AT: Ya, that’s right. EC: Oh, I didn’t know he had come to Hartford. AT: And when Weisman came to Hartford EC: Weitzman AT: Weitzman, my father was on the bima with him. And different ones like that. EC: In fact do you remember when Smiria Yahoo Levine came to Hartford? AT: Those are all names that are all ordinary turnover everyday names to us. My uncle Resnick went to, there was somebody by the name Fish in New York that time they had to raise a lot of money for Israel for some reason that time it wasn’t called Israel, Jerusalem. EC: Palestine AT: Any my uncle Resnick went by train special and he had an appointment with Mr. Fish, he was very wealthy man that time and he raised whatever was necessary. So there was always a terrific activity. EC: So your whole family was involved? AT: Oh yes, oh yes. And everything that was necessary for the Jewish community, regardless alright we hooked up with other things as they came along like the Red Cross or something like that. But most of it we were naturally attached to the Jewish way of life. EC: Your social like was all within the Jewish community? AT: At that time yes. EC: You know one of the things I do know is that my grandmother Bela Berasovitch knew your father and was very friendly with him. Perhaps you can tell me a little but about that? AT: Well Bela was a Monstrow. And they knew each other from the old country and they respected one another very, very much and Bela used to help out in different charitable work too and used to come up to the store for a rest. And they talked about it and lived, my father used to make wine for Passover and all the Jewish people from Hartford, a number of them EC: He made the wine? AT: He made it and sold it for Passover. Not during the year. They knew they got a kosher wine for Passover. They had all the people, the Jewish people, not all of them but most of them, used to know that they’d get the matzohs and everything merzzuzzah matzoh. And my father’s ________ which means let the temple be rebuilt. That was one of his main passwords and he was known by that and practically they didn’t call him by name. You could hear if he was on the street and someone saw him and you could hear them call, hey you bubbie amigdish. They’d know who he was already. MAN FROM AUDIENCE IS SPEAKING. EC: You were going to tell me more about you said my grandmother used to come up there? AT: And so they were talking but he was making the wine she said that she knew how to make mead. EC: What is that? AT: That’s a concoction of honey and hops and I don’t know what other ingredients were used. She used to make that. And she used to bring it up and whoever wanted that it was a very fine easy liquor. And it was also strictly kosher for Pesach. Just for Pesach. And that’s how they They did a lot of different things for the sick or the EC: What do you mean by that? AT: Well the women are the ones that started the Mt. Sinai Hospital here in Hartford, they used to collect money and make entertainment and things like that to raise money a different way. And finally they had enough money and bought that building on Capitol Avenue. That was the first Mt. Sinai Hospital. EC: Was your father involved in that? AT: I don’t know how much he was involved. I can’t tell you. I don’t know. EC: What were the things he was involved in? AT: No many other things. The mikvah, he was involved in. He was involved in the kashrut about the shicut to save the ______. He started the babba kashruts. EC: Your father started the organization that would take care of kashrut AT: Kashrut of the meat, absolutely. And EC: And who were some of the people who had only started it? AT: Well that was mostly to do with the rabbis. They had elected among themselves different inspectors to take when the meat was _______ so that after certain number of days whatever had to be done it was taken care of. In fact he used to go down to the slaughterhouse with the shokut to watch, to see that the meat was. to check on it. They used to wait for the night to go down. And many things I remember Rabbi Hurwitz when he, after his wife passed on and he went to Europe and came back and he had met this woman, Lipke, was a relative, and he came back. I think he married her there. But in order for her to come over EC: He had to marry her? AT: So then he got over and got an American license and my father performed the ceremony. EC: Oh, did your father do much of that, weddings? AT: No, oh no. Just private for rabbi Hurwitz EC: And how did you happen to meet your husband? AT:. Well I was a bookkeeper at Smith and Kelmetz. My husband and his father had a grocery store on Franklin Avenue and somehow or other he came down to the store and we met. EC: You met AT: Afterwards we met in Cohen’s store. EC: Cohen’s store, what was that? AT: That was a relative who had strong Madison Avenue MAN IN AUDIENCE SPEAKS. EC: Was that Simon Cohen? AT: No that was Aaron Cohen, Jerry Cohen, the dentist was his son. EC: Oh, I see. So then your husband was in real estate? AT: Right, grocery store and real estate. All the way through. EC: And where did you live when you were first married? AT: When we were first married we lived, they had a store on Babcock Street, my father-in-law and Abe and I so we had an apartment there. EC: And where is Babcock Street? AT: That’s off, between Capitol Avenue and Park Street. EC: In other words you were really out a little bit of the Jewish district. AT: After a while I dropped out of the Jewish activities in the Jewish district because our stores were, then afterwards we bought the building on New Britain Avenue, 244 New Britain Avenue. And we lived there for 27 years. That is we had the store there. Then we bought the house on Vine Street. And we moved to Vine Street. EC: What year were you married? AT: In 1922. EC: What kind of activities early in your marriage did you participate in any communal activities? AT: No I couldn’t. I had an automobile accident about three months before I was married and I wasn’t able to participate in anything and then afterwards it was a 24 hour day. MAN IN AUDIENCE EC: How many children have you had? AT: I have two. I have a daughter Natalie Lebowitz and I have a son Harry . he lives on Long Island, he and his wife. EC: What does your son so? AT: He is a school teacher in Long Island. And they have two children. And my daughter has two daughters. One is an attorney, Emily and Sandra is married and living in New Jersey. My daughter and her husband, he is a wonderful person. EC: And your son you said teachers, what does he teach? AT: He teaches grammar school in Great Neck, Long Island. But he was in the Korean activity but he wasn’t on the front. EC: In the army? AT: In the army – in the Air Force. EC: During the Korean AT: During the Korean War he was stationed in Japan most of the time. He was teaching even while in the service her was teaching some of the men. EC: What schooling did your son have? AT: He graduated Uconn. High school then Weaver. EC: You daughter? AT: She graduated Bulkeley. That time we were still living on New Britain Avenue, Bulkeley High School and then went to Uconn. She was a major in English and French and my son EC: Did your daughter teach? AT: She is teaching now after she got married. EC: Oh really? AT: She doesn’t want to work every day. EC: Where is she teaching? AT: Substitute teaching. EC: Let’s go back. You know your father was such a wonderful person and I wondered have you any other stories you would like to tell us about him? AT: His wife was very nice too. EC: Your stepmother was a very nice person? AT: Yes, she died, what year was it, but he remarried after she was gone. A very fine woman. He was 81 when he was married the last time. EC: Really? AT: Yes. And this last Afgus EC: 3 or 4? MAN IN AUDIENCE AT: He was only 19 when he got married the first time and his first wife had a little boy and then she was pregnant with the second one and she died of pneumonia. And that was within three years of his marriage so the second child didn’t live. So my grandmother raised my oldest brother. EC: In Europe AT: And then when my father came to this country after he was here a short time he sent for him too. EC: Do you know at all why your father came to this country? AT: Well there was after my uncle had to go away from the army on a kind of the service and everything and he was here for EC: You wanted to go into the Russian army? AT: The Russian army and they were searching for him so he hid them out so they knew my father hid them out til got across the border so they were after him so he had to get away. EC: Did he have to run away from Russia? AT: No, no. He came my uncle sent the passport and he came, the ticket, whatever it was at that time. So he came here. They were always the best of friends. And he was here about 3-1/2 years before he sent for my mother. Well afterwards the SW problems – a nephew to my aunt, my mother he also on account of the service came to this country and started off here with peddling but he had a trade and he - in the brass and cuttlery. So there wasn’t anything in Hartford at that time but in New York there was and he also didn’t want to work on Shabbos so he found a Jewish place on Norfolk Street in New York and he started off there and then he went into business for himself. What a successful businessman that was. EC: Now what do you call that business? AT: The aluminum, right now - S. W. Farber – The Farberware Company. EC: And also he came from Montopolo too? AT: Oh yes, he was – my mother my aunt. There was a family of Farbers that had the drugstore were not related. EC: What do you remember for instance of the two main synagogues on Market Street? AT: The two main synagogues, one was Rabbi Hoffenberg of course there was another Rabbi before him but I don’t remember his name. And Koppelman was the Hazzan beautiful services there and he had a great number of what they used to call the Ballabaktin of the City of Hartford. EC: What are the Balabaktin? AT: Well let’s say the flourishing and learned Jews but somehow or other there was a misunderstanding among the different, as they do in all organizations, and there started to be a separation and that’s when they started, they went to doven in the little house in somebody’s home, I think and little by little they save up enough money and started the Romanisha shul. EC: In other words it came off of the Ados Israel, the Romanisha shul? AT: Yes. Then they brought Rabbi Hurwitz. There was a misunderstanding there between Rabbi Hoffenberg and Rabbi Hurwitz at the time. Why I don’t know. I don’t remember. But there was something that there was a question in regards to Jewish religious, they would get together and look it up and straighten it out. I remember one time there was a question about __________ and they had to get another rabbi from Springfield, my father got the rabbi from Springfield, and they were positive a certain things were written in this and this book to make that thing right but father found another section in a different book that he brought and when he brought it they realized EC: Now it was your father who was really the mediary? AT: He was the mediator. EC: Now we are getting very closed to the end is there anything that you really, I mean unusual event of anything you would want to tell? AT: The only other thing I can tell you about is after the war they were putting up plaque, I think it was for the Barber Street synagogue and that time Mass Spelacy Spellacy was the mayor but he wouldn’t start it until my father, he sent a car, my father used to take a nap in the afternoon, and we didn’t know about it, he sent the car and they waited until they got my father and when my father came that’s when, and sat next to Spellacy and dedicated according to the Jewish faith that monument that the boys were there. EC: You mean this was the Barber Street synagogue you said? AT: Yes, yes. EC: They had a monument there? AT: They had some sort of a plaque with the boys names EC: After the war? AT: During the war. Another thing, most of the boys that my father was ______ for they were drafted they used to come he should give them a blessing of some sort. Every one of them he saw before they left came back in good condition. EC: That’s a lovely note for us to stop on I think. I think we have a picture of your father and I am delighted to have been talking with you. This is Emma Cohen. I have been talking to Anna Torchinsky and this is March 22, 1976 and this will be used for the Jewish Historical Society of Greater Hartford for research of for just learning about the Jewish community used to be. I thank you very much Mrs. Torchinsky and we hope AT: It was our pleasure to have been able to talk with you and tell you some of, there are still this thing an impromptu interview I couldn’t remember many of the things maybe, so many stories that still can be told