Leonard Kaufman Jr.

Yoelin: I want to thank you so much for being a part of this oral history program at the Oregon Jewish Museum. It is a very exciting program; we are trying to capture history of the settlers of Oregon, all the way up to the present.  We are focusing today on the commerce aspect of it. I’d like to start by getting some background information, family names, where the family came from.  Just to “set the stage” so to speak.
KAUFMAN: My mother was Helen Block Kaufman. She was born in San Francisco, as were her mother and father. She was born in 1897 and came to Portland at about nine years of age, in 1907.  My maternal grandmother was a Selling.  She was related to the Selling family in Portland. Her name was Emma Selling.  My mother’s father was Herbert “A.I.” Block.  He was with Crown-Willamette Paper Company and came to Portland to manage the paper mill, which was in Camus, Washington and in Oregon City. 

Yoelin: Where was his family from?
KAUFMAN: He was also born in San Francisco. His family was from Hardheim, Germany. His grandparents were from there. My father’s father’s name was Isaac Kaufman. He was 70 when my dad was born and died when my dad was seven.  He came from Germany in about 1848. First came to San Francisco and went into the liquor business there and then came to Portland.

Yoelin: Do you know how he came?
KAUFMAN: He came by boat. We know because it is in the census. And also I have (which I gave to them) the shipping information for when he came.  

Yoelin: And he landed in New York?
KAUFMAN: No, he landed in San Francisco, and then he came to Portland.  Oh, I guess he came through New York when he came originally.  The second time that he went back to Germany, his first wife had died. He went back to Germany, met my grandmother, married her and brought her over here.  She was, of course, much, much younger.

Yoelin: Do you know how he came from New York to San Francisco?
KAUFMAN: They came by boat. They stopped in South America on the way and considered staying there.

Yoelin: Do you know why he left Germany? 
KAUFMAN: I think he and his brother left Germany to seek their fortune. 

Yoelin: What was his brother’s name?
KAUFMAN: His brother’s name was Herman.  He also came to San Francisco and formed a shoe company. It became Summer and Kaufmann.  There were two “n’s in Kaufman originally.  But my grandfather dropped one of the ‘n’s.  The rest of our family spells it with two ‘n’s.  I can’t tell you why. Like everyone else, I didn’t ask questions.

Yoelin: Right. So Herman went into the shoe business and Isaac went into the liquor business.
KAUFMAN: He went into the wholesale liquor and brewery business.  It was called A.P. Hotaling.  That was in San Francisco. Then he came up here and opened and owned an office of A.P. Hotaling in Portland. 

Yoelin: This is your grandfather on your father’s side. On your mother’s side you mentioned Crown-Willamette Paper Company. 
KAUFMAN: That was here in Portland. He also came from San Francisco where there is the headquarters of Crown-Willamette. It was owned by the Zellerbach family in San Francisco. It eventually became Crown-Zellerbach but at the time my grandfather came it was still Crown-Willamette.

Yoelin: Were the Zellerbachs Jewish as well?
KAUFMAN: Yes.

Yoelin: What kind of paper did they make?
KAUFMAN: Everything. It is the largest specialty mill in the world now.  And it was at that time. They did everything from magazine paper to butcher wrap to stationary.  It merged several times with other companies. They owned the woods; they owned the logging operation; they owned the paper mills; they owned the rafting companies that brought the logs down the river. It was a complete operation from the time they cut down the tree to the time they printed the paper and shipped it.

Yoelin: Do you know when it began?
KAUFMAN: No, my great uncle was with them in the 1950s for 50 years already. So that takes them back.

Yoelin: At least to the turn of the century.  What was your great-uncle’s name?
KAUFMAN: Louis Block.  He and A.I. were brothers.

Yoelin: What does A.I. stand for?
KAUFMAN: It was Abraham Isaac. But he was known as A.I. to everyone.

Yoelin: So your mother’s side of the family was in the paper business. And your father’s side was in the liquor business. Did they manufacture liquor?
KAUFMAN: No. Well the brewery in San Francisco did beer but I’m sure with Blitz here in Portland at the time, distribution was almost impossible.  He was just a wholesaler. I’m sure it came by train.

Yoelin: Would that have been in a refrigerated car?
KAUFMAN: No, not liquor.  I don’t think anything was shipped in refrigerated cars then, I don’t think there were refrigerated cars. When my dad was born, my grandfather did not want him to go into the liquor business so he sold the business. And then years later my dad went into gambling. [laughs] The gals at the museum got a big kick out of that.

Yoelin: Your grandfather sold the liquor business. Did he invest the money in another business?
KAUFMAN: No, into real estate. He owned real estate in Portland.

Yoelin: Is there any trend that we should follow with that path?
KAUFMAN: I don’t think so other than that my grandmother owned a building, after my grandfather died, that the Gevurtz family had until maybe fifteen years ago. They were the only tenant and had a wonderful relationship. It was almost like a handshake.

Yoelin: Your grandmother’s name?
KAUFMAN: Clara Dilsheimer.

Yoelin: And where was the property where the Gevurtz family were the tenants?
KAUFMAN: On 2nd and Morrison. They had their furniture store there. Clara was Isaac’s second wife. He went back over to Germany and married her and brought her back. 

Yoelin: How many children did they have?
KAUFMAN: They had two: my dad and his sister, whose name was Edna.  Edna, I guess was a free spirit, after my granddad.  She was three or four years younger than my dad. So their dad died when she was very young.  Later, my grandmother had trouble handling her and put her in St. Mary’s Academy.  She was boarding there during an influenza epidemic and everyone died.

Yoelin: So she died there. Did Clara ever remarry after Isaac died?
KAUFMAN: No she didn’t. As most people didn’t in those days.

Yoelin: What did she do for finances?
KAUFMAN: He had left her money.  She had a nice home on West Park, which is now the First Christian Church, I think, near Salmon.

Yoelin: Did they convert the house into a church?
KAUFMAN: Oh no, they demolished it and built the church.  My grandmother had help in the house.  Mary, whom I knew. She still had her.  My dad had nothing to do so he would buy newspapers from the boys on the corners and sell them again. Some of the Jewish men that I’ve talked to who knew him and had been paperboys always laughed.  He would buy their papers and sell them and of course they were happy because they didn’t have to work.  But they could run the streets, as my dad said, in those days there were no problems on the street.

Yoelin: Your dad’s name was also Leonard.  How many children did he have?
KAUFMAN: Just my sister and myself. 

Yoelin: Let’s focus a little on your dad’s business then.  When did your dad come to Portland?
KAUFMAN: He was born here.  He grew up in a single-parent home. Even though it was a nice home, my grandmother was a young woman and couldn’t get a handle on everything. So he ran the streets (in a good way) with the kids from South Portland who became his friends for a long time. He really had no structure. The only man who was ever an influence on him was a man named Mark Mayer, who was part of the Fleischner-Mayer family.

Yoelin: So he was kind of a mentor?
KAUFMAN: Well, he could have been, but he wasn’t. He was an interesting man in his own right. He had been a famous bookie in New York. He had been Diamond Jim Brady’s partner. (that is before your time but he was one of the men of the ‘20s and before).  He lived at the Benson Hotel. He influenced my dad kind of in a way that wasn’t so good, showing him the good life and all that kind of thing.  My dad traveled the road for Glazer Brothers, which was a wholesale tobacco house here in Portland, and then, when he decided he didn’t want to travel he got the idea of opening a cigar store. A lot of the men he had been in World War I with (which was different from wars after it – most of the men that he was in the hospital train with were from the University of Oregon; they were doctors and such and were all Portland guys).

Yoelin: What was the hospital train in World War I?
KAUFMAN: The University of Oregon formed a unit and when they use the word “hospital train” it was like a field hospital. The only reason they use the word train is because that was how they traveled. 

Yoelin: What was his role in the hospital?
KAUFMAN: He was a cook. He joined, as everyone did in World War I. In fact, he prided himself that he was the first non-commissioned officer at Fort Lewis.  He became a Corporal. He cooked through the service, and was a stretcher-bearer. They did whatever was needed.

Yoelin: Do you know how old he was when he went into the Army?
KAUFMAN: Probably about nineteen.

Yoelin: Did he ever go to school?
KAUFMAN: No, he was on the road for the tobacco company.  I think early on he went to Bishop Scott, which was an academy that they had then.  Then he went to Lincoln High School. And to illustrate his academic crisis, my mother said that she was a freshman when he was a senior and when she graduated he was still a senior.  That was my father in academics.  I don’t think he went very often.  He was on the streets.  All those boys from South Portland, there was no fear at night. They could play ball and not be afraid. 

Yoelin: Was he at all involved at Neighborhood House?
KAUFMAN: The Neighborhood House was too far. That was quite a ways from where he was. But who’s to say? I can’t say that he didn’t go there. My mother used to teach there into the late 1920s.

Yoelin: Was there any religious affiliation?
KAUFMAN: Beth Israel.  He was actually bar mitzvah, because his mother wanted him to be. I think it was Jonah Wise who did his bar mitzvah.

Yoelin: Were your father’s friends that he ran around with mostly Jewish boys?
KAUFMAN: Yes they were.  I think in the service he picked up more non-Jewish friends. One thing about my dad is that he would never join the Multnomah Club.  He said when he was a young guy they wanted him to play ball for them but they wouldn’t let him join. Now my uncles joined and now it is like the Waverly or anyplace else. But that was one thing with him. He would not join.

Yoelin: So he had a sense of anti-Semitism there?
KAUFMAN: Decidedly and he had a wonderful way about him. I wish I could do it. He would just turn off; they would cease to exist.   There very definitely was anti-Semitism. John Helmer Jr. was a very nice kid with a men’s store on Broadway but my father hated his father. They were in the service together and his father was German. There was a lot of antisemitism in the service, even now; here we are going to war.  I think many German people at that time felt very loyal to Germany. I had an aunt who taught high school; she was very bright. They really had to almost muffle her because she felt very loyal to Germany. Even though she was an American citizen and her son was in the service. 

Yoelin: She was of Jewish decent?
KAUFMAN: Yes, that was my maternal grandmother’s sister.  Her name was Eugenia Altman and she married a Selling.  She was my great-aunt.

Yoelin: Did your mom have siblings?
KAUFMAN: She had a sister named Florence. Florence Block Feldman. They were in the soap business. Now it is Mt. Hood Chemical but it was Mr. Hood Soap Company.

Yoelin: Let’s go back to your dad. You said he had this friend who would have been a mentor, Mark Mayer. Was he Jewish also?
KAUFMAN: Yes he was. He was not really a friend; he was older.  In fact, they were a very old Portland family that had been in business here. The Fleischner, Mayer family. There was a Mayer building. They were in wholesale dry goods. And they sent Mark to New York to learn the business and he ended up

Yoelin: He found an easier way to make money.
KAUFMAN: Yes he did. One at which he was obviously very good because he made a lot of money.  He would take bets on anything. He was what they called a “lay-off” bookie. And that meant that he took bets from other bookies who couldn’t cover the amount of money that somebody wanted to bet. 

Yoelin: It’s like reinsurance.
KAUFMAN: That’s exactly what it is like. That is wonderful.  But he, in that way was the structure for everything. Anyway, my dad got the idea for the store and went into partnership with a wonderful man by the name of Arthur Leonard. And they called it “Leonard’s.” It was a restaurant, cigar store, and card room.

Yoelin: When did they open that business?
KAUFMAN: I think about 1925, maybe even sooner. 

Yoelin: [Was there alcohol served there?]
KAUFMAN: No, there was no alcohol in the store.  There was a card room and the restaurant. They were in business for a few years and my dad was so unstructured that poor Arthur Leonard couldn’t stand it. He was a regular businessman. So they split and he started Arthur Leonard’s tobacco and Pipe, which became a very successful business. They remained very good friends but they couldn’t be in business together.  That was around 1929.

Yoelin: And your dad continued with the restaurant? And that was successful?
KAUFMAN: Well, from 1925 to 1951 when he died it was very successful.

Yoelin: Where was it located?
KAUFMAN: It was on Oak Street between Broadway and 6th Avenue. Almost catty-corner from the Benson Hotel.  I don’t know how many times I’ve been on a plane coming back to Portland and someone would say to me, “I was told there was a really great restaurant called Leonard’s. Do you know where it is?”  It was usually traveling men.  There is kind of a terrible story: My dad had a man named Schimel Rosencrantz who worked for him. He was a huge guy. And Eddie Sammons, who was president of US Bank used to eat there a lot. There was also a guy named Jockey Rosen (they called him “Jockey” because he had a lot of girls).  So Schimel would come out and say, “Where else but in Leonard’s could you find a pimp sitting next to the president of US Bank?”  Everybody would roar. My dad had just stools to sit on. He originally had both booths and stools and my mother and her friends would come and spend an hour and half having lunch. The chef got angry because there would be people standing in line and they would be sitting there. So they took out the booths and put in more stools. 

Yoelin: So the ladies wouldn’t sit there. 
KAUFMAN: So they wouldn’t stay. They could come in and eat but they had to stand at the counter. Men came in and ate and got up again but the ladies sat for an hour and half. 

Yoelin: So Jockey came in to eat.
KAUFMAN: They would come and hang out there. There was a wonderful guy, a friend of my dad’s named Joe Schnitzer and they put a phone in because people would be sitting there and get messages. So there was a phone they could use. It was a hangout.  At eleven o’clock they quit playing cards. They turned the card tables – there were about eight round card tables in the back – and that turned into where the men ate their lunch. It was nothing but conversation between doctors and lawyers whoever was there. It was a wild conversation.  It was mostly Jewish men.

Yoelin: This memory of turning it from a card room into a lunch place, when was that.
KAUFMAN: Right from the start. Until he died. The man that bought the place after Dad died had a very bad personality. Right from the start it was clear that he was not going to make a success of it. I think underneath he was a nice man but he didn’t relate to people well. My dad knew how to handle people. The business went down when he wasn’t there.  He knew when someone’s wife came in and said, “My husband lost money.” He knew to take care of it.  Maybe he wouldn’t let him come back and play again, but things were done. One story about me dad: during the depression, people used to come in and want a meal. And they were people who might be dressed nicely. My dad felt that he did not want them to have to bring the check up to him and then take care of it so he would give them money.  One day a man came in and my dad gave him money and the man went to Shelley’s, the restaurant across the street, and ate. Shelley’s came over to tell him and would send him over more people at noon if they were slow. [laughing] So I think they had a lot of fun. My dad had problems with money. He was just so easy going he would have never known what they did in the day. But one time there was a noticeable amount of money gone in a certain period of time so the hired Pinkerton to come in. They found out it was one of the fellows that worked for my dad in the card room. But my dad had known him since he was a young kid so of course, when the Pinkertons wanted to press charges my dad said, “no, he only stole on good days.” So he kept him on but he didn’t let him have anything to do with the cash and that was fine. 

Yoelin: So was the restaurant making the money, or was it the cigars or
KAUFMAN: It was the card room.  They played pangini and rummy and they cut the pot (that’s what they did). You didn’t play against the dealer. The men came in and played against themselves and the dealer kind of kept order and kept shuffling all the cards. But the restaurant was why they would come in. The restaurant had good food. In fact my dad hired a German by the name of Joe Bauer as the chef. Joe was the chef at the Benson. He got better hours with my dad and maybe more money, but anyway, he came and I guess there were three or four waitresses. Joe did all his own cooking. He drove my dad crazy because he had special customers and he would fix certain things when they came in.  He was wonderful. He had specials everyday. They served breakfast, which was not a big thing. Lunch was the big thing.  And then they kept a gal at night for dinner who made sandwiches and such.  But it was mainly a lunch place and they were serve hundreds of people.

Yoelin: Was it mostly business people who were downtown?
KAUFMAN: That’s right; it was for business people.   The card players were all doctors, judges. My old football coach at Lincoln, Wade Williams used to play there. 

Yoelin: Were there many card rooms?
KAUFMAN: There was one Greek card room and then two downtown, O’Connor’s and the Stockman’s.  And there may have been one more.  It was interesting: A mayor was elected by the name of Dorothy McCullough Lee and she came in on the platform of closing up gambling and clearing up the town. It was mostly the bookies and that sort of thing that she was after but she went completely the other way and was going to take out the card room. My dad went to her. He was respected in the community and his word was his bond. He said to her, “Look, I can’t go to the Arlington Club and play poker. I can’t go to the Multnomah Club and play something else. And I sure can’t go to Waverly. It’s unfair that you are stopping us when we have had this all these years. It is not like a man is coming in here and losing his shirt.”  And she backed off

Yoelin: Do you know when that was?
KAUFMAN: I would say it was in the 1940s.  He had that wonderful ability to talk to people. I remember when there was a strike at Meier & Frank (I can just remember being a little kid, so maybe it was the 1930s); it was a really bad strike with the teamsters. Meier & Frank then had home delivery with those big green trucks and they rode men with shotguns. They couldn’t settle it and it was getting worse. One of the teamsters came to Dad (He had grown up with Aaron Frank.) and said, “We respect you. If we agree with you, will you come and talk this to agreement?”  He said, “I don’t want to end up on the bottom of a river.” And they said, “No, we chose you because we think we can come to an agreement.” Which they did. I was always proud of that.

Yoelin: He could bring the two sides together.
KAUFMAN: He sat down with them. He was interesting in that respect. As I say, he didn’t have structure. He had a belief that everybody has to earn their scratch. I can’t remember how many times he said that to me. I would make a disparaging remark about somebody and he would say, “Look, you can’t be that way; everybody has to make their scratch. You don’t know their story.”  That is the way he went through life.

Yoelin: What does “make your scratch” mean?
KAUFMAN: Your job, make your mark. Whatever your job is, whatever life has dealt you. To be disparaging about somebody else because of what they have to do is wrong. 

Yoelin: He respected different people for what they were.
KAUFMAN: He did. He was not anything else but what he was. 

Yoelin: Did mom work in the business at all?
KAUFMAN: No, she was just at home. She had gone to St. Helen’s Hall and started to teach. Then she got married and stayed home. It was interesting in those days; everyone seemed to marry within the group that they were in.  The Jewish people that grew up in Portland, I really don’t know much about the background of their families, but the parents were all in a group; they all went into the service together, that sort of thing. When they came back they all got married. 

Yoelin: You mentioned that your father’s friend was Joe Schnitzer?  Who was that?
KAUFMAN: He is a cousin of the Schnitzer Steel family. His daughter Sylvia is married to… I can’t remember who she is married to.  But the funny part of that story is that doctors were getting their calls at the card room. [laughs]

Yoelin: Obviously your dad was involved in the business community. Was he also involved in the Jewish community?
KAUFMAN: More so than in the business community. I’m sure he belonged to the Chamber of Commerce and he had his license. But he was very active in B’nai B’rith Camp. He donated Joe, who used to come down and cook for the men.  That was a big thing to do. My dad’s business just went kaplooey that week. Everyone was gone. My dad went to camp and the rest of them went to. 

Yoelin: They could play cards at camp!
KAUFMAN: Camp was wild.   I washed dishes there. Joe was there so the cooking was great.  The funny thing for me was that I had gone to B’nai B’rith Camp but to see the men drive their cars right up to the cabins. They didn’t stop in the parking lot. They drove right down to the cabins. And they golfed and they put on skits.  I played softball until I realized that they were betting on the game. I didn’t like that. If I did something wrong it may cost somebody a hundred dollars. The thing that was heartwarming was when they started their donations the last night of camp.  The money they raised was unbelievable. 

Yoelin: What was the money used for?
KAUFMAN: Scholarships, maintaining the camp, salaries I’m sure. But mostly scholarships. There were a lot of kids who wouldn’t

Yoelin: [interrupting] When you remember this time, what years were they?
KAUFMAN: This was pre-World War II. 1936 and 37. And then, of course, my dad continued. He didn’t go down his last year, maybe 1950, because he was sick, but he had gone every year up to that. 

Yoelin: What other part of the Jewish community? Did he belong to Temple?
KAUFMAN: He belonged to Beth Israel and he was a good donator more than he was a temple goer. Like I say, he was a personality more than a businessman. He wasn’t a pencil pusher.

Yoelin: Did he also raise funds or did he donate?
KAUFMAN: No, he was a donator. I doubt if he would have said much to anyone.

Yoelin: Was Mom involved in the community?
KAUFMAN: She was in the Council of Jewish Women. She was a national officer in the Council of Jewish Women. 

Yoelin: Was she in Hadassah?
KAUFMAN: No, just the Council. You know, there was a great differentiation when I was growing up. There was almost a prejudice among Jewish people and it was very strong in Portland.  I am talking to if you weren’t of German extraction. If you were Russian or Polish or something else. I never thought anything about it but it was there in the community and I knew it. One woman who became a dear friend of ours and married our scoutmaster. She came from Polish extraction and there was a sense of toleration at the Temple but that was it. The same way that the Meiers and the Franks got the last row – that was an unspoken thing at the Temple.

Yoelin: And were the Meiers and the Franks also German?
KAUFMAN: Oh yes, definitely. The Temple was primarily German.  I remember my father joking that we were getting so bad that there would probably be a sign soon on the door, “Closed for Jewish Services.”  Rabbi Berkowitz (who is the only rabbi that I really remember) spent more time with Reverend Kempton up the street at Trinity [Episcopal Church].  They sang together and all that sort of thing.  

There’s been a change, though. I took my Aunt Florence to Temple once before she died and she said, “There is no point in coming. I can’t understand it because there is too much in Hebrew.”  So that was a change.

Yoelin: Was there a big economic difference between the German Jews and the Eastern European Jews?
KAUFMAN: Yes there was, in those days. 

Yoelin: Was it because the Germans were earlier immigrants to the area?
KAUFMAN:Absolutely.  And then I think the war changed that.  World War Two meant that “all bets were off.”  The guys that were the hustlers made it during the war and later people, with their kids in the business…  Portland, like any city has people who inherited money – maybe they don’t have the same hunger that somebody else does.  And also, after the war, people had more on their plate. Everything was more introspective before that. I had a great childhood but it was kind of “la la.”

I went to Chapman Grammar School, which is up in the northwest. At that time I don’t know how many were kids from really poor families that grew up in Slabtown and all around the area.  I remember that I had to come home for lunch everyday, I couldn’t have lunch at school. And my mother would never be there.   It would be my grandmother or whoever.  And I later found out the reason was because my mother was there serving lunch to kids who couldn’t afford it.  So you didn’t see that as a kid if you left at 4:00.  But I think the war ended that. It all changed.  And then the Temple changed. Moe Tonkon got into the Waverly and then the Arlington Club.  It all started to open to the people who had been kept out before the war.

Yoelin: Do you know when Moe Tonkon got into Waverly?
KAUFMAN: I would say it was the 40s; after World War II and when the prejudices started to come up and all that stuff that he had.  It may have been even later; it could have been in the 50s. 

Yoelin: Growing up you had were very unaware of the differences between your community and the other Jewish communities. Did you experience any anti-Semitism yourself?
KAUFMAN: There was one time when a girl called me a “Christ Killer.”  I went home and said to my mother, “Who was Christ?”  But I do remember about when she and I sat and talked is that the kids used to go to Bible School during the day. It was in an area that was very bad; they fed them there and so forth. But that was the only time that I ever had anything bad happen. When I was in high school there were parties that I wasn’t invited to and things of that nature.  One time a gal had a big party. A kid had called me that I was friendly with in school, but not too friendly, and he asked me to go to a movie on a Saturday night. That sounded kind of funny. And then another one called and said, “I’m going anyway.”  These were three guys who were very “waspy” and we all went to the movie together. I found out later that they all got angry about it so they didn’t go [to the party].  Somebody else told me about it later and said, “I didn’t see you there.”  But I was fortunate.

Yoelin: Did you serve in the military?
KAUFMAN: I was in the Marines.

Yoelin: And when did you go to the Marines?
KAUFMAN: In 1943.

Yoelin: Where were you stationed?
KAUFMAN: I was with the First Marine Division. I was in the Pacific.  It cured my sinuses (as the Navy doctor told me).  I had sinus trouble in San Diego and he said, “Where you are going you won’t have any sinus trouble.” And he was right.

Yoelin: Did you see any action?
KAUFMAN: I did.

Yoelin: And where was that?
KAUFMAN: I was on Palau and Okinawa.

Yoelin: Any memories that you want to share?
KAUFMAN: No, I think that everybody has memories.

Yoelin: Did you experience any anti-Semitism in the military?
KAUFMAN: I think the only time you only have that feeling is when you are around New Yorkers.  I never really realized that people categorize that way: if you are Jewish you go to Jewish doctors, or Jewish attorneys and so forth. I was never used to that in Portland.  That never made any difference. When my teeth were being fixed I went to an orthodontist.  I encountered that kind of prejudice [in the military] but maybe I’m fortunate.  I never had anything else.

Yoelin: Did you know anything about what was going on in Europe with Hitler and the Jewish community?
KAUFMAN: Well I knew that my cousin who served and went to the Battle of the Bulge (you know there were tons of us who did) was scared. He was worried about if he was captured, what the Germans would do to him. Especially during the Battle of the Bulge I think he was really scared.  Other than that, I don’t think… I think we all knew that rank made a difference. It was very unusual that you were going to have Jewish admirals or Jewish generals.  You may have Jewish colonels.

Yoelin: What was your rank?
KAUFMAN: I was a corporal. 

Yoelin: Being raised in Portland before World War II, did you hear anything about what was going on in Europe?
KAUFMAN: There was a wonderful thing that happened here. The German-American Bund came to Portland and started a forum around 1939. I heard a little bit about what happened. There were a lot of Germans in Portland and there was a German Turnverein. That was a gymnasium. It was across the street from the Sunday school of Beth Israel, the Sunday school, not the synagogue.

Yoelin: And where was Beth Israel at that time?
KAUFMAN: Beth Israel was where it is now.  But the Sunday school was not. It was up on 13th. In SW. Then it became Albany College.  They didn’t have the buildings then that they do now.  It was just the synagogue.  Anyway, he was causing a lot of trouble; they sent Fritz Kuhn who was the west coast …

KAUFMAN: The west coast leader was Fritz Kuhn, I think he was out of Los Angeles.  He sent a man to Portland who started to raise trouble and there became a lot of consternation. I heard in the back room of the card room once, someone say, “Its time we do something about this.”  It wasn’t more than three or four weeks later that he disappeared. The Portlander.  That was almost done – dissolved.

Yoelin: So they realized that Portland was not going to be an easy community to come into.
KAUFMAN: No, I think they took care of him. I think someone in the community took care of this guy.  Oh yeah.

Yoelin: I understand. He disappeared. 
KAUFMAN: He disappeared permanently. So that was it.  You know that there was anti-Semitism.  A lot from people of German extraction, like my great-aunt, who coming from Germany, felt great love for Germany and didn’t get it. Until later.  In fact, I was at Sunday school, Beth Israel. We got let out and my dad picked us up and said that Pearl Harbor was bombed.  That really was a bad time for my dad. He was friendly with a lot of policemen, being in the business he was in.  The chief of detectives and he were particularly good friends and he asked my dad to become a member of the Veteran’s Guard Patrol which was civilians that they trained. Their job, which he had been doing prior to Pearl Harbor, was that they were starting to pick up Japanese. And he didn’t like that because he knew a lot of them.  He had gone to school with some of them so it was very difficult. 

Yoelin: They were picking up Japanese to put them in internment?
KAUFMAN: Hmmm. They just picked them up and then the FBI took care of the then. It was sad. We had a girl that lived with us who had lived up at St. Helen’s Hall.

Yoelin: What happened to her?
KAUFMAN: We never knew. We never knew. My mother tried to find her.  I’m sure she probably married and moved someplace else.  During the Depression gals used to come from the farms if they were trying to go to school and live in people’s houses. That’s where your maids came from. I don’t imagine it was a very good experience for them.  We had one gal who worked for us who became very successful in Palm Springs.  I had a clothing line for a while and I went down to see her and I said something and she about feinted. She was not very happy. 

Yoelin: Could you explain what you are trying to tell me?
KAUFMAN: That being a maid in somebody’s house, I don’t think they thought it was a very good thing. That was what I felt.

Yoelin: Part of your dad’s business, was it also a whorehouse? 
KAUFMAN: [laughing] No no. The story that I told was that there was a house around the corner. And Blanch Kaye was the madam. Once she was on the roof of that side of the building smoking a cigarette and she saw two guys sawing through my dad’s roof. So she called the police and the guys were still sawing when the police came up and caught them. 

Yoelin: Were some of your dad’s customers also Blanche’s customers?
KAUFMAN: I don’t know. I don’t have any idea. They were two separate businesses. They wouldn’t have anything to do with each other. They ate in the store, or they would send food around the corner to them and that sort of thing.

Yoelin: Were there many whorehouses?
KAUFMAN: There were lots.

Yoelin: Was that because of the depression or…?
KAUFMAN: I think it was just that there were a lot of seamen, there were merchants, there were a lot of loggers, that kind of activity downtown – you had businessmen [laughs].

Yoelin: And Blanche Kaye was Jewish?
KAUFMAN: She was Jewish.

Yoelin: And were her employees Jewish?
KAUFMAN: I don’t think they were. I knew one. She was Native American. She married a Jewish kid who I had gone to school with. He was a gambler and everything else. Blanche’s whole family were in that. They were in gambling or after-hours joints and such.

Yoelin: Do you know who her family was?
KAUFMAN:She had two brothers: Eddie and… I can’t remember the other brother’s name. And a son, Sonny, who was in the business. That’s all the family I know of.  Socially, you didn’t see them. They weren’t at Temple or that sort of thing.

But you know that is an interesting thing about Portland at that time. There was an Orthodox rabbi, Rabbi Fain.  His youngest daughter was ahead of me in school, but I knew them. I never put them together. He had a black hat and beard; that was very unusual in Portland at that time. My father said he was the best schnorrer he ever knew.

Yoelin: He got a lot of free lunches?
KAUFMAN: And also getting money for something. He was good. My dad would say, “You know the bank is right across the street and yet you always stop here.”  My dad told a wonderful story: My uncle Joe [Feldman] had a man call him from Wenatchee, Washington.  There was a man there canning plums and he needed him to do kosher canning. He needed a rabbi to come up and do it. My uncle Joe called my dad and my dad said, “Well I would call Rabbi Fain.”  So the man called Rabbi Fain and Rabbi Fain said, “Say that I’ll charge him 4 cents a can.” The guy called back and said, “It’s too much. I can’t afford to pay that. Can you get me anybody else?”  And my dad said, “We don’t know anybody else who can do it.” So the man called Seattle and asked to speak to someone there and they told him, “I can’t do that, that is Rabbi Fain’s territory.” [laughs]

Yoelin: So did they do kosher plums?
KAUFMAN: Rabbi Fain did it.

Yoelin: Was there a lot of kosher food available at that time?
KAUFMAN: You know, not really.  I never had a bagel until I went to New York.

Yoelin: I don’t know if that is necessarily a kosher thing.
KAUFMAN: But so far as restaurant food.  There was a guy named Mosler who did rye bread. He had a bakery.  He was marvelous. My dad’s breads came from him, when he could get along with him. There was that sort of thing. But not kosher.  My dad used to get his meats from a man in South Portland because he liked the man. We used to go down there sometimes to pick up stuff.  I think that was a kosher marked but that is the only one that I know of. 

Yoelin: Do you remember the name of that market?
KAUFMAN: Well, this is going to sound so stupid: “Dave’s” is the only name that I can come up with. I may be wrong.  In fact, I never really ate kosher until I was in Kansas City and that was in the 1960s.

Yoelin: So the restaurant didn’t have to be kosher even though most of its customers were Jewish.
KAUFMAN: No. And Joe did brisket and did his own corned beef.

Yoelin: So it was kosher-style food. 
KAUFMAN: It was deli-style. My dad did huge corned beef sandwiches. He had two or three entrees, besides what he cooked for the extras. But other than that it was strictly sandwiches. And then at night they would serve what was left over from lunch and then that would clear out and it was sandwiches. Even the breakfast menu was limited. It was a small kitchen by any standard but there were 35 stools. They would turn over maybe eight times.

Yoelin: Great.  So, what was your involvement in the business?
KAUFMAN: I ate. Once in a while on Sunday I would go down and my dad would let me fix a sandwich. It was the kind of a business, I thought at one time I might like to take it over, but my dad’s attorney said to forget it. My dad knew the police and who could do what for you and how to do it.  He said it isn’t the kind of a business you can do. It would take somebody that can do that. And I think that is true. So I really had nothing to do with it. Other than, when I was in grammar school they had plastic chips that were good for trade. If someone was buying a cigar they could take it and use a 25-cent chip or a 35-cent chip. They could turn them in for more cigars. They were flat, like the kind that you would get at the market and then they would put through your name on it. I took those to school so my dad had quite a few kids coming down and getting ice cream before they turned off the flow. That was another great story of my dad that I like. He was having losses, (this is before Benny).  And my dad says to Uncle Joe, “What should I do?” And Joe says, “I’ll take care of it.” He came back to my dad about three weeks later and says, “I took care of it. I found out where the money is going.” My dad said, “Where?” and he said, “A heavy set man with a cigar in his mouth goes behind the counter and takes money and gives it to guys or puts it in his pocket.”  That was my dad.

Yoelin: It was your dad who was doing it? [laughs]  That was your story about when he didn’t want people to be embarrassed about not having enough for lunch.
KAUFMAN: That, or he would give somebody money to do something. He figured it was his store; just take the money. He had two wonderful guys who worked for him. Harry White and Bill Carrigan. They must have gone through … they must have gone crazy. And they worked for him until the day he closed. You had to work around it.

Yoelin: After the military, what did you do?
KAUFMAN: Then I went back to school.  And then I went to work for Crown-Zellerbach. I went into a training program. It was a little too structured for me. I am a salesman but I am kind of a romancing salesman. If there is too much structure or in a repetitive business, it wasn’t good. Then I went to work for a luggage company called Skyway Luggage, in Seattle. They sold the first airplane luggage. And it was good training because I bumped heads all day with Samsonite and everyplace I went.

Yoelin: How long did you stay with Crown-Zellerbach?
KAUFMAN: I was with them. I had been with them in the summer time. I had worked every summer. Then I probably was with them for three years. Then I knew it was enough. 

Yoelin: And you were doing sales?
KAUFMAN: No, I was working in the mill training program. I worked in the logging camps and I worked in the mill.

Yoelin: So they were grooming you.
KAUFMAN: They would groom you. It was part of the University of Washington. Anyway, then I went into the toy business, which was the best thing that happened to me. I stayed in that well into the 60s.

Yoelin: Which toy company?
KAUFMAN: I had Mattel and Tonka and a company called Trans-o-gram, you know, radio, steel.

Yoelin: What were you doing in the toy business?
KAUFMAN: I was a rep. For the northwest, Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana.

Yoelin: So you were traveling a lot then.
KAUFMAN: Yes.  And then I got divorced and moved to California, to Los Angeles.

Yoelin: Did you continue in the toy business then?
KAUFMAN: Well I tried to, but it didn’t work. Then I met my present wife, Hilde.

Yoelin: What was her maiden name?
KAUFMAN: Yates.

Yoelin: Is she of Jewish descent?
KAUFMAN: No.

Yoelin: Was your first wife Jewish?
KAUFMAN: No.

Yoelin: Do you have children from either marriage?
KAUFMAN: I have Kip and Josh, who is deceased, from the first marriage, to Jean.

Yoelin: What was her maiden name?
KAUFMAN: Wiegear.

Yoelin: And what was Kip’s real name?
KAUFMAN: I don’t know if you will like it.  It is Andrew.  And we had Josh, Josh Leon. Kip is married and has two children.  And Josh is deceased.

Yoelin: How old was he when he died?
KAUFMAN: He was seventeen.

Yoelin: Oh, I’m so sorry. Was there an accident?
KAUFMAN: Mhmm.

Yoelin: I am sorry to hear that. And did you have children with Hilde?
KAUFMAN: I did. We have two.  We have Sally and her sister Nancy is deceased.

Yoelin: And how old was Nancy when she died?
KAUFMAN: She was about 22.

Yoelin: Also very young. That is sad. Is Sally married?
KAUFMAN: She is married to Billy Considine. They live in Minneapolis. They don’t have any children but one of our grandchildren lives with them. He is fifteen. We have the other grandchild with us. His name is Josh. He is fourteen.  We had Raymond also from the time they were about two years old. They are siblings and only about a year apart, boy, they are just so competitive. It has been great for both of them to separate them a little bit. They are better friends for it. 

Yoelin: So you were a traveling salesperson for the toy business. Where was home base when you did that?
KAUFMAN: In Portland. 

Yoelin: And then you moved to California. How long were you there?
KAUFMAN: I was there until 1978. And then I moved to Montana. To Billings. I was there until about two years ago and then we started to move here.

Yoelin: What made you come back to Portland?
KAUFMAN: My wife loves it here. We came every summer. We would come to the beach. She loved it. Montana was not the “California Dream.” It was a business opportunity for me and I took it; and it was good to us. But she never liked it there. And I really don’t have more than the two or three friends that I made there, not the closeness of family. And I knew that, at my age, I want her to be somewhere where, if something happens to me, we are in good shape.

Yoelin: What kind of work were you doing in California?
KAUFMAN: Things weren’t working out in the toy business.  I had always wanted to become a doctor but, of course, had never studied, so I didn’t. And there was an opening where they were trying to get people to become civilians with the Los Angeles Fire Department, paramedics.  So I went to Daniel Freeman, which is one of the hospitals, and qualified and became a Los Angeles paramedic. I did that for a number of years.  Then, one of the doctors that I worked with at the burn center told me he was forming and insurance company. That didn’t mean anything to me but he said it was not like any other company, blah blah blah, and when he talked about money, I saw it was a great opportunity. I was burned out anyway. So I joined a physician-owned, professional liability carrier, non-profit.  It is about 40,000 doctors now. At that time it was…

Yoelin: What was the name of it?
KAUFMAN: The Doctor’s Company. It is the largest physician-owned company in the United States, which I am proud of. 

Yoelin: So is that for medical coverage?
KAUFMAN: No, it is for medical malpractice. For professional liability. It was formed by doctors during the crisis when insurance companies started to leave. So I went in with them in 1976. In 1978 they started to expand into other states. It was a good expansion for me. There was no place to go up, there were eight doctors sitting on the board. That was it.  So I moved to Montana. I was responsible for Montana and Wyoming. And then I added other states to that. It was great.

Yoelin: Are you retired now?
KAUFMAN: Well, I am selling my business to my employees, which really pleases me. They are my associates, not really employees. And that really pleases me. So now I have taken a coaching class.  I spent a year learning to be an executive coach. So I am working with some people there. The best thing that has happened is that I am a mentor for the Marine Corps, for Marines in transition. It is mostly older guys. I thought surely it would be kids getting out, but it isn’t. It is men that have been in seven or eight years, or ten years and find that it is not the right thing. 

Yoelin: So you help them transition into non-military environment.
KAUFMAN: Exactly. That is a big step for the. So that has been a really interesting experience.

Yoelin: And you do that from Portland?
KAUFMAN: Yes, mostly on the phone. I have guys all over the place. Also with the coaching I am doing all over the country too. It has been good.

Yoelin: Is your wife employed?
KAUFMAN: No, but with the grandson, and we had two of them up until two years ago, it has been enough. That is full time.

Yoelin: How has it been for you to come back to Portland?
KAUFMAN: Something was said to me one time a while ago by a psychologist that is true.  He said, “You will never be anything to people but exactly the same thing you were when you remember them.” So I run a 25 million dollar a year business but it doesn’t mean anything to anyone who has been here. So I have changed and hopefully for the better. But they are going to remember exactly what I was when I was here: my first marriage, I was a child. Now I am different. Raising teenagers precludes me from doing a lot of things that my friends are doing who are retired, etc. I am not going to be able to do those things.  The word is used a lot that I “distance” myself from people, but I just can’t get into what I remember about the social world that I was involved in in Portland. 

Yoelin: Are you currently affiliated with any synagogues?
KAUFMAN: I am not. We live out of town.  And I don’t bring anything to the table. And I don’t think, where I am now, that it would do anything for me either. I am chasing teenagers all day long. He is very active. He is a 4.0 student (for which we are very lucky). He goes to West View. We are almost in Hillsboro. It’s the Metro region. You make choices, whether they are good or bad, I don’t know. 

Yoelin: What I am hearing is that you are feeling that there hasn’t been an open, warm welcoming…
KAUFMAN: Oh no, not at all. It’s just that, you know, I’m almost 80.  So my friends are at the age that they are doing their own things now. And, as I say, if you are chasing a teenager … He is a very good athlete so we have been blessed that he has met people through that and done things. But we are out a little ways; I’m not on the south slope of Portland. It is a chore to run in to town for lunch. We are on Rock Creek. That is 185th. It is out. When I saw the sign for “Hillsboro” when the realtor took us out there, I couldn’t believe it. I have to go downtown a couple of times a week for business. It is a chore. And most of my friends don’t come out to where we live. To be honest, if you haven’t seen a person for that number of years, you can ask about their kids, but I can’t even relate to their kids.  I get it wrong and their kids have had kids. Time doesn’t stand still. I have lots of fondness for them. But they have been doing their thing all this time.

Yoelin: Is there anything that you feel that we haven’t touched upon? Your father’s business or your mother’s activities?  Anything about your experience in Portland.
KAUFMAN: Well, I can’t believe how naïve we were.  I used to kind of touch with the kids I knew from Sunday school who were from the east side, but we didn’t see them the rest of the week or in the summer. The real world wasn’t there. Our mothers all knew each other and it was kind of a big family. There was a security and a protection. I grew up with the feeling that everybody loved me. It was not really the real world. 

Yoelin: I hope most children live in that sense of security.
KAUFMAN: It was a privilege to live that way. And that is how I feel about mine. If I can see that they don’t have to work, that they can do well in school and athletics, if you can take the other away from them… I’ll tell you one story: There was a Meier & Frank Friday Surprise sale years ago. People came from all over. In those days they carted merchandise in from who knows where. The whole store was just a shambles but they had million dollar sales days in those days. I’m talking about in the 40s and 50s. There was also a store on Broadway called Charles F. Berg  It was a fine women’s specialty shop. He always on Friday, when Meier & Frank had these full-page ads, he would have a little, “me too” sale.   I’m sure they were friends.  But anyway, Charlie Berg had a heart attack and was lying behind his desk in his office. In that day the Broadway Building that faced on Morrison Street and Broadway had a passageway. You could go through to the other buildings. So they called his doctor who came into the Broadway Building and he had his stethoscope out. He was going around the desk and Charlie Berg looked up at him and said, “If you can’t find it here, maybe you’ll find it at Meier & Frank.”

Yoelin: [laughing] Thank you so much.
KAUFMAN: It is a pleasure.