Vicki Lichtenstein Lind

Frankel: I will ask you to begin by stating your full name date and place of birth.
LIND: Okay, so my name is now, Vicki Lind. I was born Vicky Lind Lichtenstein. I was born in Hagerstown, Maryland because my father, Arthur Lichtenstein, (at the time that was his name) was stationed there. And the date was February of 1945. I’m a very, very early Baby Boomer because most people waited until the war was over before they took the chance of having a child. Anyway, I was born. My name is Vicki for Victory in Europe. When they came west they weren’t very interested in their Jewish identity and they chose the name Lind, not knowing it was a Swedish name.

Frankel: When you say your father was stationed there, in what capacity?
LIND: He was a sergeant in the army. He had been stationed in Germany and then he was temporarily stationed working on something to do with statistics in an office working for the military.

Frankel: In Maryland?
LIND: Mhmm.

Frankel: So did he serve during World War Two in Europe?
LIND: Yes.

Frankel: Do you know where and what he saw?
LIND: Yes. My father was always known as a very fortunate man; he had a lot of self-confidence and a lot of charm. And he was an officer but he always arrived after the fighting and in time for everybody to say the Americans were heroic. And so he did not see any battle. When my mother was pregnant with me he was in Germany and after he had me he was back in Germany. I think a woman friend of his sent me a little sweater, my mother said then. And so she was with me by [her]self and then my father came back to the US when I was about six months old. My mother drove me up to the Bronx because that’s where her family was, New Yorkers. So she was just there for the period when he was stationed there.

Frankel: And did you have siblings?
LIND: Yes, should I say the backstory of my mother?

Frankel: Sure, and their first and last names.
LIND: Yes, okay, so my mother was born Anja Hochman [she spells it]. When they came across Ellis Island when she was seven years old.

Frankel: From where?
LIND: From Poland, from Warsaw. She was named Anja, and her sister was named Ana. And the customs, people named them both Ann. So my aunt became Ann and my mother assumed the name Arlene so she wouldn’t have the same name. But when my father was courting her, there’s a telegram where he said, “Will you marry me?” It was still Annie at that time. So both of my parents’ families were Eastern European Jews. The borders kept changing but I had interviewed my grandmother Dorah Hochman when I was thirty. I know quite a bit about her. Her father was a controller in a woods outside of Warsaw. The Jews were not allowed to own land so he was a manager of a forest. And he had seven children and they were a very religious family. But when my grandmother was something like ten and the youngest one was two the father died of a heart attack. And my grandmother remembers saying, “What kind of God would kill a father of seven, the littlest one being a baby?” and she took on the role of helping the mother, obviously. Then eventually they were able to get to Warsaw. She has very clear remembrance of that, after which she was never religious again. 

Frankel: They came before World War Two to this country?
LIND: My grandfather, my mother’s father, Abe Hochman, came to Brooklyn from one of five brothers. He came when my mother was a baby so there were three children in Warsaw. It took him seven years to make enough money to bring them over. My mother first met her father when she was seven when she came to the new country. 

Frankel: And they lived in Brooklyn?
LIND: They moved to the Bronx shortly after that. My grandfather was a painter. My grandmother was very proud that it took her a very short amount of time to learn English and to become a citizen. They both lived their whole life in different parts of New York. If they came in 1920 that means that my mother can remember when my grandmother got the letters of different people dying in the camps, of her brothers and sisters. Only one third cousin, who we later had a reunion with, survived. And my grandmother. So my grandfather’s family–all I know is that they were also from Warsaw, because they met there.

Frankel: Your paternal grandfather?
LIND: My Grandma Dora’s husband Abe. And so whereas I know Dora came from the woods, and I know the story (they were very religious; they didn’t put a comb to their hair on the Sabbath etc. until after the father died), I don’t know the history of my grandfather on my mother’s side. But when I was young and I interviewed my grandmother. I wrote a little book for my kids about it. I wrote up the interview with her. I said, “Oh did you love Grandpa?” You know, young Americans. She said, “Love, love! He’d been to America. He had a brown derby hat. The family thought it was a good match. What’s love?” So that was that side. On my father’s side, his father was in England in manufacturing, in Manchester. But his mother had been from a very poor Eastern Europe family and when the pogroms started she and her family walked across Europe and ended up in England. And so my father was born in this country whereas my mother was born in Poland. So he was born after his father and mother immigrated to Queens and started a hardware store. 

Frankel: And your father’s first name?
LIND: Arthur.

Frankel: Arthur Lichtenstein.
LIND: It became Lind.

Frankel: And so how did they move to Maryland?
LIND: Because he was stationed in the military, and I think it was because of World War Two and the traveling that people did that the families did immigrate. Like, my father came here and I think Morrie Dragoon’s family was here earlier. And I think Morrie had been here when he was in the Navy. And so it was because they were all stationed in different places that they knew there was some different and better places. And maybe because, in my father’s case and my mother’s case, because their family was immigrants, like my father was fairly disrespectful to his family. He said he never saw his father because his father was always working. So they were very happy to be leaving their parents and their families and starting their own lives with an adventure. Some of the parents came out when they were older but nobody’s parents came with them when they immigrated here.

Frankel: So when did your father and your family move to Portland?
LIND: When I was two years old, so that was 1947. He’s back from World War Two for about a year and then they decided to move. And all the relatives thought there was cowboys and Indians out here. They were angry and hurt and confused by it. 

Frankel: So you said that the family was very angry at your moving here. Was your father still in the army?
LIND: No, it was after he was out of the army. My father and mother had started a photography school children business and they wanted to do the business when they were out here. They wanted to fit in with everybody so they took the name Lind. I do want to talk about how somebody always knew somebody who followed. When my grandparents came to this country and my mother was seven, Belle Dragoon, who was one of the Eggheads, her parents had already come. My mother remembered when they arrived. They were like five in the bed sideways and she peed in the bed. And the Hochbergs were more acculturated than the Hochmans so he was more of a father figure to my mother. Belle Dragoon’s parents. 

Frankel: Who were the Hochbergs?
LIND: That was Bill’s mother and father. So my parents followed them and knew them. My grandparents knew them in Warsaw, came to New York where they were and then their daughter and son-in-law came out here and my parents followed them out here. 

Frankel: So you said your grandparents were religious but your parents no longer were religious.
LIND: Most of the Eggheads were atheists. They were humanitarians and maybe once or twice a decade went to a synagogue, with a few exceptions. My mother was very anti-religious and so was my father. My grandfather was never religious that I know but my grandmother had a little vestige of it. She told me that when they were in Poland every Friday night through Saturday morning he said, “I’m going; they need a Minyan.” Well she thought he wasn’t really so she wrapped a fork in his prayer shawl and when he came back she said, “how was the service?” he said, “Oh it was great.” And he made up all this stuff. And then she rolled out the prayer shawl, the silverware clattered. She said, “You’re a liar; you don’t really go to synagogue!” So she stopped being religious before she came to this country. And he never was. I think for a short time he might have been a Communist or a socialist worker kind of thing while my father was in college. So it’s a long time; it’s a hundred years since somebody was religious.

Frankel: In your family?
LIND: Yeah. It was my great-grandparents that would have been.

Frankel: So growing up, you knew you were Jewish?
LIND: Yes.

Frankel: Was there anything in your home that would make it recognizable? 
LIND: No.

Frankel: No celebrations? 
LIND: So we knew there was Hanukkah and Christmas. We had a Christmas tree with maybe blue bulbs on it. But there were a few people in the group that had more Jewish traditions. The Ashers, Ettingers, they were affiliated with the synagogue and they crossed over into this group. The main cultural center was the Jewish Community Center because that was not religious. And so one of the reasons people haven’t heard about the Eggheads that group that was socialized together and provided a community and raised children together and had affairs and you know. Eventually some of the people married each other. That group was not known as the Eggheads—they were only known that they went away to Egghead Weekend. If they would bump into [each other], and would say “How do you know Morrie Tiktin or how do you know the [DeGrinns]?” We’d say, “Oh we know Tiktin from the Community Center”. And at the Egghead reunion I was playing a little game to connect people. I had people fill out a little quiz and I said, “Well how many people learned to swim by Mickey at the Jewish Community Center?” And it was almost everyone. So if you had any institution that was a gathering place and Tiktin was the education coordinator or something like that. And [Harry] Policar was the athletic director and then he had to cross over to B.B. Camp, and so that was a connecting organization. 

But these are all people who had no family in town. A couple of sibling sets came out so then they had some aunts and uncles. And so they really were like substitute family for each other. And so saying that some more of a cultural Jewish background so, we had Passover and Passover was always explained as kind of a holiday of freedom and I would say a third of the people had Bat-Mitzvahs or Bar-Mitzvahs. Jamie Leopold had one. You know, so some of the people had that. Everybody had lox and bagels. That was very much so. But not otherwise. 

Frankel: How did the group begin? How did you form that group? 
LIND: My feeling about my parents is that they were probably surprised in that initially we thought, “Oh, we’re Americans; we’ll make friends with our neighbors and our neighborhood.” And I think it was a little bit of surprise that the other people that they felt the kinship with were Jews. All politically liberal. And they started socializing together and I don’t remember a lot of events at the Jewish Community Center, but it’s like we’d go there for swim lessons, my father had an art show there, I volunteered for Helen Gordon’s day-care center was there. And so they became an extended two-generation, now older people, social group. A few people were married to non-Jews but most of the people were Jewish.

Frankel: And did that group have a goal, mission statement? Was it organized?
LIND: No, when I read that, I realized that. And when I was saying that nobody had heard about it, it was mostly completely relaxed and very regular holidays, Thanksgivings, the few Jewish holidays. But lots and lots of going away to the beach as families. Sometimes it was shifting; two of the women would be best friends for a while those families would do things together. There were a few cultural activities like the plays at the Jewish community that Shirley Tanzer directed. So who decided who went to the Egghead weekends and not, and who went every year and who just went that one time. I was surprised on the list, of all of that social group there are four people alive.

Frankel: Of your parents’ generation?
LIND: That’s correct. And they were the babies; they were always the babies of the family. So I was surprised that Helen [Libenatti?] who was Helen Hochberg initially, who was called “Baby.” I was surprised when she said she didn’t want to come to the reunion. She’s failing somewhat. She said she never went to the B’nai Brith Egghead weekends. She was otherwise part of the group. And one of the subsets that was theater and arts and culture oriented, [Bri?] Leopold was a big actor at the Jewish community and other things. Joe Libenatti and Helen were, so a lot of them were plays in different places in town, they were in Paint Your Wagon, they were in The Wall. And so I was surprised that Helen actually had never gone to B’nai Brith and I don’t know why. Maybe they didn’t like cabins, but they were still part of this group. So anyhow, Helen Libenatti is alive. Dolores Gregory is alive but has too much dementia. Lawrence Tiktin is a really important one because he clear memory. But the other ones that came were Ann Wasserman and Al. What Ed Malvin says is they’re 75 or 80, going on 60. They’re very sharp. They have a very clear memory and they really like to talk about everything. Morrie Dragoon’s youngest sister is Anne Wasserman and she’ll have the best memory of the individuals.

Frankel: Now, was it a closed group or did people come and go and join?
LIND: It was not officially closed but I think we knew each other’s kids; we’d go away. I think it shifted. Like, people would have fallings out. So my mother [??] was a girlhood best friend of Belle; we did things with their family. Then they had a falling off, and the Leopolds got closer and did things together with the other ones. But if we talked about a party I think there was very little turnover until people started getting divorces. I think it was pretty consistent group, but there was nothing written, no mission, nothing like that.

Frankel: How did the name come about?
LIND: I don’t know. But it definitely came about not that, “We’re the Eggheads,” but, “We go to Egghead weekend.” Then Egghead came out of the people who attended Egghead weekend, and these are generally what [?? Noah’s] no Carl is an exception. I think there is one other exception who was like an outdoorsman. But the rest of the people might have tried a little camping (we did a little camping) but they were city people. And so that they were going away to cabins in a rustic area, they always wanted to have an intellectual theme to it. That was what was different than camping. And so I think that the one year the theme was The Feminine Mystique, and we have the best heritage from it. But my guess is there were authors or other things that people would read in common. So they were very strongly creative and intellectual.

Frankel: And would you have guest speakers or just a group would…
LIND: Oh, it was just entirely a social group. I know there were times that they might have had some of the people might have been involved in some political activity like my mother was the secretary of the Wayne Morse Committee, and maybe one of those other people she knows she got involved. And there were other little somewhat political periods.

Frankel: What was the Wayne Morse Committee?
LIND: Wayne Morse was the liberal senator, and so she was on his…. She was political in supporting his candidacy. 

Frankel: Going back, you mentioned your father, who was a painter.
LIND: He was a wood sculptor. A businessman and a wood sculptor. So he was artistic.

Frankel: Did he go to art school?
LIND: It’s our generation that would have a choice of something like that. A Jewish boy from an immigrant family–he majored in business and statistics. As an adult, he would go to art school or he would go to New York and go the art student league and do his own thing. So, he was like an early on affected by the ‘60s. So he became kind of an artist, a runaway from the suburbs, a hate-the-suburbs kind of creative person when I was about twenty and when he had his 50 year birthday. 

Frankel: And so from what I understand, and as you mentioned, the JCC was really the connector, so to speak, and you did a lot of things there.
LIND: It’s so family-centered. I would say one quarter of the activities were at JCC, and three quarters were in people’s homes, or going away to the beach, a couple of families would.

Frankel: So how often would you say would you get together? Monthly basis, or…
LIND: Well, I would say, so the Dragoons moved about four blocks from us and my mother and Belle Dragoon were best friends so we probably would do three times a week. And then the Cohens were two blocks the other direction. But a party that had twenty or more. I would say once a month. 

Frankel: And when did it start, and how long did it last?
LIND: Well, you might be able to find out the years that the Egghead weekend lasted, rather than the community of people. So, in the community of people, getting together, and people being friends, you know, there were factions after there were divorces as far as people going to each other’s funerals…I don’t think anybody…. The Wassermans are the only ones that left Portland. So everybody else who was in it stayed in Portland. My mother was really good friends with Celia Ettinger at the end. My mother remembered that time with the children and the friends and the community as a very wonderful way to raise children, a very wonderful time. They would have costume parties and dance parties, and picnics and the kids would play. So that they were not isolated nuclear families. They’d help. Like my mother was good at finances from the books so she would help the ones that were having businesses in trouble. So it was very much a community. My father played poker with three or four of them. My dad went to art school with Belle Dragoon. Several of them were in the plays together. So, because they had cultural and artistic activities, they’d like cluster. I don’t think there was anything else. If we talk about the beginning, the Dragoons and our family were close from when I was two and they moved out here. It would be interesting to know when Morrie Tiktin became the director of the Jewish Community Center.

Frankel: And you mentioned also what they had in common was being atheists and humanitarians.
LIND: And being liberals politically; some of them were investigated by the house on Americans committee, that kind of thing.

Frankel: And so, even though they were atheists, you still celebrated and you say some of them did attend services occasionally, and did have bar and bat Mitzvahs. Did you? What was your Jewish upbringing?
LIND: I wanted to tell you this. This is one of the problems with the idea of being nothing, so to speak, but American. When I was in seventh grade, when I was fourteen, I went to a slumber party, a sleepover party with about eight girls. We all had on our curlers and our hats and our babydoll things and one of the girls named Kathy Grace said, “Is anybody Jewish here?” So I didn’t say anything. And she said it with a certain tone. And so then one of the other girls asked, “Well, why do you ask?” She says, “Well I didn’t want to come to a party with Jews who killed Jesus Christ our savior.” Oh, I know what she did. She was sneakier before she said that. She had everybody go around and say what church that they went to. So I was just mortified of what I was going to say and so right before me, somebody said, “We’re between churches.” so I said, “We’re between, also.” So then after we went around, she says, “Oh thank goodness. I wouldn’t want to be sleeping with somebody who was Jewish who killed Christ.” So I started to cry, right then and there. And this girl whose house it was tried to calm me. So then I was still sobbing when I went home the next morning, so my parents said, “No, the Romans killed Christ. And Jesus was Jewish. She’s wrong!” So I was really confused and then surely after that a boyfriend gave me a cross and they said I had to give it back. So basically they realized you can’t be nothing. And so starting in seventh grade I went to Sunday school.

Frankel: Which congregation?
LIND: Neveh Shalom. And I was confirmed with Neveh Shalom. Then three years ago we had a reunion of my confirmation class. None of them were children of Eggheads. They were not. But they were also progressive and liberal kind of Democrats. 

Frankel: Who was the Rabbi when you joined Sunday School?
LIND: Rabbi Stampfer. 

Frankel: Oh Rabbi Stampfer was there already. I think you were interrupted. You said you were the oldest in your family, and who else?
LIND: I have a sister who is going to be in town next week, Donna, who is four years younger than I. Also no religion. I don’t remember if she went to Sunday school or had a crisis like I did. But she ended up going to Brandeis, and she married a Holocaust survivor that goes to shul. But when she goes she really dislikes it and doesn’t want to go. They adopted a daughter from China and it was very important for the father that she be bat-mitzvahed, so she was bat-mitzvahed. And then my younger sister has the least. She’s blonde; she married a hunter fisherman. She lives in Olympia and the only thing that happened with her children which is very interesting. And she was so much younger. She didn’t participate nearly as much in these kind of gatherings. The biggest amount of activity was earlier. But her children were curious enough about the free educational trip to Israel so her children got more recently oriented to Judaism and then their non-Jewish father ended up marrying another Jewish woman who was more practicing. So it’s like they’re a little bit more. But myself and my younger sister’s partners were non-Jewish and then my other sister has a Jewish partner.

Frankel: So that slumber party was that your first experience of antisemitism if I may call it?
LIND: Yes.

Frankel: Again, back to your Jewish education, even culturally, historically, did you have any?
LIND: Yes, thank you for saying that and going a little bit further. Their identity was bound through the Holocaust. 

Frankel: Their meaning your parents?
LIND: My parents. Well, I would say that they were in the play The Wall. And I remember my mother wanted me to read the play and I wasn’t very interested. But everybody even if it wasn’t in school, would have read Anne Frank and our parents would have thought that it was very important to remember and understand. And so, that part stood out to me.

Frankel: The Wall by Leon Yuris?
LIND: Yes, is that who wrote it? Or did a woman write it? Yeah, I’m not remembering. It was at the Jewish Community and it had a Jewish theme to it. 

Frankel: Was that also Shirley Tanzer. Was she also involved?
LIND: Yeah, she was the director.

Frankel: So would you say, were there people other than the Eggheads who were part of the drama club?
LIND: Oh yes, absolutely. If I was going to draw it, this is the community of people that socialized together, and then this is the percentage of them that went to Egghead weekend. So there were a few people like Helen Libenatti that were at everything else but maybe she didn’t like bugs or camping, so there was a high percentage of the people from that and nobody ever went single. You only went if your partner went and nobody in the group was single. They were all couples with children. So then of this group you might have a political activity or an art activity, or a play, and so several of the people who were interested in that activity would participate or tell each other about it. 

Frankel: And how did the children relate to each other?
LIND: I think, like in the pictures that I have… this is my grandma, this is my mother. This is Anne Wassermann giving my father a massage. This is Laurie Cohn, who is…. Betty and Henry Cohn were in the group. This is Andrea Cohn. That was my sister Donna This is when we were young teenagers, me, and Jamie Leopold and Gary Cohn. So, I was a little embarrassed to be Jewish. I remember when there was a Jewish… [pointing to photos again] That’s another one of my mother, that is Morrie Tiktin. That is my mother and Sam Cohn. I don’t know if he went to Egghead. He played poker and he was related to the Leopolds.

Frankel: When you say you felt embarrassed to be Jewish, was that even within the group?
LIND: No, not within the group. So especially as I got to be a teenager. But one of the reasons I wanted Jamie to be here was he loved all of the parents and all of their friends but they were like more arty and more lefty, you know like when I was in school and everybody was really terrible. Castro came to power and that was becoming Communist and it was terrible. My parents were talking about how bad the people before that were. So I was not very enlightened about not wanting to be different. It’s like my parents family friends didn’t wear as much makeup. They kissed each other. They were not center politically. And then part of not being informed and come seventh grade is when everybody is kind of the worst about wanting to fit in. And that’s when there was the Six Day war, the seven day war? 

Frankel: In ’67? 
LIND: No, it would be the one before. 

Frankel: ’56? The Sinai Campaign.
LIND: Yes, so when that happened. There were three Jews in my class and Harry Markowitz had said, “I’m the only Jew in my class!” and the teacher said, “Well, why is that Harry?” and he said, “Because Vicki and Jane are Jewesses.” And so then when that campaign happened, they wanted to ask Jane she had Tourettes; she was very bizarre. I didn’t want to be in the same category with her. She would swear. And you know Tourettes is an awful disorder; they had to remove her from the class because she got picked on too much. So that was the last thing I wanted to be– the Jewish voice on why this happened. So I feigned a dental appointment. With this group I thought that the kids…. Like Jamie, for his bar mitzvah, wanted the New York Times, and he played Jazz piano. And he thought that these kind of cultural creative lefties were cool and fun and they always had a lot of food. So he was not like, “I want to be like, you know, the Joneses next door.” In the same way I was that kind of a kid.

Frankel: What school? What middle school and high school did you go to?
LIND: I went to Edward Markham grade school and Woodrow Wilson high school. And those right now, of course have a very high content. When the Jewish Community Center was downtown Grant probably had the most Jewish kids at that age. I didn’t have any Jewish friends at my school. Oh, but myself and the other people, many of us, if we like this, many of the kids were B’nai B’rith counselors. So that was also an affiliation that I had.

Frankel: Were you also involved in B’nai B’rith?
LIND: Mhmm. 

Frankel: So there was some Jewish content.
LIND: Right, right, starting with the seventh grade.

Frankel: So if you went to Wilson that means you lived in the SW part of Portland?
LIND: Yes. 

Frankel: And do you have any recollections of the Jewish Community, even though you were on the periphery, in terms of who the rabbis were…?
LIND: Nothing to do with the synagogues. If I would have just said, “Oh yeah I know a lot about the Jewish community, because I go fairly often to things at the Jewish Community Center.” But see my parents were so anti-religion and anti-God and “religion is the opiate of the people,” and Noah who my mother ended up marrying, became more religiously influenced by his sons, by Cathy. So Michael and that family was non-religious but Cathy was a religious Christian, and then when she converted, then Michael became more actively Jewish. And of the kids, when my mother’s husband became more religious, my mother was just, didn’t like it; didn’t want it. She thought Michael was influencing him too much. And then my mother was very isolated in the end of her years because there wasn’t an active community in the same way.

Frankel: What about Zionism? What role did Zionism play?
LIND: I remember being confused when they said, “Next year in Israel” because I would say, now any of them who are alive would have been, would object to the recent Israeli activities. 

Frankel: Recent. But what about in the ‘50s when the state was still very young?
LIND: My father used to sell Israel bonds. So, how does that relate? Planting trees there.

Frankel: Did they ever visit Israel?
LIND: They would have no interest. No. 

Frankel: Did you?
LIND: Yes.

Frankel: Why and When?
LIND: I’ve converted to Christianity. I became interested in religion in college. A rural, liberal, open tent kind of way. One of the problems that I had was that adolescents are very aware of hypocrisy or contradictions. So my parents would just say, “Asher likes to read that stuff from the Haggadah.” But we really are there because it’s the freedom of all people from bondage and we’re for the freedom of all people. And so I’d say, “Well, then why do you say ‘next year in Jerusalem?’” It didn’t make any sense. There was a disconnect there. They were both very negative about my relatives in New York and the friends that they left behind in terms of subways, and status. It’s like people would dress up and go to the Catskills whereas this was a very relaxed, non…. There were people who were going bankrupt, and people who were you know, doing fine financially. So, they saw themselves as much cooler than their New York relatives.

Frankel: After you moved here did you ever go back to visit your grandparents?
LIND: Yes, yes, every few years. They started coming out and the first few times it was uncomfortable, kind of disastrous. But then they came out more regularly in the summers. So I knew those grandparents particularly on my mother’s side. But I went maybe four times as a child. I remember it was very muggy. They were not practicing religion either. Although they would live in Jewish apartments where all their neighbors…. And there was a deli here, and they spoke like that. And so my mother carried a little bit of an accent, a kind of New York, it wasn’t her first language, English. Yeah, definitely. My father was less gracious towards his family. He didn’t have much interest in them.

Frankel: Did that influence you in terms of how you perceived your relatives in New York?
LIND: Yeah, I thought they were a little meshuggenah.

Frankel: In what way?
LIND: Well, like my aunt in her living room–there was plastic on everything. And she was afraid of germs, and that kind of thing.

Frankel: Did you hear Yiddish in the home of your grandparents?
LIND: Yes.

Frankel: Is that the way they…?
LIND: Yeah, I think that they did speak Yiddish to each other. I don’t remember ever seeing my father’s parents together. He always worked and she got dementia fairly early on. So I don’t remember that. But yes, my grandmother and my grandfather and so, it’s like I knew and I would say now if you take the Yiddish words that are known to general Americans, those were 12 phrases I knew early on as a child, like meshuggenah, kindele and…. 

Frankel: Now, in seventh grade you went to religious school, to Sunday school. Did that influence you in any way? Do you remember having discovered something about your…?
LIND: Well, I knew from talking to my girlfriends that religion for them and their parents had something to do with God. And I was always somewhat curious about it. Then when I was in Europe, when people pray or go to Churches or feel worshipful…. I never knew any Jews who prayed or talked excitedly about God other than….and so I never knew anybody Jewish who talked in terms of spirituality or religion. So then we got what do they want to keep of the culture. So my parents would talk about, as Jews were very education oriented, “Jews are nothing like Catholics. They just do what the Pope says and have a lot of children. And we would never do something stupid like that; we’re more liberal and accepting than that.” A little contradiction because there’s prejudice against people who did things through a religious dictate. One time I was researching and got interested in the siblings of my grandparents in Russia. And my mother says, “Why do you keep talking about it? They had terrible lives and died.” You know, it’s like not very much connection other than lox and bagels. “We care about the arts; we’re progressive.” And the foods.

Frankel: Did your parents ever encounter antisemitism out here?
LIND: Well, their name was Lind.

Frankel: So that protected them?
LIND: I think they were a little surprised at just kind of being different than the goy neighbors. They thought it would be kind of just more of…. But those didn’t become close relationships in the same way. So I don’t know how they would describe that. A few of the people in this group had non-Jewish wives that were literally part of the group. I don’t think so.

Frankel: And did they make a considered effort that you, the children would have nothing to do with religion?
LIND: No, they didn’t have to. We didn’t know anybody that went to synagogue. It wasn’t like…. I might want to go with a friend, with a neighbor go to church, which I did, which they said was okay and I was allowed to do on occasion. But I didn’t know anybody in my friends or in my schools, who were, you know and I was such a follower-type kid who wanted to fit in. So I did not have any, there was no access for me to… When I was in Sunday school I was just rebellious against my mother. She tried to volunteer and do some of the activities at the YA…some youth group that maybe was affiliated. 

Frankel: USY? The United Synagogue Youth of Neveh Shalom?
LIND: Yes, yes, and so she was coordinating a roller-skating party but I didn’t want to go because my mother was there. So that’s why Jamie would be better because I wasn’t a very gracious teenager.

Frankel: When you say the group was atheist and humanitarian, were you involved in social action type activities?
LIND: The children weren’t but I’d say it’s one of these things. Some people were more in arts and theater, everybody was liberal, and the amount I think Rose Leopold, and the Leopolds were more politically active. And my father was kind of a “flavor of the month” person, so he might do something for a while; he might have been in some demonstrations. So I’m sure they did some petitions. You’ve got people like the Gordons, where Helen and Bill were at the epicenter of Jewish social political activities. And so we might have gone to one or two things that they might have been in.

Frankel: Do you have memories of the Six Day war in 1967?
LIND: I would have been in college then.

Frankel: Do you have any memory of that time? Where did you go to college?
LIND: I went to Antioch college, a very liberal college in Ohio and there were a lot of New York Jews and they would kind of joke that I was like an honorary Jew, where Jews from the West weren’t really Jews because you didn’t have the whole culture thing and there were so many parts missing from acting or looking or seeming like the clan.

Frankel: How did it make you feel when they said that?
LIND: That was an accurate description of kind of being “yea and nay.” So let’s see, I thought Seders were very long; some of the times the families would go away to the beach, and I thought it was fun and I’d have fun with the other kids. Mixed about the parties until I became a teenager. Oh, I know a good part. I didn’t have aunt and uncles here, and it’s not like you can skype or something. So the other people were like my honorary aunts and uncles. They’d exchange presents. They’d come to birthday parties. Particularly Belle and Morrie, Joe Libenatti. So there was a closeness between some of the adults and many of the children and in that way it felt like having a family. 

Frankel: You said you went to Europe. Was that during your student years?
LIND: Yes. And I ended up going to Israel. I was somewhat interested in the kibbutz but it was mainly… You know, I was very sheeplike as I was saying. And so I had a best friend Addy Freeman and her family was going to Israel and said I could come too.

Frankel: How old were you then?
LIND: 21. We had a cabin on the kibbutz and during the day we picked peaches in the heat. We were about a month on the kibbutz.

Frankel: Do you remember the name of it?
LIND: Well it was right near the Negev; it was hot and dry. I have some pictures of it. I think that was under the umbrella of like doing any traveling very congruent with my family of like, a lot of the local people their kids would go to Oregon State or Portland State, or University of Oregon most often. But the idea of, “We’re Oregonians!” being deep, and almost all of these kids went away to liberal arts colleges. And then this idea that you’re not Portland. Like with my father it was fun, because he’s like a New-York creative intellectual. And so when I was raising my daughter with my non-Jewish partner in Astoria he said, “Well no [grand]daughter of mine is going to think Astoria is the world. I have to take you to Europe! But I’m not going to take you as a tourist, you have to learn French.” And she was 12 so she wanted her best friend to go. And he said, “Fine! She has to learn French.” So he would take her to see Europe and of course now she lives in Italy.

Frankel: He took your daughter to Italy as her first trip.
LIND: Yeah, he did when he was 62 or so–my daughter and her best friend. And they stayed in people’s houses. And I think all these people, when they came to Oregon, felt like their parents as frightened immigrants, the pressures of New York and the subway and the dirt and whatever. They felt like that they were explorers. They’d try camping or they’d try hunting. Their parents couldn’t teach them those things. So my interest in Israel was slightly about my roots but [it was also] just interest in the range of how people live, like in communes and communities I later lived in a commune. And once again, the kibbutzim were not religious; they did not have a service there. I’ve probably gone to services about ten times in my life, but the last three were people that returned to religion. So an adult friend of mine was Bat Mitzvahed at P’nai Or. And that was the second time I was at P’nai Or. I can’t why I went the first time. And then Karen Lavenger, who married my father…. Do you know Karen?

Frankel: Yes.
LIND: So she had a memorial service for her, I forget what it’s called. A 30 anniversary of her son’s death. So I went there. And then I went to my niece’s bat-mitzvah. Cathy Kroll’s daughter. 

Frankel: Shoshanah.
LIND: Yeah, I went to Shoshana’s Bat Mitzvah.

Frankel: Back to Israel. Did that experience… did you stay more than a month? Or just a month on the kibbutz?
LIND: I stayed a month.

Frankel: Did you visit? Did you have a chance to…?
LIND: Yeah, uh huh. Well let me say this in terms of Jewish identity. When I was in Europe I was aware that the Jews were not as integrated as the people I’ve known with Jews and non-Jews. And I remember going to some Jewish event where people were quite dressed up.

Frankel: In Europe?
LIND: In Europe, in France. My parents never liked Germans. They didn’t like to buy German things. So it’s the Holocaust thread. And I did go to Auschwitz and I was, and am, appropriately horrified how recent and horrible, you know…and that it was well integrated Jews into the society into the economy. So that had more impact than if I wasn’t Jewish. So I know the other time I went to synagogue, when I was interested in a religious experience and experimenting, and I’d get wiggly and get bored and Friday nights I’d commute back from work. And then and Saturday mornings, it’d be like the [double?]. Even at P’nai Or when I went last time– it was three hours; it was really long. And so then I started going to other religious institutions and waited until my parents died to convert.

Frankel: How recently was that?
LIND: Ten years or so.

Frankel: It’s interesting you said, you waited for your parents to die to convert.
LIND: Yeah, I don’t think they’d like it very much. They were so anti-religion. They’d be equally upset if I’d become religious Jewish, and if I’d married somebody who was Orthodox, that would have upset them too.

Frankel: And how did you choose a religion to convert to.
LIND: Oh, I went to…I had another alienating from Judaism experience in that. As a teenager trying to figure out what people were saying at the Seders, and what it meant, it’s like, it really bothered me that people were thanking God for the plagues on the Egyptians. And I ran out of the room and I wouldn’t come back in when they said, “Death of the first born.” I just couldn’t believe all these people who loved humanity were saying, “Thank God for the death of the first born.” It really upset me. And so you’ve got when I had a brush up with not having anybody who loved tradition and then parts that people said that didn’t make any sense to me. And so it’s like many people look for religion later, return to something that held meaning for them. But I never had that. I had the parts that were confusing to me. I had the parts of humanitarians as anybody would not want to forget the Holocaust but I didn’t have spiritual or emotional connections. My two aunts were very unhappy, very negative people, and they weren’t religious but they were kind of New York Jewish.

Frankel: When you say they were unhappy, was that related to their religion?
LIND: No. Maybe it was related to not having religion and not having community. And not having much family.

Frankel: Did you ever discuss religion with the children of the Eggheads, your generation, or even your siblings?
LIND: Well, yes I definitely did with Donna. Oh, that was the other time. I knew there were ten times or so. So my sister Donna’s husband is part of a progressive Jewish community. And the daughter, my niece was Bat Mitzvahed there. So it was really important there for one of the High Holidays, the not-eating and redemption kind of one.

Frankel: Yom Kippur? The Day of Atonement?
LIND: Yes, it’s like Marcel really wanted her to come and she had gone the year before and really disliked it. And partly as a Christian, I relate to atonement…still a very long service, but I went with Marcel to that service, and I liked part of it. I really liked the rabbi at P’nai Or and I liked parts of the service. And I have lots of friends that go there; it’s far away from me as a trip. I can’t sing, I just can’t. So I saw people very animated and talking about relationships with God and praying, which is what I went looking for, from religion. And I could never go to a non-inclusive, or that didn’t accept gays, or anything like that. So I was just looking at progressive churches.

Frankel: So which church did you convert to?
LIND: At the liberal end of Episcopalian. 

Frankel: And do you practice your…?
LIND: Mhmm.

Frankel: And go to services regularly…?
LIND: Mhmmm. My granddaughter, who is growing up without religion–her father is from an African village but he’s a not practicing person from a village. He’s a musician, and my daughter does not have interest in religion. And so my granddaughter has no… other than there’s churches everywhere; I bring her to church with me. And we’re going to make little Italian feast at church. And I teach her about what prayer is and to thank God for things. And in the Episcopal service the first two readings are from the Old Testament and then the third one is from the New Testament and so I’m more knowledgeable about the Old Testament.

Frankel: How so?
LIND: I know the stories.

Frankel: Where did you hear them?
LIND: In church. They read from the Old Testament– two readings. And then one from the New Testament.

Frankel: Right, so are you saying you learned from the Jewish bible after you joined church.
LIND: Yes, that’s my first exposure to the Jewish Bible, correct.

Frankel: Did you have at home growing up a Jewish library?
LIND: Oh yes, we did! Who is required? The short story by Bashevis-Singer.

Frankel: What did you study in college?
LIND: I was confused about what I wanted to study. I got a degree in education, and I got a master’s in early childhood education. And if you look at the children of the Eggheads everybody is in education, social service, or healthcare.

Frankel: How do you explain that?
LIND: The values– the liberal, progressive, humanitarian [values]. It’s like when we’ve heard that in places like Florida some of the Jews don’t have any black friends or they vote Republican. It’s like, “They’re Jewish?? How could that be?” So we have a great deal of similarity. Nobody would ever be anti-gay or anything like that. So the identity with progressive humanitarian liberals of Jewish heritage…I guess a few people can cook a kugel. I would say, the Ettingers. I’m trying to think if anybody else would do Friday night candles….

Frankel: The Gordons?
LIND: Maybe…I don’t know, ask [Blake?]

Frankel: Can you describe what happened at the reunion? Was that the first time you had a reunion?
LIND: Right, I organized the reunion. And many people hadn’t seen each other for 50 years. Very high percentage of attendance. So have you seen the film yet?

Frankel: No. Who has it?
LIND: Lee does.

Frankel: I haven’t seen it. Have you seen it?
LIND: Oh yeah; that’s what we did. We saw the film. Oh, it was very bittersweet. It was made when we didn’t know who would have a tragedy. Naija Melvin had a tragedy; she got mentally ill and committed suicide. And she’s there looking great, doing great.

Frankel: So the film is from where? It’s a compilation.
LIND: No, no, I didn’t know you didn’t know this. So if you look up the year The Feminine Mystique came out, I was a senior in high school or freshman in college, ’63 or ’64. And so after that came out they made that the theme of the Egghead weekend, the only Egghead weekend that had a record of it. My mother wrote the script and I can’t remember who directed it. But they are vignettes that are just hysterical about trading gender roles and the myth of the happy woman doing…. So there’s about eight vignettes each with two or three people in it. First of all they look young and healthy, some of them, everybody would have to say, “Who is that?” “Oh that’s Noah Krall! Oh yeah, that’s Noah Krall!” They were barely recognizable from their senior selves. They were funny. Asher is one of the only ones who you could tell it was the same person; he was kind of short and bald. And Carmella looks just like him. But so we’d have to help each other actually see who it was. But the sense of humor and creativity is just fabulous.

Frankel: How long is it?
LIND: Oh, at least 20 minutes long.

Frankel: Is that the only home movie that you have?
LIND: People took video eights but mostly of their family. So I don’t think there’s any of anything somewhere. Is Shirley Tanzer alive?

Frankel: Shirley Tanzer, no. 
LIND: Her husband is though?

Frankel: No he died, Herschel died several years later.
LIND: I think the Wassermanns and the Tiktins have some memory of just who came that one year and who came other years who might not be in the movie. But there’s at least thirty people in the movie.

Frankel: What prompted you to organize this reunion?
LIND: We all see each other at funerals. That was not the best. So after Joe Libenatti’s funeral, I think that’s when I decided we should do something more positive. And I had seen Lee because he had found me for some career advice. Oh I know, and given that this kind of teenager, I’m not very connected, both at Joe’s memorial, long time before my mother’s. It’s been a while. I was surprised that in seeing the adults or the children how emotionally connected I felt.

Frankel: So what did you do at the reunion besides watching the…?
LIND: Well people caught up and said, “Who were you?” “Oh I remember you!” “What have you been doing?” Or about the parents but the glue was the memories triggered by that. I can’t remember what else I put on the quiz. I probably have that, but it was like who went to B’nai B’rith camp? Almost everybody did. Who taught swimming? Harry Pollicar who went by Polly; he was the athletic director at JCC so in the summer. He and his wife often did manage B’nai B’rith. I think Polly might be in that group but he wasn’t as intellectual as the Eggheads so he wasn’t regular. I think he might have been in that video. We don’t really remember who went [each] year. I think everybody was there was in the video or you can tell that their spouse was. And I think that the Wassermanns, or Tiktins might be the memory link to that.

Frankel: As a result of that reunion have you stayed in touch?
LIND: No, and everybody was very appreciative, very high attendance if they were in the area. Lee was supposed to post on YouTube the video but he didn’t do that. I think there was a lot of warmth, tremendous warmth towards caring about the adults. We all knew the adults very well. As I say it was bittersweet because of their illnesses or death or divorces that happened. To see them in their full playful creativity. 

Frankel: After you left for college, did you stay involved in anyway with the Eggheads or you didn’t move back to Portland after college? Where did you end up?
LIND: Wassermanns would know. I don’t think they had Egghead weekends more than four or five years so there were no Eggheads or use of the term Eggheads after that. So I would say my family is close-knit, or my stand-in uncle or something like that. So then that’s when the affairs and divorces started. So the whole group never got together after that because people were reformed, but they’d have friendships with sub-groups who were not alienated.

Frankel: What did you do after college after you graduated?
LIND: I became a hippy. Actually Jamie was in a band in the bay area so I went. Jamie’s mother and my father double dated in New York before we were born. They each had other dates and then they both ended up out here. And so Jamie was a big hotshot musician in the Bay area and so I just headed right for Jamie and that scene.

Frankel: Where in the Bay area? Is that where you joined a commune?
LIND: No, when I came back into Oregon I joined a commune. With Jamie, if we talk about the multi-generational. He just became a grandfather. I’m not close with Jaime but he’s very close with my daughter, who babysits his. She went to welcome the new baby so that’s kind of like, would’ve been Rose’s great grandchild. And then of course my mother married into the Kralls. Now I’m really connected with the Kralls and that happened when I was young in college. But with the Kralls, when their mother died, some of them were anti religion, and the mother wasn’t religious and so, how much to do Jewish traditions around that? They would have different opinions about what Roz would have wanted. 

Frankel: What did you do? So you said you joined Jamie in the Bay area, what did you do there?
LIND: Drugs, sex, and rock and roll. [laughing] For how long? So, uh, where does this go again? [laughing]. So I had this excellent red hashish I got in the Negev, so I brought that to Jamie. 

Frankel: So you brought what back?
LIND: Hashish.

Frankel: Oh, Hashish.
LIND: [Laughing]. My mother had come to visit me in Europe and she had a magazine with Alan Ginsberg and this LSD, and a cycling kind of thing. So I was in Europe in ’63 and ’64. So I know I was missing where the action was, and Jamie was at the heart of the action, so I went to hear music and try LSD and be in the scene.

Frankel: Still in Europe?
LIND: No, in the Bay area. So Jamie introduced me to the scene, although he was very high up and knew and played with famous bands. I became a groupie of Jamie’s. 

Frankel: What instrument does he play?
LIND: Stand-up bass. So first he played with the guy from It’s a Beautiful Day and I used to go and follow them around. Then he played with Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks for a long time, and they opened for a lot of famous bands. So I was a groupie. So I did little temp jobs in addition to that. So then I was there from ’68. Spiritual connections, but not a Jewish part to it. Like, some people got into the Kabbalah and that didn’t happen for me. I was there for six months. I was going to drop out of college, Tim Leary said it was a good idea. Jamie had dropped out. But our relationship went bad and the Summer of Love was over so I finished college and came back again to the Bay area. I was there from ’68 ’til I got pregnant with my daughter in ’70. So I was there a few years in the scene. And so then my mother offered me a houseboat here. She and my father were divorced and she wanted to meet and have a social life so she bought a houseboat. And then Noah started tying his boat up and that’s when they got together. Then it was the joined families. So I came with my partner and the baby back to Portland and my mother helped us buy a house. Then we moved to the commune.

Frankel: What was it like? Where was the commune?
LIND: It was, and I still go there, although there are only two people that live there and of the ten, three have died. It’s in the Coast Range.

Frankel: What was it like? How did you find it? What was life like?
LIND: Well, I’m not an individual. I’m just a big bunch of cultural trends. So I just did what was happening at the time. So I’m in the Bay area. Stewart Brand came out with a whole Whole Earth Catalog, so back-to-the-land became where it was at. And so you began home canning, my ex was an English major and had to learn to do anything with a tool, anything like that. And so, we rehabbed this house my mother helped us buy, and we had the baby. And we’re reading the Whole Earth Magazine on the porch, thinking about where we could find a commune. And an art major friend of mine from Antioch walked by (buying a line level, because he was buying an A-Frame) and said, “Come on out.” And the communes were all, “Come on out!” But the thread back to this group is that by that time Belle Dragoon had married Jim Cannon and they helped found a commune in the Gorge. So sometimes I’d go visit their commune where their four boys grew up. And so that was also a back-to-the-land communal kind of living. So I was there for four years and then I moved to Astoria as a Head Start coordinator. I got a master’s in early childhood education.

Frankel: When? While you were living in the commune?
LIND: Yes. Wait a minute. I started working for Head Start. I started my own pre-school because my daughter was fairly isolated and then I worked for Head Start. Then I got tired of being wet in the commune all the time so then I got a job for Head Start in Astoria and I finished my masters when I was in Astoria, commuting some.

Frankel: Did you partner join you in Astoria?
LIND: Yes. He’s still there.

Frankel: Was the commune self-sustaining? In other words, how did people eat?
LIND: Yeah so I’m glad to tell you this. How Jewish it is nor not Jewish it is…Myself and Annie Farber were the two Jewish people in the commune out of ten or twelve people that were there. But when we came, Richard had Unemployment and he logged with horses.

Frankel: Richard?
LIND: My partner and my kids’ father. So five of us out of the ten of us pooled resources together financially. It meant to live each person had to put in $150.

Frankel: Every month or every week?
LIND: Every month. That’s not real hard to come up with.

Frankel: And that was enough?
LIND: Mhmm. There was one car amongst ten people. The land had been logged, and somebody had an inheritance so bought it for $40,000 and each of us paid $15 a month to make the payments on it.

Frankel: Did you grow anything?
LIND: We did but there were two people who stayed there this whole time. And so they were there. Most of the cabins fell down but I go stay at one that’s still there. Some people were waitresses in town. I worked for Head Start. It’s 1000 feet up; it’s not farmland, you know. All we did was keep our expenses low by doing things communally. And the one that was in the Gorge that the Dragoons were at, and some other families, that land was so expensive. They all had to have jobs in Portland or throw their life savings into it.

Frankel: How long did the commune in the Gorge last?
LIND: The ending was tragic because they were in court for so long. They’d all put their life savings in and three or four people wanted to keep the land and the other ones wanted to move off and they needed their life savings. It was a terrible rift and a long, long court procedure.

Frankel: And then it folded?
LIND: Then they sold it back to the Forest Service.

Frankel: So, how long….
LIND: [interrupting] And that one had a fair number of Jewish families. I think the Shakes were Jewish, and so was another family. 

Frankel: Was there something that united you in the commune? Did you have to be screened to be accepted in the commune?
LIND: No.

Frankel: And you got along?
LIND: Communes in the rain, and living on the land in the rain, like the two people that stayed there are kind of adapted to that and fairly isolated, but we always thought new members would want to join afterwards, when we left, but nobody just wants, I mean you have to have a community of young people, and the era is over. So we were going to always give the land when we died to the Nature Conservancy but they don’t want it. And we’ve kept to our idealist, hippy roots in that we agreed nobody would ever take any equity from it. We were stewards of the land. And so that’s what was different than in the Gorge, where people had big economic stakes in it. So we reaffirmed that agreement so when the last person doesn’t want to live there we’ll sell it and donate the money to an environmental group. It was a life style but it was no guru, or kind of anti-structure. 

Frankel: And so in Astoria, did you connect with a Jewish community?
LIND: There were about eight Jews at that time but two of them were the Dolans, Lee and Leslie Dolan. Do you know them?

Frankel: Yes.
LIND: So we lived a half a block [apart]. Our two daughters (their daughter is deceased now) were joined at the hip. They just stayed at either one’s houses. We just saw the Dolans in Italy. Miriam says that’s where she got her Jewish education, was at the Dolans. They had Friday night; they did the holidays. And Lee Sherman, another person who is very actively Jewish, would participate. So maybe three or four families would gather there. And so my younger daughter does have more of a Jewish education.

Frankel: Where does she live now?
LIND: Italy, Florence. She was here for the summer.

Frankel: And how long did you live in Astoria?
LIND: Let’s see. I went when Miriam was one and I left and she stayed with her father when she was about sixteen. So we raised the children in Astoria.

Frankel: So you have two daughters?
LIND: Yes

Frankel: Where does the other one live?
LIND: The other one lives in the Bay area.

Frankel: Oh, she lives in the Bay area. And when did you move back to Portland? From Astoria did you come back to Portland?
LIND: Yes when my daughter was in high school. She was born in ’70 and was she a freshman here. So that would be like in the ’80s. And then, because of my father’s European and New York funnel to the whole world, she went with him first to Europe. Then she went in college for her junior year abroad. And he had always said, “Oh, let’s not go to Paris, let’s go to Italy!” His interest in folk toy making. And she said, “No, let’s go to Paris. We’ll go to Italy some time in the future.” And then he died. They were very close. Then she went to Italy in college and has stayed in Italy. So my father’s kind of New York, creative, radical, artist, curious, self has shaped my daughters.

Frankel: And so when you moved back to Portland did you have any Jewish involvement? Your daughters didn’t have bat mitzvahs?
LIND: We had friends of the family. Like Jamie is a friend of the family.

Frankel: Anything else you’d like to add about your experiences?
LIND: Well I think what they had was very special and I want to say back to what you said about “people thrive in community.” So some communities have intact families and grew up in a certain synagogue or church. They have both the plus and the minus. Or they were in some small town where they have those multigenerational roots. So when I was saying how people didn’t come and leave. It wasn’t like a meet-up or something. From the time I was five or six, the people in that group was who we did holidays, birthdays, vacations, activities with. So it served the needs for connection. And not raising children in isolation, in a very deep and excellent way. 

Frankel: Right. Well thank you very much.