Alan Miller

MILLER: My name is Alan Miller. We are at the beautiful apartment of Elaine Weinstein, and this is the morning 13th of January 2005.

Weinstein: Alan, as you know, I interviewed your mother last fall, and there’s a lot of stuff to catch up on and maybe modify and correct. I am just going to interview you. You have some notes about things that you heard on your mother’s tape that you’d like to make changes on so we’ll just do this very informally. I am interested in your family history about when they came to this area. I am interested in the family business. I want to know more about your mom and her family; and your past involvement with Beth Israel, and in the [Portland] business community. As they say in Alice in Wonderland, let’s begin at the beginning. If you could please fill us in on when did your family come to Oregon?
MILLER: I’m not sure. Miller’s For Men, was Miller’s Clothing Company. I think it started, as [The] Miller Hat Company, in 1886. So we know they were here in 1886—the Miller side. My mother, who you interviewed, has the discharge papers for a fellow named Cohen, who was my great grandfather’s brother-in-law, from the Missouri Volunteers, so that would have been in the late 1860s. So somewhere between 1860 and 1886 is when they got to Portland. For some reason it sticks in my mind, Hannibal, Missouri. So at least we know that the Millers were here in 1886. The other side, which is my mother’s side, which is the Ottenheimer and Frank side, I don’t know too much about. I learned about it on the tape. I knew nothing about so many generations back and I had to write it down. But we can address that later. But I do know that my mother was born in San Francisco, April 12, 1904. The joke being that in the ‘50s when my mom and dad wanted to go to Europe, my mom had no birth certificate because it was burned up in the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906. So they went to Portland Public Schools and got documentation. In those days it wasn’t so hard to get a birth certificate, or, pardon me, a passport. I’m not saying it correctly. So that part I’m really secure on. The Millers were in the rag business for four generations.

Weinstein: What brought them to Oregon?
MILLER: I wish I knew that.

Weinstein: You don’t know if there was family here ahead of them, or if they followed the gold rush?
MILLER: I don’t know. That’s a real good question, unless it was just opportunity in the west. In the 1880s, Portland was a pretty small town. I don’t know the story. I wish I did. If mom had a good day, I’d try to ask her, she might know, but she’s getting confused. I don’t know whom to interview. I’m thinking you could get some information from Howard Wolfe. You know who Howard Wolfe is? Howard and Frances. 

Weinstein: Howard is about 90 years old.
MILLER: Howard Wolfe’s father, Cy Wolfe, was a twin. It was Cy and Sadie. It was Cy and Sadie Wolf. 

Weinstein: Was a twin to your grandmother?
MILLER: Sadie Wolf Miller was a twin of Cy Wolfe.

Weinstein: So Howard would be a good person to talk to.
MILLER: Howard might know some history. Howard would be a good source. Howard is getting up there; he’s wonderful. My Nana was like Howard–sweet, loveable and with white hair.

Weinstein: Do you remember your grandparents?
MILLER: Yes, but I never knew Cy. I never knew Howard’s father, who would have been my grandmother’s brother. But I knew my grandmother. He must have died; I don’t know.

Weinstein: Tell me about your early memories of your family, your grandparents.
MILLER: Okay, let’s stay with the Miller side. Alex Miller was very active in the Jewish community, especially with B’nai B’rith and the Jewish Community Center.

Weinstein: Identify Alex Miller.
MILLER: Alex Miller is my grandfather. My father is Harold Miller, who is also deceased, and Alex Miller is his father. He would have been the second Miller of the store. The first was Henry Miller. Henry started the store in 1886, then his son Alex Miller, then his son Harold Miller, then yours truly, Alan Miller. I did my quarter of a century; I did 26 years. I did my share. And as you know, we closed the store April 20, 1987. Hard to believe, 101 years. I don’t know much about Henry Miller but I know about Alex Miller because there used to be people around this community who still remember Alex. Jimmy Durkheimer will tell you that he remembers Alex Miller speaking at his confirmation, or something like that. There are a few people who still remember Alex Miller. He was very active. I believe that he was president of Ahavai Sholom. I know he was secretary of the board of Beth Israel at the same time that my other grandfather, Edith Miller’s father, Henry Ottenheimer, was president of the congregation. Because at the ground-breaking of Beth Israel’s new sanctuary (it opened in ’28 so the groundbreaking was ’26 or ’27), the picture was at the Oregon Jewish Museum. I told Judith. I said, “I walked in here and everything is my family. There’s my father. Both grandfathers are on the wall. And then PS, over on the other side, they had the story of Beth Israel. They had a consecration [photograph], and there’s our daughter. You have the rest of the family. So that was fun. Alex Miller was really active in this community. Unfortunately he was killed in an automobile accident driving to a B’nai B’rith convention. He was killed in 1933. In those days, I think the only road, or the best road, was the coast [highway]. [Route] 99, which is now I-5, wasn’t completed. They went off the shoulder of the road. In those days, there was a big bar across the back seat where you hung a robe. I don’t think they had a heater in the car. He fell through, cracked his head open. They called Portland. I know the story. They put a doctor on the train to Coos Bay. They tried to charter a plane, but couldn’t get into Coos Bay. They put a doctor on the train but my grandfather died before the doctor could get to Coos Bay. 

Weinstein: So how old was he?
MILLER: He was 57 years old. He probably would have gone on to be president of Beth Israel. My dad was on the board of trustees of Beth Israel. He was also secretary. He probably would have also gone on to be president, but in 1949, my dad had a cerebral hemorrhage. My dad survived; they did not do surgery. John Raft was the doctor, who is long gone, and they said, “Harold, you have to get away from the pressure.” They knew enough. And that’s when we moved to Palm Springs.

Weinstein: When your grandfather died in 1933 your dad was already working at the store because you were born in the late 30s.
MILLER: I’m going to assume so. I was born in 1939, so dad was in the store. Mom and Dad got married in 1934; sure, Dad was already in the store. So there was no traumatic financial problem, as there was none with me when my dad passed away.

Weinstein: What about when you and your family moved to Palm Springs, what about running the store?
MILLER: Very good question. Thank you for asking. It just worked out in that we had a relative, Lloyd Morris. Lloyd is gone 20 years (time flies) and he had a wonderful man by the name of Larry Hayteas, a gentile man, but absolutely terrific guy, all kinds of creativity. Dad had hired him from the shipyards before the war because he came looking for a job, and here was a young man who was just full of energy and ambition and didn’t have a pot. And it clicked so they formed a partnership. And Larry became the promoter, merchandiser, buyer, and Lloyd was the conservative financial. And Dad, it was a three-way partnership, so it worked out perfect. As dad improved, he was able to come home to Portland two or three times a year. Good old Western Airlines–they were always late. The only way to fly was the champagne flight with the little guy sitting on the tail. Western flew into Palm Springs and in those days they didn’t even fly Palm Springs to San Francisco. It was Palm Springs to LA, LA to San Francisco, San Francisco to Portland. But it would still get you home in the ‘50s. So Dad would come home a couple of times. He usually came home in January because our fiscal year ended January 31st. Dad would come home for ten days to do that; then come back. Meanwhile, I’m in school. And then he would come home in March or April to check for taxes, and then fly back. And how many times when we first got there? Maybe he didn’t come home at all. Telephones worked beautifully. 

Weinstein: And he had two confident people running the store.
MILLER: And devoted. Larry’s gone, but when we had Mom’s 100th, we kept it strictly to family. I knew it would be one of the last thrills of Dorothy Hayteas, the widow, and we had her two kids bring her up from Roseburg; they are in Roseburg. Dorothy is in her mid-80s. We had 24 people for a little dinner for Mom’s birthday.

So there’s the story of the Miller’s. The rest everybody knows. There was no future for the independent merchant. Although I opened a store in Washington Square, the beginning of the end was when Washington Square wanted our store, and I said, “No.” Money talks. We closed Washington Square in the fall of 1986. Unfortunately our manager died in the middle of all of this. We closed downtown in April of 1987. The last location downtown was 726 SW Alder, which is Alder between Broadway and Park, where the hotel is now. We were on Third and Alder forever (607 Southwest Third), because we owned that property, which is now Morrison Park East Parking Garage. Then we moved uptown, and we were there ten years. We called it uptown, above Broadway was uptown.

Weinstein: What kind of merchandise did Miller’s For Men carry?
MILLER: We called it “popular price.” Our competitors were Meier & Frank’s basement, JC Penny’s, Sears. As all of the men’s stores go, with Lowenson’s on the top, we were on the bottom. Nudelman’s was just a little notch above us. In the old days, Bradford and Nudelman’s were a notch above us, the Blade and Miller’s were about the same. They were more sporty, and they came along later. It was Herman’s Men’s shops before that. Rosenblatt’s was above us. Clothes Horse, Horenstein’s was above us. But Lowenson’s was crème de la crème. We were all friendly. Leland [Lowenson] and Dad were buddies. I’m still friendly with Gene Jr., who’s running the Kiwanis Kids Camp, by the way. So we all were friendly. It was really nice. I had 25 years of which 20 were pretty good. The last five, well, the world changed. 

Weinstein: The world changed, and I think it’s true for every merchant and every kind of business. And it goes on today, you read about the consolidations.
MILLER: It’s a different world.

Weinstein: Who was your customer?
MILLER: The working man. We advertised when I was a little boy, “Union-made Clothing–the Union Store.” Our basement had all kinds of specific work clothes. If you were a painter, you had to wear painter’s overalls. If you were a carpenter, you had to wear carpenter’s overalls. They had to be the right kind of union-made overalls. The unions told you what you could buy. It had to be “can’t bust ‘em”, or it had to be this or it had to be that. We were a big work-clothes store.

Weinstein: Did you sell suits and things?
MILLER: Oh, sure. Then as the times changed. When you got into the 1960s everybody wore jeans, and eventually, even before that, because I was in college, in the late ‘50s we went out of work clothes. All that business went to Sears and to Penny’s because it was totally a replacement business. And you can’t live on replacement; you’ve got to live on fashion. You got to make the people buy because they want to, because they have to be seen in it. In the old days you wore it till it wore out, which is the story of Levi Strauss, as we know. 

Weinstein: The Depression Era, when you couldn’t afford to buy anything new.
MILLER: You wore it until it was thread-bare. So we converted that basement. we no longer had a basement; we had a “lower level” which became our 607 shop, where we tried to compete with the Blade. Rosenblatt’s had their racket shop, Nudelman’s, everybody had a young men’s shop, a teen shop. That’s when Berg’s [Charles F. Berg’s clothing store] put in Chumley. It was all the same thing. We converted into a fashion sports and sportswear clothing store. Of course then we were very big into clothing and we became the “home of the two pants suit.” We sold to the working guy. The working guy threw his coat over his chair and went to work and wore out the seat of his pants. We did a big job with the missionary kids, the Mormon’s. We would order extra piece goods and get them a third pair of pants because the kids would ride their bikes and knock on doors. Even in today’s world you have to have a niche.

Weinstein: Where did you learn this? Where did you learn what you’re telling me about, the strategies that were developed for the third pair of pants? You didn’t learn this in school; it had to be…
MILLER: No, strictly on the floor. Nordstrom’s does that. The buyers have to be on the floor. You have to be on the floor. In today’s world it hasn’t changed. You give the customer what they want. You ask them; you listen to them; you respond. You’ll succeed. And that is the secret of every business today. You must give the customer what they want. I’ve got a college degree. I got out of college and I knew it all. It took me about three years to realize I knew nothing.

Weinstein: Did you learn a lot from your dad?
MILLER: Yes. No question about it. Even more so from Larry Hayteas because when I got out of college and decided not to go on to grad school, finished my military, Mom and Dad were still spending six to eight months a year in Palm Springs. So I was working with Larry. Lloyd was getting older and the partnership was dissolved. Larry was my real mentor. Larry was like a second dad. He was terrific. He was a people person, almost more so than Dad, and maybe it’s because there was the age difference. He was still in his prime, and he was clever; he was creative.

Weinstein: Did you put on promotions?
MILLER: We never stopped. Promote or die. 

Weinstein: Can you describe some of the promotions? Did you offer premiums or did you have sales, or did you have a jeans event?
MILLER: Yes, yes, and yes. At the Federation gala, this past November, we were back at another table, Sy [Simon] Newman, used to be the rep for National Silver. We did premiums through Sy. So I’m kidding him. We still have these two stainless platters with little wooden handles. They look like Danish Modern. And I said, “Sy, we use them all the time; we carry the stuff in from the BBQ. They won’t die. They go in the dishwasher.” He said, “We used to buy these by the gross. Twelve dozen and it was ‘ROYAS—reopen your account.’” We had accounts before VISA. $19.95 or more, charged to your account, and you got a premium. Just like the gas stations. So Sy and I are laughing and laughing. I said, “We love them; one of them is a little dented but they won’t die. And they’re so convenient.” They’re eight-inch, little stainless, with what looks like a teak handle, and what did we pay, by the gross, maybe we paid $1, whatever they were, and every year, we had these people that loved… So we ran our ROYAS probably twice a year. We used to run in the spring, as a 12-12-12-12 promotion. $12 down, 12 separate outfits, 12 months to pay, it was great. And of course, the way you did the outfits, you had one suit, two sports coats, three pairs of pants. We’d open on a Sunday, which was unheard of. They’d drive in from the beach.

Weinstein: Ordinarily you were not open on Sundays?
MILLER: No, this was special. We’d never stop promoting. Back-to-school, Larry Hayteas was one of the first guys. We got a used candy apple red ‘52 Ford from Bud Meadows on KPTV Live when we only had channel 27. We were in there. I don’t know how Larry met Bud, through the Chamber or something. In the old days, it was fun. There weren’t the outlying shopping centers. Everybody says, “I remember your store, I bought my graduation suit there.” And I say “Yeah, and you haven’t been back since!” You had to be on the customer’s side even today. Meier & Frank is in the paper every day. You get a catalog from them every week. You’ve got to be in front of the customer. Nothing’s changed there; just the way you do it.

Weinstein: Did you offer a special service to the customer? Like bring in a pair of pants and we’ll press them while you’re shopping, or something?
MILLER: We had our own tailor. We had alterations, of course. We didn’t do too much of that, because our customer was the working man. Sometimes you ended up with pants you really didn’t want to touch. Sew on a button, any time. All that stuff, oh yes. We had personalized service– come in the store–all the time. You’ve got to know your customers. We did a big business with the black community. We had in those days what were called ethnic clothes. We had some wonderful black customers because we developed them during the shipyards. If you asked Bert Rogoway, because they were across the street, La Rog, he can remember as a little boy, seeing the workmen lined up at our store, because we cashed paychecks.

Weinstein: So the amenities and the services and conveniences. Nordstrom’s incorporates a lot of those extras into their plan, and that’s why they’re known all over the country for the service that they offer.
MILLER: Exactly. If they had their paycheck cashed they might buy something.

Weinstein: You were starting to tell me about your relationship with your grandparents. Was there much family gathering? What was your home life like?
MILLER: Mine was interrupted because of my dad’s illness. Both grandfathers had passed away before I was born. My grandmother, Sadie Miller, which we talked about earlier, was quite an interesting lady. She lived at the Congress Hotel downtown. She came to work every day to keep an eye on her son but it was really to give her something to do. She was a terrific lady and of course she was lonesome. I don’t think, in those days, ladies remarried or even dated when they lost their husbands at a young age, so she had to be in her mid-50s when he passed away. She was a floor-walker at the store. I can still hear Nana going, “Front, front.” The other thing I remember is we had a 3-floor store, and the credit department was upstairs, and when someone would come down from the credit department and say, “I was just upstairs and they turned me down.” And my Nana would say, “I’m so sorry; that’s a concession.” Which is not true! But we have lots and lots of fun stories. So my Nana was very active at the store. Then she took ill. She didn’t linger too long. She lived at the Congress. Then, when she took ill, Dad moved her and got her a little apartment at the Vista St. Clair, with a companion. I think she might have lasted a couple of years there. Then she passed away in 1957. It could have been 1956. I was in high school and I wanted to fly up for the funeral and mom and dad said, “No.” So I stayed in school. 

Weinstein: Was your grandmother involved in Temple? Because her family was.
MILLER: No, not that I know of. She sure could have been in her prime years.

Weinstein: What about other organizations?
MILLER: I don’t know. My other grandmother was Alice Ottenheimer. She was ill and passed away when I was 10. Because of her husband, I guess she was active. But not by the time I came along late in life. Dad was 37 or 38, Mom was 35, that was very old in those days. She did live with her mother, my great grandmother, Alice Frank. They lived at the Mallory. That’s the way it was done in those days. She was not well. She passed away. My great grandmother outlived her by a couple or three years and remained at the Mallory. At the end these ladies were “queens.” 

Weinstein: What do you know about what their lives were like?
MILLER: Part of that is on my mother’s tape but it’s convoluted. My great grandmother, whose name was Frank (Alice Ottenheimer was Alice Frank), I think it was her father who was a rabbi. But all of this is before my time and I really didn’t care as a little boy. Skiing, I met the people who were the children of one of the caretakers of my great grandmother, Emma Frank, which was funny, because of the name. I said, “Are you a relation?” And they said, “Of course! That’s my mother.” I said, “Did you know she took care of Emma Frank?” They said, “Of course, Mrs. Frank. We all knew Mrs. Frank.” So it’s a small world in Portland. 

Weinstein: What was their life like?
MILLER: Henry Ottenheimer, my mother’s father, also was in the rag business. He operated a store called Jones Cash Store. It had catalogues. I believe Sears bought him out; I’m not sure. Previous to that, he was a hop taster in Salem. They did come from San Francisco. How he got from hops to rags, I do not know.

Weinstein: I think she may go into it on the tape (her interview).
MILLER: They moved here when she was four or five years old, from Salem. Her mother and grandmother would have nothing of her being born in Salem, in a cow town, whatever it was then, so Alice Ottenheimer had to go back to deliver mother in San Francisco, and I guess they lived there for a while. Eventually, it was Salem, and then Salem to Portland because all her schooling was in Portland. 

Weinstein: This raises a whole another issue about social attitudes. They didn’t want their child to be born in a cow town. And there were certain protocols and standards that they adhere to. Can you tell me anything about some of their attitudes about social hierarchies and what was proper or not proper? What was acceptable, do you know much about that?
MILLER: I do know that behind her back, we called Mom the Queen Mother. They did live and socialize with the prominent Jewish families in Portland. I know that the European Jews, Ottenheimer, Frank, Wolfe, or Miller (which was Mueller; we know it’s all German) looked down upon the eastern European Jews. And because we lived on the west side, in Portland Heights, they looked down upon the Jews in South Portland. That was pretty engrained. If you went to Ainsworth you didn’t talk to the kids who went to Couch or Failing. Because I did move away when I was ten, I escaped a lot of that snobbery. It was just one happy family in Palm Springs. We didn’t have a synagogue; we didn’t have anything down there. We were one of the first confirmation classes at Temple Isaiah; we helped build Temple Isaiah in the ‘50s. There was one golf course when we moved there. The prominent Jewish merchant families, they socialized together.

Weinstein: The Lowensteins and the Rosenblatts.
MILLER: And the Meiers and Franks, and the Bergs and the Wendells, they were all socially friendly. And the Shemanskis. Bert and Miriam Lipman, who were David Lipman’s mother and father. I just saw the end of that because I lost a lot of that moving away at the years when I started to recognize that these were important parts of your life. 

Weinstein: Other than moving to Palm Springs and going into another population, what do you attribute your more open attitudes towards the people that your family has kind of scorned?
MILLER: It’s not me; it’s the world today. You can’t live just within your own little group. 

Weinstein: Some people do; they were born on Portland Heights, they went to school on Portland Heights, and they live on Portland Heights now. And that’s whom they socialize with. Maybe it was your experience living away in a different community that broadened your outlooks.
MILLER: I think that and being in the working world. It was ironic that here we were, in theory in a very nice social situation, but our customer was not. Dad used to kid me, he says, “Don’t worry about having to give discounts, you won’t be doing business with any of your friends, because they wouldn’t shop at Miller’s!” We’re all different people, but today, we’re all one people in the world. We live our lives the way we live our lives. Today it doesn’t matter if you’re Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, black, white, purple, green, polka dot. Some of the most wonderful leaders today came from nothing.

Weinstein: Let me ask you about religious observance. Was there much of that in your family growing up? I know they were very involved with the temple.
MILLER: We were involved, but in the ‘30s and ‘40s, because of the tremendous discrimination, and the Nazis, classical Reform Judaism…. They wanted to be integrated. They did not want to stand out. They wanted to be absorbed. So you didn’t talk about being Jewish. 
 
I maintain that it was Alex Haley with his book Roots coming on television, where people wanted to identify their origin. They were Negroes, not African-Americans.  All of a sudden now, we’re very proud of our heritage. But back then, we wanted to hide it, and of all places, Beth Israel was the home of classical Reform Judaism. We had a Christmas tree. I don’t have a Christmas tree now but I grew up with a Christmas tree. Because my parents didn’t want to deny me that. We did Passover; we did Hanukkah and of course we did High Holidays because my family was so involved. But we were not what you would call a religious family. We were active in the Jewish community, but not a religious observing family. Because all that was left was the grandmothers. They would be coming to us. It wasn’t a situation we would be going to them. 

Weinstein: They lived in hotels for one reason.
MILLER: I didn’t have that, “going to Grandma’s,” I didn’t have grandparents from the old country, because we’d been here for so long. So that part of my life was different. Reform Judaism has swung back because it is Judaism of the times. Now my mother calls me a “super Jew.” We’ve become more traditional and it means more today. Maybe it’s because of all the stresses in the world today that we do have something that is constant. That’s the beauty of our religion.

Weinstein: Did you experience much antisemitism as a young person?
MILLER: I did not. I was really blessed. If I did, it was behind my back. I was too young here to notice. At Ainsworth, there were plenty of Jewish kids like there are now. When we went to Palm Springs it was amazing, there were so many Jewish kids, we used to say that you were either there because your parents were servicing the visitors, you were native, which means you were Cahuilla Indian, or you were there because either you or your parents were sick. So who could afford to do that? The Jewish people. We had a Jewish population in our Palm Springs high school and it was a Garden of Eden. We say this now because we’re all getting together for reunions because we cherish what we grew up in. We didn’t appreciate what great teachers we had. We were all tolerant of each other; we got along. It was very special and we know it was very unusual. I got very lucky. At college, I went to Stanford. I don’t know if they had a quota. If they did, I never heard about it. Again, I found lots of Jewish kids at Stanford.

Weinstein: Did you have many friends who were not Jewish?
MILLER: Yes, especially at Stanford. When I say I found many kids at Stanford, I found several kids at Stanford that were Jewish. I was the first guy from Palm Springs High School to even make it through Stanford.  Loads of gentile friends, and lots of gentile friends now because of our skiing, and my wife was gentile before she converted, so we’re very blessed. We have friends all over the place.

Weinstein: In your experience, antisemitism was not a major thing for you personally?
MILLER: Never. I’ve seen pictures of swastikas on our old store. During the war I think. Nothing like neo-Nazi, nothing like that, but I’ve been protected, I’ve been blessed. I knew about the MAC club not wanting you, the Arlington Club didn’t want you, the University Club didn’t want you, and of course my parents never joined the Multnomah Club because they figured if they didn’t want us then, they’re not going to want us now. So many events were held at the University Club, and my mom and dad really pressured me not to go. The Arlington Club, even when they were opened up, pressured me not to go because of what they went through. So I got it secondarily.

Weinstein: Did you ever play golf?
MILLER: I never was a golfer. I grew up with a father playing golf and with golf courses, but I was having too much fun doing everything else.

Weinstein: So when your dad played golf in Portland, where did he play?
MILLER: Tualatin [Country Club]. My grandfather Ottenheimer, I don’t think he was much of a golfer, but he was a charter member of Tualatin. He helped found Tualatin.

Weinstein: So the German Jewish people, especially, really banded together.
MILLER: Well, they started Tualatin, I’m sure. All the old guys that were presidents that were Jewish; I knew them all. They’re all my dad’s buddies, Norman Burnett, Lou Tobin, who we just lost, Herm Levin, Millard Rosenblatt. I’m thinking of all those presidents; they were all my dad’s buddies.

Weinstein: How did your mom carry on after your dad died. Did she keep to herself?
MILLER: No, she had lots of friends in Portland. She was depressed to start. It’s a terrible shock to lose your husband and lose him suddenly. Dad was fine, had a heart attack, and was gone, just like that, in Palm Springs. We did our best to take her places with us and keep her occupied. Eventually she came out of it and she traveled, extensively. Really did marvelously. I was a big blood giver at American Red Cross because I’m B negative. One of the salesmen got me started on it, “You know-it-all, Smartie, go out there and give some blood; do something for once in your life.” You know how the salesmen picked on the boss’s son. So I said to Mom, “There’s a wonderful organization.” So mom got started in the Red Cross; re-started in the Red Cross. She had been in the Red Cross. She did bandages in World War One. Mom made bandages for World War One when she was a teenager at Lipman, Wolf & Company. So she went back to [the] Red Cross and became a volunteer for over 20 years out there in the blood bank. That gave her something. Lana, who had become Sisterhood president, tried to get her active in Sisterhood. Mom would help a little, but Mom said, “I’ve done my thing.” I know when Lana was president, she even got her aunt and her sister, who are non-Jews, to help with the rummage sale! They still remember the little gray-haired ladies that were Lana’s family helping with the Beth Israel rummage sales.
 
But she did travel. Lots of cruises, and then she took a wonderful trip, one of her last. She outlived everybody, as you know. She would go with another couple who were nice enough to befriend her. She did cruises. She went to Hawaii with Herb and Laddie Trachtenberg, a couple of times. They were best of friends. There’s a fountain of information from Laddie. Her last big trip was Australia, New Zealand, Fiji. She was in her 80s and she went by herself. My mom, even though she’s unfortunately slipping now, is absolutely amazing. My friends say, “What is she made out of?” And I said, “I think the Battleship Missouri–an inch and a half of armored steel plate.” That was her last big trip. We take her with us now to keep her active. She finally had to drop Red Cross. That’s only in the last four years. Listen, I could write a book on getting the car away from her! She drove, and she drove all the ladies around. She drove them all. Every time a new restaurant opened the ladies went there, checked it out, gave me a full report. The ladies went to lunch, dinner, cocktails, everything. Mom, because she is so amazing, she was driving when the other ladies weren’t. Just in the Vista alone. She was very active, but not Jewish. Social, Red Cross, traveling, that’s what she wanted to do.

Weinstein: That’s an interesting perspective for a Jewish person [of] that age to be so secular in her life, not to be just plugged into everything Jewish and yet, clearly identified herself as a Jew. 
MILLER: I think it still goes back to … I think she was never that Jewish actively, although, when she got out of college, she worked for I think what today is Jewish Family and Child Services. She was a social worker.

Weinstein: Didn’t she go to Reed? 
MILLER: One year to Reed, her junior year to Reed. She did her first two years at Mills and graduated from Mills. 

Weinstein: I was interested also the day I interviewed your mother how totally put together she was. She was wearing nylons and a pair of shoes with a little heel, beautiful jewelry, a silk wrapped dress, Lanvin was the designer, the name of the print, totally put together.
MILLER: I can’t get her out of those heels.

Weinstein: Then she asked me to stay and have a cocktail. Tell me about Temple involvement, because you and Lana both have been so connected with Temple all of your adult life.
MILLER: Leland Lowenson called me up when I graduated college, maybe it was when I got out of the service, and said, “Are you going to join Temple? He said, “Give me a hundred dollars.” I said, “A hundred dollars!” He said, “Yes, a hundred dollars.” He was president then. He said, “Your parents will be proud of you.” I didn’t do a lot; I got active in the Brotherhood. Then Lana got active in the Sisterhood. I grew up there. Even though I was away at Palm Springs, I’m one of the few people who was never bar mitzvah, but was confirmed twice. Once at Temple Isaiah, and I came back to Portland and Dad asked [Rabbi Julius] Nodel, “Can Alan be confirmed because he’s been going to religious school in Palm Springs? I don’t know if he remembered to tell him that I’d already been confirmed in Palm Springs. But there, because of the weather, it was a May confirmation, and Mom and Dad came up here. And in June I got confirmed again up here. I’ve always had ties to Beth Israel. I remember Henry Berkowitz. I remember Applebaum. Of course I remember Nodel because of confirmation. And Manny [Rose] married us. So I have strong ties to Beth Israel. I love Beth Israel. Gene Nudelman and I can sing the Beth Israel song. “Beth Israel we love thy halls,” Henry Berkowitz wrote it. Sure we didn’t like religious school, but there was a love created, my very dear friends, my family is Beth Israel. When I was working, a retailer doesn’t have much time. So now that I’m retired, I always usher. That I can do. I was Brotherhood president, but now that I have the time, I can be on the board. I can run the ushering. I can do stuff. Just like Federation. I never had the time to do anything with Federation. I’m working seven days, six nights. So that’s why I’m as active as I am right now. I retired in 1987, 17 years. 

Weinstein: So you were about 50?
MILLER: I was under 50. But we ran a ski program at Mt. Hood Meadows. I worked for Mt. Hood Meadows for 12 years after I retired. That kept me out of the bars.

Weinstein: But you lived in Portland?
MILLER: [I’ve] lived in Portland since 1962, when I got out of the service.

Weinstein: Tell me about your military experience.
MILLER: The military was fun, believe it or not. I was very lucky. I did six months active. Viet Nam was heating up. We didn’t get activated for the Cuban Missile Crisis, although a lot of my friends, all the Jewish guys went into the reserve unit. We didn’t have to go on active duty. We didn’t get activated for the Cuban Missile Crisis. Didn’t get activated for the Berlin Wall, and didn’t get activated for Viet Nam. But we went on what was called Texas Plan Summer Camp. It must have been a Texas Senator that came up with it. Instead of going as a whole unit to two weeks of summer camp (we were a medical unit), every two weeks a flight nurse and two med techs were activated. But you could choose when you wanted to get activated. And you could even do it more than once. You had to do it once. So I picked what I wanted and we were always stationed what we called “TDY.” Temporary Duty to Yakota Airbase Japan. That was the fun part, being in Tokyo and all that. We got awfully close to the action. I never set foot in Viet Nam but we picked them up at Clark Air Base and ferried them back. So we went to Clark and Yakota and we ferried them back to Elmendorf, Alaska, or onto the big base in New Jersey. I traveled as a Med Tech, as a Reservist. I usually took a couple of trips a year for two weeks at a time, whenever it was quiet at the store. So I usually did two weeks in February and two weeks in July. When you had time off you took the little commuter train into Tokyo. I was young, single. Thank God we had the reserves. I don’t want to get political with what’s going on in Iraq, but the reserves and the guard today make up so much of our military. So my military was real non-military, except for the six months active.

Weinstein: I’d like to come full circle back to the Jewish thing. When you were in the military, did you experience any kind of attitudes about Jews?
MILLER: I must have been born under a lucky star because in the military, and I’m sure it was there, or maybe I have just chosen to forget it. The reserve unit, and this was Air Force Reserve, where you probably would have gotten it was basic training. They took the reservists and they separated us out. They did not do it with my friends that got into the [National] Guard, which is Army. They separated out the reservists. The reservists were trained separately, they had their own barracks, and we were treated like the elite. And of course, here we go again, who is in there? Who had the Yiddisha-kop to know what to do? I don’t remember how many guys we had in our flight, [but] I bet a third of us were Jewish and we were all college grads and we all had the same problem. We’re all 1A. We all weren’t going on to grad school and all of our draft boards said, “Get in or we’re going to get you.” I was with Riverside County Draft Board, and I called them up and they were very nice. I can still hear the Chairman of the Draft Board: “Mr. Miller, you should enlist yesterday.” In other words, “We’re going to get you, if you don’t.” I enlisted in the six month… You know, we waited. We all went around to the units and put our name in everywhere so we could get in.

Weinstein: Thinking back to that, think how powerful the draft boards were.
MILLER: You had to register. Everybody registered on their 18th birthday. This is long before the lottery. I went in in November. I got Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years, all in basic training. I became very Jewish. I asked if I could go to Temple for Hanukkah. Well, they didn’t know you didn’t have to go to temple for Hanukkah. I met some families who were very sweet. This was in San Antonio. [Texas]. Then I went to Montgomery, Alabama. That’s another story because I was right there when everything was going on.

Weinstein: The Freedom Riders.
MILLER: We were restricted to base a lot of weekends. This was winter of ’61 and ‘62 that I was there. Through somebody, I made contact with a lovely family in Montgomery. I insisted that I get off on Friday nights and Saturdays.

Weinstein: Did you date Jewish women, non-Jewish women, did you care one way or the other?
MILLER: I liked to date Jewish women. I dated everybody in our social group.

Weinstein: When you were in the military for your social life, did you seek out Jewish people?
MILLER: It was impossible. It was almost impossible. First place, we’re only talking six months active duty. So much of it was training. Basic training and tech school. There wasn’t really opportunity to date in the military. At college, at Stanford, I sought out Jewish women, very hard to find. Now they have a Hillel, they have all kids of things. We had nothing. We had absolutely nothing then. I went up to San Francisco for services when I could, and I had family in San Francisco.

Weinstein: That’s from your mother’s family?
MILLER: Yes, Munter, which is Ottenheimer. Yes, I had family; still do, in San Francisco. It was very, very hard to make Jewish connections. And that’s why I support these organizations. They’re wonderful. Hillel’s going to open their own house at Stanford. I think they may have had it in Oregon long before Stanford. We didn’t have any Jewish sororities; we had no sororities and no Jewish fraternities at Stanford. 

Weinstein: You mentioned the name Munter. There is, or was, a psychologist here in Portland named Leo Munter, 20 some odd years ago. Do you know [him]? Any connection?
MILLER: I don’t know any connection.

Weinstein: Is there anything else you would like to talk about?
MILLER: No, no! This stuff is boring!

Weinstein: It isn’t boring! You know, there are threads that you are carrying through; there is a lot of stuff that we don’t know about. You’re telling us names, connections, relationships. The story about the business is fascinating. We are doing an exhibit on Jews and business, and we could use this material. 
MILLER: I can get you a couple of pictures. I’ll write you a little history of the store, whatever you’d like. I would try to contact some of the other retired…. Because we’ve all got stuff. I’ve got Henry Ottenheimer’s cash book going back to the 1890’s. And on a cold winter day, sometimes they didn’t take anything in at all. Sadie Miller and Alex Miller, grandmother and grandfather on dad’s side, got married on December 25; the only day the store was closed. I do think they closed for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in those days, but you couldn’t get married on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. I think up until maybe the 20s Meier and Frank closed down on the high holidays; I think so. I had a hard time staffing our store, when I was running it, to keep it open. 

I would never run an advertisement. Even though we only observed one day of Rosh Hashanah, we would never run an ad on either day. Radio, TV, newspaper, we would never run an ad. That is just the way I was; the way I am. We won’t travel on High Holidays; we want to be here. I got mom to memorial service this year. Right now, I still like to be at Beth Israel. I love Beth Israel. There is something about that sanctuary; our daughter was bat mitzvah there. 

Weinstein: Does your daughter live in Portland?
MILLER: Yes, Alexa lives here. You know, they didn’t start doing bar mitzvahs until the 1960s at Beth Israel. It just means so much to me. Like a little boy, I didn’t know there were other temples. I didn’t know there were other synagogues.

Weinstein: Did you socialize with kids that were not from Temple?
MILLER: Oh, yes, when I came back to Portland. Of course.

Weinstein: Because in the early days, that was not encouraged.
MILLER: I don’t think it was.

Weinstein: I know that for a fact. It was not encouraged. Kids from other congregations were not even to be included in social functions at Temple.
MILLER: I missed all that. And maybe even at parties. If you didn’t go to Lincoln… I’m talking pre-Wilson. Wilson came along in ‘55 or ‘56. I have all kinds of friends today who went to other synagogues.

Weinstein: It was an interesting time for you to mature and become your own person, and obviously you have, you have broken out of that mold.
MILLER: We all have. It’s a different world today.