Edward Schneider

Frankel: I will ask you to start by stating your full name, place, and date of birth.
SCHNEIDER: Edward Michael Schneider. My place of birth was Tacoma, Washington. What else did you want to know?

Frankel: Date of birth?
SCHNEIDER: Oh, January 15th, 1937. 

Frankel: So tell me a little bit, who were your parents and where were they from?
SCHNEIDER: My mother Rachel was actually born in Russia. She came here when she was four years old with my grandfather. My father was born in Portland. I believe his parents came from Eastern Europe but I don’t know for sure. They both passed away before the age at which I can remember them.

Frankel: Your paternal grandparents. Can you name names, the names of your grandfathers on both sides, and grandmothers?
SCHNEIDER: Well, my grandfather on my mother’s side was Joseph Beryl Fain. I don’t remember his wife’s name. She died early, in about 1939 or so. And on my father’s side, his name was Joseph, I think, and her name was Gerta, as I can recall but I am not absolutely positive.

Frankel: Describe the household you grew up in.
SCHNEIDER: OK. Well, I don’t remember much before too early but, during the Second World War, we grew up in my grandfather’s household. It was on the southwest corner of Fourth and College. The address was 336 SW College. He had a big lot, and a grand, big house, and a porch that wrapped around the front and much of the east side. You walked into the house through double doors and there was his office and library. Then to the right, you walked into the living room and then the dining room, and then there was a bedroom off on the right-hand side of the dining room. Then through the dining room to the kitchen, which was rather large, and had an old electric stove and an old refrigerator with a cooling thing on the top. It had big cupboards around the south side with bins in it for flour and sugar and what have you, and a big long counter. There was a pantry room on the west side of the kitchen that protruded out a little bit.

Frankel: Who lived in the household besides your grandfather…?
SCHNEIDER: Well, at that time, no one except my mother. My father was away during the war and my sister, one sister at the time, Sandra—she’s four years younger than I—and myself. 

Frankel: How come you ended up in Tacoma? Where you were born?
SCHNEIDER: My father graduated medical school in 1935, from what is now Oregon Health Sciences University, but then was University of Oregon Medical School, and went to Tacoma for some post-graduate training. That’s where he was and that’s where I was born.

Frankel: At what point did you come back to Portland?
SCHNEIDER: Very soon thereafter. I can’t tell you when; I don’t really know, but it was when I was very small.

Frankel: And as soon as you moved to Portland, did you move into your grandfather’s?
SCHNEIDER: No, as I remember, very, very vaguely, they had a small house someplace on the east side. 

Frankel: Your parents?
SCHNEIDER: My parents. And I cannot tell you where, or when, I can just very vaguely remember. But then, when my dad had to leave for the war, that’s when we moved in with my grandfather. 

Frankel: Did you have memories of your father before he came back?
SCHNEIDER: Not really. 

Frankel: By that time, your grandfather was a widower?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.

Frankel: So, tell me about his role. I mean, clearly, he was a rabbi.
SCHNEIDER: Yes, he was a rabbi. Well known in Portland for decades. Although, I understand he didn’t get along with some of the newer rabbis—Rabbi Stampfer and another one whose name I can’t remember right now—for reasons I don’t understand or know about. 

We kept a kosher household, of course. He was the rabbi, my grandfather, and studious and sometimes kind of jovial. My mother tells this story: when we moved in, we had a little Pekinese, and the Pekinese lived with us for a little while. I don’t remember this incident but I was told about it. Apparently one day it got out the front door and ran down Fourth Avenue and my grandfather, with his coat and tails on and his yarmulke, was out chasing him. I have no recollection of that. 

Later we used to walk down to Congregation Shaarie Torah, which was also known as the First Street Shul, where he was the rabbi. We used to just walk down. I’d go with him on Friday nights and Saturday mornings and he would get up and deliver spirited sermons in Yiddish. 

[Recording pauses for phone call and resumes]

Frankel: Living in your grandfather’s house, did he try and have an influence in terms of your religious observance?
SCHNEIDER: Well we observed Friday nights, Shabbos, and many of the Jewish Holidays. I forgot to mention on the east side of his house there was a big sukkah, and in the back yard there was a big old peach tree. Every year at Sukkos he would attach ropes to the roof of this sukkah and with a pulley system lift up the roof and that was the sukkah until the house was remodeled and then that became another room. I think it became a bathroom, I don’t remember.

Frankel: But would you go every week to services with him, just the two of you?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. Yes. 

Frankel: And did you enjoy that?
SCHNEIDER: Well…with mixed feelings. I’m afraid I was not a good Hebrew scholar. I used to go to Hebrew school at the Neighborhood House. Even though we were pretty young I used to walk there from his house down Fourth Avenue and through the park across from the Neighborhood House over there and then back. Then it was safe to do. But I’m afraid I was not a Hebrew scholar. At one time, he expressed that he would have liked me to have gone to the Yeshiva but I am sorry that I did not have either the interest or the capabilities for doing that. 

Frankel: Do you remember the teachers at the Neighborhood House?
SCHNEIDER: Oh, let’s see. There was a Mr. Chernichowsky, and there was another one. His name I don’t remember. 

Frankel: And do you remember any of your classmates at the Neighborhood House?
SCHNEIDER: Oh, my. I think Ted Zell, from Zell Brothers. And, let me see, the furniture store…Shleifer. Alan Shleifer. 

Frankel: Now, being a rabbi, would there be a lot of coming and going?
SCHNEIDER: Oh yes, there was lots of coming and going and he would perform weddings; he had a chuppah and I can remember seeing several weddings performed in the living room. 

Frankel: In your house?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, and I guess he would also do a get.

Frankel: Do you remember who were some of the people?
SCHNEIDER: No, I don’t.

Frankel: Did you live separately? In other words, even though you lived in the same house, were you involved in your grandfather’s rabbinic role in the community?
SCHNEIDER: No, not really. I was still awfully young. But, you know, it was a household; we all lived there—there was a big upstairs. I had a bedroom overlooking Fourth Avenue and down to the north, across Fourth Avenue over to Mrs. Neusihin’s house, my great aunt. But no, I don’t remember. 

Frankel: But being a widower, did your mother take care of the household, the cooking?
SCHNEIDER: Oh yes, my mother took care of everything.

Frankel: Friday nights, were there a lot of guests at the house?
SCHNEIDER: I think there were, occasionally, and occasionally on Saturdays. But when we had a lot of guests was usually at Passover. There were a lot of service people that he would, that would have been invited and come and it was a huge family and other-person gathering.

Frankel: You mentioned a sister, Sandra, and she was already born when you moved in.
SCHNEIDER: Yes, she was born in 1941, and she was pretty small. 

Frankel: So how long did you live with your grandfather?
SCHNEIDER: Until my father was liberated and came home in, I guess it would be 1945.

Frankel: What are your memories of the war?
SCHNEIDER: Well, on the counter in the kitchen was an old radio and really my first vivid memory was standing there after we heard that Pearl Harbor had been bombed. Standing there and listening to President Roosevelt give his speech about, “This day will stand in infamy,” and the declaration of war. I remember that vividly. My father was on Bataan and survived the Death March and four years of internment with the Japanese. Every year we’d get a form postcard with just a scribble on it which said, “I am alive,” or something like that. My mother kept them.

Frankel: Your father was a physician with the doctors so where was he stationed and what role and what capacity did he serve?
SCHNEIDER: Well, he was in the reserves and he got called up in, probably1940, or maybe it was ’41. He was with a tank battalion stationed in Fort Lewis and when they went overseas to Bataan he was the battalion physician. He was that until they were all captured.

Frankel: Did you ever find out the circumstances of how they were captured?
SCHNEIDER: I never found out the circumstances. What happened on Bataan was basically the Americans didn’t support the troops over there and they were both running out of ammunition and starving. I know that most of the troops over there felt deserted by MacArthur because they were just essentially sacrificed in terms of being semi-expendable for other exigencies that the government considered more important than that group of people. He told me that when he was there that he had a pill-making form; it was essentially a steel plate with holes in it and a metal rod that fit in it and you could pound powders into the form of pills. He had a lot of quinine powder and they knew that they weren’t going to get out and he spent a lot of time making quinine pills and passing them out to people, before the Death March.

Frankel: Did some commit suicide?
SCHNEIDER: I don’t think anybody, at that time, committed suicide, no. You could argue during the internment in the Philippines some people might have because some of those people were so addicted to tobacco, and I guess they got a ration of cigarettes or something once in a while, that they would trade their cigarettes for food. They already had inadequate caloric intake and so you might say that some of those people did, depending on how you want to look at it. 

Frankel: Did your father ever tell you how they were treated as prisoners?
SCHNEIDER: Not too well. One of the stories that he told me was that that they supposed to get a pound of rice a week and he felt that they were being shortchanged. And they went to the commandant or whoever it was, and he said this. They told him, “Well you have to prove it and if you don’t it’s going to be very bad for you.” Well, as you know, water is a pint per pound the world around, so he got an exact pint of water and put it on one side of the scale and a rice ration and put it on the other side and sure enough he was right. But that’s one of the few stories that I know of for sure. 

Frankel: Do you have memories of your father walking into the door?
SCHNEIDER: I do. I remember the first time I saw him. He was thin, because he obviously didn’t get fed much. Well, not enough, anyway. And he had on his brown army suit, and I essentially was introduced to him.

Frankel: How old were you then?
SCHNEIDER: I must have been about eight.

Frankel: And your sister clearly had even fewer memories of him.
SCHNEIDER: No, she didn’t have any memories at all, of course. 

Frankel: So, what happened next? Your father is back in town.
SCHNEIDER: Well, after a bit, the first thing that happened, as I recall, my mother and father took a little vacation. After the war, physicians who were returning were given a medical refresher course at Walter Reed Hospital. His older brother, Oscar, was in the Navy. He was stationed at that time in Washington, DC, so that summer—the summer of 1945—we went back to Washington, DC.

Frankel: Your whole family?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, my sister, and mother, and I, and stayed with Oscar and his wife and two boys. I can’t remember if the girl was born yet. They had three children, two boys and a girl. Anyway we stayed there during the summer. 

Frankel: And then what?
SCHNEIDER: Then we came back and they were looking for a house. They bought a house in Ladd’s Addition. It’s still standing, at 1838 Southeast Harrison St, right diagonally across from one of the rose gardens. Essentially that’s where I finished growing up. I went to Abernathy school from the fifth grade through the eighth grade, and then to Washington High School. Before then from kindergarten through the fourth grade I went to Shattuck School, which is now Shattuck Hall for Portland State. 

Frankel: Washington High School—was that not on the East Side?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, Washington High School is about 12th and Stark—12th or 14th? Well, anyway, right over there.

Frankel: How come you didn’t go to Lincoln? 
SCHNEIDER: Because I lived–

Frankel: Oh you lived on the East side, southeast Ladd, I see. I’m sorry.
SCHNEIDER: Yes, I lived on that side. We used to walk to school every day, except when it was really raining. I had a friend who lived in Ladd’s Addition and I would walk up and meet him and then we’d walk across 20th and down through a park over there to the school and neighborhoods and then come back.

Frankel: And where did your father find employment in Portland?
SCHNEIDER: Well he went back into practice. First he went into practice in the Selling Building downtown. I don’t remember too much about that, except at the little counter in front they had [laughter] punchboards. I don’t know if you know what a punchboard was but you paid a certain amount of money—I don’t know if it was a quarter or what it was—and you could punch out this little scroll of paper and read it. It was sort of like playing the lottery, I think, and if you had the right thing you won something. I remember that, they became illegal. And I can remember being up on the fire escape out of his office watching the Rose Festival parades when I was younger. But then he moved his office to 23rd and Hawthorne. Now it’s Grand Central Baking, but at the time it was Hedley’s Drug Store. There were two offices there. He had one and there was I believe a dentist office in there too. But that’s where he practiced for decades.

Frankel: What was his field in medicine?
SCHNEIDER: He was a family practitioner. 

Frankel: And after you moved to the east side, would you still go to services with your grandfather?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, for a while, yes. I did.

Frankel: And did you continue to go to Neighborhood House, to Hebrew School?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, I took the bus.

Frankel: Did you have a bar mitzvah?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.

Frankel: In which synagogue?
SCHNEIDER: In Shaarie Torah.
[PHONE RINGS]

Frankel: Who taught you for your bar mitzvah?
SCHNEIDER: My grandfather.

Frankel: Was it an easy relationship?
SCHNEIDER: Oh, we had a wonderful relationship, absolutely. I was a poor learner; it took me about a year to learn the maftir [laughs]. 

Frankel: What else, what was customary for a bar mitzvah to do, on the day?
SCHNEIDER: Well we had—we got up and you read the maftir and then afterwards they had a party. There was a Jewish lady that lived on Third, just on—Third was a long block so she—essentially it would be Third and College, but it wasn’t exactly College because College street ended on Third—but at any rate, she was a wonderful baker and she did catering for all these things and she made all the goodies. She made the best strudel you’ve ever had in your whole life. 

Frankel: So, was the party at the synagogue?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. I don’t remember if they had one for me at their home or not, they might have but I don’t remember. It was at the synagogue for the people anyway. 

Frankel: By the time you moved out of your grandfather’s house had your grandfather remarried?
SCHNEIDER: I think he married just after that. He married Sophie. I think her last name was Cooper. She was from Seattle. I don’t know how they met. They were married until they passed away in 1965. 

Frankel: Was this also a second marriage for her?
SCHNEIDER: I don’t know that.

Frankel: When your grandfather came over, with your mother, were there other children?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, they didn’t come right with him, but they came later. A little bit later. But there were no other children at that time, she was the only child. He had two daughters and a son. The son was David. He died in 1950s of causes I don’t know. The youngest daughter was Edith. She died in the 1960s I think, of some kind of cardiac condition. And the other daughter was Dorothy, and she died—I’m not positive, I think in the 1970s. She lived in Los Angeles and was a very successful entrepreneur and operated some shops that catered for babies.

Frankel: Except for Dorothy they all moved and stayed in Portland? Your uncle and your aunts?
SCHNEIDER: No. Edith married and they lived in California too, I think, I’m not sure where. David, after he came back from the war, was married to Sylvia, and they lived someplace in Portland, I don’t know where. 

Frankel: And so you had cousins in town?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, I had, let’s see. Well, my grandfather had one brother; his name was Wolf. And two sisters. Sarka—Sarah—and, oh gosh, and her twin sister—Leah, Leyda? I can’t remember. Her twin sister married someone, a family by the name of Zeretski, and they lived in Bakersfield. Wolf lived in Oregon City and had a clothing store. He had, they had a daughter and son, Edwin, who was a little bit older than I, and . . . oh my goodness . . . it’ll come to me, maybe.

Frankel: That’s okay.
SCHNEIDER: Anyway, Edwin and I see each other periodically. And then Dorothy had two boys. Of course, they grew up and lived in California. One of them is still living. David had two girls, Judy and Andrea. Judy is now living, I think, I can’t remember if it’s Tennessee but someplace down there. And Andrea, who is married, married very well, and divorced very well and married very well again and lives in Seattle [laughter]. And some others.

Frankel: The family who was in Portland, do you have memories of Passover seders with all the extended family?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.

Frankel: Do you have memories and stories about those family gatherings?
SCHNEIDER: Well, we would all sit around a very long table. He had a good-sized dining room table but it was extended to go through the whole living room and dining room, with no room to spare. We would all go together and Zayde would read the Haggadah and expound on it and we’d all sing songs, and of course he knew them all. If Dorothy was there she was very good, she knew them all and had a nice voice. [laughter] Of course we’d all get an afikomen and have to go hide the afikomen and bring it back. But we all sat there very attentively and listened and followed along in the Haggadahs. At that time, although I’m not very good at it now, at that time I could follow along the Hebrew pretty well. I didn’t really know what it meant. In Hebrew school they didn’t teach you what it meant they just teach you how to read it. At least at that time they did. So yeah, these were big festive occasions. 

Frankel: Right. You mentioned that your grandfather didn’t get along with all the rabbis in town?
SCHNIEDER: That is my understanding.

Frankel: Do you remember rabbis visiting your grandfather, other rabbis, or. . .?
SCHNEIDER: No.

Frankel: And was he also not serving at the Kesser Israel, the orthodox synagogue?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, he did. He served at Kesser Israel. And I understand he had something to do with the Sephardic synagogue, which is still there on Fourth Avenue.

Frankel: On Barbur.
SCHNEIDER: On Barbur. Exactly what, I don’t know. But there’s a picture of him, you have at the Jewish Museum, actually. They were standing by the Sephardic synagogue, and I don’t know what he was doing. 

Frankel: When you would go with him to Shaarie Torah, would you also go with him to Kesser when he would go there?
SCHNEIDER: Well, at that time we lived on the East side. We would definitely go there for holidays, but I became very much involved in Boy Scouting and what have you and didn’t go to the synagogue hardly at all on Saturdays or Fridays anymore. 

Frankel: Had your father grown up in a traditional home?
SCHNEIDER: Good question, the answer to which I don’t know. It certainly was a Jewish home. How well they adhered to the customs I don’t know. 

Frankel: After you moved out, did your mother continue to keep a kosher—
SCHNEIDER: No.

Frankel: Was it, so your grandfather wasn’t able to eat in your house?
SCHNEIDER: When my grandfather came to the house, he had all the things for kosher cooking, and it was a kosher meal, yes. We had a little puppy, a dog and I can remember he was sitting at the table once and he felt some tugging at his leg and the little dog had chewed part of his pants on the bottom [laughter]. I can remember when we were young and we’d go over to Auntie Sarka’s house and sometimes he’d take his false teeth out and chase the girls around [laughter] with his false teeth, it was kind of fun.

Frankel: Did he speak English?
SCHNEIDER: He spoke English, yes. I wouldn’t say it was the most fluent English, but he could definitely understand and speak English, yes. 

Frankel: Do you remember some of the sermons he gave at the synagogue, would you listen to him?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, I would definitely listen to him. They were all in Yiddish. 

Frankel: Oh, the sermons were given in Yiddish.
SCHNEIDER: Yes, he would extoll people to come to the synagogue on holidays and for Sabbath, and what have you. And to be honest I don’t remember the rest of them. I’m not sure I fully understood all of them but I understood some. 

Frankel: Did they have Sunday school at Shaarie Torah, a religious school?
SCHNEIDER: No, not that I can remember, no. Actually, my grandfather, except for Hebrew school after school, was not in favor of any religious school. He felt children in this country should go to public school and if they wanted religious education get it separately. And he felt very strongly about that. When they wanted to open the Jewish—

Frankel: Hillel Academy—
SCHNEIDER: Hillel Academy, he was not in favor of that at all.

Frankel: Was it open before your grandfather died?
SCHNEIDER: I believe it was, maybe not long before. 

Frankel: Besides the synagogue, was your grandfather involved politically, or with the Zionist movement?
SCHNEIDER: I don’t think he was. He was not involved with the Zionist movement. He was a very well-renowned, internationally renowned Talmudic scholar. I can remember on the bottom shelf of one of the many shelves of his bookcase he had big volumes of books which were the Talmud all in Hebrew, big books. Sadly to say, a number of years ago, the Shaarie Torah, to whom he bequeathed his library, said they were all in bad condition and buried them, which was horrible—I wish they’d all gone to the Jewish Museum or something else. It was a true loss. They said, “Well that’s the custom.” I don’t really know if that’s the custom or not.

Frankel: It is.
SCHNEIDER: But apparently, that’s what happened. It was after he passed away. 

Frankel: Did you inherit any part of his library, anything from his, like Kiddush cups or things like that?
SCHNEIDER: No, I didn’t. My mother had the candlesticks, and my sister, when my mother died, took those. I really didn’t get anything. 

Frankel: You say he was not involved in Zionism, and politically?
SCHNEIDER: I don’t think he was really politically involved. I don’t know if it was in the ‘30s or early ‘40s he received the keys to the city for some reason or other, and we’ve been trying to find out why, especially my daughter has been trying to find out. And it’s very difficult to ascertain but we have a picture of him, and here again, there is a picture at the Jewish Museum—a copy of that picture—receiving the key, and I don’t know why. It might have been his promotion of education. Oh, the other thing he did is was he was a mohel and he would go up to St. Vincent’s hospital, which at that time was in northwest Portland. He would walk, of course, and do circumcisions and come back. My mother tells a story that when she was young she had to have an appendectomy and so she was at St. Vincent’s hospital and of course, Zayde was there with her. And after she was able to eat they brought in a breakfast and I guess it had bacon and eggs and so she looked at it and she said “Oh, I can’t eat this because it’s got bacon on it.” She said that Zayde said that “The doctor ordered it, you eat it!” [laughter] At least at the time that I knew him, he was, I’d say, more liberal than a classic, real, dyed-in-the-wool, Orthodox rabbi, like some of those people you see in New York, or maybe, I don’t know about here, but I’m sure there are probably some here too. I can remember he wouldn’t turn the light switches on or anything on Saturdays. At that time there were no commercially available automatic timers, so my dad, who was very innovative and creative and skillful, made him one [laughter] to turn the lights on and off. 

Frankel: That’s funny. Now, did your grandfather still have relatives in Europe during World War II, and was he aware of what was. . . Do you remember him talking about it?
SCHNEIDER: No, he never talked about it. I would imagine there were some relatives that were left in Russia, or Belarus that was part of Russian then, I think. Because, as I understand, his immigration to the United States was financed by his wife’s parents. They apparently owned a furniture factory and were very well off, and apparently, they financed their trip to the United States. 

Frankel: Did they make it over here also?
SCHNEIDER: I know his father did not. I can vaguely remember when I was very, very young, sitting in front of the window in the living room. There was a woman dressed all in black, a very old woman—seemed to me very old—and, but I think it was after his wife died. It could have been his mother, I’m not sure. 

Frankel: Did your grandfather ever visit Israel?
SCHNEIDER: No. But the story I was told, which I don’t know how true it is, but is that when they were forming Israel he actually got a communication asking him to come and be a member of the, oh what do they call it, parliament? 

Frankel: The Knesset?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, the Knesset. And I can remember, I was told that he said, “No, this is my country and I’m not leaving.” 

Frankel: Do you have memories when the State of Israel was established in 1948?
SCHNEIDER: Some. A little bit.

Frankel: Do you recall if your grandfather had something special at the synagogue to mark the event?
SCHNEIDER: I don’t recall anything at the synagogue, but we used to drink a fifth glass of wine for the State of Israel at Passover.

Frankel: A fifth glass. Now, after you graduated from Washington High School, where did you go next?
SCHNEIDER: I went to the University of Oregon in Eugene. And after that I went to the medical school here in Portland which was a University of Oregon medical school. 

Frankel: When your father went to medical school, was there still quota for Jews or was it easy for him to get accepted?
SCHNEIDER: I don’t think there was a quota; I’d never heard that there was. However, David, my grandfather’s son, I was told, applied to the Multnomah Athletic Club, and was refused because he was Jewish. Of course, now there’s lots of Jewish people—I mean belong to it—

Frankel: Today—
SCHNEIDER: Today. Well for the last 47 years, and there are a lot of Jewish people there. But at that time, I think there was a different feeling.

Frankel: Did you have a close relationship with your grandfather as you grew up?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. I don’t know exactly how to describe it. We’d go to his house. We’d go there with him to the synagogue on holidays and we’d go over there very often, if we were in town, we’d go there and have Saturday meal after the synagogue. Sometimes I’d go with him to the synagogue—not always, but sometimes. He’d come over to our house. I don’t know exactly what you would mean by close, but a very respectful relationship. I respected him tremendously. He was a good moral influence and influence to study well and do well. 

Frankel: Would you ask him for advice in terms of what to study?
SCHNEIDER: No, not really. No, but when I was growing up, I think including my grandfather but certainly all the other relatives and the ladies around the neighborhood say, “Oh you’re going to grow up to be a physician just like your father.” I think that kind of influenced my career choice. 

Frankel: Growing up did you spend much time at the Jewish Community Center?
SCHNEIDER: No, it was on 13th Avenue. I didn’t really spend much time there. But after Irving came back from the war we used to go up there and that’s where he taught me how to swim. 

Frankel: And was your grandfather involved with any of the other institutions, Jewish institutions?
SCHNEIDER: Except for synagogues I don’t believe so. Not that I am aware of. 

Frankel: Did you ever encounter antisemitism? 
SCHNEIDER: Me, personally?

Frankel: Yes.
SCHNEIDER: Well certainly not as I was growing up, no. Questionably in the military,

Frankel: You served in the Army?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.

Frankel: Was that after school, after college?
SCHNEIDER: It was after medical, I was a physician then.

Frankel: Did you volunteer to serve or was there?
SCHNEIDER: I was drafted in the last doctor’s draft for the Vietnam War in 1965. I went into the Army in 1966 and was in for five and a half years. 

Frankel: Were you married already?
SCHNEIDER: Oh yes, we were married and my wife was pregnant. I got stationed in Berlin and my daughter was actually born there. 

Frankel: Oh so your family was able to join you in Germany?
SCHNEIDER: Yes well, it was my wife and I. Yes, we went together. 

Frankel: And then when were you shipped over?
SCHNEIDER: Summer of 1966. And then I stayed there only for year because I wanted to come back and finish my pathology residency so I applied to finish it at the Army which I did at Fitzsimmons Hospital in Denver, which is no longer open. And then after that I went to Vietnam.

Frankel: After that?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.

Frankel: What was it like?
SCHNEIDER: Well I had a big laboratory there that I was in charge of. We saw lots of different diseases and tumors and what-have-you, and unfortunately some unpleasant things too. 

Frankel: You were far from the front?
SCHNEIDER: I was not at the front, no. Once in a while I got shot at or—I was at the airport once there, and some North Vietnamese decided to launch rockets at us. That was not fun. The same thing happened when we took a day off and went to the beach and that happened at the beach too.

Frankel: You alluded to antisemitism in the army, did you encounter?
SCHNEIDER: I think a little bit.

Frankel: Do you recall incidents, specific?
SCHNEIDER: It was subtle. 

Frankel: Was there a Jewish chaplain?
SCHNEIDER: I don’t really know. Nowhere I was, I don’t believe. I’m sure there were but…

Frankel: Right. Did you ever ask to be able to celebrate any of the holidays or?
SCHNEIDER: Oh, well my wife and I celebrated holidays.

Frankel: But, in Vietnam?
SCHNEIDER: Oh in Vietnam, no. No, there was no time for that.

Frankel: Right. So going back before your draft, how did you meet your wife?
SCHNEIDER: Well, it’s kind of a funny story. I was, well before I went into pathology I did a surgery residency. One evening, maybe it was afternoon—

Frankel: Was that in Portland?
SCHNEIDER: No, it was in Salt Lake City. I was the admitting doctor for the surgical department, in the admitting area. My wife was a nurse and she had transferred from the county hospital there to the veteran’s hospital. This other nurse was bringing her around to get her oriented and came into the office introduced us and that’s how I met her. Things progressed from there. 

Frankel: When you get married—did your grandfather officiate?
SCHNEIDER: No, my wife’s not Jewish. She’s LDS, and we got married in Salt Lake. We got married by a judge. 

Frankel: Was your grandfather still alive?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, it would have been the year before he died. 

Frankel: And did he object or did he comment?
SCHNEIDER: No, oh no. He thought highly of my wife. We came to Portland and he met her. I’m sorry she isn’t here, she is a gracious lady. And no, he liked her a lot, right off the bat. 

Frankel: And you said she was pregnant in Germany. Was that in Berlin? Was that where your first daughter was born?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. That is where my daughter was born. Her name is Rebecca.

Frankel: Did you continue to celebrate any Jewish holidays?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. We still do. The whole family here.

Frankel: Do you belong to a synagogue?
SCHNEIDER: I do not. I tell people that I have a religion but I am not religious. I feel this about many religions. Like an ostrich, if you want to see anything you better get your head out of the sand. We are not an agrarian society anymore or a despotic society (at least we are not), and there are some things that, in my opinion, need to be updated. Of course, in Judaism now there are many factions, many of which I have not heard of, or have barely heard of and don’t understand. I don’t practice much.

Frankel: Was your mother immediately welcoming of your fiancé? 
SCHNEIDER: Yes. I think she had some reservations to start. I know she did because she wrote some letters to me about it. But my mother and father just really like Sharon. Sharon and I and my sisters, especially Sandra….

Frankel: You have two sisters?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. Sandra is four years younger than I and Linda, who is within a couple of months, 15 years younger and eight months younger than I am.

Frankel: She lives in Portland?
SCHNEIDER: No, she lives in Newport.

Frankel: On the coast.
SCHNEIDER: Yes.

Frankel: Did you ever visit Israel?
SCHNEIDER: No.

Frankel: Any other stories about your grandfather that you can recall, be it in his position as a rabbi or as a family man?
SCHNEIDER: I can just recall a wonderful life with my grandfather when we lived with him and afterwards. Even though his marriage with Sophie didn’t last very long–only about a year, I think. 

Frankel: They divorced?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. She was from New York, and from what I was told, she just hated living in Portland. She was a New York woman and our primitive ways out here didn’t suit her. I think she wanted him to move back to New York and, of course, he wasn’t going to.

But then, after he married Sophie, we got along very, very well and continued to do so. He was a wonderful gentleman. Every day I look at that big picture downstairs and remember.

Frankel: Were you involved with BBYO growing up? 
SCHNEIDER: No.

Frankel: Would you go away during the summer months?
SCHNEIDER: Well, for several years I worked at the B’nai B’rith summer camp. I worked there. I had a job to take people on outings. I would take small groups of people and we would go camping up on Cascade Head, or I would take them on outings down to the beaches and show them the tide pools and the creatures in them. Some wonderful memories that I have from back then. I hope I had an influence on people, positively [laughs].

Frankel: And as a child did you go away for the summer months with your family?
SCHNEIDER: Well, no. Not really. During the Second World War my mother wanted to spend time at the beach. We drove down to the beach in the car, it was a 1941 Oldsmobile.

Frankel: Did your mother drive?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. And we drove around to various places. Finally we got to Rockaway Beach and we found these cabins, which are called the Troy Cottages (there is a motel or a condominium on that side now). There was a big, main house and then two rows of smaller cabins on the side. In the front, there was a large cabin. That is the one that we rented. At that time the dunes weren’t built up as much as they are not so you could look straight out and see the ocean. All of those cabins are heated by a wood stove. So was the water. There was a water tank next to the wood stove that had coils that went in the back of the big, old wood stove to heat the water. Of course the baking and all of that my mother did. And I learned how to chop wood at an early age. [laughs]

After the war, my dad and mom used to spend time, usually a couple of weeks, at Rockaway. The Troy Cottages closed so they rented another cabin down there. It was not very far from there. Those are gone, too. They have all been converted to large places of residence.

Frankel: Did your grandfather ever join you?
SCHNEIDER: No. But Auntie Sarka did.

Frankel: Who is that?
SCHNEIDER: Auntie Sarka is Mrs. Neusihin, of Mrs. Neusihin’s pickles. She and Solomon, her husband, would come down for a couple weeks. Solomon was big; I think he might have come from Eastern Europe. Let’s say that he wasn’t a genteel type [laughter].

He would go out in the ocean, beyond the breakers, and swim back and forth for about a half hour and then come back in. Sarka used to go up to the jetty fishery. My gosh, she would bring home all kinds of these little sea perch, which are very tasty, but very boney. She used to do that a lot. I used to go fishing with her. She caught them. I didn’t have very good luck at it but she had the knack. Zayde never came down to the beach though.

Frankel: How long did he serve at Shaarie Torah?
SCHNEIDER: My understanding is that it was until 1946. That is what is written. But I remember going there after that. That is the thing. He might have not been the official rabbi but I can remember… let’s see. I was 13; I had my bar mitzvah… It must have been 1950. That is where my bar mitzvah was. You would walk down the aisle and go all the way down to the front. And his special place, reserved for him, was immediately to the right of the stage. That is where he was for years and years and years.

Frankel: But did another rabbi replace him?
SCHNEIDER: Well, I don’t really know how it worked. And I don’t understand the timeline. It says here that he was the rabbi of Shaarie Torah from 1916 until his retirement in 1946. I cannot remember another rabbi being there, no. And I know that he still did that in 1950. And I would go there even after my bar mitzvah with him, until he left there, for reasons I don’t know.

Frankel: He left the synagogue?
SCHNEIDER: He left that synagogue and then he went to Kesser Israel.

Frankel: Where he attended services?
SCHNEIDER: No, he was the rabbi there.

Frankel: Was there a cantor while your grandfather was the rabbi [at Shaarie Torah]?
SCHNEIDER: Oh yes, Yoina Glantz. He had a marvelous voice! I was told, but I don’t know, that he had a brother who sang in the opera in New York. He was just superb.

Frankel: Did he serve as long as your grandfather? Was he the one you recall?
SCHNEIDER: Oh yes. I never heard another cantor there except Yoina.

Frankel: Now, when your grandfather was the rabbi there, was there separation of men and women?
SCHNEIDER: Oh yes. The women sat in the balcony.

Frankel: No women sat downstairs.
SCHNEIDER: That is correct.

Frankel: And that was throughout his tenure at the synagogue.
SCHNEIDER: Yes. I think probably throughout the life of the synagogue until its move to its present location.

Frankel: So your grandfather retired before Urban Renewal.
SCHNEIDER: I think that his retirement came by with urban renewal. What happened was his had this big, lovely home on SW Fourth and College. After the war, we moved out and I am not sure what happened to the matzah business. I think that Manischewitz changed distributing. He needed some more income. They remodeled the house and the second floor became a separate apartment, which a family rented until the place was demolished with urban renewal. Then he moved to another house a little bit west of there. I think that is where he passed away. That house is also now demolished because that is where the freeway is. I don’t think he ever got fairly compensated for his house. It was a beautiful, old place with a grand staircase.

Frankel: Can you tell the story about the matzah? I think we talked about it before.
SCHNEIDER: Yes. At Passover they would bring matzah and matzah meal to my grandfather’s house. There were two windows in the basement. One of them faced College Street. The truck would pull up and they would load all of these large crates of matzah and matzah meal, cake meal, and potato starch into the basement. Then people would order them. We would open the boxes. He had a long piece of wood, very smooth and tapered, to pry the boxes open. My mother would fill the orders, or maybe both of them worked at it. I don’t know. Then, when it came time to deliver the matzahs, my mom would rent a trailer and put it on the back of the car. We would drive all around Portland and deliver matzahs.

Frankel: Was that a way of income for your grandfather?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.

Frankel: You also mentioned that he was the mashgiach at the Manischewitz factory in New York?
SCHNEIDER: Well, I know that he went there every year to certify that everything was OK for Passover. Yes. 

Frankel: You said he was a great Talmudic scholar. Did you realize it then? Did people come and consult with him? Did he travel to meet with other rabbis?
SCHNEIDER: I don’t think he traveled. I think they would send him letters and he would write answers. All the letters would be in Hebrew. There is like a cursive form of Hebrew, which is even more difficult to understand than the block form [laughs]. He would write in that.

Frankel: Where are those letters?
SCHNEIDER: I have no idea. I don’t know what happened to them.

Frankel: And so you have one daughter and a son. Where and when was he born?
SCHNEIDER: He was born in Denver in 1969.

Frankel: Why were you in Denver?
SCHNEIDER: I was in my pathology residency.

Frankel: I see. Where do your children live now?
SCHNEIDER: My daughter lives here in Portland. She now lives in Mountain Park. My son lives just outside of Sisters, Oregon.

Frankel: Is he married?
SCHNEIDER: Yes he is, they have one daughter. She is 20. She goes to the University of Oregon. He is a police officer in Bend.

Frankel: Your daughter has children?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, she has three children: two girls and a boy. The oldest girl, Lauren, is 16 and the boy, Lance, is 14. Lindsay, the youngest, is 11. And she is the boss. She is just sharp as a tack.

Frankel: Did any of your children have bar or bat mitzvahs?
SCHNEIDER: No.

Frankel: Do they come to your house to celebrate holidays?
SCHNEIDER: Oh yes. We have a few of the old Haggadahs.

Frankel: From your grandfather still?
SCHNEIDER: Yes.

Frankel: So you do have something.
SCHNEIDER: Yes, well. I wish we could get more of them because there aren’t any like it. They are both in Hebrew and English. The English is challenging to read because the translation is somewhat archaic. But, interestingly, my grandchildren are quite adept at reading it in English.

Frankel: Did your grandfather marry a third time?
SCHNEIDER: Yes, he married Sophie.

Frankel: That was the second time.
SCHNEIDER: No, the second time was Frieda. I don’t know what her maiden name was. I believe Sophie’s maiden name was Cooper. I know she lived in Seattle. She was from Seattle. How they met, I don’t know. And after he died she moved back to Seattle. We used to go up and visit her periodically. I thought she was a wonderful woman although I’m told that some of the other members of the family didn’t think so much. I and my mother and my wife, who knew her very well, we all thought she was just wonderful. She used to make tagelach, among other things, which were very good.

I’m not sure what year they were married but they were married until he passed away.

Frankel: Do you remember attending the wedding?
SCHNEIDER: No. I remember attending Edith’s wedding. I was the ring bearer.

Frankel: That was your aunt.
SCHNEIDER: Yes. Dorothy married. She married a rabbi.

Frankel: An Orthodox rabbi?
SCHNEIDER: Yes. And they moved to Chicago. Right after World War II started, in 1942, in the summer, my mom and sister and I took a train to Chicago and met Dorothy. We had a little cabin out on Lake Michigan. We stayed out there for some weeks. I can remember seeing the thunder and lightning storms. I was pretty young. I can also remember standing underneath the elevated train in Chicago. Then we came back. I remember that the trains were full of soldiers on that trip. It was very difficult to get any food. Once my mother related to me that we were on the train and she needed to get something for us to eat. She gave some money to one of the soldiers, who quickly went off the train to buy some bread and other things and gave it to her. They were feeding all the soldiers first and there wasn’t time of anything for anybody else on the train.

And then after the war, when we went back to Washington, DC for the summer, we took the train back and forth to there too.

Frankel: How would you say that the Jewish community in Portland has changed since your childhood?
SCHNEIDER: Well, when I was young, during the Second World War and before urban renewal, we lived in SW Portland and there were a lot of Jewish kids. There were a lot of Italian kids. There were colored kids. There weren’t very many Oriental kids. I can’t recall any of them. And we all played together. We had a wonderful time. The community was very close-knit. The Franks would come and visit my grandfather.

Frankel: From the Meier & Franks?
SCHNEIDER: From the Meier & Franks, yes. And the Directors. I knew these people. They’d go to the Shaarie Torah. Also the Shleifers. Of course, after they tore the neighborhood down, then the community had already dispersed a great deal. I don’t believe there is a neighborhood that you could call a Jewish neighborhood anymore, except maybe a little it around the Jewish Community Center. it was a pretty cohesive area then. And on Second Avenue, that is where Mosler had his bakery. And I can remember going into Mosler’s Bakery when I was a child with my mother. He would come and he would pinch me on the cheek and say, “Oh, you are a cute, fat little boy. Have a bagel.” [laughter]

And I can remember going to the kosher butcher shop. We would buy chickens and then take them home and in the basement of my grandfather’s house we would singe them with the gas burner and pluck the feathers out and cook them [laughs].

Frankel: What was the name of the butcher store?
SCHNEIDER: I don’t remember.

Frankel: Any other stores you recall in that neighborhood?
SCHNEIDER: Well, there was Vitell’s Pharmacy. I know there were other stores but I don’t remember the names of them. The Jewish butcher shop, I think, disappeared. But Mosler moved his bakery up onto Fourth Avenue for a while. And then he moved it into Hillsdale. Then he passed away. His recipes were lost forever because he would never share his recipes, even with his children. And he made the best bagels, and absolutely the best Russian rye bread in the whole world. Nobody makes one like it. Now there was a baker, who has passed away, unfortunately. He was an older man. He was in Newport, in a little bakery on the west side of the road. He knew Mr. Mosler and he made rye bread that was similar. It wasn’t the same; it wasn’t quite as good. But it was good. He also made very good doughnuts and maple bars using potato flour, which always gives things a very special flavor. We used to stop and see him when we went down to the coast, talk to him for a while. 

Oh, the other thing I can remember about living with my grandfather is that every once in a while, the knife sharpener would come around. He had a horse-drawn carriage with a big stone in back. He would sharpen knives. Also, every once in a while, the junk guy would come around. He would collect junk in the back of a horse-drawn carriage. I can remember one year there was quite a snowfall. To get to my grandfather’s house there was a set of cement stairs that came up a little hill, perhaps a total of four feet. Then it was level before the stairs going up to the house. Well, the snow pretty much came up and covered nearly all of those stairs. I remember seeing a car drive down Fourth Avenue and get stuck in the snowbank. Those were different times. I think the community is a little more fractious.

Frankel: Any other words you would like to share?
SCHNEIDER: I would love to, but I can’t remember anything specific right now. I have racked my brain for the last few weeks trying to think of anything that might be of interest. Unfortunately, most of the things I have told you are my memories. I am not so sure of some of the factual things about exactly when people came and where they lived.

Oh, there was another part of the family but I think this might have been from my father’s family. They were called Meltzer. We used to go to Mrs. Meltzer’s home (I think her husband must have passed away). We used to go to the synagogue on Meade Street, Kesser Israel, and her home, which is still standing, was in the middle of First Street between Caruthers and Meade Street. Right now all the homes toward Caruthers have been torn down up to hers, which is the first one there. We used to go in there. She would make wine. And we would all drink a glass of wine. I drank a glass of that wine (you had to be polite) and I would get the worst pain in my shoulder. It just hurt so much.

Frankel: After drinking the wine?
SCHNEIDER: After drinking the wine. For a long time. I don’t know what she did to that wine. Years later my dad and I were reminiscing and I mentioned that. He said, “Oh really!  I got that, too.”  [laughter]

There were some other Meltzers that lived up in the West Hills but I never did know them. I’m not sure what the connections were. There were some other relatives that lived in the mid-West and I know there were some that lived in Newark, New Jersey. When we had that summer in Washington, DC, we visited them, but I’m not sure whose side of the family they came from.

Frankel: Well thank you very much. I truly appreciate your stories.
SCHNEIDER: Well thank you.