Fannie Rosenfeld Tanzer

Shirley: Mom, how did you and your family happen to come to the United States? 
FANNIE: I had four brothers here in America; they came here before the First World War. They sent for my mother, my brother and myself to come to Portland, and we came here in 1921. 

Shirley: Did you come directly to Portland? 
FANNIE: Yes. We stopped in New York, and then the company put us on the train, and we came straight from New York on the train. 

Shirley: What do you remember about Ellis Island? 
FANNIE: Not very much. I was very tired. I was very sick on the boat; we travelled two weeks on the boat called “Rheindam” from Holland. I was still getting over the sickness, and I didn’t feel very good and just couldn’t remember very much. There wasn’t anything special that I can tell about. We just stayed on the ship until they took us off and put us on a train. 

Shirley: Who met you at the ship? 
FANNIE: No one because my relatives were in Portland. Transportation was paid to Portland by the company, for my mother, my brother and myself. 

Shirley: Did you speak English? 
FANNIE: Not a word. We travelled on a slow train for six days – without sleepers, without food. Every once in a while when the train stopped, some kid brought up some cookies; we bought them, and so that’s all we had. There was no way of getting any kind of food. If the train stopped somewhere long enough, we were afraid to get off because we couldn’t ask. We didn’t know how to ask how long that train would stop. So we waited until somebody would bring something up that we could buy so we could keep alive. We were really starved by the time we came to Portland. 

Shirley: So the only thing you ate were cookies? 
FANNIE: Cookies and nothing else. I believe in one place we stopped (we had a German lady with us) and she went down and she bought some bananas, and she bought some bread and a few little things, but most of the time we were just hungry. We were afraid to leave the train, afraid we were going to be left. We had no idea how long the train would stop. 

Shirley: Had you eaten bananas before? 
FANNIE: No, I had never seen bananas before. That German lady did know; she bought them. So we had some bananas, and she showed us how to peel them and eat them. 

Shirley: Tell me about your arrival in Portland?
FANNIE: When we came to Portland, Mr. Gross met us in Hood River before we came to Portland. My brother, Abe, called him up. He called up Mr. Gross and told him to stop for a certain train; he knew we were coming in on that train [and wanted] to see us and to say hello. And he came up – Mr. Gross came up with a bag of fruit, with all kinds of mixed fruit, and he told us that Avraham called him up and asked him to meet us on the train. He was the first person and that was in Hood River. 

Shirley: Did you know Mr. Gross in Europe? 
FANNIE: No, I had no idea. When we came to Portland, naturally my brother and sister-in-law and all the children were at the train to meet us, and from there on I stayed with my oldest brother and my mother stayed with my brother, Sam, and Ben stayed with Abe until we got us a place and we could move out. 

Shirley: How long had it been since you had seen them? 
FANNIE: Well, it had been at least seven or eight years because the First World War lasted for about seven years, and they left before that. So what else? 

Shirley: What were your impressions of Portland when you arrived? 
FANNIE: Oh, wonderful. I thought it was heaven. Coming from a long drawn-out war back in Europe to come to Portland, naturally it was just wonderful to come here to the family. 

Shirley: What was Portland like in 1921? 
FANNIE: It was different. The family took care of us. My brother took care of us, and then we started going to night school at Neighborhood House to learn how to speak and how to write and so on, and that was just wonderful. 

Shirley: Where did you live? What section of the city? 
FANNIE: Actually, all my brothers lived on Second Street; all of them lived on different blocks on Second Street. 

Shirley: So everyone lived very close together. 
FANNIE: Very close together. We were all on Second Street. 

Shirley: What were the facilities available in the neighborhood? Stores and shuls? 
FANNIE: I thought we had everything there. To us it was just heaven. 

Shirley: What was there that you used? 
FANNIE: Everything. We bought our clothes and we bought our food and we bought our treats on Second Street, ice cream and so forth. 

Shirley: Were you able to use your English there or did you continue to speak another language? 
FANNIE: It took a long time until we learned how to ask for things. In the neighborhood in South Portland, we could get along with speaking Jewish. The stores were owned by Jewish people, and we naturally would speak Yiddish with them. Little by little, we learned how to use English words, and then I went to work. My brother got me a job. 

Shirley: How old were you at that time? 
FANNIE: I was 21 or 22. My brother, Ben, was 19; I was 21. They were trying to put us in school. They accepted Ben at the Failing School because he was 19; I was 21 and they didn’t want me. They wouldn’t accept me in school any more. My brother, Ben, went to school for eight weeks, and he graduated from grade to grade. When graduation came, he graduated l4th in the class because he was such a terrific mathematician so they just put him ahead even though he couldn’t speak English. But I had to go to work right away and make a living. 

Shirley: Just for yourself or did you help support the rest of the family? 
FANNIE: I didn’t have to support the rest of the family. I worked for myself. 

Shirley: Who supported your mother? 
FANNIE: The brothers did. After a while they moved us into a house on Second and Arthur, so the three of us made a home. My mother used to stay home and take care of us. I worked and Ben worked, too, after he graduated from the eighth grade at that time. 

Shirley: How did your mother adjust to life in Portland? 
FANNIE: My mother was just wonderful. She adjusted very well. She was very, very religious, but she realized that in America people have to work on Shabbas, and she accepted that. She was quite cooperative; she was very good about it. She was very religious: she used to go to synagogue every day, but she understood that her sons couldn’t go to synagogue on Shabbas. 

Shirley: I would like to find out what your first job was, what you did and how you happened to get the job? 
FANNIE: My brother got me a job in a cap factory. Mr. Jacobs was running a cap factory. So they knew Mr. Jacobs, and they asked him if he would give me a job. He was nice enough to take me in. I didn’t know how to work a sewing machine or how to do anything, but the people that were there were very nice about it, and they showed me how and it didn’t take me long to learn how to work on the caps and hats. 

Shirley: What was the name of the factory? 
FANNIE: It was owned by Mr. Jacobs and Mr. Weiss.

Shirley: It was just called Jacobs-Weiss? 
FANNIE: Jacobs and Weiss cap factory. I found some friends there. Mr. Bernstein showed me how to sew on the sewing machine, and so on. 

Shirley: What job did Mr. Bernstein have? 
FANNIE: Making caps. He was a cap maker, he taught me how to do it. 

Shirley: How long did you work for Mr. Jacobs? 
FANNIE: About three years. After a while I was a real cap maker already. Then I worked for another factory where they made sports clothes. At that time they made a certain kind of sport clothes, knickers and skirts and so on. Titus Manufacturing Co., I worked there for a couple of years. 

Shirley: What was your salary at the cap factory? 
FANNIE: It started with $9 a week, and by the time I left it went to $12. 

Shirley: Why did you leave the cap factory? 
FANNIE: Because I went to work for Titus Manufacturing, doing piecework. I thought I could make more money there. 

Shirley: What was your salary there? 
FANNIE: That was piecework. Whatever I could work out. I used to make skirts – make a dozen skirts for 90 cents. I had to work very hard to make three dozen skirts a day. Then I worked for a while for Mitchell Manufacturing Co., making dresses. 

Shirley: And how much were you paid there? 
FANNIE: I was making about $16 a week then. 

Shirley: Was that considered a good salary? 
FANNIE: That was considered a good salary. 

Shirley: Did you ever belong to a union? 
FANNIE: No. There wasn’t any, not that I knew of. I never knew anything about it. 

Shirley: I wondered when the unions were organized in the garment industry, in the cap and coat. So the salary was just set by the people for whom you worked? 
FANNIE: They just set their own price. I made $9 a week, so I paid $5 to the house for my room and board, and $4 was spending money. 

Shirley: What did you do with the $4? 
FANNIE: I hate to tell you because I kept my check for three weeks; I didn’t know how to cash it, until they asked me what had happened to this check. I didn’t know how to spend money. 

Shirley: When you finally spent money, what did you spend it on? 
FANNIE: Buying some material, making some clothes, and I started sending a little bit of money to my sisters in Europe, in Russia. From there on I saved a little bit. 

Shirley: How long did you work? 
FANNIE: About seven years. 

Shirley: Why did you stop working? 
FANNIE: I met a fellow and got married. I got married to a fellow who was making $125 a month. 

Shirley: Was that considered a very good salary? 
FANNIE: Yes, it was pretty good. 

Shirley: And when did you go back to work? 
FANNIE: I went back to work. I was married for 23 months, and I lost my husband and was left with a 13-month old child, so I used to leave him in a day nursing home and go back to work. At that time I worked for Mr. Bornstein who was paying $16 a week. I worked for him for about a year and a half.

Shirley: What did you do there? 
FANNIE: Making caps. He was a cap maker. There were just two of us working for him. 

Shirley: How much did you pay to the day nursery? 
FANNIE: Hardly anything, maybe $1 a week. 

Shirley: What was the name of the day nursery? 
FANNIE: The day nursery was Fruit and Flowers on 12th Street. It was in the back of the Jewish Community Center. 

Shirley: On Clay?
FANNIE: 12th Street and Clay. They still have it. 

Shirley: Now they moved. The building is still there. That is the Portland State Child Care Center, but Fruit and Flower is now on the Northwest side. They recently moved; they sold the building, but the same building is still there. Was that the same building where Hershal went? 
FANNIE: It was the same building, but they rebuilt it. It was not like that then. They rebuilt it and remodeled it. They remodeled it at the same time when Hershel was still there. They rented the place just for the time when they were remodeling it. I never went there since they remodeled it. 

Shirley: What kind of a day care center was it; what was it like? 
FANNIE: Well, they had to take care of a lot of children when the mothers had to work. That is the only kind of children they took, probably 75 children. They had a big backyard; they used to take them out to play. 

Shirley: Did you meet any of the other mothers who took their children there? 
FANNIE: Some of them, just to say hello. I never had too much time to spend with them because I worked every day, and then I came up to my room with my little child. I could not go out, and I used to stay in in the evening. 

Shirley: Where did you live at that time? 
FANNIE: I had one room on 12th Street, which was within the block from the day nursery. I had one room upstairs where I stayed. We had a little gas plate, and there I cooked my meals. Hershal slept with me in the bed. 

Shirley: Why did you leave Mr. Bernstein? Why did you leave the job? 
FANNIE: Because I got married. I met a fellow, but not in Portland, he lived in Chehalis. I went to Chehalis and I lived there two-and-a-half years with my husband, and then we moved to Longview. My husband had a store in Longview, Men’s Clothing. In Longview we lived for 12 years. 

Shirley: Why did you go to Chehalis? 
FANNIE: Because I got married to a fellow who lived in Chehalis. He had a tailor shop there. 

Shirley: Why did you leave Chehalis for Longview? 
FANNIE: During the Depression business was very bad. So my husband looked for a place to better himself, to make a living. It got to be very hard in the Depression in the 1930s. 

Shirley: Were things difficult here in Portland during the Depression too? 
FANNIE: I guess it was difficult everywhere as far as that goes. It was very bad. There was no work left anymore in Chehalis, and he just could not make a living there, so we were forced to move out. Longview was a brand new town; it was developing, and so he was told that in Longview he could find work. So he did in time. He worked in a nice clothing store in Long­ view. 

We stayed there 12 years until again during the war. It was hard for my husband to get merchandise for the store, so he had to sell the store and we moved to Portland. In 1945, we moved to Portland. 

Shirley: How did you find Portland when you came back; had it changed much in the 14 or 15 years? 
FANNIE: It changed a lot, and I was very glad to come back because of my family. I had my four brothers here in Portland, and it was good to get back. I was very happy to move back to Portland. 

Shirley: Was the family still living in the South Portland area at that time? 
FANNIE: No. No, they didn’t. 

Shirley: Where did they live? 
FANNIE: They moved to different parts. Like Abe who built his house – you know where his home is, on Park Avenue. And Moishe, he died and she got married to Al, and they had a place on 31st and Knott Street. And Shiah, my youngest brother, bought Freeman’s house and lived in it. Miriam lived on Knott Street, on 14th and Knott. They all moved away in different directions. 

Shirley: Had the general South Portland, the Jewish area, changed very much? 
FANNIE: It changed very much in the sixteen years we were away from it. Of course it changed. However, we kept in touch, and we used to come in very often to Portland. My boys were growing up, and we used to bring them in on Sundays to Sunday School, to the Ahavai Sholom, because there was no Jewish education of any kind in Longview, so we used to bring them on Sundays to Portland. So we were in touch with the family; we used to see them once a week and sometimes once in two weeks. 

Shirley: What kind of a Jewish life was there in Longview? 
FANNIE: In Longview? Not very much. We were in business and very friendly with the people there. That was about all, but we had no way of teaching our children anything. 

Shirley: Was there a synagogue? 
FANNIE: No, there was no synagogue. We used to get a cantor for the holidays and get together for the High Holidays, but that’s about all. 

Shirley: Where did people gather on the High Holidays? 
FANNIE: We used to rent a place of some kind in a hotel. 

Shirley: When was the synagogue in Kelso built? 
FANNIE: It was not in Kelso; it was Centralia. That was built in 1930 or early 1931. My husband was the instigator of it. He worked very hard on it. He was really the one that did it. 

Shirley: Did you continue to use the synagogue then after you moved to Longview? 
FANNIE: They are still using it for certain occasions, but after the synagogue was built, we moved away to Longview. Things got very tough during the Depression in the 1930’s. So after the synagogue was built, we moved to Longview, but we used to go back there occasionally for different occasions, for holidays or for any kind of celebration they had. We are still very friendly with the people in Centralia and Kelso and Longview. 

Shirley: How large was the Jewish community in Longview? 
FANNIE: In Longview there were about 20 families, between Longview and Kelso. 

Shirley: And did you get together for the holidays? 
FANNIE: Matthew Kleinman came to daven for us for several years. He used to stay with us for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. 

Shirley: And how did you get your food for Passover? 
FANNIE: We used to drive in to Portland. We would be going into Portland forth and back about once a week, and whatever we needed, we used to get it in Portland, and for the holidays we would buy all the food that we needed. We were constantly running in to Portland; from Longview it was easier than from Chehalis. 

Shirley: I wasn’t aware that there were that many families, that many Jewish families, in Longview. 
FANNIE: At that time there was. I don’t think there are that many now. 

Shirley: When did most of the Jewish families come to Longview then? 
FANNIE: Some of them were there for years and years. There were the Simons, the Wassers, the Goldbergs, the Crystals; there were quite a few of them. 

Shirley: But then during the 30s, a number of people came from Germany and from Europe to Longview and that area didn’t they? 
FANNIE: They assigned eight German families to Longview. Its another story you have to get into. 

Shirley: Tell me about it. 
FANNIE: During the time that German people were coming in, they tried to place them away from Portland – there were too many to take care of. 

Shirley: Who was doing the placing? Who called? 
FANNIE: They had a committee here, but when it came to Longview, Dad was the one to take care of them. Each one of them came to our place. 

Shirley: Who were these families, mom? 
FANNIE: I will tell you. There were Mr. and Mrs. Vorernberg, you know whom I am talking about. Mr. and Mrs. Mandler. And there is a family, Cohns. I know there were eight families. Once a single fellow stayed with us for about three weeks. I don’t even remember his name anymore; he went back to Portland. I know there were eight families. There were the Sterns family I can’t remember all of them. 

Shirley: That’s all right. What did they do when they got to Longview?
FANNIE: Let’s see, Johnny Miller and his wife were also at my place. We had to find jobs for them. We went out and got jobs for them, especially Dad; he was busy running. Some of them got jobs in the mills, most of them in the mills. Until they got a job there, they had to give them just any kind of work to make a living. They all stayed at our place until they were settled. 

Shirley: All eight families? 
FANNIE: Not all eight, five of them did. The rest of them were placed right away. We couldn’t have more than one family at a time. The Mandlers stayed with us about three weeks. Dad had gotten a job for them. 

Shirley: You mentioned the Mandlers being with you for a while. What did Mr. Mandler do? 
FANNIE: Mr. Tanzer got a job for him. He worked on some yard work. Dad used to take him out there in the morning, before he opened up his store and then pick him up in the evening. He came to Longview by himself and Alice with little Tommy, who was about one-and-a-half years old and was in Portland. So we decided to come to Portland and pick her up and the little boy. That was before Passover, so that they could be together and Arnold was so happy. This whole family I never forgot.

Shirley: These people just remained in Longview and became part of the Jewish Community?
FANNIE: Well, they did until such a time when they were able to go back to Portland. Longview was not the place for them to live in. They wanted to get back to Portland. I think that the Stern family are still in Kelso; I am not sure. Some of them found themselves some job, and they returned to Portland. 

Shirley: What did you do in the years you lived in Longview? Did you go back to work? 
FANNIE: I helped my husband in his shop. I had a little boy on hand. Hershal was growing up. When we came to Longview we came with our bare hands. We had to start from scratch, because the times were so bad in Chehalis that we had to leave. We went to work and worked. I had to help him all the time. I used to go down to the store and do a lot of alterations. I started out at the tailoring shop in Longview. Some alterations came in, and I had to come in and help him. From there on, I was always busy. Some day I am going to tell you how we started in business in Longview. 

Shirley: I’d like to hear about it. Tell me now. 
FANNIE: Times were very hard. It was often hard to get started. There was some work to do, but there was still not enough. And Dad was always talking that he has a sister in New York with a family that he hadn’t seen for 29 years. When he came to America first, he came to Portland; she came to New York with her family and he never got to see her. And he always said, if he could only go to New York and see his sister. So one day I said, “If you would like to go so badly, you will find a way.” That’s all he wanted to know. So he thought of something. At that time, they had excursions to New York and back for $100 by train. So he didn’t sleep at night. He was thinking how could he raise $100 to go see his sister because he had my permission. And he figured out something. He had $100 coming in from his insurance. He pulled that out and went to see his sister in New York. Hershal and I stayed in the store and when alterations came in, I did it, and I made enough to buy my bread and butter, that’s about all. Anyway, when he came to New York he was so happy to see his sister and family.                  

He was a very ambitious man. He thought things were picking up a bit. The Depression was getting better. He got acquainted with some manufacturers in New York. It was right after the Depression. In New York the manufacturers had their warehouses full with made-up clothing which they could not sell for a couple of years, and they were very anxious to find someone to get some of the clothes off their hands. So Dad went over and he met that Mr. Grossman, who was a manufacturer, and he talked to him. He said, “I am in a place now, and I think if I could get some clothing I could sell it, but I have no money. Do you want to send me the clothing on assignment?” This manufacturer took a liking to Daddy, and he believed him and said, “I tell you what I’ll do with you. I will give you a couple dozen suits and you try it. If you sell them, then you send me the money, and then I’ll send you some more.” So he immediately packed up a couple dozen suits and sent them out to Longview, and he wrote me a letter and said, “When the clothes come in, be sure to take out them out of the box and put them in the little window in the tailor shop.” So I did. He stayed in New York for three weeks or so. When the clothes came out, I took them out of the boxes, and I put some suits in the window. Someone came in and bought those suits. And I put out another one and another one, and in a couple of weeks I sold seven suits before he came back. When he came, he just couldn’t believe it. I knew how to alter. 

And that was a break after a long, long period of hardship. Before he knew it, he sold some of the clothing, and he sent some money to Mr. Grossman. From then on, Mr. Grossman sent him clothes. Little by little, he moved in to a bigger store across the street, and then he began to buy a little bit of haberdashery, and in a couple of years, he built up a beautiful clothing store. But that was a break because I let him go to New York. It was something he said he craved for years and years. That was a break, and that’s when things started to move. But I was always with him in the store. He said if I don’t come, nothing gets done. So I had to be there so things would get done. This is what I did in Longview. Always busy. He always liked to have me bring him a cup of coffee and a sandwich. As long as I brought it, it was good. That’s what kept me busy. 

Shirley: Now you said you left Longview during the war, because you said things were difficult to get? 
FANNIE: Things were not only difficult to get, there was no work. In 1945 we left Longview, because he couldn’t get any clothing, he couldn’t buy any. But that was already years later. We moved to Longview in 1931, I believe, and we left in 1945. So through these years he worked up a business, and then he couldn’t get any merchandise. Another thing, he got sick, and he went to Portland to a doctor. He went to Portland to the Portland Clinic for a checkup, and the doctors told him he must have an operation right away for cancer. So he got scared, and he couldn’t get any merchandise anyway, so he decided to sell the store and move to Portland. So he sold out, and we came to Portland and bought a house on l0th and Knott, and he went back to the Portland Clinic for an appointment for his surgery; that was three months later. And the doctor looked at him and said “Mr. Tanzer, I don’t think you have cancer. You are okay.” That’s the thing that got us out of Longview. 

Shirley: Did you want to leave Longview? 
FANNIE: Sure I did. But I couldn’t see how we ever could. But then the doctor said that he had to go to the hospital for surgery. Anyway, he never had an operation in the next ten years, but ten years later he did have surgery; he had a tumor.  It’s a short story with all the things that happened in these 12 to 13 years that we were in Longview. But I was always busy with him. He kept me busy in the store. Jack was born in Longview. He got to be ten years old, and we wanted him to got to Hebrew School. Hershal was bar mitzvahed when we were still in Longview. 

Shirley: How did you manage that? 
FANNIE: I used to bring him in to Rabbi Sidney, but Hershal only graduated in English. I taught him how to say the brachas; he knows them. He could not do it in Hebrew.. He had no way of learning; there was no one there to teach him Hebrew – that was impossible. But the business, that was the break we had, when he went to New York to see his sister. 

Shirley: So when you came back to Portland, did he go into business here? 
FANNIE: Yes, we started up a little business, but he was semi-retired and he just took his time and used to go around and talk to people. He did have a little tailor shop just to have something to do, but it was just a tailor shop. 

Shirley: But at least it was a place where his friends could drop in and visit him. 
FANNIE: Oh sure. You remember when he brought his coat to fix and he was stalling, remember that? 

Shirley: I remember people used to drop in. 
FANNIE: He just loved to talk to people. He loved that. That was a place for him to go. He was better off to come to Portland than to go to Longview. 

Shirley: How do you see Jewish life having changed in Portland from that time, from the time that you came to the present time? 
FANNIE: Things are moving on, things are changing every year. You know that naturally everything is changed, everything is different. Times change. 

Shirley: Do there seem to be more people, more Jewish people, around than there were then? 
FANNIE: Yes. Years back we were very close to the family, but when we came back the family somehow moved away and was gone. However, we still were very close to the family. The new generation, the younger people grew up already, time marched on. Naturally, there are changes. 

Shirley: So you feel that the family is not as close now as they were then. 
FANNIE: My generation is not here any more. 

Shirley: How many are left in your generation? 
FANNIE: My father was one of seven children, three sisters and four brothers, and each one of them were married and had families, and we had dozens and dozens of cousins all over. We had some cousins in Winnipeg, we had cousins in Montreal, in Washington, D.C., in North Carolina. 

Shirley: Those were all Rosenfeld cousins? 
FANNIE: Those were all Rosenfeld people. In Washington, Leah’s mother was a sister to my father, but the others were Rosenfelds. North Carolina, Winnipeg – there were dozens of cousins of my generation, and of all of them Harry Rosenfeld and myself are the only two left from that generation. 

Shirley: There aren’t any in other places in the world? 
FANNIE: No. My sister was in Israel, and there were cousins in Winnipeg. They are all second generation. They multiplied: they have children and grandchildren and so on, like my brothers here. But from that generation, from my father’s brothers and sisters children, there are only two of us left, Harry Rosenfeld and myself. 

Shirley: What about on your mother’s side? 
FANNIE: On my mother’s side there are all the Schnitzers. We were never too close with them. 

Shirley: Your mother’s maiden name was Fox. [this the Fuchs family, as spelled in other interviews. Feder Fuchs was the first person from Chartrisk to come to Portland and brought the Schnitzer, Rosenfeld and Director families. The Fuchs family changed their name to Fox when they got to the US]. Her brother [Bruce] Fox never had children. 
FANNIE: On account of him, my brothers came to Portland. 

Shirley: What was his name? 
FANNIE: Bruce. 

Shirley: Your uncle on your mother’s side? 
FANNIE: Fox. Did you ever see the family tree? 

Shirley: Tell me what his relationship was to the Schnitzers. 
FANNIE: The Schnitzers – just a minute. Bruce’s sister was a grandma to all the Schnitzers. The other Schnitzers were his first nephews. They came here, and that’s why my brothers came here. 

Shirley: In other words, Beryl Schnitzer’s mother…
FANNIE: Beryl Schnitzer’s mother was a sister to my mother, and so was Bruce Fox a brother. 

Shirley: How many children were in that family? 
FANNIE: You see, that was another Schnitzer, but her brother, Fox, did not have any children. 

Shirley: How many Foxes were there in your mother’s family? 
FANNIE: That I would not know. I only know the two. 

Shirley: Do you remember your uncle Fox? 
FANNIE: Yes, very much. 

Shirley: Do you remember him here in this country? 
FANNIE: Sure. Her son – you see she had children – her son was married to Gertrude’s sister. Gertrude Bachman’s sister was married to Mrs. Grove’s son. He had no children; it was her son. He lived in Seattle. You see the Schnitzers were trying to find out where Fox was buried. They wanted to remember him because he is their uncle, and they wanted to know where he was buried. When I went to Longview already, and perhaps in Chehalis, her son lived in Seattle and was married to Gertrude’s sister, and he took the mother – they were very old people – so he took them to Seattle where he could look after them, because it was his mother. 

Shirley: Why did the uncle bring the boys to this country? 
FANNIE: They came to America, and he was the only one they knew in America. They knew that his nephews would come. 

Shirley: Did he bring them? 
FANNIE: He didn’t bring them, but somehow he made them come from New York. Abe was in New York for a long time before he came to his uncle in Portland. 

Shirley: Why did your Uncle Fox come to Portland, do you know? 
FANNIE: That I wouldn’t know. He had been here for years and years back. The Schnitzers, you asked for something… 

Shirley: I asked why Uncle Fox had come to Portland and how he happened to bring both the Schnitzers and the Rosenfelds. 
FANNIE: Well, he just kept in touch and he wanted them to come here. He brought Beryl and Abe. He brings out one, and they will follow. He brought out Abe, and then Moishe and Shiah followed. And of course Ben and myself. We came after, way after, that. 

Shirley: Why was Abe the first one to leave? He wasn’t the oldest. 
FANNIE: No, he was the youngest of the three. My brothers, Moishe and Shiah, both served in the Russian army, each one four years. And when Moishe came back from the army, he said no brother of mine is going into the Russian army. When Abe was supposed to report to the army, they pushed him out to America; they had to get him out secretly. So they just pushed him out so he wouldn’t go to the Russian army. 

My brother Moishe, did you know him? He was a man with a vision. And he came back from the army, and before you knew, he had three little kids; in three years there were born three girls. He thought there must be a place where one can make a better living for the family. So when Abe was here, Moishe came to America. And after Moishe was here, then came Shiah, and they brought their wives and the children. And they came to America just before the First World War broke out. If they hadn’t  come here, who knows, they wouldn’t be alive. They left a sister there with a family; they all got killed under Hitler. So they were lucky. 

When the brothers went to America, my father said he didn’t care to go to America. He said that Ben and I were the youngest children, and he wanted Ben to be his kaddish [to be the one who says kaddish for him after he died]. The war broke out when Ben was thirteen years old. I told you that story: my father and my mother were for two and a half years in the labor camps, and he died and he didn’t know that Ben was still alive. Ben was supposed to be his kaddish. That’s why they came to America, because they sent Abe out. It was meant to be that this family should be saved, because if we were in Europe, who knew what would happen. Miraculously the three of us survived, but a lot of them did not survive. 

Shirley: Now in Europe, were you close to the Schnitzer family? Did you live in the same village? 
FANNIE: No, we did not live in the same village. 

Shirley: How far apart was this? 
FANNIE: I would say it was about 15 or 20 miles. The transportation was difficult. I was still a very young girl when the war broke out, and we were all scattered.

Shirley: Your mother must have been quite a bit younger than her sister. This must have been an older sister. 
FANNIE: Could be. Couldn’t be too much older. My brothers are the same as the Schnitzers. They were multiplying similarly with the Schnitzers. 

Shirley: That’s true. 
FANNIE: The family in Washington – Leah’s mother – was my father’s sister. 

Shirley: She married a Zuckerman. 
FANNIE: She married a Zuckerman, yes. 

Shirley: And the Chasins? 
FANNIE: The Chasins are Leah Zuckerman’s children. Leah’s mother was a sister to my father. My father had two sisters, so there were seven of them. 

Shirley: How many of them came to the United States, of your father’s family? 
FANNIE: My father’s sister came to Portland. 

Shirley: Which sister? 
FANNIE: The Bernstein family. That was my father’s sister. This sister, Leah Zuckerman’s mother, died young. She left four or five children. He married and he had another family after that, so he had children from two families. Leah is a real first cousin. 

Shirley: And who is in Winnipeg? 
FANNIE: In Winnipeg was my cousin, my uncle’s son and my uncle’s brother’s son. And then I told you that I have that cousin, Ruchel, that lives in New York; she is a sister to him. Ruchel was a sister to Leah, from that sister. Ruchel was left and her mother died very young. Ruchel just died last year. I got in touch with her over the telephone about a year ago. She was very sick already at that time. I was with Ruchel in the labor camps. 

Shirley: Then Leah is a first cousin also. 
FANNIE: Sure. 

Shirley: Then she is alive and with that generation. 
FANNIE: Leah is not alive any more. Leah is the mother of the Zuckermans. Leah is a Zuckerman. 

Shirley: When did she die? 
FANNIE: She died about a couple of years ago. She lived a long, long life. She was in a nursing home for years. 

Shirley: Was she smart, was she a person? 
FANNIE: She was terrific, just a wild, live wire. She was a sister to Ruchel, and I just talked about her. 

Shirley: Were there any other children then in that family? 
FANNIE: Yes, sure, around eight or ten. I know he had four or five children with Leah’s mother, my father’s sister, and then he remarried and he had some more kids. 

Shirley: Are any of them alive at all? 
FANNIE: Some of them, like Ruchel, [she stated above that Ruchel had died last year] and I am sure there are some others. There were three sisters and four brothers, seven children, on my father’s side. 

Shirley: And in your mother’s family you only knew the one sister and the one brother. 
FANNIE: That’s right. I never knew any others in my mother’s family. 

Shirley: And when you came to this country did you see the Schnitzers at all? 
FANNIE: Yes, just like now. We were never too close. We were closer with the older generation than the younger one. 

Shirley: Tell me, what was the relationship with the Directors? 
FANNIE: No relations. 

Shirley: Were you landsmen? 
FANNIE: Landsmen, yes.