Kathryn Kahn Blumenfeld

Mollie: Kathryn, could you tell me where your parents originated from?
BLUMENFELD: My mother was born in Eugene and my father in Portland.

Mollie: What was your mother’s maiden name?
BLUMENFELD: My mother’s maiden name was Lauer. Her family came originally to Eugene from… Well, her mother was born in New York and her father was born in Germany, actually in Bavaria, in 1833. He arrived in New York at the age of 16, preceded by a brother, and they settled in New York. Between the two of them [they] made enough money to send for their mother, a younger brother, and two sisters. Then [he] became a peddler and he worked his way across the country, eventually ending in Nevada during the Gold Rush. He had a mule pack train during the Nevada Gold Rush, packing supplies into the mine and sometimes on his back and sometimes on a mule. In about 1870 he came to the Portland area, where he met and married Sarah Friendly who he had met [previously] in the East. Then they went to Eugene, where he owned and operated a general merchandise store.

Mollie: The family name Friendly is a very familiar one. Is that connected with any of the other Friendlys?
BLUMENFELD: Actually, the name originally was Frieundlich and my grandmother Friendly [lived] in New York on Delancy Street. I don’t know exactly when it was changed from Frieundlich to Friendly. When my grandfather settled in Eugene he was joined by my grandmother’s brother and between the two of them they pioneered Eugene. My great uncle, I guess it would be, was the president of the bank there and Friendly Hall in Eugene is named for him. He was one of the original trustees of the university and a street is named for him. Then you possibly remember Edward R. Murrow and his See it Now and Hear It Now [radio and television programs] and the Fred Friendly that was associated with him [as the producer of those shows] was part of this family. In fact, his mother, who was also born in Eugene of the Friendly family, went back to New York or Providence and was married back there. When Fred grew up and became a personality in radio and television, he adopted his mother’s maiden name, rather than his own name, which was rather difficult for television.

Mollie: This was all part of your mother’s background?
Blumenfeld: Yes, that’s right.

Mollie: Could you tell me why did they come to Eugene?
BLUMENFELD: Well, as I understand it, my grandfather’s brother and my grandfather both were in merchandising in San Francisco for two different firms – one for Heller and one for White. Evidently my grandfather’s brother went to Eugene first and then my grandfather joined him. I guess they decided that they would rather be in business for themselves than for somebody else, so they opened the store in Eugene. Eugene was the last frontier at that time and a good place to start, I guess.

Mollie: Now this is all on your mother’s side? Could you tell me the origin of the Kahn family? Where did they come from?
BLUMENFELD: The same set of circumstances [was also] for my father’s family. My grandfather was born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1834. His name was Edward Kahn. He came to the new world at the age of 15, migrated first to Quebec, Canada, and then went to Wisconsin. In 1851 he crossed the plains in a covered wagon. He went to California until 1867, when he came to Portland. I have no idea of why he came to Portland but in 1870 he and an elder brother established Kahn Bros. Hide and Wool business. He died in 1896. The Kahn Bros. Hide and Wool business was on Front Street. It was run by my father’s cousin Charles Kahn. Interestingly enough, in going through some of the things my uncle had, I found some correspondence that he had with the State of Wisconsin in 1929 asking for some information as to the early Kahn Bros. back in Wisconsin, which they sent him. There was a Kahn Bros. Milling firm in 1860 so evidently they were established in Wisconsin for many years before they came [to Oregon]. My paternal grandmother Ada May Kahn was born in Philadelphia in 1845 and came to California through the Isthmus of Panama. From California she came to Oregon by boat, but I have no idea why. She married my grandfather in Portland when she was 15 years old. She died in 1926.

Mollie: Kathryn, was your father born in Portland?
BLUMENFELD: My father was born in Portland, as were all the members of his family.

Mollie: Who were the immediate members?
BLUMENFELD: He had three [siblings] – two brothers and a sister: Blanche Blumauer, Frank Kahn, and Milton Kahn. Frank Kahn was the reason my father went to Boise, because Frank was living in Boise at the time my father became an attorney and told him that there was great opportunity [there]. Shortly after he got to Boise, Frank moved to California and died quite young. My father remained in Boise.

Mollie: Where did your father and mother marry?
BLUMENFELD: My father and mother married in Portland in 1905 and then went to Boise, where my father was a practicing attorney and City Attorney. Both my sister and I were born and raised in Boise, where we lived until a year after my father’s death in 1932.

Mollie: Do you want to tell what happened after your father’s death? There was your mother, your sister, and yourself?
BLUMENFELD: We moved back to Portland where all of our family was. My mother’s family home was still standing. It was on 21st and Everett. We took an apartment very close to there. My grandmother was still alive at that time and also two aunts who lived in the home. One aunt was Mrs. Sol Baum, who had two children, Anne and Ted Baum. The other aunt was my maiden aunt by the name of Henrietta Lauer. My father’s family home was on Northrup and about 22nd, next to the Hill Military Academy. My grandmother and my aunt, Mrs. Blumauer, and her husband and daughter lived in that home until… I guess until my grandmother died and they moved into an apartment.

Mollie: What did your mother expect to find when she returned to Portland? Was she going to follow some livelihood?
BLUMENFELD: Well, unfortunately, my father died very young and very unexpectedly. We had a very comfortable life in Boise. At the time I lived in Boise, when my father was alive, there were very few Jewish families. My father read the services every Friday night. There was a little shul there, and he headed the Welfare Fund and the Montefiore Fund. The Falk family and the Kahn family and about four other families constituted our congregation. We had a very nice, closed, comfortable existence. My father was the founder and one of the executives of a savings and loan bank in Idaho, which at that time did not have such a thing as federal insurance. About a month after he died (it was during the bank holiday), the bank went under and we lost everything that we had, because my father did not have any insurance. People didn’t have it in those days. He died very young, and my mother who had never worked a day in her life had to support the family. Incidentally, my mother was a university graduate before women really went to university. She graduated from the University of Oregon and graduated Magna Cum Laude. [That] had to be in the late 1800s. I do know that she went to her 50th reunion in about 1948 or something like that. I don’t know exactly when she did graduate. Anyway, when we moved Portland, Mother went to work teaching Americanization to the foreign-born at the Neighborhood House. I believe it was under the auspices of the Council of Jewish Women.

Mollie: I was going to ask you about that, Kathryn. I knew that your mother was associated with the Neighborhood House in some manner.
BLUMENFELD: That was the manner in which she was. She was teaching Americanization and English, too, to the foreign born [who lived in] that neighborhood. South Portland was the very center of much of the migration at that time from Europe.

Mollie: How old were you and your sister when you came to Portland to live?
BLUMENFELD: I was eleven years old, I believe. My sister was ten years older than I.

Mollie: You actually never lived in South Portland?
BLUMENFELD: No, we settled in Northwest Portland.

Mollie: Where did you get your schooling?
BLUMENFELD: After we moved here, I went to Lincoln High School; grammar school [was] in Boise.

Mollie: Did you go to grammar school in Portland?
BLUMENFELD: No, just high school.

Mollie: You said Lincoln?
BLUMENFELD: Lincoln, that’s right.

Mollie: And then where did you go?
BLUMENFELD: To the University of Oregon. In looking back, I think my father died when I was eleven, but we didn’t move to Portland until I was thirteen.

Mollie: When you went to the University of Oregon, were there many Jewish students there?
BLUMENFELD: No. There was a Jewish fraternity, but no Jewish sorority, and there were very few Jewish people on the campus, as I recall. I did not associate with any when I was [there].

Mollie: Did your sister go to the University of]Oregon?
BLUMENFELD: My sister went to the University of Washington and then finished at the College of Idaho in Caldwell. She took her last year there after my father died.

Mollie: Did you graduate University of Oregon?
BLUMENFELD: No. I went to work instead.

Mollie: Where did you work, Kathryn? Where was your first job?
BLUMENFELD: My first and only job was at the Oregon Automobile Insurance [Company]. One summer I went to work there. When it was time to go back to school, they offered me a permanent job. I was majoring in journalism and I really didn’t relish starving in a garret, so I went to work. 

Mollie: I wanted to ask you about life in South Portland, but knowing [now] that you were never actually a part of it, what was life like growing up in Portland amongst the Jewish population at the time you came back here to live?
BLUMENFELD: Well, I fit right in to a certain group of people. I had visited in Portland every year, ever since I was a small child, two or three times a year. My mother’s family and my father’s family were established here. I had a cousin who was about my sister’s age. She sort of made it easy for me to get right into a group of friends who I went to school with and became a part of [my] life. At that time there was a social Jewish sorority, called Sigma Theta Pi, and I was taken into that, and my Jewish contacts came through Temple Beth Israel and Rabbi Berkowitz. I was fortunate enough to be one of a group of people that were in at the beginning of the Octagonal Club, which was an integral and very important part of Jewish youth of Temple Beth Israel. I recall the very first meeting where we organized [at] the home of Mr. and Mrs. Roscoe Nelson, Sr. We used to go to Temple every Friday night, and Rabbi and Mrs. Berkowitz opened their home to us every Friday night. So my beginnings in Portland were made easy. I associated with Jewish people because this was the social strata in which my family had moved for many years. My mother and father’s families had both been members of the Temple. My uncle was very active in the Temple – Milton Kahn – so I did not find it strange, although I had [not] grown up associated with many Jewish people in my early childhood.

Mollie: I was going to ask you what your social activities were, but you’ve covered it. It was sort of integrated with your Temple activities.
BLUMENFELD: That’s right, with Rabbi Berkowitz in those days. There was a very active Octagonal group – young people’s group. We met Friday nights. We had dances, and Rabbi Berkowitz was such a leader of youth at that time that he drew us into the Temple, both boys and girls. We met with the same type of group from Seattle for regional meetings.

Mollie: Was your mother able to establish some social life when she came back to Portland?
BLUMENFELD: Yes, again, because you see, she had grown up here and many of her friends were still here. So she had a social life as well, with people that she had known all of her life. It wasn’t as if we were moving to a strange town.

Mollie: Do you remember anything at all about South Portland? Had you ever visited there? I am talking about before the Urban Renewal.
BLUMENFELD: Yes, I remember going to the Neighborhood House very often with Mother. I remember going to meetings there. I remember, of course, the delicatessen. I especially remember that. And I remember Mother meeting people on the street that she had taught citizenship to, and their greetings and so forth. At the time Mother was active in the Neighborhood House, Ida Loewenberg was the head of it. She was not only a contemporary of Mother’s, but a close friend of hers, and so this whole thing sort of evolved into a family type of thing. Of course, many of the people I knew [was] because during my junior and senior years in high school and during my college and even after I went to work, I was a counselor at the B’nai B’rith Summer Camp for many, many years under Mickey Hirschberg. Many of the people who were at camp were from the South Portland area. Many of them were children of students of Mother’s, so there was a lot of contact that I had with them. As I said, I remember the Neighborhood House very well, and attending things there, and I remember quite a few of the staff, [e.g.,] Elsie Lachman, who was the gym instructor and also did crafts, was a very close friend of ours. I remember going to shul down there [in South Portland] very often with Mother. I think the thing that I remember from that the most was the contrast with Temple Beth Israel, because they talked during the services, which we didn’t do at Temple.

Mollie: What synagogue was that, do you recall?
BLUMENFELD: The First Street shul.

Mollie: It probably was Orthodox.
BLUMENFELD: Yes. Rabbi Fain – and I remember Rabbi Fain – but it was just a casual thing. I look back on it, and I wish I did remember more.

Mollie: So, I really couldn’t ask you, nor could you answer, about the exodus of the people who grew up in South Portland? What happened to the area?
BLUMENFELD: I really wouldn’t know about that. I was a part of the transition because as I was growing up, many members of the Octagonal Club had dual membership, their families, their mothers and fathers [belonged] to two synagogues. They still kept their old membership, but they wanted their children to be members of Temple Beth Israel. So there was a transition during my teens. But insofar as remembering South Portland, it’s gone.

Mollie: So there would not be any nostalgic feeling?
BLUMENFELD: None whatsoever.

Mollie: When you see the Urban Renewal area now, do you think it was a good thing for that area?
BLUMENFELD: Mixed emotions. I think it is too bad to see a heritage go, but on the other hand, I don’t think a ghetto was a good thing. Also, that Urban Renewal did [include] some pretty bad hotels. But I think it is too bad to lose our ancestry, which I think we have done because of that.

Mollie: Back-tracking a little bit, you mentioned Mickey Hirschberg, who was quite popular in the community. Can you tell me something about her?
BLUMENFELD: Well, Mickey was a fantastic person to deal with. What she did for rehabilitation was fantastic. She was the head of the B’nai B’rith Camp for many years, and she influenced our swimming. I don’t think there is a person growing up today who didn’t have some swimming lessons from Mickey. She was a vital and alert, alive person, had pretty definite ideas of how a camp should be run. She and I didn’t always see eye to eye, but my experience under her certainly helped me and made me grow.

Mollie: In reflecting back in your growing up, what was the happiest time of your life at that time? Your happiest memories?
BLUMENFELD: I would suppose the memories that I had of living in Boise with my mother and father when we were a complete family. Although, with my mother and sister it was a great life too. I was only eleven or so when my father died, but I do remember instances. I remember my father coming back from Portland with his pockets bulging with artichokes, celery, things that we couldn’t get. So those were memories I have, and actually the transition period from Boise to Portland. When I first moved to Portland, I suppose I was [in] a sort of state of shock. I really don’t remember too much of [that] time growing up – a couple of years of high school – but I remember it was a happy time. We were a very close-knit family.

Mollie: What were your unhappiest memories?
BLUMENFELD: Death, of course. I lost my mother and then my sister. I don’t know whether you mean early time, or now, or when.

Mollie: I would say in the growing up period – what you have experienced?
BLUMENFELD: I really can’t say. I suppose the traumatic time was when my father died – the loss there – and leaving my friends in Boise, and thinking I would never make any more. I would imagine that was it, but I can’t say there were terribly unhappy times. I think our family had not been that unfortunate to be that unhappy too many times.

Mollie: Kathryn, who was the greatest influence in your life? Who influenced you the most?
BLUMENFELD: That’s a pretty hard question, because I can’t say it was my father because he died before I was really… I would assume that much of it from my mother. Of course, in my later years, my uncle, Milton Kahn. But my love for family and the closeness, I am sure came from my mother. I like to think that much of my judgment came from her. Unfortunately, I did not inherit her disposition. That had to come from my father. But I would assume that my influence in my life has all been family – my mother, my sister, my uncle – with whom I was very close.

Mollie: In growing up in Portland, in working in Portland, did you encounter any antisemitism?
BLUMENFELD: No, I can’t say that I did. I would certainly avoid going to the Town Club. I did get one bit of antisemitism when I was in college, which surprised me because it was the first I ever had. I had no intention of pledging when I went to college because Jewish girls weren’t accepted in sororities, but in those days you went down to college to take your entrance exam and everything. Then they had pledge week. So you were down on the campus during pledge week and all of my friends were going to make pledges. I finally decided, “What the heck – I might as well.” Instead of staying and looking at the four walls I went to a luncheon at a sorority one day and it was late starting and when it finally did start, the president came in and apologized for being late. She had been at a Pan Hellenic meeting where the question of “those damn Jews came up again.” That was the first time I knew how they felt about Jewish people pledging. But I was really quite proud of myself that day, because I got up and walked out of that sorority house. That was the first time that I had ever really felt any antisemitism directed towards me or towards us as a group. Of course, I feel Portland, in a middle class society, is a very protected society. It isn’t like a large city, like New York or something. I have never ever felt any antisemitism]in my work because I worked in a Jewish firm and everybody knew that I was Jewish. While I have associated all of my life with gentile people as well as Jewish people, I have never felt any direct antisemitism. Of course, we are aware of the organizations where we are not particularly welcome, but it’s something you sort of shrug your shoulders about.

Mollie: When you left college, what was your first steady job?
BLUMENFELD: Oregon Automobile Insurance Company.

Mollie: Do you want to tell me something about that organization, because it was a Jewish office?
BLUMENFELD: It was founded by Arthur Eppstein, the president, and Milton E. Kahn, who was my uncle. I am sure that’s how I went to work. In that first summer that I [was there], I [ran] errands and little things like that. I remember as a very little girl coming from Boise, my uncle always used to take me to lunch. We were in the Pittock Block in those days, and across the street was the Bohemian Restaurant. There was a 15-cent store next to the Bohemian Restaurant. If I went to the office and blotted my uncle’s signature on letters, I could go to the 15-cent store and pick out anything I wanted. So this was my first job at Oregon Auto, blotting letters, at age eight or nine or something. But when I first went to work there, I did whatever was available or what I could handle. When Mr. Eppstein offered me my first job on a permanent basis, it was at a raise in salary from my summer job, and I just felt I couldn’t turn it down. Then I did a little bit of everything. I used to write his checks. I can remember my handwriting wasn’t very good, and I used to get just holy heck from him every single month because he couldn’t read the stubs in the checkbook. Gradually I worked up and when I finally retired, I had been there 31 years. I think about the only thing I hadn’t done there was sweep. But maybe at some time I might have cleaned up, I don’t know.

Mollie: Can you tell me something about Mr. Kahn? I know that he was a very prominent citizen in Oregon, in Portland.

Mollie: Kathryn, we were talking about your uncle, Milton Kahn.
BLUMENFELD: He was very active in Jewish affairs in Portland. In earlier years he was on the Board of Directors at the Temple Beth Israel, [at] the new building. I understand there a picture in the offices of the Temple of Mrs. Kahn digging the first shovel of dirt for the Temple. But later he had a difference of opinion with Rabbi Berkowitz and withdrew the from the Temple activities, although he retained his membership in it. He became a leader in many organizations in the city, one of which was the American Council for Judaism, which, of course, stirred up a great deal of controversy in the city. He alienated many people. The thing that we always used to say about him is that you may not always agree with him, but you always knew he was around, because he was a very positive person. He had the courage of his convictions. He had a brilliant mind, a very agile mind. He was interested in many, many things, many facets. He was well versed in Judaism and in Hebrew. In fact, that whole family was. My aunt, Mrs. Blumauer, who was his sister, was one of the early pioneers in education and in social work in Portland in the Council of Jewish Women and also a fine student of Judaism. Their background, where they learned it, I don’t know, but in later years, both Mr. Kahn and his wife traveled. He was interested in so many varied things. 

One of the things that interested him clear up until the day of his death at the Robison Jewish Home, of which he was one of the very first instigators of raising the money for the new Home. He was its first president and the chapel is named for his wife, because of the money that he donated to it. He really was the force behind the Home. He had many plans for it. He envisioned apartments out there for married people or small cottages. One of these days I am sure that vision will come true. I think of all of the things that he did, possibly the most permanent contribution to the community was the Robison Home for the Aged. Many people who worked with him and knew him in his formative years would be able to add a great deal more to [the story]. When I became really aware of him, I was already an adult. Many of his earlier things he did, and the social life that he led in Portland with all of the people of the community, they would be able to contribute to this]than I can.

Mollie: Your mother, sister, and you lived in Portland during the Depression, 1929, 1930?
BLUMENFELD: No, we did not move to Portland until 1933.

Mollie: Did you experience any unusual hardships during the Depression? Did your family suffer?
BLUMENFELD: Our whole life savings were in the savings and loan that went under, of which he [my father] was one of the backers of. So yes, I would assume that it did cause hardships. My sister went to work at Meier & Frank. I was in high school during that time and my sister felt that because she had had the best of all things, because she was almost an adult when my father died. She spoiled me quite badly. So did my mother. And I really can’t say that I envisioned any hardship. Although we didn’t have a great deal of money, we seemed to get along all right. We never denied ourselves anything. I should say we didn’t live extravagantly, though.

Mollie: What can you tell me about your activities during World War II? How it affected your life?
BLUMENFELD: Well, I did a lot of volunteer work. I worked for the US Army in the Filter Center; I did Red Cross nursing, various things like that. I don’t think it particularly changed my life. Very fortunately for us, there were no sons in the family, so we did not feel the closeness. I lost many school companions, but it was not a close thing to me, as it was to many people. We all felt it, of course, and felt sorrow for the plight of the Jewish people, especially. My mother, then, did a lot of teaching with the German immigrants at that time. I don’t think she was working out of the Neighborhood House any more, but she did have a lot of them come to the house and she would help them if she could. But I can’t say that the war years, other than in a general way, were sad years for us, because we didn’t have any close, close losses.

Mollie: Kathryn, who were some of the girls that you ran around with when you came to Portland? Some of the boys? I am sure that most of them are married, but off hand can you tell me?
BLUMENFELD: Yes, because almost all of them are still the ones that we still continue to see socially. I was very close to the Senders family, Arthur Senders. This was part of my mother’s early childhood, too, because the Senders came from Harrisburg and my mother came from Eugene. So they were very close. So the Senders children – Arthur and Henriette’s children, Harriett, Bill, and James were very close friends of mine. The Neuberger family were very close. The Stengers, the Sternbergs–this whole group; the Hervins, Lautersteins… I still see all of these people.

Mollie: When did you marry and who did you marry?
BLUMENFELD: I married in 1963, and I married Robert Blumenfeld from Portland. He was born and raised in Portland on the east side. His mother and father were Minnie and David Blumenfeld. He is related to the Geffen family and the Davidson family here.

Mollie: How did you meet Bob?
BLUMENFELD: Well, Bob and I had really gone to Sunday School many years ago, but he did not associate with many Jewish people during his growing up time. Our circles just never met again until a year or so before we were married, when I came in contact with him again. Interestingly enough, his cousin was married to my sister, but this is not how we got together again.

Mollie: You have no children of this union?
BLUMENFELD: No, we do not.

Mollie: Are you involved in any activities today? Aside from being a housewife?
BLUMENFELD: Yes. I play golf, which I enjoy very much. But I am doing some volunteer work, once again. Right at the present time I am very much interested in the Robison Home. I served on the Board shortly after my uncle died, but was not very active, as it was just at the time that I was getting married and was still working. So I didn’t have that kind of time. But I am now, once again, devoting as much time as I can to the Robison Home. I do some work, some driving, for Loaves and Fishes. Last year I did do some Urban Tour guiding in Old Town.

Mollie: How do you feel about the atmosphere or living conditions in Oregon as a Jew?
BLUMENFELD: Well I find it no different than living conditions for somebody else. We, as you know, live out in the country somewhat [away] from Portland, and our associations are mixed. We associate with some Jewish people and some gentile people and find no difference in their attitudes. We spend a lot of weekends out of Portland at a house that we have at the beach, or we go to golf resorts. When we do that, we are almost always with people who are not Jewish. Many of our golfing friends are people that Bob has been with for many, many years. His associates in business are not Jewish, and I do not find any differential as far as our life is concerned.

Mollie: So it has always been a pleasant existence?
BLUMENFELD: Yes. Judaism is something that I never hide. I am very proud of my Jewish background. I find that it is a comfortable background. I think that being born a Jew has many blessings. I think we have a much greater feeling for our home and our families, and we make more of our home and our family.

Mollie: I am sure that when I leave here, Kathryn, you will think of so many things that you would have liked to have told me, and when I leave here I will thing of many things that I should have asked you. Is there some anecdote or some vignette or something that you can relate that would be interesting?
BLUMENFELD: Well, I think one of the most interesting things about it all is that you, as an interviewer, have worked with me and have known me for many years. If you are going to talk about anecdotes, you and I can certainly talk about them. We have had our moments of disagreement, moments of anger with one another. I think many years of my life were spent in the same atmosphere as many years of yours, at Oregon Auto. So anecdotes – I really don’t know. I think that many of my happiest times have been since I have been married and since we have moved out here, the times that my sister and brother-in-law were out here. I just feel that my life has not been a very controversial one. I have had a very comfortable, easy life. Judaism has been something that is part of me and hasn’t made my life difficult.

Mollie: Thank you so much, Kathryn. It has been a very pleasant interview. I hope you enjoyed it.
BLUMENFELD: I did and I hope I gave you something that you wanted.

Mollie: Thank you so much.