Joan Campf

Prahl: State your whole name and where and when you were born.
CAMPF: [Joanne Jean] Campf born in Portland, Oregon at Emanuel Hospital November 29, 1942.

Prahl: Tell me about the family you were born into. What was the household that you first lived in like? Who lived in it?
CAMPF: There was my brother, Melvin, who I affectionately called “Mellonball” as a child and continue to this day although he’s [78], he is still “Mellonball.” He is five years older than I. When I was born, we lived next door to the [Miller] family in a duplex over on NE Seventh. And then there were my father George Campf and my mother Sylvia Campf (she was a Davis). Then we moved into my grandparent’s house, my father’s parents, Molly and Sam Campf. We lived upstairs while [my parents] saved money to build their own house.

Prahl: What neighborhood was that?
CAMPF: That was on NE 12th.

Prahl: Was it a Jewish neighborhood that you lived in? Where there lots of other Jews that you….?
CAMPF: Yes, there were. It was a very Jewish neighborhood. Kind of northeast Portland from about Seventh up to probably about 15th had a lot of Jews in it. And then, [as I was growing up] some of those Jews migrated beyond 15th. So, when I was a child, Northeast Portland had a huge number of Jews.
 
Prahl: And then did most of the people who lived in that neighborhood commute to downtown for work or was the work also on the eastside? 
CAMPF: Almost everyone commuted downtown.

Prahl: By car or streetcar?
CAMPF: I think by cars or bus. Some walked too. I remember my great grandfather lived in Alameda and he walked every day downtown.

Prahl: This is your grandfather’s father?
CAMPF: Yes, my grandfather’s father; Sam Campf’s father. [His name was Jacob Campf, originally, Jacob Kompanietz. He arrived in Portland, Oregon, February 6, 1904, from Rostov, Russia.]

Prahl: What kind of a Jewish household was it? Did you do Jewish things in your home? 
CAMPF:  [Laughter]

Prahl: You do not have to be embarrassed by these questions.
CAMPF:  No, I’m not. I’m not at all. You know, it seemed to me, it’s so different from today. Yes, we belonged to Temple Beth Israel. I went to Sunday school every Sunday of my little life; little carpool, little Jewish kids and off we would go every Sunday. Actually, all the way through my grade school all the way through high school until I was confirmed. At Temple, when I was a little kid, Rabbi Nodel was the rabbi who I liked a ton and then Rabbi Rose came along when Rabbi Nodel was fired.

Prahl: Tell me a little about what you remember about Sunday school.
CAMPF: You know, I remember being bored and I remember wanting to go across the street and get some food with every other kid in the group. But the one thing that always stuck with me, and I don’t know where this was along the journey of going to Sunday school. We went to other churches all over the city. We went to Catholic and Lutheran and Presbyterian, Methodist. We might even have gone over to the Christian Science which was very close to Temple Beth Israel. An Episcopal church. I really felt like I walked through those doors and I knew what was inside, so it wasn’t so surprising to me. When I see that now as an adult and talk to the people they go “you did what?” There was really this openness about studying other religions and in a way in which you entered their sanctuaries. That part I remember. I remember Mrs. Sholkoff who was one of my teachers. Mr. Markowitz who was one of my teachers. You know, they were all well intended, but there was nothing really exciting going on and the teaching was a little boring.

Prahl: But you stayed all the way through.
CAMPF: Oh, I had no choice. [laughter]

Prahl: And where your friends from that group…?
CAMPF: Oh, yes. Oh, yes. You know it’s interesting. My brother who is five years older has had an entirely different experience. For some reason, when I grew up, I had a whole group of non-Jewish and a whole group of Jewish friends, and they did not really mix. Going to the Jewish Community Center was something I did all the time. You would go Sunday school and then you would go to the Jewish community. All the Jewish clubs I belonged to would all met at the “J.” I learn how to swim with Mickey Hirschberg at the Jewish community center. I just grew up with these people who I thought were my very best friends, all Jewish. On the other side, good friends, not Jewish.

Prahl: And where did you meet those non-Jewish friends?
CAMPF: In school.

Prahl: At which schools?
CAMPF: Alameda Grade School and Grant High School but my brother might tell you that in his growing up, the Jewish friends of his stuck together more, I mean, they did not have that relationship with non-Jews. Why there was a change with only five-year age difference? I do not know. When I was a senior in high school, for the first time in the city there was a student body president at Lincoln, Eddie Glasgow, Jewish. Student body president in Vancouver, Alan Schevick, Jewish. Vice president Cleveland, Jeff Grayson, Jewish. I was a vice president at Grant, Jewish. A president at Wilson high school, Harvey Berenson, Jewish. That was unheard of. But it was like somehow, the door popped open.

Prahl: Maybe there were other differences between you and your brother besides the five years. You were very active in sports. Was he a sporty kid too?
CAMPF: He was a sporty kid but he worked after school but he would say to me “Those doors where not open to us in high school, to belong to clubs.”

Prahl: So you don’t think it was unique to you. Other Jewish friends also had this wave of non-Jewish friends?
CAMPF: Oh, no, no. I do not think it was unique to me at all, but I think it was unique that that year, that so many Jewish kids had a leadership role in their high schools which had never happened up to that date. I don’t know why it was so, there it was.

Prahl: Let’s talk a little more about your life with your parents. What kind of people were you parents? What were the things you did with them?
CAMPF: My parents were physically very active. They were big golfers; they belonged to Tualatin Country Club. My mother was the first woman’s president of the country club – on the women’s side. She was a good golfer and she just used to love when they had these tournaments in Portland and they’d go to places Columbia Edge Water, Riverside, [Waverly Golf Club], places where Jews couldn’t belong. [But for tournaments the women of Tualatin would play on those courses.] She loved it. She loved walking on to their courses. She loved winning. She just took great pride in saying, “Well you may not let me in as a member but I just won your tournament.” 
 
Prahl: And do you golf too?
CAMPF: Yes, we were a golfing family. My brother golfed, and I golfed. I sort of began moving more towards tennis. My dad was a young basketball player and he played for [a Jewish team]. I want to say the AZA but I don’t think it was that. There was a group of Jewish young boys when he was growing up that played at a Jewish community center. They called them the Cardinals and they played out of Lincoln High. They played up and down the West Coast. I can remember his telling me that he went on the train to Los Angeles to play. Athletically, we played golf together. We were always on Sundays going some place like Waddles for dinner and getting hamburgers and sitting in our car until the car hop would come along and we ordered our burgers. That was always a big something to do. Maybe we’d see my grandparents Sam and Molly. My grandfather Sam was a tailor at Myer and Frank’s; so he was known in the city as “Sam the Tailor.” Hardly anyone knew his last name. He was about 6’4”. He was married my grandmother Molly (whose maiden name was Sherman) and she was about 4’9” or so. So to see the both of them together was just rich.

Prahl: Where they both born in Portland?
CAMPF: They were both born in Russia. Both my grandparents on both side were. They all emigrated here.

Prahl: I know one of Sam’s activities when he first arrived in Portland was that he had a car. He drove a car. Can you talk about his business?
CAMPF: I know a little bit about it. He would take people out on tours, generally up the gorge out to Multnomah Falls on the old Columbia Highway. He had this wonderful, lovely touring cab. He wasn’t a cab driver from place A to place B. It was going to some place. They would go out for a day. He’d take a group of people out for a day with a picnic.

Prahl: Did he act as a guide? Was his English good enough to give a tour?
CAMPF: At that time, he did. He told the story when he first came to this country and of course he couldn’t speak any English. He worked at the back of some drug store unloading boxes and of course he couldn’t speak English, couldn’t read English. One of the boxes [he was putting on the shelf] opened up and it looked like candy bars and he just started munching them down; munch, munch, munch. Turned out to be Ex-lax. He said, “You know I didn’t do that again.” 

He was also a boxer. He drove a touring cab and he was a boxer. [and the head tailor in the Men’s department of Meier & Frank.]

Prahl: Did he come through Portland with a family of his own?
CAMPF: He came through Minneapolis, St. Paul. St. Paul more than Minneapolis. My grandmother [Mollie], worked as a buttonhole maker in St. Paul and that’s where they met. Then they came to Portland together. I am not positive about this, but I think they were married in St. Paul and then came out to Portland. They [might have had] family in Portland but I never knew what drew him there.

Prahl: Did their members of the family follow him them?
CAMPF: Yes. They lived up by the synagogue off Alberta Street. The little shul. He was a member of the little shul and he lived up there and they actually saved money and brought some of my grandmother’s family, the Shermans, with money that they saved to bring them over. My grandfather used to say, “Yes, they turned out to be big machers, the Shermans. He turned out to be head of Meyer & Frank, and didn’t give me the time of day.”

Prahl: We are doing an exhibit on Jews and Cars this summer. I wanted to hear more about Sam.
CAMPF: Didn’t I give you the picture [of Sam in his touring car]?

Prahl: Yes. We are definitely going to use it but I wanted to know more about how he ended up having a car to drive.
CAMPF: I do not know. Deborah, make a little note and I will ask my brother. He’s the kind of person who remembers [how many] the bathtubs were running in 1910. He probably has the fact. If you are interested in bathtubs.

Prahl: How about a little bit about the Davises. How did they end up here?
CAMPF: The Davis family also came from Russia and my memory is that they came through Canada. [My grandmother, Clara Raskin Davis, came from Mogilev, Russia, which is in Belarus. At this time period, this city was about 50% Jewish]). Clara was born December 16,1888. Clara came to the US February 8, 1908. She married Jacob J. Davis in New York on January 1, 1911. They came to Portland, July 10, 1911.]

My grandfather, my mother’s father, JJ Davis, was in business with his brothers in the Opera House Laundry. The laundry was originally in downtown Portland. It was next to or close to an opera house [322 Alder] but no one has pinned it down. And then, [between 1905 and 1906, before the Davis family owned it] the laundry moved over to NW Everett just between First and Second. 

[Narrator’s note* Ads in the Oregonian read:
“Ironers, machine girls, mangle girls, folders and starchers. Best wages. Opera House Laundry, 2nd Everett.” -From February 23, 1907, Oregonian

In 1971, the Opera House Laundry moved to 1804 NW Northrup Street. At some point in the history of the Laundry, Jacob Davis bought out his two brothers. When Jacob’s sons grew up, Ocky and Arnie, they went into the business. When Sylvia married George Campf, he also went into the business. Oscar Davis, Ocky, eventually moved to Texas and the business was run by George Campf and Arnie Davis. Following the death of George Campf, Arnie Davis sold the business to his nephew, Ray Soloman, who changed the name of the business to Hospital Linen Service.]

Then my father went into the business. When he was dating my mother, he was also driving a truck for the Opera House Laundry and he was friends with my mother’s brother. That is how they met. I don’t think there were any Jews in this town that didn’t know each other in my parents’ day. We were small.

Prahl: Was the laundry a place you went to as a child?
CAMPF: I did. It was this grand old laundry, a fabulous little building. It had [an old] elevator with a wooden floor, wooden slats, and you pulled the rope like this to go to the second floor. “Let me pull the rope!” [I used to shout]. It was in an industrial area, not cute and fluffy like it is now. In front of the laundry out on [NW Everett Street] were these giant carts of laundry. Probably 20 feet high. I would sit on the top of them like I was the queen of the little May. I would wave to people [passing by]. 

There was a hotel right on the corner where Gypsies lived. I always waved at the Gypsy women sitting out front at their card table. I wanted to know why their kids never went to school and why I had to go to school. I would sit on top of these giant mounds of laundry and I thought it was terrific. I’d come see my father who would always be somewhere in the back of the laundry with sweat pouring down his face. And he’d see me. To this day, it makes me smile. He would light up. His dripping face and his smile. He put out his arms and I’d run and he’d scoop me up.

Prahl: Did he stay in that job his whole life?
CAMPF: He did.

Prahl: What would the expectation in your family? That you and your brother would go into the business also? What did they expect for you?
CAMPF: [The business was] never for a girl. My brother wanted to go into the business. I think my father didn’t want him to go into that business. I think there was family pushing and shoving and I think he didn’t want his son to have to deal with that. [Narrator’s note: It was a business shared with my uncle, Arnie Davis, and there was a lot of contentious situations.]

Prahl: What did he want for his son?
CAMPF: My brother went to school [the University of Oregon] to become an attorney. He went for two years and then dropped out. I think that was a big disappointment. In those days you could be a doctor, a lawyer and no Indian chiefs. People ran their parent’s business. I think my brother expected that because his friends all went into the parent’s business [that he would, too]. 

Prahl: What were their expectations for you?
CAMPF: Married.

Prahl: Did they expect that you would go to college?
CAMPF: Oh, absolutely. Among all the Jewish kids I grew up with us, there was never any doubt that every single one of us would go to college. The only question was where. The question after that wasn’t “What are you going to do?” It was “Who are you going to marry?”

Prahl: Where did you go?
CAMPF: I started at the University of Colorado and I lasted about a month and a half; maybe a little longer. I had mononucleosis and came home. It was interesting. I think I was also homesick although I was the person who wanted to get out faster than anybody and wanted to go as far away as I could go. I think that was the beginning for me of understanding Jew and non-Jew. I remember going through Rush Week at the University of Colorado and being rushed only by the Jewish sorority. Not any others. I just had never seen myself in such a box.

Prahl: Wasn’t that the case at Grant as well? Where there clubs you couldn’t join as a high school student or was that before your time?
CAMPF: No, I was in all the clubs. I felt equally comfortable among my Jewish friends as I did among my gentile friends. By the beginning of college, I became aware that there was a [Jewish] box that it had my name on it and I better stay in it.

Prahl: Did you rebel against it or did you follow along?
CAMPF: I didn’t rebel against it until a number of things happened. I came back from Colorado and I took some reading classes at Portland State and then I went down to the University of Oregon because my parents said, “We aren’t sending you back there [to Colorado] any more. Down to Oregon I went. I was there in the winter of my freshman year, and I went through Rush. And here are all these friends of mine that I had all through high school who had already been in sororities and none of those sororities rushed me. Well, these are my good friends! Why wouldn’t they rush me? I really realized I was isolated. They were in and I was out and I never understood in and out.

Prahl: How did they know that you were Jewish? In what ways did that come up?
CAMPF: I don’t really know but I will tell you a story. I finally rushed a sorority, Tri-Delta, where I knew nobody but it was the only one that invited me. So I thought I would join. People joined sororities and I wanted to do that. 

[Before] the initiation, this group of women who were alumni took me to lunch; there were four of them. I just thought that’s what they did with each of the new pledges that were coming into the sorority. I went to lunch and we just sat around and finally one of the women said sort of haughtily, “We asked you to come to lunch because we want you to know that you are the first of ‘your kind’ that we have allowed in our sorority.” I didn’t understand what they meant. There was this moment, ‘first of your kind’?. Then she went right on into, “You’re the first Jew in our sorority.” And I was kind of bowled over. And she said “And we know how it is for you.” (“you” meaning “Jews” even though she didn’t say it). “You like to hang out with your group or whatever.” After that I was like [disgusted/frustrated sound]. “And we don’t want that to happen in our sorority.”

Prahl: She didn’t want you inviting your Jewish friends over.
CAMPF: Exactly. Being a smart aleck has been my fallback position so I said, “To tell you the truth, all my Jewish friends are in places like Brandis and Stanford and I don’t think they would be coming to the University of Oregon. I don’t think you have to worry about it.” I didn’t know what to say. I went back to the sorority and I went to my big sister and asked, “Did you know?” She said “Yes but that’s just part A. Part B is that you can’t go through the initiation because it is a Christian initiation so we’ll initiate you in my room upstairs in the sorority.” Which they did. I remember going home and telling my parents the story. I was kind of groping [for who I was] in slow motion. It sort of started at the University of Colorado. Then, it went into the Oregon. I just didn’t have handholds for what this was about. My parents never brought me in a home that said “no them,” “yes us.” Certainly, they wanted me to marry and date Jewish guys but it wasn’t like I couldn’t date somebody else and it wasn’t like my house, our house, wasn’t filled with my Jewish or non-Jewish friends. 

Prahl: Did your parents also have Jewish and non-Jewish friends?
CAMPF: Most of their friends were Jewish. They knew non-Jewish people. They were involved in PTAs at the grade schools and high schools, clubs we both belonged to. In that respect, they were perfectly comfortable.

Prahl: The war was a big turning point and that’s when you were coming up. That’s right when the war was ending and things changed.
CAMPF: Their intimate friends were all Jewish and they were the friends they grew up with in Portland. When I came home and I said to my parents that this happened and I was trying to find a place to understand this. That’s when my parents told me the story of a tennis [incident]. For the record, I was a tennis player in high school. I played the Northwest tennis circuit. I was rated the number one player in Oregon and number three in the Northwest. I would play the Northwest tennis circuit [every summer in high school]. 

One time I was playing at the Seattle Tennis Club, which of course did not allow Jews. I was playing in the finals. Generally in this circuit we kids from Oregon didn’t do very well because they sent up these kids from California [who played all year ‘round]. We were fodder. We only played tennis in the summer. They had coaches. We were just little tennis players but anyway, I was in the finals and I called my parents, “Why don’t you come up to Seattle? I’m in the finals.” and they said sure. I’m playing the match and I’m looking at the stand and I don’t see my parents. I finish the match and probably was creamed. I don’t know but I certainly didn’t win. I got back to the house I was staying at (they housed you with people who belonged to the Seattle Tennis Club) and there was a message to call my parents. I called my parents and my mom said, “Oh, I’m sorry. Dad got caught up with the laundry and we couldn’t get up [to Seattle] in time. We are so sorry we missed the match.” 

[Now these many years later they told me the whole story.] The truth was that they tried to come into the club and they wouldn’t let them in. There was this big gate and they said to my parents “We simply do not allow Jews.” How did they know that I was a Jew? Clearly they knew. There was a tag on my head, but I never saw it. It was just beginning to come to me.

Prahl: Did you parents look different from other people’s parents?
CAMPF: No. It was not the time when people where running around with a yarmulke then. They looked kind of like folks.

Prahl: You ended up joining a sorority.
CAMPF: I ended up joining a sorority, but I wouldn’t live in it.

Prahl: And you were aware the whole time you were in there that you were different.
CAMPF: I was aware, very aware. Then in my sophomore year I met a guy from the University of Washington, a Jewish guy named Moe Musketell. We got pinned. He was part of ZBT, the Jewish fraternity at the University of Washington. He asked, “Why I don’t you just transfer here in your junior and senior year? Your Tri-Delta house is right next door to my fraternity and they take in all transfers first.” I said OK. I had the grades to transfer so I wrote a letter to the sorority, and I got a letter back. School hadn’t even started but they said the sorority was full, and so I called Moe and said, “What happened?” He said, “There was a big meeting and it turned into a big La-la.” They were simply not going to allow a Jew to live in their sorority. If I wanted to be in a sorority, there was a Jewish sorority on campus. I could be in that sorority. That was really a telling piece for me, because then I really understood.

Prahl: How do you think those experiences have affected the rest of your adult life? What did you take away with you? [
CAMPF: It was huge. I think from the time I grew up I thought I was like everybody else and that if I decided that I wanted to do something, like be something, like a good tennis player or run for student body office then I could run like anybody else. I realized in college that it wasn’t the case. I realized that there were things like quotas. Only so many Jews could get into medical schools and only so many Jews could get into law school. I really began to see this smooth life I had through grade school and high school was just not the way the world was operating at the time.

Prahl: And do you think it was Portland specific?
CAMPF: For me, I just understood that it was in Washington and Portland but probably it was Colorado too. I don’t know. I started to wear a Jewish star around my neck. I wore it out. I wore it consciously out. I wanted to say to people, pretty up front on, “Let’s set the stage. I’m a Jew. So if you don’t want to be around me…”

Prahl: Did you continue to have non-Jewish friends?
CAMPF: I did. I did. It didn’t push me into being one way or another; it made me be much more of an outsider. I became much more of a kind of advocate of outsiders, and I think I’ve never strayed from that.

Prahl: In what areas?
CAMPF: Well, I think if there is a minority situation, I’m certainly [supporting the minority]. I came from a Republican family. I became a Democrat. I became a non-joiner of groups. In fact, I’m not sure I joined any group since then. I think I became much more aware of trying to make a difference in whatever job I was in; in terms of opening a door, making things more community-wide. Deborah will remember when we worked together at KGW, we ran programs; voting programs, food programs and job programs. [Deborah Herzberg and I were friends and had worked together at KGW Radio.]

Prahl: Through the station?
CAMPF: Yes. 

Prahl: So you’ve been politically and civically active?
CAMPF: You know, I’m not a big mover or shaker, but yes. I sort of used that job not for Jews and not for Gentiles, but for a sense of community, for a sense of doing a thing all together as a community. When I was at KGW, I was [Director of Promotion and Public Affairs.] I started a number of programs on the air and one of the programs was a religious program called “Open Door.” That program won a Peabody. In that program, we invited different priests, rabbis, ministers to come in and debate. I got to know Dr. Lawrence Byers, Minister at Westminster Presbyterian Church and actually was invited by him to come and do a service. He was on one side of the pulpit and on the other. We debated an issue. Which was really a hoot.

Prahl: At the synagogue? 
CAMPF: No, at Westminster Presbyterian Church. My grandmother, Mollie, little four-foot eleven lady, unbeknownst to me, lived next door to a person who belonged to Westminster Presbyterian Church. She read my name in the program that I was going to be speaking. So this little lady [my grandmother], who never drove, took a bus to Westminster Presbyterian Church. It’s a big church. Then they had two services. So after the first service, I’m greeting people as they are coming through the doors. There’s my grandmother. And she said, “I didn’t understand a thing and I don’t know what you are doing in a church, but I was here.” [Laughter] It was so cute. A diminutive lady. I could just see her sitting in the church. I never actually saw her, but I could just imagine her going, “What is my granddaughter doing here?”

Prahl: So where in your career, did this KGW experience come? Was it an early job for you?
CAMPF: It came after I taught school.

Prahl: Let’s do the grid. What was your degree in from the University of Washington.
CAMPF: Education. Education and English, actually. I started in Political Science. I wanted to be a lawyer and then Mo [the guy I was engaged to] wanted to be a lawyer, and so I decided that I’d shift over into Education so wherever he got into law school, I could be an English teacher. 

Just before the end our our senior year, Mo came down to Portland. We were downtown at one of the parks and he turned to me and said that he’d like his ring back and that he wasn’t in love with me, and I gave him the ring back and he got up and walked away. It was the last time I saw him. It turned out that (I learned from the Jewish gossip circuit) he had been dating or seeing a young woman by the name of Cindy Thal, who was a Jewish lady from Seattle, and they had fallen in love. He ended up marrying her. I just remember going home on the bus sobbing … sobbing. Coming home and walking in the door and saying to my mom, you know blah. 

In a way, it was also part of this huge change that was happening. His family was Sephardic and mine was Ashkenazi. His parents did not like me probably for a number of reasons. I’m sure one of which was [the separation between] Ashkenazi and Sephardic. The other was because my father owned a laundry and his family were exceedingly wealthy. I was the little jock-ette. I got out and played basketball. I think it was everything they didn’t want in a daughter-in-law. In fact, when we got engaged, his father called and said he was opposed to the marriage. He said there wasn’t anything he could do about it but he wanted me to know he was opposed.

Prahl: And you were engaged for years…
CAMPF: Two years. So I felt in an odd way doubly cast out. I felt cast out from gentile friends and cast out on the Jewish side. I don’t think since that time I ever really felt in. I think I’ve always stayed on the edge…

Prahl: Did that influence the choices that you made as an adult?
CAMPF: Yes. I think they influenced them very negatively. I think it made a hugely negatively difference. Huge, negative difference.

Prahl: Did you consider going on to law school after you didn’t have to worry about his career anymore?
CAMPF: No. I was an English teacher.

Prahl: Where did you teach?
CAMPF: Lake Oswego high school. And of course, because it’s me, there’s a story.

I taught English and I loved it. I just thought teaching was great. I was teaching junior English in high school and it was American literature. I got to the place of teaching playwriting, American playwriting, and decided to assign Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman. In those days, you were free to…you had some choices. Then I was called in the Principal’s office. He said, “Excuse me, you cannot teach Death of a Salesman because it is pornographic.” And I said “Pornographic?” He had his playbook open. He was an ex-coach. I don’t think he ever read the play but I think somebody pointed something out to him about when Willie Loman [the salesman] was on the road and he gave some nylons to a sales lady who was next door in the hotel. I don’t know; it was crazy. 

Anyway, I left his office and I was furious. You know, long-haired, redhead, sort of a fiery nature. I was marching down the hall in my little high heels, “clickty, click, click,” and I ran into the head of the History Department and he said, “Ooh, little redhead mad!” and I said “Little redhead real mad!” and I told him the story. He said, “I got an idea. We have a grant from the Ford foundation and it allows us to call anybody in the world and the kids can pick up the phone and interview them and it’s broadcast back into the class room.” This was 1964-65. That was a big deal then. So he said, “And there are no restrictions; I can call anybody. So, go back and write Arthur Miller a letter and see if he’ll appear on his telelecture; talk on the phone and I will bring my five History classes and you bring your five English classes.”

So, went home and wrote a letter about censorship and blah blah blah,. I looked at my little playbook and sent it off to the publisher. Sort of like “Dear Santa, I’d like a horse.” “Dear Arthur, I’d like to talk to you.” One day I am in the classroom. There is a message: “Ms. Campf, you have a phone call in the teacher’s room and I go to the room. “Ms. Campf?” “Yes.” “This is Arthur Miller.” 

For a moment, I thought it was my father because he would do something like that. He had this wonderful sense of humor but he went on to say. “I’m in my publisher’s office.” And it was like Santa. I was like, “What?” So he said, “I got your letter. You probably don’t know this but after the McCarthy Era, I promised myself after going through all those trials and watching all of my friends’ lives ruined, that if there was anything I could do about censorship I would do it. So I accept your invitation.” 

Accept! I was four feet off the ground. We set a date and he said the only thing is he wanted was to be home in Connecticut when I do this. So we set a time. We set a date. I told him what would happen and that I would check back with him. I hang up the telephone, four feet off the ground. Flew into the principal’s office and said (probably as snobbily as a person could), “Excuse me, but I just talked to Arthur Miller and he is going to talk to my kids though this Ford foundation telelecture.” And he said “Okay, it’s your choice. You can go ahead and do that but you’re fired at the end of this year.” And I looked at him and said, “Then I’m fired at the end of this year.” 

I went back to my classroom and thought, you know, I’m not going to tell these kids what that whole scene was about. That was my scene. I simply said to them, “I can’t teach this on the school grounds, but we’re going to do this telelecture. If you are interested in participating in this, I’m going to have copies of the play and I’m going to be off the grounds. You can come by and pick them up and you have to have your own study groups off the school campus. Anybody who wants to do it, fine. If you don’t want to do it, you don’t have to do it.”

My mom, bless her heart, went down to Temple Beth Israel, typed up the play and then mimeographed a bazillion copies because that was the day—the mimeograph machine. I was in my little car off the school grounds and sure enough, every kid in five English classes picked up a copy of the play. I don’t know if they thought it was going to be Catcher in the Rye. I don’t know what they thought. I never went into it. 

So the day comes and we are in the auditorium. In the back of the auditorium is the principal, the vice principal, and the superintendent of schools. Who did they think I was talking to? I was talking to Arthur Miller! Give me a break! The kids did this great job. I actually have a recording of it I happened to have the superintendent’s daughter in one of my classes. He came up to me afterwards and said, “You know you have my daughter in your classes and she’s just come alive this year. I know you have been fired for doing this, and I always decided that I would never go above a principal’s head on a single thing. There were many things we should sit down and talk about it. I used to be superintendent of schools at Del Campo High School outside of Sacramento. Do you want a job down there?” I said, “Yes!” And so down I went the next year to Del Campo High School.

I never told the kids that I was fired. I never said a word. I did run into some of those kids 30 years later. They were really my contemporaries. They were only about four years younger. If they had ever figured that out in high school, there would have been a mutiny I’m sure. 

Anyway, down I go to Del Campo High School and it was a great high school. They were way ahead of the times. They were teaching English, history and art combined. So the three teachers would teach these different places in history in terms of its literature, its history, and its art. It was just a great concept back then. 

It was almost the end of the school year and we are kind of up to the 40s and 50s. We [teachers] would alternate to give the lecture. It was my turn to give a lecture, and I gave a comparison of Mein Kampf and the John Birch Society’s The Blue Book. Usually we would give the lecture to all these classes together and there would be a 15-minute break before we would break off into groups. The three teachers left and we come back in after 15 minutes. As I am coming through the auditorium and the principal is at the podium and he is shoving all my materials into a box and he points at the three of us and he says, “I’ll see you in my office now.” 

We go into his office to find out that he is the head of the John Birch Society in the Sacramento area. He is none too happy. How he got wind of it so quickly … but he did. He said, “From now on, every lecture you give will be checked by me. If I don’t approve it, you don’t give it.” So, I quit. And that was sort of the end of my teaching career.

Prahl: Wow. A radical in two schools.
CAMPF: You know, I never saw myself as being radical but I really think that the whole business of being labeled a Jew changed me. I am not sure I would have been that same person but there was part of me that was not going to bend any more. There was a part of me that was going to say “not on your life.”

Prahl: Did you get advice from people? Your parents? Like, “Go with the flow? Don’t fight it?”
CAMPF: No.

Herzberg: There were not teacher unions back then?
CAMPF: If there were Deborah, I did not know about it.

Herzberg: And you would have because you would have been paying dues.
CAMPF: Yes.

Prahl: What happened next? What did you do after teaching?
CAMPF: I came back to Portland and because I had been a tennis professional I started the Portland Tennis Center [Club].

Prahl: Let’s go back to the Portland Tennis [Club]and then we will go back to your career. When did you start the Portland Tennis [Club]?
CAMPF: [I had been a competitive tennis player in the Northwest when I was in high school. When I was at the University of Washington, the guy that I used to play mixed doubles with was at UCLA and he wrote me a note [recalling when] we both belonged to the Irvington Tennis Club as junior members. That cost us twelve bucks [a year], which meant we could use the tennis facilities but not the pool or anything else. That was fine with us. At that moment, clubs were beginning plans to build in [indoor] tennis courts and so their whole fee structure was changing and their membership structure was changing. 

He said, “What is going to happen to kids like us who could not have afforded to do that? What do you think about starting a public tennis club?” I said, “yes!” He was being raised by his grandmother, who was very close to Dorthea Lynch, the head of the [Portland] Park Bureau. His name was Bill Ward. Bill said he was coming up for Christmas and would make an appointment with Dorthea and let’s go down and talk to her. We went to talk to her and she said, “Okay.” Why not use these courts over by Benson High School? Nobody ever uses those courts and they are kind of ‘mooshed up.’ I cannot give you any money, but I can hire you as recreation instructors.”

Prahl: So this was a summer gig?
CAMPF: Yes, and so we did!  It really grew. For three summers between my junior and senior years and then afterwards, when I was at Lake Oswego [High School, teaching], I ran the summer program at Portland Tennis [Club]. When I came back from Sacramento, I went back to the Park Bureau to see if I could do anything for the winter and they sent me out to Mount Scott Community Center to run a class with three, four and five-year-olds, which I knew nothing about. But, there I was. So that’s how the Park Bureau thing came along. Then they assigned me to do marketing for the summer disabled program, which was out on the Sandy River. So I then I did that.

Prahl: All through the Park Bureau?
CAMPF: Yes, all through the Parks Bureau. Then they assigned me to do promotion for the Firehouse Theater. One night I was sitting with some friends from the Firehouse Theater at a bar that used to be very close to where the Jewish Community Center used to be. This gentleman and his wife walk in. He had just been hired to be the new director of the Portland Opera Association and there, at this long table, he sits next to me and asks me what I do. At that point, it was summer and it was teaching tennis. What was he doing? He was head of the opera and then we started making fun of each other. I was talking about fat opera singers and he was talking about how stupid it was to teach tennis in a place where it rained all the time. Anyway, we just bantered back and forth. At the end, he wrote his name on a napkin and said he needed someone to do promotion for the opera. “If you are interested, give me a call.” And I said, “you know from our conversation, I have never heard or seen an opera; I just think everybody is fat.” The next day, I still have this napkin and I call him on the phone and I said, “Why would you want me?” And he said, “Because you’re so dumb, you’ll do everything I want you to do because you don’t know anything about it and you’ll do it the way I want it to be done.” And I thought about it and thought “Why the hell not?” And so I became head of the opera promotions for five years. It was the beginning of the Portland Opera [at the Keller Auditorium].

Prahl: Did you know anything about promotions?
CAMPF: Well, I did a little bit with the Firehouse Theater but, no, beyond that, no. I just was a little ex-English teacher but he was right. He taught me. He just taught me. I fell in love with opera. I had a wonderful time. And then he died [on stage].

Prahl: Did you leave the opera after that?
CAMPF: I did.

Prahl: Because…It was more him, then…?
CAMPF: It was that, and I was sort of ready to move on.

Prahl: Did you have an idea of what you wanted to do next?
CAMPF: No, but I just felt that I have done this piece and the fact that he died, it just sort of said, move on.

Prahl: Where were you living during this part of your life back in Portland again?
CAMPF: I rented a little house between Lake Oswego and West Linn. Kind of by Marylhurst College.

Prahl: So you drove everywhere? 
CAMPF: I did.

Prahl: Did you have roommates?
CAMPF: I did not.

Prahl: You just rented by yourself?
CAMPF: I started in a little place by Lake Oswego; an apartment. Then, I went to this house.

Prahl: Where you doing anything Jewish during that time as a young woman? Did you join a synagogue? 
CAMPF: You know, I was not. I was very separated from my Judaism. I don’t think I was separated from it in terms of my belief, but I was separated in terms of joining or being a part of anything. I think the combination of feeling cast out on the Jewish side and feeling cast out on the Gentile side. I just wasn’t going anywhere religiously.

Prahl: Did your Judaism ever come up with the Parks Bureau or with the opera? Where there ever issues? You weren’t an outsider in those places?
CAMPF: No. The wonderful part of when you get into the theater, that is, where you get into mixed groups. Nobody is…

Prahl: Acceptance.
CAMPF: Yes. It is full of Jews…lots of Jews as it turns out. I felt very comfortable in that world.

Prahl: So when you left the opera did you want to stay in that theater world or was the field wide open to you?
CAMPF: I was not quite sure what I wanted to do. When I worked for the opera [and the Firehouse Theater], I went to school at night at the University of Portland and got a Masters in Playwriting. I always had a feeling that I wanted to do that. I did a little directing [with Florine Weiss at the Firehouse Theater] and I kind of liked it. I just didn’t see where I could go with that. Then a friend of mine was working at KGW Radio, and they were looking for a person to head up Promotion and Public Affairs. He said, “Why don’t you come and apply?” And I said, “I do not know anything about it.” And he said “Oh, that doesn’t make any difference. Just come” Today, you couldn’t do those things.

Prahl: Jobs just kind of fell into your lap.
CAMPF: They did. You cannot do that today. You have to come with these five billion credentials. The world was different then. I could no more have gotten the job with the opera then the man on the moon. So, I went in and I interviewed and I got this job. And again, I knew nothing about radio. Zip. But loved it. I had a wonderful, wonderful time there. We opened up the Freemont Bridge. We just did great stuff.

Prahl: How long were you there?
CAMPF: I was there five years. Then my husband … I had been married.

Prahl: We skipped a whole marriage there. Please tell us his name.
CAMPF: Peter Teel.

Prahl: A judge?
CAMPF: Oh, no. About as far away as you could get from a judge. He was a Christian Scientist. We married in my parent’s living room by the minister at Westminster Presbyterian Church, who I had become friends with. Go figure. My parents were not happy. Not happy. He had two children. It could not have been worse for [my parents].

Prahl: Where had you met?
CAMPF: When I was doing promotions for the Firehouse Theater. Peter was a graphic designer and I had met him in the graphic design world. Anyway, I met him and he had gone through a divorce, and we started to date. I can remember my father saying to me, “You know, we are not particularly happy about this, but we are particularly unhappy because he is a Christian Scientist. I am afraid that if something happened to you, he wouldn’t pay attention.” And I am like airy-fairy, “Oh, Dad, nothing is going to happen to me, come on…blah…you are so dumb.” I was chief of dumb. Peter and I did get married. We were married by [Dr. Lawrence Byers, the minister at Westminster Presbyterian Church, the man I had debated with at his church]. He was just a great guy. [Peter’s] children were going to stay with his ex-wife but six months into our marriage, they decided they wanted to come and live with us.

Prahl: How old were they? 
CAMPF: Eleven and thirteen and they were not happy. They were not happy children. It was not a lot of fun. [exhale]

Prahl: They lived with him?
CAMPF: Peter and I bought this house that I live in now on SW Shaddock Road. It is a little farmhouse built in 1920. Goodness. [I remember when Peter and his daughters came to their first Passover at my mother’s] table. We’d have the two girls with us. We always had these big Passover dinners, big Rosh Hashanah dinners.

Prahl: Who was invited to them? Who came?
CAMPF: All my aunts and uncles.

Prahl: On the Campf side?
CAMPF: On the Campf side and a little on the Davis side, in fact. One of my uncles on the Davis side was kind of a shady guy. 

Prahl: We would love to hear about him.
CAMPF: Nice guy but a little shady. At Passover, he would always come late and he would always come with the latest hooker that he was with. It was always about the time we would say, “open the door for the Elijah.” My dad would shove the table so the wine would spill over and I would go to the door. That’s when my uncle Oscar would come in with whatever hooker he was with and, of course, all the eyes at the table would just “gah gah.” I could not wait for that moment that my uncle Oscar came in with, whatever, whoever he was dating.

Prahl: Aside from dating hookers, what did he do?
CAMPF: He ran a pizza restaurant. It was called Blue Heaven, over on SW Barbour. He also wholesaled women’s clothes. When I grew up, wholesaling (for Jews) was huge. In clothes, in televisions. Just about anything you could imagine, there was a wholesaler. Now, it is not so much but most of the Jewish people who were not in retail, were in the wholesale business. And so, he ran a wholesale women’s clothing.

Prahl: Did they call him Ossie or Oscar?
CAMPF: Oscar. 

Anyway, [back to Peter and his daughters at Passover], he is sitting at the table and there are usually 30 people there. I look across the table and I notice that Peter’s daughters have left the table. “Peter? Where did they go?” So I got up and went to the back of my Mom’s house and they were in the back bedroom sobbing. Sobbing. “Why are you sobbing?” “You are arguing! Everybody hates each other! Everybody is yelling at each other. Everybody is calling each other names!” It was really misunderstanding this culture. I mean they were so appalled. It is true. We got into these arguments about “your rabbi this” and “your rabbi that” and part of the table was Democrat and part of the table was Republican. We would be trashing everybody’s whatever. I mean it just went on that way. I tried to say to them that the only reason we can do this is that we really love each other. We could not do it otherwise. I mean, I could turn to my cousin and say, “You’re so full of shit, I can’t stand it!” I couldn’t say that if I did not love them.” But these kids were just completely appalled. 

Prahl: Did they stay with you?
CAMPF: They stayed. Peter and I were married for five years. The oldest stayed through high school. I was working at KGW. Near the end of our five years we were clearly going to get divorced and we decided that I would quit my job at KGW and he would stop freelancing graphic design. We would go off to Mexico and sort of see if we could spend some time and repair the relationship. We spent three months in Mexico and then decided [to separate and finally divorce].

Prahl: And so career number three? [Laughter]
CAMPF: It does go like that. I’m sorry. Why don’t you interview someone who had three kids and they all went off to Harvard and then they married and they’re Jewish and they are big machers of the synagogue. Why are you interviewing this little dweeb? [Laughter]

Anyway, after the divorce, I met a guy who did slide tape shows for colleges in Seattle. He had been hired to do something for Portland Community College.

Herzberg: Slide tape shows? 
CAMPF: Well, that is what it was in those days. They were slides and then there was music.

Herzberg: Like a Power Point?
CAMPF: Well, more like a movie in the sense that they had sound tracks.

Prahl: What was the subject?
CAMPF: He was doing these for some colleges in Seattle as recruitment pieces. He said, “I just got hired by Portland Community College. Can you come on board and do the writing for me?” I said “Sure! Yes.” We had a contract for one, but we ended up doing thirteen. During that whole year, I got to know a lot of the people at the community college. One of the deans who I got to know a lot said, “I’d like to hire you to run this Women’s Program at PCC.” Again, a thing I knew nothing about. Zip.

Prahl: You inspire a lot of confidence.
CAMPF: I don’t know. Ignorance is always right at the very front. So I said “I don’t…” He said “Come on. I will give you my secretary. She will be half-time and you will be half-time.” So I said okay and I started this program and then I became full-time and ran that program for five years.

Prahl: Tell me what the Women’s Program is.
CAMPF: It started out as being called Careers for Women.

Prahl: This was the ‘70s all ready? Where are we?
CAMPF: This was in the late ‘70s. There was national program called Displaced Homemakers. Women were coming back to community college as adults. They were coming back to the community college which had normally been for people right out of high school or needing to return to work one way or another. There was this big, seismic shift beginning to happen – at least here at the community colleges. There was some Federal money and State money for displaced homemakers. These were women in their forties who had no college education or had been out [of the job market] for 25 years. They had kids and were forced, some because of a divorce, to come back to school. The program we started was to figure out how to get them integrated into a college situation where they were among all these young kids and somehow to support them in various ways.

A friend of Deborah’s and mine by the name of Nan Renaud, now Nan Whitaker-Emrich, was a therapist at that time and I brought her on as a staff person. I realized that a lot of what we needed to do was to be able to deal with these women’s psychological issues. Then I realized as I went on a little further that we needed to deal with daycare. While we had a daycare program on the campus, it was too expensive for a lot of these women to put their children into. So, Nan introduced me to a lady by the name of Stephanie Sussman. Stephanie had just graduated from Louis and Clark as a counselor. I brought her on staff to build a cooperative daycare program. 

The college itself was kind of like, “What are you doing?” They thought it was this little thing in the corner and suddenly we are building this program. Well, “We don’t have room on the campus for daycare.” So I went out and bought a giant van and took it over to the automotive department and had them rip the whole thing apart and turned it to a place where we could have a daycare center.

Prahl: Inside a van?
CAMPF: Yes. Inside a giant van.

Prahl: Like a moving van? Like a truck?
CAMPF: Like an RV. Like a giant RV. And Stephanie ran that particular program. I got to be very successful because…

Prahl: Physically where were you?
CAMPF: We parked it in a parking lot.

Prahl: Where was the campus?
CAMPF: At PCC Sylvania [in Southwest Portland]. So we parked in a parking lot by the automotive center and started this thing called the Cooperative Daycare Center where women had to volunteer certain number of hours and their kids were allowed to come without any cost except for supplies. That turned out to be very successful and we began to go around to the other community colleges in the state to try and teach them how they could do this.

Prahl: Oh. How wonderful.
CAMPF: There was this big shift going on. The shift was older people coming back and the colleges at that time just hadn’t made that adjustment yet on both the counselor side and on the advisor side. These were new problems. You’re dealing with women coming back. Some were alcoholic. Some were taking tons of Valium. They are trying to balance a divorce and children and a household. It was a lot of meshuggah going on. It was really Nan and Stephanie who taught me what we needed to do. Essentially, they would say, “Here is another wall. Can we figure out how to get beyond it?” So, we built this program. We ended up with 32 people on the PCC campuses, but the college fought it every step of the way. It still hadn’t shifted from all boys running the show to now mostly all women. The male deans just saw this as a thorn in their sides. They would not fund us and I would just go out and get money from foundations to fund the program. Then finally after again the end of the fifth year, I just felt worn down.

Prahl: Yes. Fighting every step.
CAMPF: I was worn down. So I left and decided that it was a good time to do something I’d been thinking about, to start my own advertising business. I figured I was 41 years old. It was 1983 and I started my own advertising business. And that I stayed in that for 30 years.

Prahl: What did you call it?
CAMPF: Joan Campf. It was very simple.

Prahl: What type of accounts did you do?
CAMPF: I had Marty Zell, Jeweler. At that point in his career, Zell brothers had just sold to Zale’s, so he had opened up his own jewelry store. I did his marketing for 15 years until he retired. His brother Alan Zell started his own business called “Attitudes for Selling”. I did his marketing for all of his career. Sunset Porche/Audi, Isler, (an accounting firm that had offices in Portland, Eugene, Medford and Klamath Falls), [Emanuel Hospital, the Collins Companies, etc.]

Prahl: Did you employ designers and photographers or did you just contract with them?
CAMPF: I contracted. I decided after [spending five years at PCC supervising staff and building programs] through all the stuff that I had gone through, what I wanted to do was the work [of writing and creating – that was my passion]. I did not want to bring the money in for someone else to do the work. I realized, that if I was going to go broke, I would go broke by myself. I wasn’t going to take anyone down with me. Portland at this time had a huge freelance community, designers, illustrators, photographers. There were agencies but they didn’t dominate like today, with international agencies. Because I had been married to Peter, I knew a number of these people; designers and photographers. One of the graphic designers was Jewish, Charles Politz. I actually just gave a speech about a week ago at Art Week, featuring three of the iconic graphic designers in Portland, and I spoke about Charles because he and I had a long career together until he died.

There is a funny side story [to my career with Charles]. Charles was married to a Japanese woman by the name of Eko. Charles’ mom and Charles were members of Temple Beth Israel. Charles’ mother was buried at Temple Beth Israel cemetery. When Charles died, Eko went to the Temple to see what it would cost to bury Charles there, which was a lot of money. A really lot. So she said, “I don’t want to do that because he wanted to be cremated.” Now picture a tiny, diminutive Japanese lady. She went up to Temple Beth Israel cemetery at night. Dug a little hole on top of Charles’ mother’s grave. Poured in some ashes. Covered it up and then spread the rest of the ashes on the Sandy River. It gave me such a howl. 

Prahl: I am looking at the time. I don’t want to run out of time before you talk about Jane and you talk about the Collins Foundations and I want to go back to the grandparents a little bit at the end. So let’s start with the Collins Foundation. 
CAMPF: Collins is a forest products company that started in 1855 in Pennsylvania and then moved west in the early 1900s. In my advertising career, I had done a book called Oregon’s National Forests, a big coffee table book. Unbeknownst to me, they had seen that book. They were in the middle of moving from one agency and looking for another agency. They called me and asked if I would come in and talk to them. 

They were going to be the first [privately-owned] forest products company in the US to be certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC). Then, it was very a big deal. They were beginning to move in a whole different direction. A vice president by the name of Wade Mosby called me and said, “Would you come in [for an interview]?” and I said, “Yes.” I thought I was actually going to be interviewing with this one man, but it turned out to be [the entire management team from Oregon, California, and Pennsylvania]. I am at one end [of a long boardroom table]and there is the president, Jim Quinn, at the other end. And on the sides are [a roomful] of men and one woman. 

I am thinking, “Oh my God. I am just a little person here.” [Jim Quinn] looks at me at the end of the table and says, “So I am going to pay you for your time because I have some questions I want to ask you.” And I thought, “Get me out of here! Out of here! Get out!” He said, “Are you an environmentalist?” and I said, [clearing her throat], “Yes, I am!” Thinking that would get me to the door and the hell out of there. And he said “Good. So we can continue the interview.” And I could feel the sweat coming down my little titties. 

He goes to this screen that is pulled down and he pulls it up and there is a blackboard behind it. There are all these names all over this blackboard. He said, “We are trying to name our new product.” I knew that when I came into the room; everyone in the room had put names up there. “So, what do you think of these names?” And they were just awful. There were names like “Volcano Wood.” Are you kidding me? I asked a few questions. What was the reputation of this company? Which was sterling – just a sterling reputation. The name Collins was a name that carried good stuff behind it. So he throws down this piece of chalk from one end of the boardroom to the other and I catch it. And he said, “Put our own name up there!” I walk up there and I look at those names and I just wrote, “Collins Wood.” I Put the chalk down and came back and sat down and said, “If your name is as good as you are telling me, why would you name your product anything that did not have your name in it?” That was the end of the interview. The next day, they called and said I had the job. I worked for Collins for probably 15 years. 

Prahl: Did you have other clients at the same time or where they your exclusive…?
CAMPF: No, no. I had other clients. They asked me if I would sit down with Maribeth Collins, who was then the senior Collins and Chairman of the board. She was the fourth generation. I sat down with this wonderful woman, just an incredible woman, very polite, very kind, very quiet. She did not carry any this sort of muscle or pomp either because of her money or for being head of not only the Collins Company but also the Collins Foundation. 

She started asking me some questions and we got into the conversation and she said “If you wrote this book? What would you do?” I said, “I would write an honest book about honest people and I would tell the real story.” She said, “You are hired.” 

It took me eight years [to write and produce the history] because they have or had forest operations in California, Pennsylvania, Washington and Oregon and lots of other holdings [such as] railroads and [gas operations]. The book came out to be three volumes. I was very proud of it because when I would come up against something that did not make the family shine, I would call and I would say, “So here is this and I think it belongs in the book.” The family would talk about it and call me on the phone and say, “Put it in.” That probably happened maybe a dozen times. In that process, I became very close to the family. I just had tea with Maribeth the other day. They gave me a terrific opportunity.

Prahl: Do you want to keep writing?
CAMPF: Yes. I think writing is what I always really loved in some form. But they were terrific. They supported me and they were amazing. I don’t think I could have done it without their support.

Prahl: Let’s go back because I should have asked these questions when we were talking about the grandparents. You said you grew up at Beth Israel Sunday school but Sam and Molly and J.J. and Clara didn’t go to Beth Israel. So talk a little bit about synagogue. 
CAMPF: They went to Neveh Zedek [the Orthodox synagogue].

Prahl: All four of them?
CAMPF: Yes. In fact my grandparents on my mother side are buried at the synagogue’s cemetery out on the East side. 

Prahl: The one in the Southeast?
CAMPF: Yes. My other [Campf] grandparents are buried at the one off Canyon Road. Essentially, we were the Reform part of the family. My aunt and uncle Sylvan Campf and his family were Neveh Shalom [the Conservative synagogue]. My grandparents on both sides were Orthodox. That, of course, made for the wonderful Rosh Hashanah arguing table.

Prahl: How did your parents end up at Beth Israel? Why did they leave their parents’ synagogue? 
CAMPF: It is not a question I ever asked them. There was this push to assimilate and I think they were part of that. I think they wanted that. I think they were more comfortable in services that more to do with English than with Hebrew and I think that is what they wanted for their children. 

Prahl: Do you know if there were a lot of Russian-heritage Jews joining Beth Israel at that time when it had traditionally been a German Jewish group? Do you know if there was animosity?
CAMPF: I do not know that. The animosity was just within our family.

Herzberg: I remember you telling stories about running around the two different synagogues. 
CAMPF: We would go. My grandparents on my father’s side, Sam and Molly [Campf], belonged to the synagogue that is over off of Meade Street.

Prahl: That is Kesser Israel.
CAMPF: That was their synagogue. Usually on Rosh Hashanah, after the service at Temple [Beth Israel] we would go first to Neveh Shalom and see my aunt and uncle and my cousins. Then we would go over to see my grandparents.

Prahl: When you say Neveh Shalom, you mean Ahavai Sholom don’t you?
CAMPF: Yes. Before it had moved to the motion picture theater that it is today.

Prahl: Oh, it was Neveh Shalom for a short time when it was across the street from the JCC.
CAMPF: Right. It was downtown. Then we went to see my grandparents. And I would sit upstairs with my grandmother, which I just loved. This story just sort of sits in my head. I would always look down at my grandfather. For some reason the World Series was always being played during the High Holidays. The men always wanted to get out of synagogue and listen to the score on the radio. The score was a big deal. 

One year the rabbi, who I can’t remember his name, stood up to say how much money needed to be raised [to run the synagogue] for the rest of the year. They would say we have to raise “x” number of dollars, close the back doors, and say “Nobody is going out until we raise that money and then we will start the service.” Everyone on the main floor would begin kind of shuffling around down there and guys kind of going like this waiting for somebody to stand up. Finally, somebody would stand up and say “Okay, ok, ok, ok. Ten thousand.” Then somebody else would stand up and say, “Okay I am at seven thousand.” I am making these numbers up. One time some guy turned over and said, “If I did ten, you’re doing ten too!” I mean it was just clear everybody knew everybody and everybody knew who could afford to do what and they never asked my dad. He said “You’ll notice, they will never do that to someone who can’t.” So they know who can and who can’t [afford it]. 

When they were done getting that amount of money, they would open the back door and start the service. During this time I would have gone outside to get the score and I can remember leaning down saying to my grandfather, “Yankee’s… threeeeeee or Dodgers… twoooooo.” [laughter]

Prahl: He appreciated it.
CAMPF: Yes. So did all the guys around him. Those services had so much noise on the floor. People are davening, and talking and blah blah. It is not like going to Temple where you sit quietly. [At Temple] you would not open your mouth. You stand when they say stand. There is motion going on all the time and the women up above were always chattering to each other and blah, blah blah and kids were running around.

Prahl: So you got to have both experiences.
CAMPF: Yes. I liked it actually. I thought it pretty. I know it was cool.

Prahl: How about now? What is your Jewish life like now?
CAMPF: Well, beginning a number of years ago – maybe 20 years now…. One of the things I used to do is. I had some friends who belonged to Madeline Parrish, which is a Catholic church and school. I would go over and help their little girls to be angels in the Christmas pageant. They had three little girls and it was always the year for one or another of them to be somebody. They were a cow or they were sheep. I don’t know. I helped them get dressed. One evening, at the end of the service, I went up to the priest and I was chatting with him. He saw my Jewish star and he said “So where do you go to synagogue?” I said, “Well, I don’t go.” And he said “Well, I study every week with a rabbi.” I said, “You study with a rabbi every week?” It was Gary Shoenberg that he studied with. I said, “Give me the name of that rabbi.” Sure enough, the next day I called Gary and I started going to Gesher and became friends with Gary and his wife, Rabbi Laurie Rutenberg. They just kind of softly ushered me back into a place where I felt warm and comfortable and able to be who I was in this small atmosphere. I didn’t feel like I was kind of lost in the multitudes. And then I joined Havurah and became a friend of Barbara Slader and that kind of brought me in to going to synagogue. I stayed there for a number of years. And now I am sort of betwixt and between. Gary and Lauri have sort of gone off on other ventures while still running Gesher. But while I think I am betwixt and between in terms of a synagogue, I think I am very connected to the Jew that lives inside of me and find that person very settled. I am still not a joiner. I am still not comfortable with that, but it doesn’t bother me in terms of my being Jewish.

Prahl: See, that’s where you think you aren’t telling an Oregon story. That is, where you are a mover and a shaker in the Oregon Jewish community. I think that is very typical of Oregon.
CAMPF: I will add one side story about Temple. Some years ago, I was diagnosed with a growth in my pancreas that they thought was cancer. I went to have a biopsy. When the report came back that it was not cancer (it was a growth but it was a non-cancerous growth), I was pretty sure it was my invitation out the door. I came home and I said to Jane [Comerford, my partner], “You know, I want to go to Temple on Friday night and I want to sit with my family. Where we sat all the years where I grew up at Temple.” I wanted to sit in the exact row. The Gilbert family, Rosalie Gilbert and her sons Teddy and Kerry, and our family sat in one row. 

It did not occur to me that the Friday night service wouldn’t be in the big sanctuary. It would now be in the little chapel across the street. What do I know? I go but the big sanctuary for some reason had been opened – they had been doing something there earlier in the day. We went in; it was empty. I went in and sat in what I considered the Campf row. I was just sobbing. I needed to be in that place. Up comes Rabbi Cahana who I think had just been hired. Why he as in there? I don’t know. He stops and says, “Can I help you?” Jane is sitting next to me and I look up at him. I am sobbing and say, “My family belonged here. There were [memorial] lights for my mom and dad over there.” I [told him everything]. He said “Do you want to come up there on the bima for a prayer?” And I said, “Well, my partner is not Jewish; she is Buddhist.” He said, “Come. Both of you come.” Up we went. He put his tallit over us and he said some prayers and then he said something that just stuck with me “God has given you more time to do something. (pause) Think about that.” It just never left my mind.

Prahl: That’s really powerful
CAMPF: It was an amazing moment. I spent a lot of time talking to Gary and Laurie about that. I mean it was wonderful for him to do that. I had to be in a Jewish place and I had to thank God in a place where I belonged.

Prahl: So what is next? What does your future look like?
CAMPF: I don’ t know. I hope there will be another book or two in my future. My partner Jane is a major traveler so we will be some place always on the go. And Deborah will always go, “Be safe Joanie and don’t drink the water!” [laughter] So, we will either build another Habitat for Humanity house back in Guatemala or she will come up with other strange places and things to do. I am involved in a program at Oregon State University in the Veterinary School, and I created a scholarship down there. I am involved in getting them to build a client service [advocate] program. So, I think that will take my attention for probably the next couple of years.

Prahl: What does client services mean?
CAMPF: It means giving a rip about people who come in who have animals that are ill. It is a person between the vet and the owner of the animal, who is there to guide you through the process. The thing we want really, as with regular medicine, that we do not have because we are in this complex world that makes us feel like a number in a horrible situation that we can’t quite make sense of. 

Animals have always has been my go to. When people become a bit too much, I go straight to animals. When a goat of mine died at the Oregon State Vet School due to some very bad communication between the veterinary college and me. I said to them after it happened, “When I stop crying in a month, I want to come back and talk to you.” In a month, I came back and I said, “We need to build a program to teach young vets how to deal with people.” Half the job is their skill in terms of being a vet. The other half is being a human being. If we do not pay attention to that other side, we lose half of what care is about. 

With help from friends, I raised 25 thousand dollars. We now have a scholarship for a senior student that shows the most interest in this area. We raised some additional money and hired the first client service advocate. That person is on the small animal side of the vet hospital. We have begun to see [the results of having such a person in place. The client feels more informed and the college builds a stronger relationship with the client. The care is improved as the communication improves.]

[Our client advocate is] Tammy Barr, who is fabulous. [She told me a story recently of] an old man who came in with a dog who was quite ill. She stayed with him through the full process. She called at night when he and the dog went home. She called him again the next day to see how he was and how the animal was. Two weeks later, the dog died. It turns out that he told his family that he had never been so cared about and so well taken care of that he left half his estate to Oregon State Veterinary School.

Prahl: It really made a difference.
CAMPF: It is what we all want. We want that. It doesn’t take much. It just takes caring.

Prahl: It is great that you saw that need. That is where your future lies.
CAMPF: I think so.

Prahl: Well, I am ready to wrap up unless you feel that there is anything we did not ask you that needs to be covered. 
CAMPF: Am I done Deborah? [Laughter]

Prahl: You could go on forever. Thank you so much for doing this!