Charles Baum

[Mr. Baum begins by speaking about his grandmother]

BAUM: She was a very vain little German lady and she dyed her hair up until the time she died. They lived up on Kings Court. You know where that is? They had an apartment. She and her daughter lived together; her daughter never married. Her daughter’s name was Emma Baum. Because Grandmother refused to go gray Emma had to dye her hair so that she wouldn’t look older than her mother. Emma worked for the Portland General Electric Company. After Grandma died Emma blossomed out as a white-haired lady. It was very astounding to the kids to see this gal who had been a brunette as long as we had known her suddenly become a white-haired lady.

Tanzer: That was your father’s side of the family?
BAUM: That was Father’s side.

Tanzer: How many children were in that family?
BAUM: There were three. There was Emma and Joe and my father, Sol. 

Tanzer: Was your father the youngest?
BAUM: No, father was the oldest and Joe was the youngest. He died during the Flu epidemic of 1918. 

Tanzer: And Emma was between?
BAUM: Yes, and the Flu epidemic of 1918 almost got me too, but I managed to survive. 

Tanzer: You were very young then?
BAUM: I was about six. I was born in 1905, so by 1918, I was seven years old. 

Tanzer: No, thirteen.
BAUM: Yes, thirteen years old.

Tanzer: Did the Flu epidemic affect other members of your family? 
BAUM: No. My sister and I were the only two who had it and Dr. Bilderback pulled us through. 

Tanzer: That’s an old, familiar Portland name.
BAUM: Yes. I had dinner with his widow last night. She’s very, very well preserved lady of about 75, I guess.

Tanzer: Tell me about the other side of the family.
BAUM: Well, there was my mother Carrie.

Tanzer: Now, that was the Lauer…
BAUM: The Lauer side of the family. My mother Carrie was next to the oldest. My Uncle Emanuel was the oldest, then mother Carrie, then Barbra, who was married to Milton Kahn of Boise. And my maiden aunt Henrietta was the youngest. And as I told you, my grandfather, before he died, built two houses next to each other on 21st and Everett Streets, one of which I believe is still standing. And he gave one to my mother and father and gave the other one to my Uncle Manny and Alice (who was Alice Friedlander) and they lived side by side until my uncle decided to move to southern California and sold his house.

Tanzer: Why did he make the decision, or what made him make the decision to go?
BAUM: It was a job opportunity. He had been with Blumauer, Frank here in Portland and the American Druggist Syndicate, which was a large (I suppose today you would call it a conglomerate), offered him a position as manager of their San Francisco office. He was in San Francisco for a while and then transferred to Los Angeles. It was strictly a job opportunity to take advantage of what he thought would be a very excellent post, instead of it just being a job as a salesman with Blumauer, Frank.

Tanzer: Was he a pharmacist or a druggist?
BAUM: He was not a pharmacist. He was just a peddler of drugs to drugstores – mostly pharmaceuticals, toothpaste. The American Druggists Syndicate had all these toothpastes and everything under their own label, ADS. It was all private-labeled stuff. I guess they could give the drug stores a better price because of the private label operation.

Tanzer: Now, you mentioned your Aunt Barbra. Now, she married, you said Milton Kahn. Did you mean Milton?
BAUM: I mentioned Charles Kahn.

Tanzer: And did they move then to Boise?
BAUM: No, he – I’m a little hazy on that. I think he was established as an attorney in Boise and then he took her back with him. He is the city attorney in Boise and the local rabbi, because they didn’t have any rabbi. He conducted the services every Friday night and Saturday. There was a very limited group of Jewish families that were located in Boise at that time.

Tanzer: Did you visit them at Boise?
BAUM: Yes, oh sure. The family was reasonably close-knit. I went to school in New York (New York University) and whenever I would go back and forth across the country from school to home I would stop off in Boise and visit with them there.

Tanzer: Now, was Charles Kahn related to Milton Kahn?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: What was the relationship?
BAUM: I’m not sure, but I think they were brothers. I’m reasonably sure.

Tanzer: When you were young and you lived close to your grandparents, did you travel to the various members of the family’s houses?
BAUM: No, because all of the family lived right in one spot. My mother and my grandmother and my maiden aunt all lived in our house.

Tanzer: So your grandmother Lauer, and Henrietta, lived with you?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: For how long?
BAUM: Until they died.

Tanzer: Henrietta was never married?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: I noticed that a good many of the women at that particular time did not marry, like your – 
BAUM: The Jacobs girls, as we used to call them. The Hirsch girls never married.

Tanzer: There were any number of them – Elizabeth Baer in Baker. I just wondered, what was the reason?
BAUM: I haven’t any idea. Maybe there was a shortage of Jewish men. I don’t know.

Tanzer: That’s what I wondered – if there was a shortage of Jewish men. If this was a rather isolated area.
BAUM: I would imagine that an opportunity didn’t present itself.

Tanzer: Let me go back to your grandparents. Where did the Baums originate from?
BAUM: Bavaria. Both my grandfather and my grandmother came from Bavaria, and if I ever get this book that my relative in… well, Robert Baum is his name. And he told me that he had several paragraphs on the history of the Baums – the Pendleton Branch and Corvallis, or rather, the Albany branch.

Tanzer: Now, your grandfather came from Germany, your grandfather Baum. How did he get to Oregon?
BAUM: I haven’t the slightest idea.

Tanzer: But he ended up in Albany.
BAUM: Right.

Tanzer: Do you have any idea of the year?
BAUM: Oh, it must have been around 1880 or thereabouts.

Tanzer: And what was his business in Albany?
BAUM: Shoe store.

Tanzer: What was it called?
BAUM: I presume ‘Baum’s Shoe Store.’

Tanzer: How long was he in the Albany area?
BAUM: Probably twenty odd years. He was dead when I was born in 1905. He got there around 1880, so it would be somewhere between 20 and 25 years that he was there.

Tanzer: And he was the man who built the two houses?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: Oh, it would be the other grandfather.
BAUM: Grandfather Lauer, yes.

Tanzer: So your grandfather Baum would have had to move here prior to 1905.
BAUM: I’m not sure, but he may have died in Albany. I’m very hazy on that.

Tanzer: But your grandmother Baum lived in Portland and you remember her?
BAUM: Yes, with her daughter.

Tanzer: Now tell me about the Lauer grandparents. How did they come to Oregon?
BAUM: Well, my grandmother was born in New York.

Tanzer: And her maiden name was?
BAUM: Friendly. Her brother was Sam Friendly of Friendly Hall in Eugene.

Tanzer: And her father was Charles Friendly?
BAUM: No. I don’t know what her father’s name was. My grandfather’s name was Charles Lauer, but she was born in New York. Grandfather came over from Germany and apparently the families were friends in the old country so he stayed with the Friendly family in New York until he set out to come west. And after he was established here he sent for Grandmother and she came around the Horn and then by pack up from San Francisco to Eugene.

Tanzer: Now, how did your grandfather come from New York to Eugene?
BAUM: He came with a pack on his back across the plains, in the wagon train with Eugene Skinner, for whom the town of Eugene is named and Skinner’s Butte in Eugene.

Tanzer: So that would have been in the 1850s.
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: And he established himself in Eugene? In what capacity? What did he do?
BAUM: Well, as I said, he originally was an insurance agent for every known insurance company. Then he became a moneylender at [inaudible] rates and eventually as a banker in town. That was the First National Bank of Eugene and he became a very respected citizen in the community from being a moneylender. It was quite a transition. The whole family, the sisters and brother, lived right on Willamette Street in Eugene, just a couple of blocks from the railroad station.

Tanzer: Do you remember the house?
BAUM: I’ve seen pictures of it. I guess in later years, when I went to Eugene to go to football games and stuff, it was still standing.

Tanzer: Do you remember ever staying in the house?
BAUM: No, never did.

Tanzer: So they lived in Portland by that time. What made your grandfather build the two houses in Portland?
BAUM: Oh, wedding presents to his son and daughter. By that time he was fairly well off and I can remember seeing the building costs and what you could build a house for in those days. It was about $25,000 for each house and they were, well, you can imagine. In our house there was grandmother, mother, and father, and the aunt, my sister, and myself, so there were quite a few rooms in that place, and there were servants quarters upstairs on the third floor and a full basement. It was a pretty sizable house for $25,000.

Tanzer: Now, your grandfather must have determined that the children would want to live in Portland rather than in Eugene.
BAUM: I imagine he was failing in health there and wanted to do something for his kids before he passed on. I don’t know the exact date of his death, whether it was sometime between 1900 and 1905.

Tanzer: Did your grandmother talk about her early life in New York or her trip to Oregon?
BAUM: No. She did talk about her experiences in the early days in Eugene. Lots of harrowing Indian stories, about fighting off the Indians and anecdotes of that nature, but never talked about her life in New York.

Tanzer: Do you remember some of the particular anecdotes?
BAUM: Oh yes, lots of them.

Tanzer: Well, tell me a few.
BAUM: Well, she told a story about the time that she and her good friend, whose name was Mamie Kraus (she was Eugene Skinner’s daughter), and the two ladies were alone in the house when a drunken Indian came in, and they were scared to death, so they felt that the best thing they could do was to give him more to drink. So they sat him down in a big rocking chair in front of the fireplace and kept feeding him booze until he just about passed out, and then the two gals just took the rocking chair and pushed it into the fire.

Tanzer: How terrible. Did it kill him?
BAUM: Sure. He was pretty wild and they were scared to death and it was just a matter of salvation. So they “done him in” as the saying is. And the other story she used to like to tell was there was a lot of turpentine being made in the hills back there. They would get it from the trees around, and there was one old timer there called Turpentine Joe. He would always go in the hills and come out with turpentine, sell it, drink until the money from the turpentine was used up, and he would go back into the hills again. So the story is that he was off on one of his turpentine expeditions. He always travelled alone. And he suddenly found himself surrounded by a group of our unfriendly Indians. He had been splitting a log with the wedge and the mallet, and he told the Indians that his honor was at stake. He would like to finish splitting this log and they could understand that. So he said you know, “I can do it faster if you guys helped me pull the log apart.” So he got two Indians on one side of the log, and two Indians on the other side of the log, and he had this wedge in there and he said, “Now when I tell you, you pull.” So when they were all set, he grabbed his mallet and knocked the wedge out of the log and he had them all trapped by the fingers, and so then he leisurely went over and got his rifle and got rid of them.

Tanzer: It’s a wonderful story. A wonderful bedtime story that your grandmother told you, Ted. She must have been some lady.
BAUM: She was quite a gal. Quite a person. I guess you would have to be, to live in that day and age, in very primitive surroundings, and survive.

Tanzer: And yet, you told me your grandfather – was he active in the board of regents at the University of Oregon?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: And his son was also?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: Tell me, what was his position, your grandfather Lauer? Was he on the board of regents? 
BAUM: Yes, and his brother, my grandmother’s brother (who was Sam Friendly) was even more involved with the university than my grandfather was. I can remember Sam Friendly when I was a kid six or eight years old. He outlived my grandfather by quite a few years, maybe ten years.

Tanzer: Did he marry? Sam Friendly?
BAUM: Oh, sure. He had three daughters.

Tanzer: Who were they?
BAUM: Well, there was Theresa and Rosalie and Carrie.

Tanzer: What happened to them? Did they remain in the area?
BAUM: No. Rosalie was the only one who remained in the area. Carrie, who was the oldest, married a man called Fred Harris, and that name may have come up. He was a guy that dealt in wheat futures and grain futures and made himself a lot of money. They moved to Los Angeles and he got a seat on the Los Angeles Stock Exchange and they flourished very nicely. Theresa married a guy from New York by the name of Sam Wauchenheimer and they lived in Providence, Rhode Island. He was a manufacturing jeweler. He manufactured costume jewelry, that type of stuff. And Rosalie married a man by the name of Hayes, Dean Hayes, a goy, yet. And they lived in Portland until they both died. In the early days he [Sam] ran the store in Eugene, Sam Friendly Store. And later he was with, I think, Blyth & Company here, a stock broker.

Tanzer: What type of store did Sam Friendly have?
BAUM: Clothing. A men’s clothing store.

Tanzer: Your grandfather continued in the banking business? And your uncle had the store?
BAUM: Yes, yes.

Tanzer: The two children then were your grandmother and Sam Friendly?
BAUM: Yes, and her brother was Sam Friendly. There is an interesting sidelight. Theresa Friendly’s son, she married Wauchenheimer, he is Fred Friendly of CBS, who was with Murrow, and he is still with the Ford Foundation for Performing Arts in Television and he is very well known in the industry.

Tanzer: Yes, and a very outstanding producer. So he took his mother’s name?
BAUM: Yes. “Wauckenheimer” was too much to swallow, so he decided “Friendly” was easier, so he became Fred Friendly.

Tanzer: Now, when you were growing up were most of the Lauer and Baum family in the Portland area?
BAUM: Oh, yes. You were asking about organizations. My father belonged to the Concordia Club. I didn’t. It was folded by the time I got old enough, but Dad belonged. You may find, if there are any Concordia Club archives around, you’ll probably find father’s name in there.

Tanzer: I am rather interested in the kind of education that your grandparents were able to provide for their children. 
BAUM: They all went to the University of Oregon before it was the University. Mother went. It was a high school, which later became the University of Oregon, and my Uncle Manny went there. And unless I’m badly mistaken, Uncle Manny was in the first graduating class from the University of Oregon.

Tanzer: When it was called the University of Oregon? Or was it still referred to as the Normal School?
BAUM: I’m not sure, but I know that he was very proud of the fact that he was in the first graduating class.

Tanzer: Had you heard reference to the fact that the young women were sometimes sent to convent schools?
BAUM: No, but because there was no synagogue in there and the girls were to have some religious training, they went to the Episcopal Church in Eugene.

Tanzer: For Episcopal religious training?
BAUM: Yes. They had to have some kind of a discipline, I guess, but I know that Mother went to the Episcopal School.

Tanzer: Did they have any kind of Jewish religious training at all?
BAUM: Not until much later in Portland. Mother, as I said, was very active in the old Temple Beth Israel. Father reluctantly would go on the High Holidays and Grandmother was always there because she got her religious training in New York.

Tanzer: What about your grandmother Baum?
BAUM: She was not terribly involved in religious life in the community at all.

Tanzer: You said your father reluctantly went. Why do you suppose he was so reluctant?
BAUM: He just was not a religiously inclined individual and he went more to please Grandmother and Mother. And, as I say, I don’t think he ever stuck his head inside of the synagogue except on the High Holidays.

Tanzer: Who was the rabbi in Temple Beth Israel then?
BAUM: Well, Rabbi Bloch was, and then later Jonah Wise. Somewhere in there the name of David Solis-Cohen comes to my mind, but I don’t think he was at Beth Israel.

Tanzer: Well, he wasn’t a rabbi, but he may have conducted services during an interim period between rabbis.
BAUM: I think my association with D. Solis Cohen was because he and Father were in the moving picture business together.

Tanzer: In what way were they involved?
BAUM: Well, they were exhibitors. Father had a little theater up on 13th and Washington and D. Solis Cohen had a theater down on about Fifth.

Tanzer: Was this business, the theater business, in addition to your father’s confectionary?
BAUM: No, no. He was only in the confectionary thing for a short period of time, with the Brandeis people.

Tanzer: Now, what was the name of the business?
BAUM: Baum and Brandeis.

Tanzer: Was it a restaurant as well as a confectionary?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: Where was it?
BAUM: Oh, somewhere around Front and Alder, I think.
 
Tanzer: What were the years?
BAUM: Oh, it must have been around 1905 to 1907, just a couple of years in there. Then Dad was with the Portland Box & Lumber Company, one of the salesmen for the Portland Box & Lumber Company. Mother was always a very forward-thinking person; she decided that then the young motion picture industry was the coming thing and she wanted Dad to get into it. So at her insistence, he quit the Portland Box & Lumber Company and opened this little nickelodeon on 13th and Washington Street. I was, of course, very popular among all the kids, because I could always get into the theater free.

Tanzer: Did your mother work in the business?
BAUM: No, she was just the visionary.

Tanzer: And did your father listen to her?
BAUM: Oh, yes. He had this motion picture theater for I guess about six years or so. And then there was an outfit called the People’s Amusement Company, which owned about three theaters, and a fellow by the name of Mel Weinstock was the main guy. And Harold Hirsch’s dad was involved in this People’s Amusement Company. They bought Dad’s theater and put him in as manager of all [unclear] under the People’s Amusement banner. They had about five or six movie houses in those days. I remember when I first went to work for White Stag we would have these executive meetings every Thursday. All M. S. Hirsch wanted to do was talk about my father and his escapades in the business. He said, “I can remember when Theda Bara came to town. Your dad and I got all dressed up in striped pants and a bouquet of flowers to meet her at the train.” He had a ball; he disrupted all those meetings reminiscing with me.

Tanzer: Did your dad continue in the theater business?
BAUM: Up until the time that he died.

Tanzer: Which was when?
BAUM: Well, figure it out. I was sixteen when he died. I was born in 1905. It was about 1920, I guess.

Tanzer: What happened to the business after he died?
BAUM: Oh, he was out of that. He decided that the distribution business was more important than that and he went with Universal pictures as their Portland branch manager of the film exchange, where they rented the films to the theaters, and he was in that capacity when he died.

Tanzer: Is that the same film exchange that is still on Northwest 18th or 19th?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: Were the theaters sold or did they remain a part of the stockholders?
BAUM: No, they eventually were sold to an outfit called Jensen and VonHerberger. They had a chain of theaters in Seattle and they bought out the stock.

Tanzer: Do you recall going to the theater frequently?
BAUM: Oh, sure. In those days, before block booking and all that stuff, a guy from the Universal Film Company would take a half a dozen cans of film down to the theater after it closed at eleven o’clock at night and they would screen all these films for the owners of the theaters; then they would haggle over the price, you know.

Tanzer: No, I didn’t know that.
BAUM: Oh, I can remember going down to the old Liberty Theater with Dad, carrying film cases at eleven o’clock at night and going in, and he would show a film. “I think we ought to get $500 for this for the week.” “Oh no!” And then back and forth, and that’s how they sold their wares.

Tanzer: Do you remember, when your father owned the theaters, were they vaudeville theaters?
BAUM: Oh, no. The old nickelodeon.

Tanzer: They were, then, silent movies?
BAUM: Oh, but very definitely silent movies.

Tanzer: Do you remember when the talkies came in?
BAUM: Much, much later. I can remember the first talkie very well. It was Jolson in the Jazz Singer and that was only part talkie.

Tanzer: Was that a film that your father handled at that time?
BAUM: No, he was dead long before the talkies came in. You see he died when he was 47.

Tanzer: And after he died, then you, your sister, and mother continued to live in the house with your grandmother?
BAUM: And aunt.

Tanzer: And your aunt. How long did you remain in that house, Ted?
BAUM: Well, let’s see. I came back from college in 1926. I guess we lived there for another three or four years. Oh, longer than that, because I was living there when I was married. I’m trying to find a point of reference. Yes, I was married when I was 28. I guess I lived in that house until I was 32.

Tanzer: I see. So then was the house disposed of?
BAUM: Yes, I sold it. It was too much of a burden for Mother.

Tanzer: Where was your sister?
BAUM: She was married to Herman Nemerov and they lived in Portland while he was with Lipman-Wolfe and then they moved to San Jose, where he bought a ready-to-wear store called Richardsons; she died there.

Tanzer: Then she was related to Lena Kenin and Toots Heims – the Nemerovsky family?
BAUM: Yes, that’s right.

Tanzer: Had your grandmother died by this time? Your grandmother Lauer? By the time you moved out of the house?
BAUM: Oh yes, she had been dead several years before that.

Tanzer: And what happened to Henrietta?
BAUM: She died in a nursing home.

Tanzer: Somewhat later.
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: Tell me about your own schooling. Where did you go to school – grade school and high school?
BAUM: I went to Couch School, not the one now, the old Couch School down on Overton. And then to the new Couch, and then to Lincoln High, and then to New York University.

Tanzer: Did you go to Temple Beth Israel for any type of educational schooling?
BAUM: Oh yes. I was Bar Mitzvahed at Temple Beth Israel.

Tanzer: Who was the Rabbi?
BAUM: Jonah Wise.

Tanzer: And did you go to Sunday school?
BAUM: Oh, yes. In fact, I taught Sunday school. Harry Gevurtz taught Sunday school when I was there. He taught me and then I decided, because I was always interested in the theater, that we should have plays in Sunday school. So, you know Sanford Wollin? Well, he was in my Sunday school class that I taught drama to.

Tanzer: Do you knew remember some of the other people in your drama class?
BAUM: Sandy Wollin and – 

Tanzer: I see photographs of plays that were given. One had Newt Langerman in it.
BAUM: Oh, that was long before, because Newt is considerably older than I am, let alone Sandy, who was a youngster then. I can’t think…. I remember Sandy very vividly.

Tanzer: What type of plays did you do?
BAUM: Comedies. No religious feeling to them at all.

Tanzer: Was Rabbi Wise still the rabbi?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: Did he encourage the dramatic activities?
BAUM: Well, he didn’t discourage it, let’s put it that way. Yes, I can remember when Rabbi Wise got the call to New York to Temple Emanuel. I was working for Mr. Hirsch there in New York, and one day I get a cal;, “Charles” (he always called me Charles), “this is Rabbi Wise. Come on out; I want to take you to lunch.” So we had a bite to eat and then we walked all through and around Central Park and he was using me as a sounding board to arrive at his decision as to whether he should take this post. He talked, talked, talked, pro and con, just vocalizing out loud to me to crystallize his own thinking, I’m sure, and then goodbye.

Tanzer: Well, the pros are obvious. What did he consider as reasons for not wishing to leave Portland?
BAUM: Well, he had a lot of roots here and his wife, you know, was a Rosenfeld; that was the tie of roots and family versus the opportunity of a major pulpit in a major city.

Tanzer: And then who took his place? Who was the rabbi who replaced him?
BAUM: God, I don’t remember.

Tanzer: Because, by this time, when you were employed in New York.
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: Why had you made the decision to go to NYU?
BAUM: I wanted to study journalism and there were only two schools in the country that offered a degree in that subject. One was the Wharton School in Philadelphia and the other was New York University. I wrote for the catalogs for both schools and I liked the curriculum of NYU.

Tanzer: Had you been to New York before you went to college?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: Did you have some apprehensions about going that far away from home?
BAUM: Not a bit. At that age you don’t have any apprehensions.

Tanzer: Did you enjoy your experiences in New York?
BAUM: Oh my, I loved it. I had the time of my life.

Tanzer: And what about the school?
BAUM: True, all that I could have hoped for. The professors were all practicing advertising men. They were men in the business. You had to take all your classes at night because these guys were working in major advertising agencies and they would devote one or two nights a week to teach. You got all your teaching from practicing, successful advertising executives.

Tanzer: What did you do during the day?
BAUM: I worked for Hearst.

Tanzer: Oh, I see. What did you do?
BAUM: I was in their promotion department.

Tanzer: How long did you – now you said Hearst?
BAUM: William Randolph Hearst.

Tanzer: Of the Hearst publications?
BAUM: Right.

Tanzer: I see. What type of work did you do?
BAUM: Do you have any idea of what newspaper promotion is?

Tanzer: I have a slight idea, but why don’t you explain it to me?
BAUM: Well, my job at that time was promoting the various classified columns and you would write ads; house ads would go in the paper. And finally I hit upon an idea of searching through the various classified ads for a human-interest story. Then they would give me some space in the paper and I would write it up, and it would appear as a human interest story. But really it was a plug for the classified ad section. 

One day I ran across an ad which read, “Wanted for adoption: blue-eyed, blonde, 14 to 16 years old.” That’s sounds pretty interesting. The address was the address of a real estate broker by the name of Browning. So I went down to interview him and that was Daddy Browning of Peaches and Browning fame. And I had the first story on that. And the managing editor of the paper at that time was Gene Fowler, who was a pretty well known author. He wrote Goodnight Sweet Prince. So when that story hit the paper, Fowler called up and said, “Who got that story?” and my boss put me on the line. He says from now on you’re off that story; they assigned a couple of sob sisters to follow up on it.

Tanzer: What was the follow up of the story? 
BAUM: Oh, it ran for days in the New York papers. He was adopting these 15-16 year old girls and it didn’t look very kosher.

Tanzer: What was the outcome of that? I remember the story that you alluded to, but what happened to it?
BAUM: Oh, it was a big scandal; he married one of his protégés and they were always brawling and fighting. It was good copy for the papers.

Tanzer: What were the Hearst papers then?
BAUM: Well, of course, the flagship was the San Francisco Examiner. But he had two papers in New York in those days – the New York American and the New York Journal and the Daily Mirror. Those were the three New York papers. Then there was the San Francisco Examiner and Los Angeles Examiner.

Tanzer: When you went to school in New York, were you able, by this job, to pay for your own schooling?
BAUM: Mostly. Mother was able to send me an allowance. I think she sent me $60 a month and I started out in my job with the paper. I made $25 a week and after a couple of months they raised me to $50 a week. That’s when I wrote mother and said, “I don’t think I need your help any more. With $200 a week, I think I can hack it.” But it wasn’t quite that easy, even on $200 a month. I paid my first income tax when I was working there – 14 cents. I had to give it to them in stamps.

Tanzer: Was the family financial condition in Portland after your father’s death quite stable?
BAUM: No, mother just lived off investments so she didn’t have to cash in stock or bond.

Tanzer: Were these investments that your grandfather Lauer had made, or that your father had made?
BAUM: I think most of them were Grandfather’s, because Dad never had anything. He lived off a salary, that’s all. Someday, while it isn’t relevant, I’ll tell you the story of when Harold Hirsch came to visit me in New York when I was working for Mr. Hirsch.

Tanzer: It might be relevant. Why don’t you tell me? We’ve got enough tape. We’ll finish this tape and start another one.
BAUM: Harold was going to Dartmouth, and we had grown up together. So a guy says, “There’s somebody out here to see you.” I go out and here is this guy in a derby hat, raccoon coat down to the floor. And here I am, a working newspaperman! I wanted to get him out of there before any of the guys saw him.

Tanzer: That was the difference of the ‘rah-rah’ college and the other type. Harold did tell me that he used to go to New York frequently to visit friends.
BAUM: Oh, he was living at Dartmouth then. He was an on-campus resident, rah-rah boy.

Tanzer: Let me ask you about some of your activities. Had you been interested in journalism in high school?
BAUM: Oh yes, I was. I had made up my mind, and again I think this was a part of my mother’s far-seeing. She had decided when I was, I guess around 10 years old, that the advertising business was going to become a big, important business, and I was brought up on the Saturday Evening Post. When I was a kid, she used to go over the ads in the Post with me, so I never had any idea of doing anything else but being in the advertising business. I didn’t go for journalism; I went for advertising.

Tanzer: But you were also very much interested in the theater.
BAUM: Oh, yes.

Tanzer: Did you have any idea of pursuing a theatrical career?
BAUM: Yes, I did, for about five minutes. But then I always figured you could make a pretty good living as a mediocre advertising man but you can’t as a mediocre actor.

Tanzer: Were you involved in the theater aside from your Beth Israel theater in Portland? During school days?
BAUM: Oh, the high school class play and some Shakespearean plays while I was in high school.

Tanzer: But you were not involved in the community theater at that time?
BAUM: No, not until I came back from New York. When I came back from New York, I got into the Civic Theater and was very active in that for many years.

Tanzer: Now, what were some of your activities in high school?
BAUM: Well, I almost made the football team. I went out for football and I went out for track.

Tanzer: Did you belong to a fraternity?
BAUM: Not in high school, no.

Tanzer: What years were you in a fraternity and where was this?
BAUM: Well, the fraternity was after I returned from New York.

Tanzer: And what was the name of that fraternity?
BAUM: Pi Tau Nu.

Tanzer: What was the basis of this fraternity?
BAUM: Social. Strictly a social fraternity.

Tanzer: And it developed out of some institution?
BAUM: No, just a group of nice Jewish boys that decided that they wanted to have social activities in our Portland group. There was always – once a year, the boys would throw a big party, and once a year the girl would reciprocate.

Tanzer: What was the comparable sorority to this?
BAUM: I think it was Sigma Theta or something like that.

Tanzer: And was the membership restricted to young Jewish men?
BAUM: Oh yes, definitely.

Tanzer: Were there advisors?
BAUM: Oh, some of the older guys kind of took it on. Abe Rosenberg was one of them. And Edward Tonkon. I don’t know if you have run across his name.

Tanzer: Would he be related to Moe?
BAUM: Moe’s older brother. They were sort of the senior members of the group.

Tanzer: Were there some service inclinations of this fraternity?
BAUM: Not a bit. It was just to have fun.

Tanzer: How often did you meet?
BAUM: Oh, we used to meet a couple of times a month.

Tanzer: In homes?
BAUM: Oh, sure.

Glazer: What year did you join Pi Tau Pi?
BAUM: Oh, let’s see, I came back from ’26, around 1926, I would guess.

Glazer: What year did you stop being involved?
BAUM: Oh, about… it must have been 1937-1938.

Glazer: What were your reasons for stopping your involvement?
BAUM: I got married and a lot of the other boys had kind of drifted away.

Glazer: Was this for a certain age person?
BAUM: No, there was no limitation. How long can you stay involved in a strictly fraternity that had no motivation, no charity, no nothing, just for good times? There’s a limit to how much you can be involved in that.

Glazer: Is the organization still in existence?
BAUM: Moe Tonkon can tell you better than I.

Tanzer: Were there ever reunions of the group?
BAUM: Oh, we had a big, extravagant, expensive convention every year and the chapter was putting on the convention for that year. Every year they tried to outdo the last year’s one.

Tanzer: When you say the chapter, how many chapters were there?
BAUM: I don’t know how many, but they were all over the country. We had one convention in St. Louis, I remember, that I went to. And the last big convention that I went to was held by the Seattle gang; they chartered one of the Princess Ferries that went between Seattle and Victoria and took the whole group on the Ferry over to Victoria where, of course, liquor was available. And a couple of the boys had gone on ahead with your order of what you wanted, and they bought all the booze and put it in a room with your name on it and you came in and – – 

Tanzer: You were mentioning some of the charter members.
BAUM: Well, Charlie Berg was, and Roscoe Nelson, Sr. I think those were the two prime movers in the senior – kind of an advisory group. The reason that I happen to remember that particular convention so vividly is that the boat left Seattle and went over to Victoria and they had a big dance that night and at midnight the boat returned to Seattle. But I wasn’t on the boat when it returned. I don’t know whether you have been in Victoria, but they have this great, big swimming pool under glass, you know –

Tanzer: The Natatorium.
BAUM: Yes. So I had had quite a bit to drink and I went into the natatorium to take off my clothes and go swimming, and I remember very vividly putting one foot up to take my shoe off and that’s the last I remember until I woke up about 3 in the morning. The boat had gone and here I was locked into this damn Natatorium. I finally found my way out, and Charlie Berg was there with his wife and daughter, and I slept in the lobby of the hotel, the Empress Hotel. The clerk was kind enough to let me sleep there and finally about 7:30 woke me up that the guests were beginning to come down and I would have to get up. So I called Charlie’s daughter Caroline and went up. Charlie heard voices in his daughter’s room and came storming in. Here I was having a cup of coffee with her and chatting with her. My car was in Seattle on the dock and the keys were in my pocket in Victoria and Orren Grossman and I had planned on going back over to Victoria to spend our vacation. So I borrowed $20 from Charlie (I didn’t have a dime to call Orren in Seattle) and said, “Push the car on the boat.” So he got a couple of roustabouts and they pushed the car onto the next outgoing boat and I was on the dock to meet it. We stayed there for two weeks. We were very bad boys in those days, I can assure you.

Tanzer: What were some of the activities that went on in the meetings? The Pi Tau Pi meetings?
BAUM: Oh, there were no activities. There were just arguments as to who you were going to let in and who you’re not going to let in.

Tanzer: Who did they decide they would let in?
BAUM: Oh, there weren’t very many that they didn’t let in.

Tanzer: What were the membership restrictions?
BAUM: Male. Jewish. That was about the only restriction.

Tanzer: Were they particularly selective about keeping it the more prominent or early German Jewish boys?
BAUM: Oh, to a degree, but if a guy was a good guy and most of the boys liked him… If his name was Lipshutz, he got in, or Tonkon, which are not Jewish families, I mean not German Jewish families.

Tanzer: You had a close friend whose name was Lipschutz in high school and I understand he became a rather prominent doctor and was very badly wounded in World War Two.
BAUM: I don’t know whatever happened to him. His family has always been very secretive about that. One story was that he jumped overboard on the hospital ship coming back. He has a son here in Portland, I think. His wife was a Canadian girl and she married Arthur Goldsmith. And her son by Joe Lipschutz, as far as I know, is still around.

Tanzer: But I had heard that you and Joe Lipschutz belonged to Hi Y.
BAUM: We may have. It rings no bell with me. I probably did. I joined it, I guess. It was part of the life in high school.

Tanzer: You mean social activities?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: Were there any Jewish clubs in high school?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: Did the Jewish students stay together?
BAUM: No. There wasn’t that feeling at all at that time. There was very little stigma attached to being a Jew at that point in time.

Tanzer: Did you ever personally feel any antisemitism in your school days here in Portland?
BAUM: No, never.

Tanzer: Did you ever feel any after you left Portland and went east?
BAUM: No, really not. I don’t know whether it was me or the times or what but I have never had any. Only one time when I was in Chicago some guy, I think I beat him to a taxicab by one whistle or something like that, and he was pretty outspoken and said, “You goddamn Jews take up cabs.” But that’s the only time I ever remember hearing it.

Tanzer: What was your personal reaction at that time?
BAUM: I think it was a combination of anger and astonishment because I never had that before.

Tanzer: Did you say anything to him?
BAUM: No, I just got into the cab and left.

Tanzer: Ted, you returned here in the late twenties.
BAUM: Yes, ’26.

Tanzer: So you were here in time of the Depression.
BAUM: Oh, very definitely. Banks closing and all that.

Tanzer: How were you affected by the Depression?
BAUM: Well, I took quite a cut in salary, I remember. I was working on the Journal at that time. All of us took… I think it was a 15% across the board cut. And when the banks closed it was a little tough scrounging for money for a few days, but we all survived.

Tanzer: How did this affect your family?
BAUM: I didn’t have any children then. There was just my wife and myself and so we managed to get by all right.

Tanzer: What about your mother and the rest of your immediate family?
BAUM: No. My sister at that time had a fairly responsible job at Lipman’s. She was an assistant to Mr. Harold Wendel and she was not married and was making a fairly good living. So between what we could pull together I don’t remember any dire circumstances.

Tanzer: Did you live in your family home then?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: What year were you married?
BAUM: Well, let’s see, it must have been 1933. That was the first time I was married.

Tanzer: And who were you married to?
BAUM: A little Irish shiksa by the name of Idella Gamdall.

Tanzer: How did your family take to your inter-marriage?
BAUM: Not too well.

Tanzer: Had there been other incidents of this in your family?
BAUM: No. 

Tanzer: You were the first.
BAUM: Yes. I’m sorry that mother couldn’t have lived to see my subsequent marriage, which was to a girl whose maiden name was Rothschild.

Tanzer: Now, this is your present wife, Barbara? And is Barbara related to the Rothschilds here?
BAUM: No. She came from Chicago.

Tanzer: Is she related to any of the Rothschild family?
BAUM: As her father used to say, through Adam.

 [Shirley Tanzer at this point asks Michele Glazer if there are any questions she would like to ask regarding Pi Tau Pi, before I go on.]

Glazer: When you go to the national convention, how are funds raised to pay for the trip?
BAUM: Well, as I recall, we all were assessed whatever was necessary over the dues.

Glazer: So you had to have a certain amount of money in order to go?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: Did this preclude the poorer members from going on this trip?
BAUM: There weren’t any poor members. We didn’t let them in.

Glazer: What was the relationship between Pi Tau Pi and the other Jewish clubs in Portland?
BAUM: None, to my knowledge.

Glazer: You never held joint parties or anything?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: How was money raised besides dues?
BAUM: Assessments.

Glazer: Did you have parties that were supposed to raise money for more parties?
BAUM: No, no. That’s like being on a treadmill. It doesn’t get you very far.

Glazer: Were there officers in your organization?
BAUM: Oh, certainly. We had all the trappings of a full-fledged organization: president, vice-president, treasurer. Tonkon was the last president that I remember.

Tanzer: Moe?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: There was no relationship between Pi Tau Pi and the Concordia Club and the Tualatin Country Club?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: Did you ever hold an office?
BAUM: I probably did. I don’t remember now.

Glazer: What would, like, a president or vice-president have to do if you were just giving parties all the time?
BAUM: Plan the parties.

Glazer: There were committees?
BAUM: Sure. It was a very flexible organization.

Glazer: How were meetings conducted? Or were there meetings?
BAUM: Oh, yes. We would have probably… at least once a month there was a meeting. And as I say, most of the discussions were around who was going to be let in next. It wasn’t too frequent that somebody got in, but there was always an area for discussion.

Glazer: What other things might be discussed at the meeting?
BAUM: It’s a long time ago for me to remember. Trivia is what it mostly was.

Glazer: Did most of the men cease being members when they were married?
BAUM: I probably did because my wife wasn’t Jewish but many of the other continued to be reasonably active.

Tanzer: And then was there a comparable organization for their wives?
BAUM: No. It was a very male chauvinistic type of an operation.

Tanzer: Did you play cards?
BAUM: No, none of the minor vices.

Glazer: Were there fluctuations in the amount, the degree, of membership during the years?
BAUM: No, it was always pretty steadily going up.

Glazer: Like, what was its greatest, to your knowledge?
BAUM: Oh, I can’t remember. Probably between 20 or 30 was about the peak.

Glazer: Did the Jewish community ever say anything about this…what you call ‘frivolous’ social fraternity?
BAUM: Not to my knowledge. If they had we probably wouldn’t have listened to them anyway.

Tanzer: Were meetings ever held in any institutions, like the B’nai B’rith Center or Temple?
BAUM: No, always in the homes.

Tanzer: Did you belong to anything like the Tualatin Country Club?
BAUM: I belonged to Tualatin very briefly. They had a bargain basement deal there for guys under, I think 25, where you got in for a very nominal sum. So I joined, and all of my contemporaries were much better golfers than I was, so I didn’t last very long. I mean, I couldn’t play golf with Millard Rosenblatt or Dr. Sichel or Norm Burnett or any of those guys that had been playing golf since they were kids, so I found myself teamed up with old man Adolphe Wolfe. I was in my 20s and he was in his 60s and it just didn’t offer me much opportunity for enjoyment so I dropped out. I may have been a member for a year and a half or two years.

Tanzer: What years would that have been?
BAUM: Oh, I guess it would be around 1925, around in there.

Tanzer: Did you ever use the facilities of the B’nai B’rith Center?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: Did some of your friends belong to the B’nai B’rith Center?
BAUM: I think your old friend Sam Suwol was at the B’nai B’rith Center, if I remember correctly.

Tanzer: Well, that was the hub of some activities. That and the Neighborhood House. The Neighborhood House for one section and the B’nai B’rith Center for the other.
BAUM: I was never a great athlete. They had their basketball teams. The only thing I did occasionally was swim there.

Tanzer: Did you have to be a member in order to swim there?
BAUM: No. Or I would go with one of the Zell boys. I used to swim with Danny Zell. That was my only athletic attempt. I loved to swim and did a lot of swimming.

Tanzer: Now, you were with the Journal for how many years?
BAUM: 13.

Tanzer: And then what was your next position?
BAUM: Then I opened up my own advertising agency.

Tanzer: What was the name of it?
BAUM: Short and Baum.

Tanzer: How long were you in the advertising business in your own agency?
BAUM: Nine years.

Tanzer: What were some of your accounts then?
BAUM: Well my best account was the Blitz-Reinhardt Brewery, which was a very substantial account. And the Terwilliger Locomotive Works, Hillarie’s Restaurant (what the hell’s the name of this jewelry store?). I did a little work for Zell.

Tanzer: Were you friendly with the Blitz family?
BAUM: Oh, yes. I’ve often wondered – there’s a gal with the Honolulu Television Station by the name Bambi Weil?

Tanzer: She was Bambi Blitz.
BAUM: And I’ve often wondered… 

Tanzer: Yes, I do know her.
BAUM: Because that name is so common, that a girl by the name of Bamb… I knew Arnold and Virginia, his wife, very well.

Tanzer: Well, I knew Virginia and that was her daughter. I know she is in Hawaii.
BAUM: Yes. Well, that answered my question.

Tanzer: Were you personally friendly with the Blitz family?
BAUM: Oh, yes, the whole family. You see, through the Rothschilds, Enid Blitz, Arnold’s mother, was a Rothschild.

Tanzer: She was Amy’s sister?
BAUM: Yes. Enid, her name was, and the Rothschild family and the Baum family were very, very close friends.

Tanzer: How did they become close friends? Because the Rothschilds did not live in Portland originally. Mrs. Rothschild moved to Portland with three children, as I understand.
BAUM: Well, there was Amy, Joe, and Enid.

Tanzer: Mr. Rothschild was dead.
BAUM: No, no! I should say not! She was Aunt Carrie to me and he was Uncle Fred. He was in the liquor business here – Fred Rothschild.

Tanzer: Where did they live?
BAUM: On 20th and Flanders.

Tanzer: Many of the Jewish families lived in that area.
BAUM: Oh, yes. Harold and I were talking about that the other day. You draw a map around there. There were the Ehrmans, the Levys, the Baums, the Oppenheimers, the Hirsches, the Heilers, the Rosenfelds, all in the little tight area, the Nob Hill area.

Tanzer: What was the reason that they settled in that particular area?
BAUM: I have no idea. I don’t think it was protection. I don’t think they were circling the wagons or anything.

Tanzer: Tell me about the Rothschilds.
BAUM: They were beautiful people. In fact, I think that Joe is still alive, isn’t he? He’s a durable…

Tanzer: His son Fred taught for years at Reed College.
BAUM: Yes, and his other son, Tommy. I don’t know where Tommy is. He was a doctor.

Tanzer: Tell me about Amy.
BAUM: Amy probably was the most brilliant woman I ever knew. She had a mind like a steel trap. I suppose you know that she was a practicing attorney. She used to babysit me down at The Breakers. That was the Jewish resort.

Tanzer: At Gearhart?
BAUM: No, no. Breakers, Washington – the Washington coast. And you used to have to go down to Ilwaco and take the train and the conductor on the train was a guy by the name of Dorcey Smith, who eventually opened up a travel agency here in Portland, and you would take the little train up to Seaview and the next stop beyond Seaview was The Breakers. It was a great big rambling, lovely hotel of that era, owned by the Heilner family, and that was the pilgrimage, for many, many Jewish families.

Tanzer: Whatever happened to the Heilner family?
BAUM: I don’t know.

Tanzer: Did they have children?
BAUM: No. They had no kids; I remember that.

Tanzer: So, Amy babysat with you at The Breakers.
BAUM: Yes. I have photographs of that too. I was a gorgeous child.

Tanzer: Now, how old were you at that time and how old was Amy?
BAUM: Oh, I must have been about three and I guess Amy was about thirteen. 

Tanzer: Where did she go to school?
BAUM: I think she went to Wellesley. I am pretty sure she did.

Tanzer: And then she came back here and met Mr. Goldsmith?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: She was very active at the Temple Beth Israel.
BAUM: Oh yes, she was into everything. A dynamo of a person. Great sense of humor.

Tanzer: Do you have any particular memories of Amy? Any anecdote or any particular stories about her activities?
BAUM: No, nothing just crystal clear. I just have this image of the kind of a person she was, and I know she could always make me laugh with her witticisms, sharp, perceptive approach to everything, but nothing stands out clear.

Tanzer: Do you remember her children?
BAUM: Sure.

Tanzer: She had two sons of her own.
BAUM: No, wait a minute. John, I remember John very well, and the other one who is an attorney.

Tanzer: Is that Gerson?
BAUM: Gerson, yes.

Tanzer: And then she apparently adopted two children who were from Germany.
BAUM: That I didn’t know. Gerson and John were the two that I… Well, Gerson is still practicing here, isn’t he?

Tanzer: And John is an epidemiologist.
BAUM: Yes, not here.

Tanzer: No, he’s not here. He was in California, but he is now in Atlanta, I believe, for the Center for Disease Control.
BAUM: Both of them… I think John was more of a student than Gerson.

Tanzer: Are there any other people that you particularly remember in those years that you lived in Portland who had some impact on the community?
BAUM: Well, one of the guys that I loved very much was your Sidney Teiser. He had a great impact on the community.

Tanzer: In what way?
BAUM: Oh, he was an amazingly inventive guy, you know? This whole thing that he worked out with the Kodak-Eastman people, and of course his buddy was Roscoe Nelson, and they were inseparable, the two southern gentlemen. Roscoe, I think, had a little more of an impact on the community than Sidney did because Roscoe was a real leader in the community.

Tanzer: Then he also had his roots in this particular community, Roscoe Nelson, Sr.
BAUM: No, he came from the south.

Tanzer: Oh, I thought he was from – 
BAUM: No, both he and Sidney came from Virginia or some place around in there. Roscoe may have come a couple of years earlier, but their origins are in the south.

Tanzer: Were they members of any organization that you belonged to?
BAUM: I didn’t belong to any.

Tanzer: Did you belong to the Temple Beth Israel?
BAUM: Through my parents.

Tanzer: Did you continue your adult membership?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: When did you marry your present wife?
BAUM: 23 years ago, this coming November.

Tanzer: Do you have children?
BAUM: I have one daughter.

Tanzer: And where is she?
BAUM: In Lake Grove, Oregon.

Tanzer: And her name?
BAUM: Puderbaugh.

Tanzer: And she is a daughter from your first marriage?
BAUM: Right.

Tanzer: Are there children from your second marriage?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: Let’s go back to your business career. You were in the advertising business nine years, you said, and what were your reasons for leaving the advertising business?
BAUM: I went to Los Angeles and attempted to start an agency and very shortly went broke, after I had been there maybe a year and a half. So I got a job in the printing business and was really doing very well, and the war came along and we couldn’t get any more paper. And this rotogravure company, their biggest customer was the Los Angeles Times – they printed the rotogravure section and they had to use up all their quota of paper to supply the Times. So I couldn’t sell any more rota section, and a friend of mine who was in the advertising/business agency in Portland called me up one day and said, “Would you like a job with White Stag?” and I said sure. Well, he said, “Harold Hirsch would like to talk to you if you want to come up.” Their advertising manager, who was Jason Hervin, had walked out on them about a month before a big sales meeting, so I flew up and stayed with my sister Anne. They were living out – well it’s very unimportant where she was living, and Harold interviewed me and put me to work, so that’s how I joined White Stag.

Tanzer: What was your official position?
BAUM: Advertising Manager.

Tanzer: How long were you in that position for White Stag?
BAUM: A little over a year.

Tanzer: And then what?
BAUM: Sales Manager.

Tanzer: For how long?
BAUM: About two years and then I was in a very bad automobile accident. My wife and I had been in New York. She was working for White Stag at that time, also.

Tanzer: What was her position?
BAUM: She was what they called the Planning Head of the Girl’s Wear Division – developed the merchandising and buying and designing and so forth. And we were on our way back to Portland, coming up the East River Drive on a rainy day, and we were coming up the drive and a guy was coming down and he jumped the guardrail. It was a head on collision and they scraped the two of us up off the sidewalk, and I had a broken leg and two broken arms, and she had a broken leg and one broken arm, and I got my throat cut and that’s what happened to my voice. The luggage was in that car and you know this plywood, this thin plywood that luggage is made out of, it broke and rammed into my throat and that fixed my voice as to what it is now.

Tanzer: It’s very distinctive. Were you able to talk?
BAUM: No, for a while. We were in the hospital in New York for three months and then they put us in body casts and shipped us out to Portland. And fortunately in those days, they had sleeper planes, and we had to take nine seats – four seats made up into a berth – and we had to have an attendant with us because being immobile they wouldn’t let us travel alone. So we took a little black nurse from the hospital that we had become rather fond of and brought her out. So we were another almost three months in these casts and then in wheel chairs, and so at that time the company decided that they had better have another sales manager because I couldn’t possibly function for some time. So I went back to being advertising manager and then became vice president and took over all of the public relations and sales promotion activities for the firm, and I was there for 20 years.

Tanzer: Were you in Portland all this time?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: When did you move from Portland?
BAUM: To Hawaii?

Tanzer: Yes.
BAUM: In 1970.

Tanzer: When you retired?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: Now, did your wife continue in her…?
BAUM: She still is. She’s working.

Tanzer: Is she still working for White Stag?
BAUM: No, no. She had her own manufacturing business for a short time and then she became a manufacturer’s representatives and she is on the mainland five times a year. She covers the states of Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii for a company called Patty Woodard; there’s a Portland market on now. She is up in the Galleria where her show room is, and then she goes to Seattle and there is a Seattle market, and she just told me on the phone that they’ve booked showings – pre-market. The market doesn’t open until Sunday but they’ve got showings on Thursday, Friday and Saturday up there, which is why she has to go on.

Tanzer: Now, what about your activities in Hawaii?
BAUM: Well, outside of this theater group that I helped found. I was one of the four people that founded it.

Tanzer: What is the name of the theater?
BAUM: It’s called the [Inaudible] Players. I am affiliated with the Lahaina Restoration Foundation, which is devoted to the restoration of historic landmarks. I am on the Board of Directors and on the executive committee of that operation. That is very interesting and fascinating work. And I’m vice president and on the board of directors of the Tax Payers Union which, in the district where we live, we are getting roads, new roads in, and a sewer system and we got an FHA grant of $2 ½ million to get that started.

Tanzer: What made you decide to move to Hawaii?
BAUM: Well, we have been going over to Hawaii since 1959, every year, anywhere from three to four weeks, and we loved it over there. And finally, in 1966, I bought a condominium on Maui and we planned that I would retire and we would live there in this condominium. So I retired in August of 1970 and we sold our house. We had a house in Lake Oswego and we moved over. And after about three months Barbara said, “This condominium living ain’t for me.” You have no privacy because everyone else there is on vacation and they wander in at odd hours with a drink in their hand and it could be 10:00 in the morning or 10:00 at night. We decided that we had better get out of that and we were very fortunate in finding a piece of property in a very desirable location overlooking the ocean.

Tanzer: In Maui?
BAUM: Yes. So we built a house there that suits our needs completely, and I kept the condominium and rented it; we’ve been in the house now seven years.

Tanzer: I presume that you noticed tremendous changes in Hawaii?
BAUM: Oh, sure. Since 1959, when we first went there, you wouldn’t even know the place. It’s a concrete jungle in Honolulu now. And Maui fortunately hasn’t gone quite that far but it’s built up all around.

Tanzer: Have you noticed some particular changes in Portland as well?
BAUM: Oh, yes. Portland – this whole south section has developed down there. I think some beautiful things have been done. Now if they could just clean up the river, why, we would be fine!

Tanzer: If we could just get some more water in the river it will clean itself up.
BAUM: That was one of Harold Wendel’s big crusades.

Tanzer: Was what?
BAUM: To clean up the pollution of the river.

Tanzer: Oh, when was this?
BAUM: Oh, I guess ten years ago.

Tanzer: I remember a number of concerted efforts to clean up the river that were successful, as a matter of fact. You remember the river when there was fish in it?
BAUM: Sure.

Tanzer: Do you remember swimming in the river?
BAUM: Certainly. We used to go down to Windermuth here, down by the Oaks [Park], and they had floats out there and we would swim. Howard Minch had a canoe on the river and we used to paddle down and anchor on the islands there, Ross Island, before the bridge was built. Oh yes, it was a beautiful river to swim in.

Tanzer: What were some of the activities that you pursued when you were children? With family? With friends?
BAUM: Well, the things that I remember most are our annual trip to The Breakers and automobile rides with the Rothschild family. My family in those days didn’t have a car and Fred Rothschild had a big old Packard, and we would all get together with the picnic baskets and drive down to Crown Point.

Tanzer: Down to the scenic Gorge trail?
BAUM: Yes. I used to do a lot of fishing.

Tanzer: Where did you fish?
BAUM: Oh, sometimes up at Clackamas, sometimes down on the Washington side, along in there.

Tanzer: Do you remembers as boys having a lot of time and a lot of freedom to do hiking and camping?
BAUM: Oh, yes. I was a very active member of the Boy Scouts. I forgot to tell you that. Troop 37 of the Boy Scouts, and I used to spend several summers up at their camp –

Tanzer: Was it in Oregon?
BAUM: Oh yes, just up the Columbia, there-a-ways.

Tanzer: Were these entire summers spent there?
BAUM: Oh, yes. They had tents for the boys and then a big mess hall where we ate and all sorts of boating and swimming, fishing activities.

Tanzer: How far did you advance in the scouts?
BAUM: I became a second-class scout. I don’t remember whether I made first class or not.

Tanzer: Did your parents encourage you in these activities?
BAUM: Mother did. Mother was the driving force in the family.

Tanzer: Well, you refer to her constantly. You must have spent a lot of time with her.
BAUM: Oh, yes. See, after Father died Father was very young when he died, 47) I was kind of Mama’s pet. My poor sister kind of got the short shrift there, until she grew up, but Mother had great hopes and ambitions for me and was steering and guiding, very gently, very unobtrusively.

Tanzer: Did you do a good number of things with your mother?
BAUM: Not enough.

Tanzer: What were her interests and activities?
BAUM: Oh, she had a small circle of friends that she would spend a lot of time with. And [she] was very interested in the decorating of the Temple after the fire. They were rebuilding the new Temple down there and she was working on the architecture and the colors. That occupied several years of her life.

Tanzer: Did she belong to Council of Jewish Women?
BAUM: Oh yes, indeed, she was very active in the Council.

Tanzer: Do you remember any particular activities that were associated with Council?
BAUM: No, I don’t.

Tanzer: They had so many things going on at the Neighborhood House I thought perhaps she would have been an instructor and worked with different people.
BAUM: No, no, she was just a member and had no particular function that I know of, or that I can remember.

Tanzer: Some of the stories that I have heard about the families who lived close to one another – they entertained very formally.
BAUM: Oh, yes.

Tanzer: Do you remember these dinner parties at home?
BAUM: Oh yes, a lot of entertaining. And this group of Jewish families that were all in that little periphery of the Nob Hill area, they were always entertaining in one home or the other, card parties. Or the guys – Dad and Arnold Blitz and Nicky Ungar and that gang always had a poker game every week.

Tanzer: Do you remember the formals, the ladies calling formally on one another?
BAUM: No, but I remember the dances at the Concordia Club which were very gay, formal parties.

Tanzer: Well, tell us about that.
BAUM: Well, I never was invited. I was too young, but I can remember Mother and Dad dressing up in their finest and going off to the Concordia Club for a ball.

Tanzer: Were the balls seasonal?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: Were they at all involved with the Jewish seasons?
BAUM: That I don’t know. Not only was I too young but I was at the point where there was no involvement as for as I was concerned. They would get dressed up in their finery and go off to the Concordia Club and why it was the date that it was, I’ve no recollection. Aren’t there any archives of that Concordia Club left around?

Tanzer: There may be. There are a lot of information in the papers that Michele has been gathering. Do you have some additional questions, Michele?
Glazer: Yes.

Tanzer: Why don’t you ask him that? I have trouble reading your writing. 
Glazer: I want to know what your memories were of Alice Freidlander Lauer?
BAUM: She was a very strong, domineering woman. Very, very powerful woman and a very handsome woman, also. Stately and tall. What she could ever see in my uncle, who was a little short, stout guy, I never knew, but they were a devoted couple for years and years and years. I never knew anything about her writing. That was a part of her that I was completely unaware of until Shirley told me about it.

Tanzer: Was she outspoken politically and socially?
BAUM: I don’t know.

Glazer: How was her power manifested?
BAUM: Oh, she was a dominant factor in my uncle’s life. Anything that was good for him, she would push him into.

Glazer: How involved was she with Jewish activities?
BAUM: I don’t know. I don’t think tremendously involved, but that’s just a feeling I have.

Tanzer: They lived next door to you. Were they frequent visitors in your home?
BAUM: Oh, yes. See, Helen Goldwater and I are about the same age, I think.

Tanzer: This is the oldest daughter? Is Helen the oldest daughter?
BAUM: No, there was an older daughter, Amy, who died. But Helen, I think, is about a year older than I am, and we were always playing together as kids and I have several pictures of Helen and myself.

Tanzer: Was your mother close to Alice?
BAUM: No, she was not. She was involved with her mother and her sisters.

Tanzer: Alice?
BAUM: No, Mother.

Tanzer: So you weren’t aware of any particular kind of activity on the part of Alice?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: Can you recall any anecdotes that she played a part in?
BAUM: I’m sorry.

Glazer: This thing about Eugene Skinner, which is a long, long time ago, did you hear any stories about him?
BAUM: Nothing except what Grandmother told me and I have related it to you.

Tanzer: But the two men continued to be friends.
BAUM: As far as I know. I know his daughter and my mother were very good friends – Mamie Krause, who was Mamie Skinner Krause.

Glazer: Henrietta Lauer, as you previously mentioned – can you recall any of her activities?
BAUM: Henrietta was a strange person. She, as I recall, was active at the Neighborhood House. That’s where she spent a lot of time, down there working in the Neighborhood House. That’s the only vivid memory I have before she became a recluse.

Tanzer: She did become a recluse?
BAUM: Yes.

Tanzer: In her later years?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: For what reason?
BAUM: I don’t know. Frustrated love I guess.

Tanzer: You guess. Does that mean that there was a gentleman in her life?
BAUM: I don’t know. In retrospect, I would assume that somewhere there was a great disappointment.

Tanzer: Did she lavish affection on her nieces and nephews since she had no children of her own?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: What do you remember about her personality?
BAUM: Nothing good.

Glazer: What do you remember that was bad?
BAUM: She was always fighting with my mother and this used to enrage me. I can remember one time, I was a kid about five or six and she and mother were having some terrible argument. I went into my room and got a buggy whip that I had hanging up. She wasn’t going to do that to my mother, you know.

Tanzer: Do you remember what the nature of these arguments were?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: They did live together, didn’t they?
BAUM: Oh, yes. 
 
Tanzer: And did your grandmother intercede on behalf of one or the other?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: What did Henrietta do professionally?
BAUM: Nothing.

Tanzer: Oh, she never worked?
BAUM: No.

Tanzer: Did she have any educational training?
BAUM: Well, she went to the university but she never did anything with it.

Tanzer: How was she supported?
BAUM: By her mother and my mother. I’m trying to think. Oh, she did – you know, like during the war she would roll bandages and all the things that patriotic women of that day were doing, but I can’t remember any special interest.

Glazer: How else was she strange?
BAUM: Well, she – I’ve always thought that there was a screw loose somewhere. That she was a little off in her rocker. I remember she used to chew her finger to the point of where there was a callous that grew up on this thing. It was phenomenal. It was a nervous thing.

Tanzer: She was the youngest in the family?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: You mentioned the Concordia Club and you said it folded. Do you know why?
BAUM: I don’t remember whether it was an outgrowth of Prohibition, or whether it [was] just degeneration of the membership, or what was the real reason for its folding.

Glazer: When was it? When did it fold?
BAUM: That you’ll have to check your archives.

Glazer: Also, you mentioned Gustave Barr. Do you want to say something about him?
BAUM: Well, Gustave Barr was a German physician that came over to this country in… around 1915, I guess, around in there. Brilliant, brilliant physician, and I think he pre-dated Dr. Isadore Brill by a few years. He was very cordially disliked by all of the medical profession because he came waltzing in here out of nowhere and in no time had built up a fantastic practice, which was deserved. He was a fine, skilled physician and he married – you know, the two boys who have this wholesale house down here? Richard… no.

Tanzer: It’s not Archie Goldsmith, is it?
BAUM: Yes! You know the two boys?

Tanzer: Alan?
BAUM: Alan and Tommy, their mother married Dr. Barr and she had one son – I think his name was Richard – before she married Goldsmith, and he is now, I understand, a very, very well thought of physician in the Bay area. But then one day, for some reason that I don’t know, Dr. Barr up and left her and went back to Germany, and there she was out on the limb and she was a very attractive woman and it was then that she married Goldsmith.

Tanzer: Well, she had been from a rather prominent family.
BAUM: Oh, yes.

Tanzer: Was she from the Fleischner family or the Mayer?
BAUM: She was from the Fleischners. Very shortly after she was married to Goldsmith Dr. Barr came waltzing back with his German wife.

Tanzer: And did he continue to live here?
BAUM: For many years afterwards.

Tanzer: Did they live in that house on Montgomery Drive? That stucco house?
BAUM: Who are you talking about?

Tanzer: Dr. Barr.
BAUM: No, well, when he was married to – –

Tanzer: Hilda?
BAUM: Hilda was his German wife’s name. Yes.

Tanzer: Yes. I knew her. She was much younger than he. Yes.

Glazer: Were you ever involved with the military?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: When you were a member of the Pi Tau Pi, were most of your friends also members?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: Were they members because you all were there, or did all your friends join, or how did it work?
BAUM: Oh, I think it was sort of a happenstance. One guy joined and then the next one. After all, it was a pretty small community in those days.

Glazer: Is that where you met most of your friends?
BAUM: No, no. We had all known each other since we were kids.

Glazer: So it just happened that when you all grew up you all joined that fraternity?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: Where did you meet people when you were in grade school?
BAUM: In grade school, where else?

Glazer: You didn’t belong to any of the clubs then?
Baum: No. Well, in high school I belonged to the Hi Y. Shirley said she thought I was one of the first members. I don’t recall that I was, but there were several of us. It was the only club of its kind, so it was a good social group.

Glazer: Was that for boys and girls?
BAUM: No, just boys.

Glazer: Was there a girl’s counterpart?
BAUM: I imagine so, but I don’t recollect.

Glazer: Do you know when you joined?
BAUM: Well, it must have been about my sophomore year in high school.

Glazer: This was a Jewish club entirely?
BAUM: No, it was a YMCA club.

Glazer: Oh, I didn’t realize that. Is it still in existence?
BAUM: As far as I know.

Glazer: What kind of activities were there?
BAUM: Oh, there was debates. I can’t recall anything specific that we did. Some of those things are gone in my memory.

Glazer: Did you engage in any philanthropic activities?
BAUM: I doubt it. It was more of a social group as a part of the Young Men’s Christian Association. There was a certain amount of so-called intellectual pursuits, but they didn’t hammer religion home to you at all.

Glazer: You didn’t feel odd, being a Jew?
BAUM: No, no.

Glazer: Did any other people that you know of?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: Did they put on plays, things like that?
BAUM: No, no. As I recall, it was mostly debating.

Glazer: Did you participate in those things?
BAUM: Oh, sure. When you’re in there you do whatever the boys are doing.

Glazer: You mentioned the Wing family yesterday. What can you tell me about those people?
BAUM: Nothing. The only Wing I knew was the Ben Wing who was working in Ben Selling’s store. I think he was either like a general manager, merchandise manager of the store. He was second in command under Mr. Selling, and I was about 9 years old at the time, and Ben Selling gave me a job as cash boy and I had to see Mr. Wing for my paycheck and that was about – I just remembered the name Ben Wing.

Glazer: Do you know how long they were here, the family?
BAUM: No, I didn’t know anything about them.

Glazer: Were there children?
BAUM: I don’t know anything about them! He just worked in the store where I worked.

Glazer: It seems that it’s a common pattern in this community that you will find people very much involved with Jewish activities and then find that their children and grandchildren aren’t very involved. That seems to be true in your case.
BAUM: Yes, I would say that’s right.

Glazer: Could you perhaps tell me some reasons why that might be?
BAUM: As I told Shirley yesterday, my first wife was a gentile, and I think that dragged me away from Jewish things, and by the time I married my second wife, who is a Jewess, she was never inclined to Jewish activities and we just drifted away.

Glazer: Do you have any regrets about that?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: What effect overall would you say that your parents’ Jewishness had on you?
BAUM: They weren’t particularly active in any Jewish work. Mother was primarily interested in the Temple activities, but just in the building of the new Temple. I am afraid our family were not, what you might call, the best, most active Jews in the Portland area.

Glazer: How did your Jewish heritage affect you towards your career?
BAUM: Not at all.

Glazer: Has it affected you in any of the positions you’ve taken, in politics or anything else?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: Looking back over your life, has it made any difference that you are a Jew in Oregon, growing up in Oregon?
BAUM: No, I don’t think in those days there was much feeling that whether you were Jewish or not. My friends in grammar school and high school were just people. They didn’t fall into any religious classification.

Glazer: Well you’ve lived in Portland for a long time. Has this always been the case?
BAUM: While I was growing up it was very definitely so, and after, when I went into business in the newspaper years, I think I was probably one of two or three Jews on the paper and it didn’t seem to matter to anybody whether you were or weren’t Jewish.

Glazer: So your being Jewish never created an obstacle to your career?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: Are you satisfied with the career that you chose?
BAUM: Definitely.

Glazer: To what extent have you reached the goals you once set?
BAUM: Oh, I made a living for my family and that was about all I could ask for. I became the highest officer that I could hope to attain in the company, and I was one of three or four vice presidents on the executive committee, and about the only higher I could go was president and Harold Hirsch had that pretty well sewed up.

Glazer: Do you feel that you are a success?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: Why do you think you are not?
BAUM: Financially I’m not, by comparison with other contemporaries of mine.

Glazer: How do you measure success?
BAUM: I said financially. As far as fulfillment is concerned, personal fulfillment, I’m perfectly happy. I have a lovely family, children and grandchildren, and we are a very warm, close-knit family, and that gives you a certain amount of fulfillment.

Glazer: You said you have children. I thought you just had one daughter.
BAUM: Well, my wife has two and I consider them mine.

Glazer: I see. What do you perceive as some of the most important events in your life?
BAUM: Oh, I was born. That was rather important to me. And I think that my four years in New York when I was gong to college was one of the real high points in my life. I got a lot out of it. Enjoyed it immensely. Of course, it was a wonderful time to be in New York in the twenties.

Glazer: For what reasons?
BAUM: Well, the city was open and clean and there was no crime in the streets and you could walk around at three o’clock in the morning without fear of somebody mugging you. And, of course, it was really the high point of the theater in New York. All of the greats were alive and performing. And I loved the theater. I saw every show that came along. The Barrymores were working there, Jane Cowl, Helen Hayes, the Lunts. It was a great period in the theater and because of my interest in it, it made the time I spent in New York very enjoyable.

Glazer: Were you active in theatrical productions at that time?
BAUM: No, just a spectator.

Glazer: Who were some of the people who most influenced your life?
BAUM: Well, let’s see. I would say that probably the most influential person in my life was my mother. And then there [are] lesser. One of the men on the paper who was very helpful to me was a man by the name of Simeon Reed Winch. His grandfather was the Reed of Reed College.

Glazer: You mean the Hearst or the Journal?
BAUM: No, the Journal. At Hearst it was just a dog-eat-dog existence. There was nobody there that was looking out for anybody else. Everybody looked out for themselves. But Mr. Winch on the Journal was my mentor on that paper and helped me get started in my own advertising business. He was very helpful.

Glazer: How do you explain the differences between the two papers? The character of the owner, the publisher, the editor?
BAUM: The owner, yes. William Randolph Hearst was a power-mad guy and all of his people working for him were out to do for themselves whatever they could, whereas on the Journal there was more of a paternal feeling among the senior executives.

Glazer: Did you ever meet Hearst?
BAUM: Oh, sure.

Glazer: What kind of a man was he, besides power hungry?
BAUM: Well, he was a tremendous man – very big in stature. And he had a voice like a mouse, little peep squeak voice, and thwarted all of his ambitions for a political career because he would start to talk and people would laugh. Of course, when we would have our Monday morning meetings and about once or twice a year he would show up at the meeting, and nobody laughed when he spoke, I assure you.

Glazer: Did you ever talk to him outside of business?
BAUM: No. I never talked to him. He always talked at us.

Glazer: When you came back to Portland from New York, you were very involved with the Civic Theater?
BAUM: Well, yes, shortly thereafter. I was here about I guess a year before I got involved with that.

Glazer: How did your involvement begin?
BAUM: I can’t remember how I got started. I was just always interested in the theater and when I heard there was a small group of struggling amateurs, I found out how to get into the group and got into it and was very active for many years.

Glazer: How has the Civic Theater changed?
BAUM: Oh, well, they’ve got their own building and their own theater, staff. When we were there we had to rent what is now the Guild Theater and that’s where we put on our plays. We rehearsed in the director’s home.

Glazer: Who was the director, or were there many of them?
BAUM: Well the one who directed most of the shows that I was in was a man by the name of Byron Folger and he was here for several years. He came, I think, out of New York. They hired him and then he later went on to Hollywood and worked in pictures.

Glazer: Did the group make money or break even?
BAUM: They made money, sure, and then they put on membership drives to raise money and that’s how they finally broke the ground and built the theater.

Glazer: You said you knew James Beard from the Civic Theater?
BAUM: No, not from the Civic Theater. I knew Jim from this one production that we put on in the Park Blocks during one of the Rose Festivals, but it was not a Civic Theater production.

Glazer: What was he like?
BAUM: He was good. Very amusing. Even then a pretty good cook.

Glazer: Was the Civic Theater always growing larger and larger, or was their some point where it just started to really boom?
BAUM: Yes, it struggled along. At first it was called the Bess Whitcomb Players. Bess Whitcomb was a dramatic coach, and as always happens in a little group like that, some of them weren’t too happy with Bess Whitcomb in her direction and they split off and formed what they called the Portland Civic Theater.

Glazer: When was this?
BAUM: Oh, it must have been about 1926 or 1927. Around in there.

Glazer: So were you involved at that time?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: Were you involved in the split?
BAUM: No, I came just as the split and the new group took over or started up. I never was a member of the Bess Whitcomb Players. I know they were the original group.

Glazer: Do you know when they originated?
BAUM: No, I don’t.

Glazer: What happened to them?
BAUM: Bess died and then they were gone.

Glazer: And then the group struggled along for a few years?
BAUM: Oh, for a long time, six or seven years, before they finally got a fairly active group of officers. Edris Morrison was one of the powerhouses of that period.

Glazer: Who was that?
BAUM: Edris Morrison. She has the Edris Morrison photo studios up here on Sixth Street on Broadway, just above the Paramount Theater. She has a building there and lots of photographs in the windows.

Glazer: What are some of the other factors that made the Civic Theater so successful?
BAUM: Well, I just think it was the dedicated group of officers that came along that raised funds for the theater building. I don’t know that you can pinpoint any one person or thing. It was just fortunate that a group of really dedicated and strong people became involved, and they got people to subscribe funds, and endow, donate, and accumulated this dough and finally they had enough to start the theater. But they were in hock for many, many years. I don’t know if they are out of hock yet, but I know there was always a mortgage payment to meet on the building but somehow they raised the money and met the mortgage and kept going on.

Glazer: The building they’re in now, is that the only building they had?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: Was there at any time a great interest by the community in a theater of this type?
BAUM: I would say as they grew and became more professional in their productions that they attracted bigger and bigger audiences.

Glazer: Were these plays always put on by amateurs from the community?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: Did they ever hire professionals from say, California or wherever?
BAUM: Not to my knowledge. This was not a practice. Many small theater groups do bring in professional talent. To my knowledge, the Civic Theater never has.

Glazer: What kind of plays did they put on in the early days?
BAUM: Oh, we did Anna Christie and the Queen’s Husband and Are You Are, which is a… I don’t know if you are familiar with it or not. That’s about the only ones I remember, although I am sure there were many more. The reason I remember those was because I was or did play an important part in all of them.

Glazer: Has the type of plays they put on then changed significantly from the type they put on now?
BAUM: Oh, yes. I’ve been out of touch with them for about ten years or so, but my daughter is very active there and they do musicals beautifully and she has directed and choreographed many of their musicals. We wouldn’t begin to touch a musical.

Glazer: Why not?
BAUM: Well, we just didn’t have the singing talent or the choreographers. They’ve done some great musicals.

Glazer: Were you involved other than as an actor?
BAUM: Well, in those days you did a little bit of everything. You helped with the scenery and you helped get props together. You did your own makeup and you acted. Now, I understand, they are pretty highly specialized and they’ve got a great group of scenic artists and people who do lights. But then it was just a small -everybody pitched in and helped.

Glazer: Which way do you like it better?
BAUM: Well, I think it is better the way it is now because they really need experienced, talented people in all those phases. You need good scenic designing. Lighting is very important. If we could get a spotlight focused right it was fortunate.

Glazer: Were the actors and people paid for their services?
BAUM: No. Today the directors are paid.

Glazer: Only the directors? How did you become involved with the theater? How did you become interested in it?
BAUM: Well, I was always interested in the theater, ever since I can remember.

Glazer: Did your family encourage you?
BAUM: Not particularly.

Glazer: Did they discourage it?
BAUM: No. They were very tolerant people.

Glazer: Your mom never said anything about it, one way or the other?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: What are some of the differences that you have observed between the theater in Hawaii or in New York? Are their basic differences?
BAUM: There’s no theater in Hawaii.

Glazer: Well, you said you had your own little dramatic –
BAUM: Well, that today is about at the point where the Portland Civic Theater was when I was in it. We paint our own sets and we get our own props and we do our own lighting and everybody gets in and works.

Glazer: Is there anything unique about theater in Oregon or in Hawaii or in New York?
BAUM: Well, New York you can’t compare with anything else because that’s a very highly specialized, professional business. It’s not like theater groups. even the Portland Civic Theater you can’t compare with New York.

Glazer: How would you compare the Civic Theater with Hawaii, the early civic theater?
BAUM: It’s about the same.

Glazer: It being in Hawaii, does it make any difference?
BAUM: No. If you’ve got a good play, you can draw a crowd. If you don’t, you can’t.

Glazer: Are the people, the actors, Hawaiian? 
BAUM: Some.

Glazer: Does it make any difference? When was your daughter born?
BAUM: 1930, if I remember correctly.

Glazer: You said she was very involved in the Civic Theater?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: Did you encourage her involvement in the theater?
BAUM: Yes.

Glazer: How did you do that?
BAUM: Oh, I sent her to ballet school and she studied under Oumansky, and then got interested in choreography, and then into directing, and she played in the Civic Theater production of Hello Dolly. She played the lead in that. I didn’t see it, but they said she was very good in it.

Glazer: Did you two ever play together in anything?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: Did she do this as a full time thing?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: To what extent have you emphasized your Jewish heritage?
BAUM: None.

Glazer: What expectations did you have for your daughter?
BAUM: Oh, I just hoped that she would become a good wife and mother.

Glazer: What expectations do you have for your grandchildren?
BAUM: I really don’t. I’m confident that their parents will assume that responsibility.

Glazer: What things which you learned in life so far can you pass onto people, to make life a little easier?
BAUM: Just to be tolerant of other people. Not to be too fault-finding. Remember that other people are human beings. They have their faults and their foibles and you, I think, will be better off if you are inclined to forgive.

Glazer: What difficulties do you perceive for your own children, growing up in a world that’s a lot different? For your grandchildren?
BAUM: Oh, I think that the world is going to hell in a hand basket with crime, pollution, gas shortages, oil shortages, water pollution, and I just think if somebody doesn’t do something pretty soon, we’re all going to be in a mess.

Glazer: What do you think can be done?
BAUM: Well, I think they’re getting on the right track in trying to find substitutes for energy. The water shortages is quite critical, and where in the hell they are going to get water I don’t know, but I think in the energy field they are making progress. There seems to be a great let down in morality and people are too casual about their lifestyles. I think the world was far better off when there were certain standard that people lived by. Today, there doesn’t seem to be any, particularly among the younger people.

Glazer: How do you account for those changes in morality?
BAUM: Oh, I think there are a lot of factors involved in it. Lack of parental discipline. I had seen an article in the paper where it was reporting the amazing decline in the intelligence level of people making college applications, did you see about that? Absolutely unbelievable that those things could drop, and I think it is just lack of concern on the part of the parents or parental discipline, and the teachers, too. This report blamed a lot of it on the teachers, giving cinch courses and letting the kids get by too easy, so by the time they take a college exam they fall woefully behind. I think that’s very discouraging.

Glazer: What are some of the other factors?
BAUM: I don’t know what all they are involved, but I think those are key factors. I think the education of the people who have to enter the world and compete, if that level drops, the whole structure falls apart.

Glazer: You are pretty pessimistic then?
BAUM: Yes, I am. I don’t see anybody getting up and screaming and saying that this has got to stop. All I’ve seen so far is are these reports but no solutions.

Glazer: What makes life worthwhile for you?
BAUM: I’m getting so old, I don’t care anymore. 

Glazer: Is that right? In retrospect are there things that you would have done differently?
BAUM: Oh, I imagine so. I am sure that there are many things in my life where I made the wrong decision, guessed wrong. Right now I can’t tell you just exactly what they are, or what they were.

Glazer: You are 72 years old and you are active. From where do you derive your energy?
BAUM: I take a nap in the afternoon.
 
Glazer: Is that all?
Bourn: That’s enough. I eat too much and I drink too much and I don’t take enough exercise and I’m amazed that I’m still going on.

Glazer: Do you have any last words that you would like to say?
BAUM: That sounds like a death scene.

Glazer: No, this is for posterity.
BAUM: No, I don’t think that I qualify to pontificate on any great subjects. I’m just a fairly average guy that has lived a good, full, pleasant life and I don’t think I can add too much to that.

Glazer: One last question. Is your daughter or her family Jewish?
BAUM: No. Her mother was a gentile and she was brought up in the Catholic Church. She went to parochial schools, so that ruled her out.

Glazer: What about your wife’s children?
BAUM: Well, our daughter is very Jewish-conscious, and her husband and his family are all very involved in Jewish life and activities. They live just a couple of blocks from the Jewish Community Center on Mercer Island and he is over there teaching the kids basketball and playing basketball and racquet ball and very active in the Center there. Our son, whose name is Bernstein, my wife’s former husband’s name, doesn’t even know he’s Jewish.

Glazer: Doesn’t even know?
BAUM: No.

Glazer: How could he not know?
BAUM: Well, he ignores it. His wife is a gentile. Oh, I suppose he knows, but he ignores it.

Glazer: What’s your daughter’s name, the one on Mercer Island?
BAUM: Rosen, Leslie Rosen. Her husband’s name is Allen Rosen.

Glazer: How many grandchildren do you have?
BAUM: My daughter has three and Barbara’s kids have one each and one on the way.

Glazer: Almost six.
BAUM: Yes.