Emma Bader Glickman

Pierri: Emma, where did your parents come from? 
GLICKMAN: My mother came to Texas from Germany as an infant in 1882. Her mother died and she returned to Germany with her brother. My grandfather remained here and later when she was 16, she came back to the United States to be with her father and came via New York and travelled by train to Missouri. My grandfather was a tobacco merchant and they were in Missouri and Illinois and wandered out west to Everett, Washington. She then went to Seattle, Washington where she worked for a dentist and he opened up an office in Portland and sent her there as his receptionist. She met my father and then married him in 1904. 

My father’s parents went to Dublin, Ireland where my father went to school. From Dublin, Ireland they went to Winnipeg, Canada where my father was bar mitzvahed and later moved to Portland, Oregon. My father’s Hebrew School teacher in Winnipeg was a Mr. Levine, whose great grandson is now our mayor, Neil Goldschmidt. He corresponded with my grandparents from Portland, Oregon, where he had moved and told them what a wonderful place this was to live and my grandparents, wanting to make a change on account of my grandmother’s health, decided to come to Portland. They came here in 1897. 

They first lived on SW Third and Sheridan Street. They remained there just for a short period of time and then they moved to SW Front and Caruthers Street. My father and my grandparents bought six houses there and when my parents married in 1904, my father and mother lived in one house where I was born, and my grandparents lived next door. The other houses were rental properties. These rentals were part of my grandfather’s business enterprise. My father had a bakery on SW First and Mill St. He went into the bakery business as a very young man. He was 16 when he came to Portland and it was shortly thereafter that he bought this Pioneer Bakery. He had the concession for all of the baked goods in the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition. Later he moved to SW First and Sheridan Street and put a bakery in there, which later became the famous Mr. Mosler’s Bakery. My father had neighbors at his first bakery, a Jewish butcher shop, and Jewish grocery stores and later when he moved further south, this was the hub of the Jewish neighborhood where all the shopping was done. There were many Jewish kosher butcher shops, there were grocery stores, there were delicatessens there, there were fish markets and there were bakeries. 

In the early days I recall the dry goods store belonging to Mr. Robison, which was a junior department store. Mr. Robison was the man for whom the Robison Jewish Home was named [See information about Hannah Robinson]. Later this building became the Grant Street Theater. There were grocery stores on either corner: Mr. Geller’s, Mr. Pander’s, and further south on the next block was Dr. Cottel. He was an M.D. He had his drug store and upstairs in his building there were several doctors: Dr. Labby, the dentist was there and a Doctor Wolf, an M.D. Then on SW First and Caruthers there was a dry good store also run by some people named Grubman. Later on a Sol Miller had a drug store there and after that Louie Leveton had a drug store and then after that Mr. Korsun had his delicatessen. Further south on the next block, originally there was a dry goods store belonging to Mr. Halperin. He then opened up a Jewish delicatessen in partners with Henry Colistro. It was called Colistro & Halperin. 

On another corner there were the butcher shops. Catty-corner from the kosher butcher shop was Mr. Koessel’s butcher shop. This was the non-Jewish butcher shop and fish market. They also sold live chickens and many of the Jewish women would go there on the pretext of buying fish or chickens while slyly buying non-kosher meat. However, my mother was a little more brazen. She didn’t come from an Orthodox family so we bought the non-kosher meat part of the time and some of the time my brothers and I would go to the butcher shop in the morning and buy the meat for the day and come home. Mama would prepare our big meal at noon. Our street was Caruthers Street, going from Front Street down to Hood Street. On the corner was a beautiful home belonging to Mr. Luckel. Mr. Luckel had a big soap factory, Luckel, King and Cake Soap factory on the bottom of the hill called Hood Street, which was about a block away from the river. Also on the corner of Front Street, when I was a small child, there was a Hebrew school, and on the corner of First and Sherman Streets there was a Turkish bath and the bath keeper was a Mr. Runstein. He was a famous ne’er-do-well. He had a family of many children. Most of them were delinquents and the charities had to help them out most of the time. Mr. Runstein was a carpenter when he would work.

Also on the corner was the Blue Mountain Hide and Wool Company. On First and Caruthers there was a Christian church which later became the Linath Hazedek Synagogue. Next door to this church was a little building which was a kindergarten in conjunction with the Christian church and these women were in their glory if they could take the Jewish children and try to convert them. There were also characters in the gulch from Front and Sheridan Street to Front and Arthur Street. There was a bridge over this gulch and down below there were several characters, amongst them a hermit called Kasaboo. He lived in a shack composed of cans and pieces of lumber. There was also a woman who walked up and down the street called Miss McGee. She probably was a little mentally deranged because she would go about the streets preaching. There was also a character called Umbrella Jimmy. 

My brothers and I would walk from our house to the Failing School on Front Street each day. Actually, it was only four blocks, but it seemed like a long, long way. At the end of the bridge, on Front and Arthur Street the old people Horensteins lived. They were the grandparents of Mr. Horenstein who is the secretary at the Neveh Shalom Synagogue and the old grandma and grandpa would sit out there all the time. I started school in the old Failing School, which was on First and Porter Street. The principal who had succeeded old man Pratt, Martin Pratt’s father, (Martin at one time was the sheriff of Multnomah County), was Fannie Porter. She was quite a famous character. Most of the pupils in the school were Jewish. My mother, not being so observant (actually we were Yom Kippur Jews; we went to the synagogue on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah). My mother would send us to school on the non-important holidays like Passover or Chanukah and the school was empty so Miss Porter would send us home. 

Further south my uncles had a drug store on Front and Gibbs called Gelman and Bader. Their first drug store was in the Gevurtz Building. This was a large building with many stores. There was a grocery store and a bakery and the drug store on the corner, and upstairs there was a large social hall where many Jewish weddings were held. In those days the Jewish weddings in Portland were not held in the synagogue. Probably there wasn’t as much social prestige in being married in an old synagogue as it was in getting married in a hotel or in a hall. Then going back north again on First and Hall Street across from the Shaarie Torah, nicknamed the First Street Shul was the old Neighborhood House, a wooden building where I first started kindergarten. I remember my kindergarten teacher was a Miss Smith. I don’t know where she got the name because she was a Jewess and they had sewing classes there too. My aunt Esther Bader Gelman, my father’s sister, taught immigrants in the English classes. They also had a sewing class there. My mother had a very good education in Germany so most of the women who couldn’t read or write would come to her to do their corresponding for them. My mother was very well liked amongst all the neighbors. We had a large family of Italian people living on our blocks. Sisters and brothers each with their individual families and we grew up with them. I still contact some of the people. They are still in Portland: the Carlos’, the Yazzalinos, Lavarettos, Ambroses. 

Pierri: With whom did you spend most of your time? 
GLICKMAN: I had friends amongst these Italian girls. There were other neighbors that I would spend time with and then on Saturdays my mother would take my brother, Edgar Bader and myself downtown to SW Third and Morrison, where, on either side of the street were two large confectionery stores. There were no hamburger joints in those times and the Saturday treat would be an ice cream soda or my mother would give us a cup of chocolate and charlotte mousse cakes. These were very elegant confectionaries, beautifully outfitted and very nice candy. One of our friends was a candy maker there and at Easter time he would bring all these candy novelties to our house. We weren’t supposed to eat candy, even though my mother wasn’t that observant. We didn’t eat the candy on Passover, so we had to just look at it until the holiday was over, such as Easter eggs, the bunnies made out of chocolate. 

Pierri: What sorts of activities stand out in your memory as being very important in your life? 
GLICKMAN: Well, in grammar school there wasn’t too much excitement. There was the gymnasium, exhibitions at the Multnomah Stadium. A Mr. Krohn was the physical education director for all the Portland schools and I remember one massive exhibition of gymnastics being held there when I was about in the third grade, which would be in the early 1900s, probably about 1914 or 1915. Later on when I went to high school there were high school clubs. I went to Lincoln High School where probably three-fourths of the student body were Jewish children and many of them came in from outlying districts, as far as Hillsboro and Beaverton, where there were no high schools in those days. My aunt had gone to the old Portland High School, which was on 14th and Morrison. This was the predecessor of the Lincoln High School. My uncles also graduated from there. My uncles, my father’s brothers, were pharmacists. They went to the North Pacific Dental College and during the first world war when the druggists were all drafted into the army, my aunt went to the pharmacy school and learned pharmacy so that she could become a registered pharmacist and help in my uncle’s drug store. My grandfather later bought a building across the street from the Gevurtz Hall, on Front and Gibbs Street where my uncles had their store for many years, later moving downtown. 

Pierri: Were religious observance important to you? 
GLICKMAN: Not very important. We went to my grandparents, next door, for the Passover Seders. My mother’s father would come down from Seattle and spend Passover with us sometimes, but actually they don’t stand out in my mind because the only thing I remember, of any importance on Saturday is that my grandmother Bader made certain baked goods, like a torte or homemade bread. Her rye bread was like a brick. Everybody thought it was wonderful, but my mother didn’t make too much fuss about the Sabbath, so like I say, we were Yom Kippur Jews. We went to the synagogues on Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah and I remember all the stores, even the downtown department stores were closed in those days for these two holidays. 

Pierri: Was making a living an important thing to you? 
GLICKMAN: Well, my father stayed in the bakery until 1914 or 1915, when my mother objected too strongly about his hours. When bakers wouldn’t show up in the wee small hours, my father would have to go to the bakery and help with the baking and then help with the delivery, so he gave up the business and went to work with my grandfather who had a harness and hardware store on Front and Main Street. This was the crux of the Jewish junk shops. There were a few steel businesses then, which were high-class junk stores. Across the street from papa’s store was Mr. Barde’s place and on the next corner was the California Bag & Metal Company. And then up another block was the Acme Junk Company. These were the beginnings of really big business enterprises. There was a bakery on First and Madison where all the men would gather for coffee and a cupcake or doughnut called the Madison Bakery. It was quite a rendezvous. It was the Lloyds of South Portland, after which the Fourth and Alder St. Mannings became the Lloyds of South Portland. The Jewish people used to meet there. 

My husband came to Portland as a youngster of three from Russia. It was Poland when he was born. His parents and he (there were three little boys at that time), moved to SW First and Arthur Street. They lived there for a while with the Director family, Ida Soble‘s parents. They lived there for quite a while and then moved to Ladd’s Addition and then later moved to Laurelhurst. My father-in-law was a junk peddler at that time and then later he would buy bankrupt stocks and liquidate them, so that he would be in different parts of the state. At one time he bought a bankrupt shipyard after World War I and my husband was put in charge of this vast business. He was just a boy of 15 and he was given a tremendous responsibility. We were married in the Depression and we had been gone from South Portland then. I was living in Irvington at the time. I lived in South Portland until I was 20 years old. I worked at the Gas Company and then every morning a group of young women would meet at SW First and Caruthers Street. Elizabeth Rubenstein Hechman, Nettie Enkelis Olman, some young women who later moved out of town, and we would walk downtown. It wasn’t very far. There was a street car line then, the South Portland street car which went from NW Thurman and 26th clear to the beginning of the Riverview Cemetery which was on SW Corbett Street, about Virginia Street, almost to the entrance of the Selwood Bridge. 

I worked at the Gas Company until I was married and like I say, we moved from South Portland after I was 20 years old. The neighborhood was getting very decrepit then. I remember I had an automobile, which I parked in a garage on SW First and Sherman Street. The garage belonged to Mr. Himmelfarb and I would have to walk two blocks from the garage to my home and one of the women in a corner house had a lot of boarders who would peer out of the windows and make remarks and my mother thought that wasn’t fitting for a young lady to have to walk by, so she and I went out looking for a house one Saturday afternoon and we rented a place on Colonial Heights off of Hawthorne Blvd. We lived there for a while and then the rest of the time we lived in Irvington where most of the Jewish people from South Portland had moved to. 

Pierri: We have been talking about the situation then. How are things different today? 
GLICKMAN: Well, South Portland is no more. The houses that my grandparents and my father owned are all leveled. The west approach of the Marquam Bridge is over the site of these houses. There is a marker that says “50 mph” at the place where I was born. However, on the other side of the road the old houses still remain; the houses that belonged to the Italian families and the little apartment house is still there. I remember there was a big brick apartment on First and Caruthers Street that belonged to Judge Solomon‘s father. He built it. It’s all gone now. That’s all Urban Renewal property. 

Pierri: What changed in the Jewish community?
GLICKMAN: Well, in the old days when I was growing up it seemed to be the center where all the Jewish people lived in South Portland, and the stores, butcher shops and grocery stores, were all on SW First Street. There were some scattered as far as Third and Sixth Street. However most of them were there on SW First, and on Thursday evening it was a live world. People would come from the east side to do their shopping for the Sabbath and the stores were open late and they would be closed on Saturdays. Later on they stayed open on Saturdays and then Sundays the delicatessen and the butcher shops and the grocery stores were open. From five kosher butcher shops it dwindled down to two and then later it became one and now there isn’t a kosher market. There is one little market in Hillsdale that has frozen kosher meat flown in from Denver. 

Pierri: Much changed. 
GLICKMAN: Yes. 

Pierri: During the time you stayed in South Portland, did the area and the people change? 
GLICKMAN: I don’t think they changed that much. I remember the people I knew, the laundry on SW First, the Pacific Laundry, that later was on fire. There was a picture show house on SW First and Sheridan Street, the Gem Theatre. My grandfather would take me there to the movies. It was a nickel show then. 

Pierri: Did you remember the laundry fire? 
GLICKMAN: Yes, I remember the laundry fire. I was a very tiny girl then. One of my cousins who lives in Tillamook now remembers it very vividly, and I also remember a fire that took place on the east side of the river. It was one of the oil company fires where a Chief Campbell was burned to death. They have a monument in his memory on 19th and West Burnside Street. We had a large back yard that went into sort of a decline and we had a platform built over this spot. Today it would be called a patio, and we could watch the east side of the river and the river from there. There weren’t any tall buildings down below. We were about four blocks from the river there and we could see what was going on on the east side. We could watch the boats coming up the river. 

Pierri: Was that a famous fire? 
GLICKMAN: Yes, it was at that time. I think it was the Union Oil Company. 

Pierri: When was that? Do you have any recollection? 
GLICKMAN: Well, it must have been about 1912 or 1913. I am not exactly sure about the date, but I am sure it was before 1915. 

Pierri: Was the Neighborhood House important to you? 
GLICKMAN: No. I didn’t participate in the Neighborhood House activities. Many of my neighbors and friends did. However I didn’t. My mother taught me how to sew so I didn’t have to go there, and we spoke English in our house exclusively so I didn’t have to learn English and as I said before, I did go to kindergarten in the old Neighborhood House. It seems that when I was in about the seventh or eighth grade in grammar school there was a big influx of immigration and there were two classes in the school that were called “ungraded rooms.” A Mrs. Bailey was the teacher there and some of these students who were in their late teens and early twenties would go to school for a year or two and be able to get all their schooling in that time. 

Pierri: When would that be? 
GLICKMAN: I finished grammar school in 1915. 

Pierri: Was that about then? 
GLICKMAN: It was about that time, so they were ready to go on to college. They had had some education before. However they didn’t know the English language and they were able to transmit their knowledge into the English and be able to go to high school. 

Pierri: What about the Community Center? 
GLICKMAN: I went to the Jewish Community Center. It was called the B.B. Building because it had belonged to the B’nai B’rith Lodge on SW 13th and Mill. When I was in my late teens I went to gymnasium there and then there were different activities. There were some girls’ clubs and there were organized hikes and dances there. There was quite a bit of social activity for the young Jewish people at that time. 

Pierri: Was there much going on in the synagogues? There was more than one synagogue? 
GLICKMAN: Actually there were not many social functions going on in the synagogues. The synagogues were not organized like they are now. There was a Ladies’ Auxiliary. I remember my mother belonged to the Ladies’ Auxiliary and my grandmother belonged to the Ladies’ Auxiliary. My grandmother was one of the early members of the Council of Jewish Women, as was my aunt, but as far as the social life in the synagogue was concerned, they didn’t have much activity as I recall. 

Pierri: Was the library important? 
GLICKMAN: Well, we used the library as anyone would use a library. When I wanted to get a book out to read, or when went to high school there were some books to get that I couldn’t get in the high school library, I went to the library. I remember the librarian, Miss Zerlina Loewenberg who was a sister to Ida Loewenberg who was the director of the Neighborhood House. 

Pierri: What hospital was important? 
GLICKMAN: Hospital? Oh, I don’t remember any hospitals being so important. At the time there was a Multnomah County Hospital across from the Neighborhood House but we never had much to do with hospitals in those days. My brothers and I were… 

[Tape side ends abruptly]

GLICKMAN: You asked me what I thought about hospitals. My brothers and I were born at home as were most of the children in those days and we had no major illnesses, so our experience with hospitals was nil. 

Pierri: How do you feel about the changes in South Portland? Did you regret some of them? 
GLICKMAN: I didn’t regret any of the changes. We moved to a better environment, to a more comfortable home. The only thing is that the social life isn’t the same because in those days people didn’t have automobiles. They would visit you on different occasions without an appointment. You would be there. You would have food in the house and refreshments to offer them. But now people are scattered all over town. Living is different. 

Pierri: Do you think some of the changes were for the better? 
GLICKMAN: I think the changes were for the better. Lives now are more controlled. Of course, when we are little, we think of most things as being a happy time, but as we grow older, changes take place and I think they are for the better. 

Pierri: What is your memory of the happiest times in Portland? 
GLICKMAN: Well, my happiest time was when I was preparing for a trip to Germany. My mother had always wanted to return to visit her family and since this was not possible for her, she wanted me to go, so I visited my mother’s family in 1929 and 1930. I spent the year in Berlin. I saw the place she was born in, a little tiny village which had remained unchanged in all the 50 years since she had been away from there. However, the life in Berlin was far from the little European shtetl that a lot of the Jewish people came from to Portland. It was a gay time and a lot of social activities. My relatives were very wealthy. They had chauffeured cars. I had a maid. It rather spoiled me. The standard of living here was so much higher than it was there, that people there couldn’t understand that I had worked, bought my own wardrobe and had clothes as nice as theirs when they were in a different social strata. 

Pierri: In what way did the Depression affect your life in South Portland? 
GLICKMAN: I wasn’t living in South Portland during the Depression. I was already married and the business endeavors were not that good. My husband and his family had lost a lot of money. They were in the merchandising business at that time and my husband started selling real estate and things changed for the better. 

Pierri: What was the effect of Urban Renewal project on the neighborhood? 
GLICKMAN: Well, I was gone from South Portland when the Urban Renewal project was started. We had some rental property on SW Fifth Street that the State bought for the Urban Renewal. We also had some lots on SW Corbett Street that was taken for the project. Actually, any direct effect, except this monetary effect, it didn’t make any marked impression on us. 

Pierri: When you look back, how did you feel as a Jew living in Oregon? 
GLICKMAN: I have never felt any bias or antisemitic feeling from amongst my friends. I had a lot of non-Jewish friends. My mother had a lot of non-Jewish friends. My mother, having been raised in this little town in Germany, had gone to a Catholic school. It gave us a very liberal outlook on life and had no definite prejudices, so I was raised with no prejudices and I felt very few people had any prejudice towards me. There were one or two remote instances, like somebody in my office calling me a “so-and-so Jew,” which caused her to be rebuked by the office manager. But these were scarce instances, and like I say, it never affected me. I think the Jews in Portland don’t experience as much prejudices as they do in some other large cities throughout the United States. I wouldn’t know for sure, because I have always lived here, but I feel we have become assimilated. While we do practice our Jewish religion, we still mingle with the rest of the community and there isn’t a great deal of marked anti-Jewish feeling. 

Pierri: It’s been a very interesting discussion with you. Thank you very much. 
GLICKMAN: It’s my pleasure. There are so many more incidents that I could recall, but it would take a whole day.