Flora Steinberg Rubenstein

Carol: Mom, I’m going to start out by asking you to tell us where your parents came from and also to tell us a little bit about life in the old country.
RUBENSTEIN: My mother and four of us children…. My mother and dad originally came from Lublin, Poland. Prior to the First World War my dad was brought to the United States, specifically to Portland, Oregon, through an aunt and uncle. My aunt and uncle’s names were Feiga and Srule Weinstein, and I also had another aunt by the name of Fruma and Jacob Weinstein. During the period of the First World War we had very little contact with my father. Consequently, after the war, our father got together with us through mail and we were contacted, through some agency here (unbeknownst to me) and eventually arrangements were made that the rest of the family, which included my mother and four children, and we came directly to Portland, Oregon, because my father was living here and also was employed at the time. 

When we came to Portland, Oregon, we landed here on a terrifically rainy night on October 25th, 1921 and evidently we came here a night ahead of time, so we were not met by anyone and naturally they could see whoever was at the depot at that particular time. There was a Mr [?]. He was a Jewish man and he was a peddler and he noticed that we were immigrants. There wasn’t anyone there to greet us so he asked us whom we came to see, and this particular man, Thompson was his name, took us to my aunt on Second and Arthur (that was Mrs. Fruma Weinstein) and we spent a few hours there. We thought that this was our house that our father had prepared for us. Much to our dissent or disagreement, at that time there was an old man that had some property on the corner on the southeast corner of Second and Arthur, by the name of Beryl Schnitzer, which his son-in-law now owns this property; it’s a vacant lot. It was Greenstein, Sol Greenstein, and we were terribly disappointed that night. The house wasn’t anything that we had anticipated nor expected. In the old country in Poland, we couldn’t wait to get to America, because America was supposed to be the land of plenty for everyone, and we found exactly the opposite. I remember distinctly on that particular night on October 25th of 1921, we had huddled together in a dark, with a very small lighted room and we all made our minds that on the next day we were going to go back to where we came from. Well it so happened that we never did and we somehow or other got adjusted. Nothing really was what we had anticipated it to be. It was a big disappointment to us in fact. Everyone had told us that America was the land of plenty for everyone and there wasn’t a bit of truth in it. So I was, at that time about 10 1/2 years old, and naturally I started going to school. I didn’t know an A from a B and different things like that. It was very hard. My father wasn’t what you would call… you know he wasn’t a man of means. He had a meager job. In those days it didn’t pay anything to speak of, but we had to do the best with what we had. It was anything but good, believe me. And after a fashion, when I got through with school, circumstances they way they were at home, I went to work and helped out. Therefore, I didn’t continue my education because I saw the circumstances at home.

However, my mother begged me. She was very much for me to go to school. I did have a good record in school. However, that’s all water under the bridge. Life was hard here. I guess it would be anywhere had we not come to Portland, Oregon. Anywhere else in the United States or perhaps any other country. As we grew older we realized that life isn’t all a bed of roses and whatever you wanted to gain, I mean, has to be through one’s own efforts and not having had the opportunity, it was just plain rough. 

Carol: Mom, could you tell us something more about life in the old country, some of your experiences in Lublin, before you come here?
RUBENSTEIN: Yes, my experiences in Lublin are kind of dim. I wasn’t too old and therefore I don’t recall too much. However, all I can say I remember one distinct incident, perhaps I shouldn’t say it, but this is most vivid in my mind from the time. During the first World War, as I said, prior to not having any connections (with my father not having sent one cent over to us) my mother had a little vegetable stand. We had a hard time. She had four young kids to take care of. There the women are not educated, where they could go out and get a half-way decent job, so we had this little vegetable stand and you used to have to get a license like you do here for any stand. And my mother (it rings a bell just like it happened today – as young as I was) for some reason or other of all the four children, she chose me to be the knocketer, you know. There was a little alley way where she had this stand. Not having had the license or the permit to have this stand, she would have me wear an apron and whatever vegetables or fruit she had, when she would see this policeman coming to check on her, she would have me gather whatever I could, the few vegetables into my apron and run the other way. 

And also during the war, as most everyone knew here in America from reading, things were very tough and we had like you would call a soup kitchen. I was standing in the soup kitchen one particular afternoon, I don’t remember for how many hours, and it was bitter cold, and God would not help me. When it came my turn they closed the window and as I was a little kid I was bawling and crying and putting up an act and everything; but it didn’t do any good. It was anything but good. 

I would have had a chance to go to school in the old country. I remember distinctly my mother taking me to one school in particular and I walked into this school. It was a school where children were dressed up you know fairly decent and I had a pair of shoes that fitted me twice and I look around and in plain English I said to myself, “I don’t belong here.” I tried to figure out a way that I could get out of that room, because I wanted to run home. It was snowing to beat 50 outside and I had these clodhoppers on. They must have been a size 8 or 9, and I wore a 4, and I thought, in my young mind, you know I connived and I thought. In those days they had the bathrooms out in the yard, so I sat there and thought and thought and raised my hand and asked the teacher. To myself I said, “If I could just get out to the yard, out of the school room and use the facilities I can run home.” And that’s what I did. They never saw me in school again. And while I was running home I lost these clodhopper shoes, like they wear those Dutch shoes now, I was caught in the heavy snow. I got typhoid fever from that or something, I don’t know, pneumonia, pneumonia, I think, and in the old country then, there no doubt were doctors, but my mother was too poor to even call on a nurse’s aide if they had them in those days. 

So it was just one bad deal after another. But now when we came to this country I thought that everything would be 100% hunkydory but it wasn’t. One other thing that stands out in my mind. They put me in the second grade when I entered school here and I said before, I didn’t know an A from a B or a 1 from a 2, outside of counting on my fingers as I had no schooling. At recess time we were outside jumping hurdles that day on the playground and that day I remember specifically was a Wednesday and the teacher had said to us over and over again, “Flo this is Wednesday, this is Wednesday.” So some little girls wanted to befriend me and I didn’t think they wanted to do that, you know, want to make fun of me, because I couldn’t speak a word of English. So these snot-nosed kids came up to me and they stared at me and said to me, “What nationality are you?” I thought, “I’ll fix you, snot-noses and I give a yell out Wednesday!” and then they really had the hee-haw on me. 

As time went on we adjusted to this country, like every other immigrant did and we realized that things we had to change to and change for and change with, for any benefit to ourselves. As far as living in this neighborhood, we have always lived here, that I can recollect outside of a few years. My mother used to have the Jewish bath house that was on Front and Grant and while I was attending school, this was shortly after our arrival in this country, maybe three or four years after we had been here, because you know to help the financial situation, in those days, they thought my mother could take care of the bath house she would get free rent and all utilities paid and maybe $5 or $10 a month plus. I was going to school and when I came home from school I used to have to clean out about eight bathtubs and send the women into the mikva. My mother gave me a thing to make a prayer with. I didn’t know what I was doing. Well, anyway, after the bath house, we moved back here and we lived across the street from one of my aunt’s houses, Mrs. Fruma Weinstein. 

Then in 1931 the houses that we are living in now were up for sale. In those days the price was quite comparable to our pocket book, so we all got together. My older brother and I had been working already, at Meier & Frank. I had about $200 or $300 saved up and we bought this property here, the two houses. As for the neighborhood I would say, unless those who are looking for the moon or the stars, we enjoy this neighborhood very much. Number one, it had everything we needed. It had a theater in the neighborhood. We had a drug store, stores of all descriptions, a bakery shop, in fact there was a grocery store right around the corner from us, which would have faced our back yard, it did and then we had Colistro a block down, Korsuns and Cottel Drug Store. It was really a convenient place to live in.

Carol: Mom, before we get into the neighborhood, I would like to spend some more time talking about a couple of more experiences in the old country and then your trip across and then initial days in Portland before talking about the neighborhood as it is today, and as it was recently. I would like you to recount, if you would, those two other incidents that you talked to me about with respect to the old country. One is Uncle Harry and the draft and the other is your experience in the countryside with a Cossack.
RUBENSTEIN: Well, one particular situation stands out in my mind, to go back. We were still in Lublin, Poland which was about 100 miles from the capital of Warsaw. I didn’t know what it was all about, but it was during the invasion of the Russians coming into Poland during the First World War. They were drafting. I wouldn’t call it drafting, they were conscripting or grabbing all the boys that they could get a hold of. I don’t know what other word you would use. So one day, we were living in this tenement type house, you know, where many families lived in this one house, like each one was divided, maybe a room and a couple of cots with it and that was the living situation and there was on old wood stove there, blacker than the ace of spades. There was a lot of hullabaloo going around, I didn’t begin to realize what it might be. All of a sudden my mother takes my oldest brother, at that time Harry was about 13 1/2 or 14 at the most and she shoves him into this oven, feet and head and everything. She just crams him in there. I asked what that was all about and she said that many women had done that with their young sons because the Russians had come in and they were going to take him away to the fronts, and not only being her eldest son, her dearly beloved, because he was the fifth son that my mother had given birth to that had lived; all the others had died. So he was quite precious to her and she didn’t want to see him going off to war. I guess I don’t know what happened. I guess they never did take him; maybe they went away or something. 

One other incident. During the war, here I guess they would call it rationing, but over there I don’t know what you would have called it, maybe they didn’t even come near such a program, as rationing. No one could get any food. I imagine the prices were inflated something fierce. Even if you had the money, it was hard to get, plus the fact that my mother didn’t have any money or the inflated ball to throw up. She had to feed us one way or another; we didn’t have such things as vegetables nor milk, all this and that. One day she said, Bleema (that’s my Jewish name) she always dragged me along, I don’t know why, maybe I was more sensible than the rest or more matured, I don’t know, but she walked out to a farmer on the road, maybe here maybe four or five miles, equivalent to our miles here, and she was going out to smuggle in, you know in those days they called it smuggling, because it wasn’t allowed to anyone to get some flour. You had to do some begging because you know, four little kids to feed so that she could bake some bread, or whatever else she wanted to do with the flour and I saw a well on the way, walking to the farmer’s place. You know how a kid is, I wanted to play with, you know that thing that goes down into the well and you bring it up and I started playing with it and I get this middle finger caught and I got the finger doubled up and it was bleeding and everything else and I was screaming and finally she put a piece of cloth on it or a piece of string to stop it from bleeding, like a tourniquet and finally we started walking back and this is at least three or four miles and here comes, I didn’t know what was Cossack in those days. It was told to me later and there were two guys on a great big horse and my mother then afterwards told me it was a Cossack and they stopped her and asked her what have you got in the package and I suppose she told them in Polish, you know, that it was flour. She had to make some bread to feed the kids. After she got through talking, I didn’t pay any attention to all of it and I thought being as though I were a little girl, you know, I would make an emphasis on these guys, you know, I thought they must have part of a heart, I didn’t know, so I curtsied and I said in Polish, “Thank you kind sir.” and wham! I must have lost a couple of teeth the way they slapped me on the mouth for saying thank you, but I guess we did get to keep the flour to the best of my recollection. 

Tales like that, sometimes, they say the good stands out and the bad stands out a little better than good. I don’t care to remember that but it is something, like I say a few stand out and it is pretty impossible to chuck that away altogether. There may have been a happy occasion or two, like I had a girl friend. We lived downstairs in the tenement house and she lived upstairs. Her father was, in Europe they called him a stoiler, here it would be a carpenter. She and I became friendly and we used to get out on the veranda, a small porch like and dance. We wanted to learn how to dance. I had a little bit of fun there. That’s about the only thing I can remember and whenever we would see anybody walking we would split and run into the hallway. We were ashamed or something, I don’t know. But she was the only friend that I recollect. Oh yes, one other thing, in the old country they had some crazy customs of some sort. My mother had a friend, a lady friend, and evidently before I come into this world, this used to be the custom that if you have a girl and she has a boy, they eventually were going to marry. So evidently it was arranged that I supposedly would be betrothed or engaged to this guy and I didn’t know him from Adam and couldn’t care less. So before we left for America, this lady and my mother had to go to shul and kind of, what’s the word I want, you know do away with this, beg for forgiveness, in other words, separate us that we weren’t connected in any way, shape or form–that we had no strings attached that God should forgive us. The midwife that brought me into the world should remember that I am not attached to this kid. And that’s all I can tell you. My brother Harry could probably give you some tall stories because he was older. 

Carol: Why was it that your father decided to come to this country?
RUBENSTEIN:Well I imagine for the simple reason that times were very tough in Poland and my aunt and uncle had been here and probably said this is a much better country to live in. For one thing you had an opportunity to get a job, to better your position in life or standards of life a lot more so than you would have in Europe, in Poland in those days. That’s been over 50 years ago, so they painted a pretty picture and they brought my dad out here and we were not supposed to have that lapse of eight years. Maybe my father would have brought us here earlier, but war broke out and there was no communication during the war. Evidently it wasn’t allowed. Everything was censored and it probably had to go through the military and what not. I don’t think Grandma had a letter from my father for at least seven or seven and a half years. No contact at all. We were completely on our own. And also the tale I told you prior, they said in America every man is six foot and over, tall, dark and handsome and the dollars fall off the trees. What a fairy tale that was. If you wanted any dollars you had to go and prune the trees and plant them. 

Carol: What else did you expect to find in this country, besides the six foot men and the trees with the dollars?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, we expected to find living conditions a lot better than what we had gone away from. To begin with, they weren’t that much better. True, we found lots more for our existence, but as far as luxuries and things like that, they weren’t around. In fact, they say we got out from one burning kettle to another. But as I say, life is like an illness, my dear, it’s true, eventually you either overcome or you learn to live with a lot of ailments. That’s it. 

Carol: Could you describe your impressions of this country when you first came here?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, in a very small way, you know, because to begin with, I was a child. My father wasn’t the type of a person who owned on automobile (even in those days some people did) or a carriage for that matter. And going places and doing things were not on his agenda. When I went to school I came home. We saw electric lights here for the first time, you know. And of course we had a wood stove. It was a little easier, let’s put it that way, easier in a different aspect than it was over there. Over there we mitche good, here you mitche a little less than extra, to begin with, that is and irregardless, even in this century, life is connected with the word mitche as far as my philosophy goes and I thought that way, way back when. You know when you analyze life it is just like analyzing a case of sickness and believe you me I don’t think that the psychiatrist on a couch can see it any other way. It boils down to God helps those who help themselves. However, going back to the person in general, not particularly me or my family, you’ve got to have a lift somewhere. In other words, if you get into an automatic elevator and if that button that you push is not working you are not going to get up to the tenth floor, see. We had no help from anyone. Whatever we did, believe you me, it was through skin and bone that we worked with. In this country there is a lot of competition. It was in my day when I come here and much more so today and unless you can meet that competition you’re not recognized, you are nothing. That’s true. Some people who come here during my father’s time hit the jackpot so to speak. Whether they put more into it, whether it was endeavor or opportunity, or whatever you may want to term it as, but the jackpot, Honey, is not for everyone to be a winner. Not everybody can hit the jackpot. Some people do it more by crook than hook. My father had a hook and it was bent. He was honest man. He never owed any one a dime and I doubt whether he ever took a dime. If he needed that dime he worked hard for it and people like that are never recognized, they’re not. The bigger crook the more recognition you get. Now if that Jewish philosophy doesn’t coincide with theirs, I am sorry, it’s the truth, 

Carol: I would like to ask you if could describe your trip to this country from Lublin. What do you remember of it? 
RUBENSTEIN: When we left Lublin we went into Liverpool, England and it was a beautiful city. We were detained there, for what reason I don’t know. Also, we had a guide, I think, as far as New York. In those days I think it was necessary for all immigrants to have a guide. He didn’t travel with us, but he sort of oversaw or took charge of things for us. When we got to Liverpool, England, we were detained there, for what reason I don’t recall, but this is also vivid in my mind. You know, we had just enough money probably to get us to New York and to Portland, Oregon. I went walking one day, I guess with the rest of the kids and I saw this beautiful store and in this store was a little two-piece suit, a paisley, I’ll never forget it. It was marked 300 marks and what did I know as a kid? My brother Harry, he was supposed to be a custodian of all the money that my mother entrusted to him, and I guess he spent more money than what we had figured on. This little two-piece suit, paisley, and it had long sleeves and I just went berserk when I saw this little suit. I said, “This little suit I’ve got to have,” and I threw myself on the ground, just as plain as today and I kicked my heels and I screamed and everything; it was 300 marks. I don’t know what that’s equivalent to today. But I fussed and hemmed around so much so finally my mother gave in and bought me that little suit for 300 marks and then from there I guess we came direct to New York. 

When we came to New York, of course, they all land on Ellis Island. We were detained there in some sort of a building. There we began the rounds of the American examinations. They wanted to see how stupid one was, how clever one was so they put me and my brother Harry in one section. They took my younger brother lzzy and [sister] Rose someplace else. I forgot to say, I think they had shaved us, too, in Liverpool, England. They cut all our hair off and I was screaming bloody murder. Anyway, so back in Ellis Island and they put us in different sections and I didn’t see my mother, I don’t know for how many hours. Just my older brother Harry and I, and then this man comes over and he says to me out of a clear blue sky in Yiddish, “How many fingers you got?” So quick, I almost lost my breath, I started counting on my fingers, ein, tvsa, dry, feer… tsen, and he put some mark on my back. I guess an OK mark or something or an X. I don’t know and what they questioned Harry about I don’t know. My brother Izzy and [sister] Rose were sent elsewhere and I didn’t see them. I think it was overnight. And on my mother they found something, I don’t know what, a birth mark or something. You see, they looked for little things. In this country they had all kinds of cripples, with every kind of disease, really, in those days and they still have it. Those things didn’t matter, it was just the immigrants they wanted them to be perfect and even in those days I am sure many a person was born with a birth mark of some sort you see. And we were detained. Finally we all got together again. We didn’t have enough money. From there we went, I think it was to Maryland or Boston or some place, Chicago. They put us in a big warehouse that they had for all these people and the reason we were detained there was because we ran out of funds. We didn’t have enough money to take the train to come to Portland. So my dad had to be wired here, through my aunt, Mrs. Weinstein and within 24 hours the money was sent and then we came to Portland. 

But as far as the trip across on the boat, we came over on the SS Corona, I remember and we were way down in the lowest deck and every time we used to look out the portholes, I didn’t know what it was, I use to see these big waves from the ocean, so I thought the ship was sinking, and one night we did, we had these bunks in the lower berth and they put life jackets on us, our boat ran into a fog some place, I don’t know where. I think it went off its course for several hours, but thank God we made it, we came here. So we came here, not picking up the dollars off the trees; all we saw was green leaves. 

Carol: Who did you see first when you came to Portland? Let’s see, what’s the first thing you did when you came to Portland after you found your father?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, we went to my aunt, across the street, Mrs. Weinstein, as I said before. She had a little buffet ready for us and the rest of the cousins were there. Oh, I didn’t tell you about this 300 mark dress that I cried my eyes out for. When we came my dad wouldn’t bring us into this little corner place where he lived. It was dark and probably he had nothing there, probably didn’t have a loaf of bread, so we went to my aunt across the street. You know, they had food set up and I saw the stove in the kitchen. It was a white stove, porcelain; it was a wood stove. I had never seen anything like that. I thought it was a commode, or something, what did I know? My cousin Patsy Weinstein (Steinberg now, she is married to my brother), right away she took a liking to my little suit and takes me in, what did I know, and she gives me a dress from her. There is only about a year’s difference in age, and her dress fitted me three times, I could sweep ten floors with it. She took my suit away from me. That was my home coming. I don’t think I ever forgave her for that. I often told her and reminded her of that and she swears up and down that she didn’t, but she did. 

Then the cousins were talking in English, the family that was there, so we thought they were talking about us and we were kind of perturbed about this. We didn’t like it one bit. We stayed there, I suppose, until about 11:00 or so and my dad took us to this gorgeous mansion that Schnitzerd had on the corner there. “God,” we said, “This is America?” Cold? Don’t forget we came in October. A little wood heater. I don’t think it had one speck of wood in it. That’s why we made up our minds while we all huddled in the bedroom, “We are going back.” Because this to us, at the beginning, looked worse than what we went away from. This was in 1922. 52 years later I am still here. 

But this neighborhood, coming back to this neighborhood, really, when the Urban Renewal came in, they did a big injustice to a lot of people here. Number one, people were settled here for the rest of their lives. We had the accommodations we needed and people were friendly. We were all neighborly and when you walked down the street instead of seeing a brick wall now, it looks like a prison, you met a person to say good evening, hello to, now you could drop dead on the street and nobody would even notice that you are lying there. Honestly, and I think it’s terrible and should another renewal come through here…. Of course now we are living in, it’s the same as a suburb. We have no accommodations–not a sign of a store, no laundromat. The only store we have, they did us a big favor with the condominiums, they gave us the Handy Pantry. It’s handy for the millionaire, but not for the people living here today on a fixed income. Now, in this 21st century almost, they want to come up now with rehabilitating this neighborhood. Now the people who live here, if anybody needs rehabilitating are the people, not the houses. The houses are going to be here after we are gone. They are coming up with today’s point of view. They say they want the citizens put in their line of thought or their input. They’re plugging up their ears. They’re not listening to us. 

Carol: I would like to get into that a little bit later, Mom. Going back to when you first came here, you mentioned that Grandma and her family lived in the mikva. Could you tell me what Grandpa did at the time? 
RUBENSTEIN: Yes, he was employed. As far as putting a label on his job, I don’t know what you would call it. There was an old man by the name of Mr. Parnas on Front Street, all the junks shops were on Front Street in those days and dad was, I guess what you would call a sack baler, He was piling baling sacks, and where he had him working, I went up and took his lunch one day. I’m telling you, he should have been shot at sunrise, a Yid too. He had like a stooped attic, a bent attic just like a hunch­back, and there was a ladder going up there and even I as a kid it’s a wonder I didn’t break every bone in my body. How my dad got up there I don’t know. And I think at that time he was paying him, he was doing him a big favor, one Yid was giving another Yid an opportunity, a chance, $5 a week. And coming back to my dad, that was his trouble. When we finally became Americanized a little bit, had developed ulcerated legs, from pressing down on the sacks in this job that Parnas gave him. He used to pile them up, Carol, 500 high, and you know, to put pressure on from your leg you had to have a lot of pressure to press those sacks down and he developed ulcerated legs. I and many people told him, he became where he couldn’t get around any more, ulcerated and everything and they told him that he had a good chance, not to get money from Mr, Parnas, but he had insurance, and my dad wouldn’t do it because he was too frum to hurt anybody. He was too good because he observed all of God’s laws and everything. My dad could have had a beautiful pension out of that, really, because this is where he got those legs. He didn’t come to America with those legs, and that’s the job he had that I know of. He didn’t have no other job because in the old country he was, what you would call a weaver, I don’t know. You know, my dad was unbeknown to me when I came here, I didn’t know him. In fact, he was a complete stranger to me. That is not saying very much for a father, but he was you know. I can’t paint a picture that wasn’t there.

Carol: Could you tell me something about the neighborhood then, what you remember of it?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh sure, this was a lovely neighborhood, as I stated before. We had everything, accommodations. There were butcher shops, kosher butcher shops for the women who still wanted to buy the kosher meat. There were bakeries; there were grocery stores. There was everything here and people were friendly. There was the Neighborhood House that I used to go up and partake in activities. I don’t remember just what they were. They even had, from the Ben Selling store, years ago, Mrs, Selling, the old lady, used to teach embroidery classes, and I used to go up there and get that too. I made some really pretty scarves and things and also I went to night school there for a short period of time at the Neighborhood House. We had everything. Now we are living like in a dorf a vald – a vald is a forest. There is absolutely no communication, no connection with anyone or anything. The only time you run into a familiar face from years back or yesteryear is when you run into them downtown or, God forbid, at a funeral. They wrecked this whole neighborhood, they did. 

Carol: How far did the neighborhood go? What were the boundaries of the neighborhood?
RUBENSTEIN: I would say about north to… the one that comprised this South Portland area? About Hall Street. Wait a minute, where was the Neveh Zedek? Was that Hall? Yes I would say Hall Street. I used to know a lot of people who lived up that way. 

Carol: What about the western and southern boundaries?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, the western boundary would go all the way up to Broadway and the southern, what’s the street you live on, Corbett? 

Carol: Curry. 
RUBENSTEIN: Curry. Mrs. Maccoby used to live up there. Her husband was my Hebrew school teacher. I forget to say that I did go to Hebrew school in the Neighborhood House. 

Carol: Who lived in the neighborhood?
RUBENSTEIN: Mostly Jewish people and Italians, and we got along beautifully, the Italians and the Jewish people. They were neighborly, they were friendly, they were hospitable, and today, whatever is here, you don’t know your next door neighbor, no more than you know if you’ve got a broken pipe in your system, so to speak, and this is what they call progress.

Carol: Who did you live with? 
RUBENSTEIN: I lived with my parents. My father and mother, my sister and my brothers. We all lived together. We were a happy unit on Second and Arthur, 

Carol: Could you describe the street that you lived on?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, we lived on Second and Arthur Street, on the corner. [It wasn’t] like it is today, a freeway; it was just a road. Once in a while you would see a car come down. It was very pleasant and we had neighbors across the street; the La Grands used to live there. There were houses where the Labor Temple is located and, as I say, it was a neighborhood, a living neighborhood. Now it’s a dead neighborhood. There was life here.

Carol: What did you like most about the neighborhood?
RUBENSTEIN: Everything. There wasn’t anything that we lacked here. There was every facility that one would ever require or want. There was everything here, everything. And now we have absolutely nothing. If you need a quart of milk you got to chase up to Tenth and Jefferson. And if your legs become weak you drink water. 

Carol: So you don’t think there was anything missing from the neighborhood? 
RUBENSTEIN: No, there was nothing missing. The neighborhood was absolutely perfect. You couldn’t have asked for a better neighborhood. Maybe it wasn’t a neighborhood to suit the upper classes, we will say, after they hit the jackpot. But for people in ordinary circumstances, working people, it was very pleasant and there wasn’t ever any muggings going on or robberies; that was unheard of, or break-ins. Really, we used to go away and leave the doors open. Now when I am in the house I am afraid to leave the door unlocked.

Carol: How close were you to your neighbors, to shopping, to schools, to synagogues?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh my gosh. You might say right next door. We had a store we did. Jake’s was around the corner here for years and then there was that Greek fellow, I forget his name. Jim, I remember. We had everything here and then we had Boyer’s Market, this was around the block.

Carol: OK Mom, we were talking about the shopping facilities around when the phone rang. 
RUBENSTEIN: Yes, well we had Jake Peizner around the corner and when Jake went out of business he sold it to some Greek fellow by the name of Jim, which was right in my back yard, you might say. Then if I wanted to go one and a half blocks to Sheridan Street, we had Colistro & Halperin. Then we had Korsuns about 2-3 doors north and then across the street from Colistro was Mosler’s Bakery and then a block further north on Sherman Street was the Cottel Drug Store and you could get anything you wanted. Every which store you went into here and now you can starve from hunger if you haven’t got transportation to go to the market. Everything is suburbia today. The markets are way out. For people that haven’t, as the term goes today, “hep” with driving. I have a cross-eyed eye. I couldn’t drive and I could never drive, even if I could afford a car, because my eyesight isn’t that good. But today everything goes along with progress. Maybe its progress for the power structures but for the ordinary human being, no consideration. It’s far from progress, believe me. 

Carol: What about schools in the neighborhood? 
RUBENSTEIN: You mean way back then? Well, gee, you know I went to Failing and when I got out of Failing, the teacher encouraged me and told my mother, “Please send Flo to high school and college, if it is at all possible.” Because I did have a good grasping mind. I can’t say it’s that good today you know. Time does many things. Years do many things to people. I went through grade school then I decided not to go to high school because at that time my brother was already engaged and I graduated, I think 1927 it was. I begged my brother not to get married until the June that I graduated from school, but he put one over on me and he got married in April. That prompted me to go to work that much sooner after I got out in June. So I didn’t go to high school but I did go to night school; we had Lincoln High School. It used to be on Sixth, where Portland State is. And then I went to Behnke-Walker business college and I wanted to take a business course. I went with two others girls who lived in the neighborhood, Manya Korsun, which was from the Korsun’s Grocery store, and Lena Katz. But I couldn’t continue that too long because working all day, you know, and having a little fun in the back of my mind too. After all I was only going to be young once. I wanted to partake in a little enjoyment too. So I would [begin to study] I decided that it wasn’t for me, and I did that two or three different times and never got my courses finished. So I was just stuck working as a salesgirl or cashiering in stores and that’s been that. 

Carol: What about the synagogues?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, we had the little Kesser Israel; it’s been here ever since we’ve been here. My parents used to go there. For one thing it was close and they liked it here because it was more Orthodox. Then we had two down First Street, one on First and Caruthers and then one on First and Hall, if you wanted to go there. There were many, many affairs: weddings and things. The Shaarie Torah used to be on First and Hall, and I, as a girl, used to crash with some of the other girls, and we really had a lot of happy days there and memories. But you see, everything has been taken away. They have beautiful shuls today. I have nothing against the shuls, but you have to have a car to get there. If you would want to get there, you are out of luck, because you haven’t got the car to take you there. And they’re not shuls like the little shul that I am accustomed to or where my folks were. They’re like palaces today. Everything today is with the shine and the gleam in the eye and I didn’t grow up with religion being that, even though I am not what you would call religious. Living in this country for 50 years or better, you just learn to do away with a lot of things, so you are forced into that situation. You are, because a lot of things become a mockery, more so than the real truth, and of course, I can only speak for myself- not for anyone else. We each do our own thing, as the saying goes today. And for me, this little Kesser Israel shul is the original little shul. I feel that God almighty is in this place as well as he is in any palace that they put up today and to go to shul I go for one purpose, to pray to God or pray for forgiveness, or something. This little shul should never be looked down upon, which it has been and still is today. Number one, they don’t like the neighborhood that it’s in and number two, it probably hasn’t made all that progress, with the modernization, with the tile bathrooms and everything else. When Jewish people went to shul years ago, they didn’t have any tile bathrooms, no elevators to take them up and different places like that. You see this little shul is real to me and it always will be as long as I live, even though I don’t observe the laws. This is really God’s little house of worship–to me it is.

Carol: What was the name of the synagogue on First and Carruthers Street?
RUBENSTEIN: Linath HaZedek, that’s what they used to call it. The Shaarie Torah was on First and Hall Street and that was there for many, many years but now everything is by a different artist or painter or architect, whatever you want to name it, 

Carol: What about hard times in your neighborhood?
RUBENSTEIN: I don’t recall any hard times, really. I mean people, whatever they had, Honey, they weren’t envious of other people. They didn’t desire to have what the other person might have gotten. They were satisfied. They really were. Now, my aunt across the street, had her husband lived…. That’s Rose Zidell’s mother, Fruma Weinstein. She was well known all over the city of Portland. She was never one to be envious, she was satisfied. She had this blind boy that she had to take care of all these years. Years back, when the Jewish Center was on 13th Street, years ago, when times were a little rough, they used to have what they called a noodle factory up there. The women who wanted to earn a dollar and didn’t have the knowledge to get it any other way, they used to go up there and roll noodles. My aunt Fruma did that. It was no shame, really, because she was hard-pressed. Rose was working, too, her oldest daughter–Mrs, Zidell now. She had been a sick woman, too. She had hard times and then having this blind boy on her hands since he was age five… But she never complained. People learned to get by and live with what they had and make the best of things. 

Today if you want to do that honey, they don’t let you. Society or progress pushes you down the hill all the time; they do, they really do. Now, like today, if you tell some people that you are still living in Second and Arthur, my God, they think that there is something wrong with you–that you’re not a human being–that you’re something from outer space. So you see, it’s not the person that changes; it is society that changes. Or it tries to anyway. With some they have succeeded because maybe they camouflage their minds somehow. But others are just satisfied and they are content the way they have been living. I don’t think anyone should tell the other what to do or how to live. As long as you don’t bother me, I don’t bother you. This is my idea of living. 

And then too, we don’t want to get into the political arena of it, but a citizen of this country (which I am, like the rest of the people) used to have some sort of a say, or comment. But today that’s all done away with. In the political arena they do what they want. They tell you what’s good for you not what you think is good for you. And if don’t abide that’s too bad. In other words, just like a child who doesn’t behave in school, stay after school. If we don’t do what they want, they’re going to do it any way. They punish you one way or another. They can come and condemn your house today, they can. And if you don’t pay your taxes you go to jail if you don’t have the money or things like that. It’s not up to the person today. A person is being persecuted from all sides, really. Nobody has what you would call a heart. They’ve got minds, sizzling minds. All they do is look for things to make it worse for the people and this is what’s happening. America has become a whacky world, it really has.

Carol: Could you tell me about your neighbors? What kind of neighbors did you have?
RUBENSTEIN: They were decent people. They were poor people. Not altogether poor. Some may have had a sock-full and others a half a sock-full. As I said, they were pleasant; they were neighborly; they were friendly. And if they could do you a good turn they would. Today, whoever lives here, you don’t know who they are. They could club you and then you wouldn’t know because you would be stunned. But years ago, there were people sitting out on their porches in the summer time. You would walk by; you would converse and things like that. Today there is nothing and evidently they are going to make it worse than what it is because they will drive you out of here. That’s all. There was an old man, Honey, that used to come from Russia, that lived here many years ago. His name was Veltman, Moishe Veltman. I don’t know if you would recall him. Grandma used to have him for a boarder and he used to always say this and you know I think it’s coming to that. In the old country, when you wanted to run away, you ran away to America. But where on earth when all the bandits are after us are we going to run here? There is only one place: the river.

Carol: OK Mom, I am going to start out by asking you to tell me locations of some stores and businesses in South Portland. Let’s start out with some of the grocery stores. Where were they? 
RUBENSTEIN: The grocery stores were all located within a three to four blocks area. There was Korsun’s Grocery store on First and Carruthers, Calistro and Halperin on First and Sheridan. Directly across from Calistro and Halperin was a bakery, later known as the Mosler Bakery, but in the earlier days there was someone else in that bakery before Mosler came down from Seattle to take over the establishment. We also had Zussman’s a block north of Caruthers, which would have made it Sherman Street. And then directly kitty-corner from Zussman’s Grocery was Cottel’s Drug Store. He had been there for many, many years. It was Charles Cottel, Jr. And prior to him was his father, Charles Cottel, Sr. We also had a theater, the name I do not recollect. I think it was called the First Street Theater, or the First Street Show, something like that. We also had a grocery store not quite a block north of Sherman Street, which would have been Grant. And their name was Geller. The Geller Grocery Store, which had been there for many, many years. It really was within that four block radius, you might say that we had an entire little city there. There there was everything that anyone could possibly want. 

Carol: When did Mosler come down from Seattle?
RUBENSTEIN: I wouldn’t know. I wouldn’t know the date. But he was on First and Sherman for many years. I don’t recall the year that he came, but as I said, he was there for many, many years on First and Sheridan. 

Carol: What kind of a store was Zussman’s?
RUBENSTEIN: Zussman’s was a kosher delicatessen store. You could get anything you ever wanted there, vegetables, cold cuts of meat, potato salad. You could even have a sandwich for lunch with coffee or tea they would serve. They would have a table set up. He was there for a long time. Prior to him, Frieda Meadows and Dave (may he rest in peace). And there was this Canto Freedman. He and Dave Meadows had that store before Zussman. It was a grocery and delicatessen. When you went in there it was just like walking into your own home. You were known and you could just sit and schmooze all you wanted to. Really you felt like you were in your own home and when things like that are taken away and stone walls replace it, it’s dead. It’s like we say, it is like a cemetery, a quiet city. 

Carol: The theater was on First and What?
RUBENSTEIN: Between Sherman and Grant. It was just two doors from Cottel’s Drug Store, north. 

Carol: Was the theater on Third Street? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well, that came later. That was the Lincoln Theater on Third and Lincoln, and we also had a drug store there it was called the Lincoln Pharmacy. That was run by who I don’t know, many people; it had changed hands, but it was very convenient having it in the neighborhood. If you didn’t want to go to one, you went to the other, just for a change of pace.

Carol: Where were the kosher butcher shops?
RUBENSTEIN: The kosher butcher shops, many years back, I think there was one on First and Caruthers. And there was a little shul there. I guess it was called the Kazachka shul, the real name I never knew, the Cossack shul. There used to be a man by the name of Schulnik and he had sort of a little space there where he used to keep live chickens. The women from South Portland used to go in and kvetch the chickens by the buttocks to see which one had the most fat on it and they gave a kvetch here and a kvetch there until they got through kvetching and they decided to buy one and he would kill them right there. Mr. Schulnik and then some years later, I don’t remember, there was a man by the name of Jacobsen who used to have a butcher shop down here on First and Arthur, where the service station is now. And then there was Mr. Brill for many, many years on First, between Arthur and Sheridan. Also we had a Koessel & Fry, which was a non-kosher butcher, plus fish a fish market right next to the Jewish market. They were there for many years. It was really handy. We didn’t have to go very far to get what you wanted, 

Carol: Where were the fish markets?
RUBENSTEIN: Mrs. Levin was the only fish market that we ever had. That was on First and Caruthers, kitty-corner from Korsun’s Grocery Store. 

Carol: What about the one on Third Street?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, there was a fish market, Ohlers. He’s on southeast Belmont, in that market. He was on Second and Lincoln on the southwest corner. He was there for many years. He was forced out. What’s on Second now? Nothing all the streets are closed up there now. When all this renovation program was going on I think was when Ohler moved out. 

Carol: Was Mosler the only bakery? 
RUBENSTEIN: No. Years back, there were two bakeries. As a matter of fact in that one block area on First between Sheridan and Carruthers there used to be Gordon’s Bakery. I don’t remember his first name. He was a European fellow who had come over. He has a couple of sons here. I don’t know if they are in this city or not. And then after Gordon I think Mosler came in and there was quite a bit of competition between the two. So I guess Gordon had to close shop. And then when this freeway went through on Front Street, Mosler moved up next to the Safeway, you know, next to Rose’s Pizzeria. I guess he was intending to buy that property up there but they wouldn’t give it to him, so he rented up there until his death. He had a beautiful bakery up there. Were you ever up there? Now we have nothing, 

Carol: Can you tell me who you spent the most time with when you first came to South Portland? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well, you see, after starting school, I met a girl by the name of Shirley Fisher, later known as Shirley Karsen, Chuck’s mother. She and I became acquainted. I think we both came to this country about six weeks apart and we became acquainted in school and we were inseparable for many, many years to come. In fact until Shirley got married. We were really closer than sisters and then when she married and moved away to Astoria for a short time, we were still in contact. We were living different lives then but we had always been friends until the day she died. She was known as Sylvia Fisher instead of Shirley in those days. But we were closer than sisters, we were inseparable. 

We used to go out on dates together. We enjoyed our younger years, so to speak. We used to go to dances, the South Parkway dances at the Neighborhood House, years ago. In fact, she met her husband in my mother’s house. My mother was taking care of then, her husband’s grandfather. He was a boarder in my mother’s house, Mr. Karsen, and this is where Shirley met her husband. Then I also spent some years with my cousin Sophie Weinstein. Now she is known as Patsy Steinberg, she married my brother the last four or five years and we spent a lot of time growing up together. I had several friends: Rae Weinstein, now Mrs. Samuels, and her sister (may she rest in peace) Eva. We used to all run around together. In those days it was mostly Yiddisher kids around here, so we didn’t look for anything else. Not like today. You have a choice. If you want to go with your own kind they were available to you. But today you know, the horses have changed streams, so to speak and it’s true; and it’s harder. Today nothing is like it was then. However, today people will say that we have come a long ways. As the old saying goes, if you come too far you may be in the wrong destination. People were much better off I think then than they are today. Really. You can’t get to see anybody today unless you get them by the phone, or God forbid if you meet them at a funeral. People cannot be close even if they want to because the distance separates us. We don’t have what you would call eyn heim, the homes are very distant from one another. Then, as they say in America, we were united in one neighborhood but now we are divided and nothing stands divided as we all know. 

Carol: What sort of things made the neighborhood eyn heim?
RUBENSTEIN: The people. After all, everything starts with a person or the people. One alone is not as we say git. If you want to dance, the American version of it, you’ve got to have a partner. It starts with people, the world starts with people and it ends with people, and it’s true. When you take people away you are alone like a stone. And this today is called progress. Maybe some people see it in such a light but people that have been through life a number of years. As they say, it doesn’t pay to look back, but sometimes you have to because if you want to refer to a story, you got to turn back to the other page you know. You’ve got to look at the page before it was turned over otherwise you don’t know which way to continue and this is the same as with life and people. Progress in some things is beautiful and maybe worthwhile and all that, but when you remove a person and it’s not replaced, if it is replaced with a stone, who is going to talk to a stone, really? What kind of progress do they call that? Its gelt profit for the profiteers. That’s all. That’s what it amounts to. 

Carol: Mom, you mentioned that you spent some time with Patsy. Were there any other close relatives or family that you spent a lot of time with? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well you see Pat and I were more or less chums, pals. We did things together; we went places together. We used to go swimming on Sundays and picnic in the Crystal Lake Park. They used to hold dances there and some of the other ones in the family, the cousins were a bit older, so we really had nothing in common to throw us together. Pat and I were closer to one another’s age therefore we chummed together. Oh there were probably other girls too but we weren’t as compatible or as close. 

Carol: Did you spend much time with distant relatives?
RUBENSTEIN: No. You know in the younger days, they say young years are foolish years. We didn’t give all that much thought to older relatives, we knew they existed and that they were there and if we saw them once in a Purim that was good enough. You know, we were looking out for ourselves. We kids were out for fun and we were no different than any other children, 

Carol: Any old country friends?
RUBENSTEIN: No. You see my one and only good girl friend I had, when I left for America, I mean that was it. We never heard from one another. We were too young to even recall anything about our friendship. It just ended when we left for America, and naturally we came to new surroundings and we had to make new friends. Many, many things changed, it was altogether different, 

Carol: What sorts of things do you remember doing with your friends?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, we used to go a lot with girls. You know I didn’t start going out to many places, because you see when I was young, growing up like from 10 on to 15 or 16, those days nobody had cars and even those who did…. My dad wasn’t the one to own a car, so we just went. People would take us sometimes, you know other families would take us to picnics. We used to ride the street cars or meet a couple of friends who did have a little jalopy such as a Model A and we would drive out to the different parks. We would always go swimming, which was on weekends. Crystal Lake, as I said, used to hold dances. We used to go in there. During the week when I got older, I was about 17, I started to work and didn’t have any time, only on weekends. I went to Hebrew school, as I remember, for about a year or so and then I stopped that.

Carol: How old were you when you were going to Hebrew school?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, I must have been about 12 or 13. And then also in the Neighborhood House we used to have a sewing project class there. There was a Mrs. Selling from the Ben Selling Company. Many years ago she used to have these sewing classes, embroidery. I used to go up there. Take up some time like embroidering dresser scarves and different things like that. Then we went to the Neighborhood House and do different exercises there and then also we used to go to Shattuck School. They would teach swimming and this is where I learned to swim at Shattuck School and the rest of the time, just kids, we just goofed off. I don’t know. We spent a little time studying. It’s kind of hard to look back and remember everything because those things that have already passed us by, especially if they weren’t too exciting. One tends to forget and not care to remember. It was nothing outstanding about me growing up, anymore than it would have been for anyone in my day. The girls, we spent our time the best way we knew how. We used to help our mothers in the house sometimes. In those days we had wood to chop. I chopped wood sometimes, things like that. I helped. My mother always had boarders in the house. I used to help her with that and on Saturdays I used to work at Meier & Frank and all holidays and that was that.

Carol: Tell me some more about Grandma and the boarders. When did she first start taking in boarders? 
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, that was some years after we had been here. I don’t remember. I could never go back and remember what years. When we first came here we lived down on the corner of First and Arthur and then we moved to Front and Grant, to that Jewish bathhouse I told you about. Some years later we moved back here and in 1931 we bought this little property that we are situated on now. It was in 1933 that I got married. She had boarders then. She must have had boarders from about 1929 on and she used to have the two houses here. That house next door, 2724, was supposed to be the nicer house and she had one man in there, one boarder. All he did was go in to sleep. During the day he would be here. She would fix the meals here and she did that to supplement the income somewhat and I guess she enjoyed helping people who were unable to help themselves. Not that she herself was all that healthy but she did. She always felt sorry for somebody. Grandma was the kind of person, if she had 50 cents in her purse and someone would come and tell her they were hungry or somebody from the shul would say they needed it, she would give it to them and do without herself. Of course, in those years I doubt very much if any of the families had too much, but maybe some of them had just a little bit more than others. But none of them were what you would call too well off. 

Carol: So in those days the family stayed here and rented out the house next door?
RUBENSTEIN: No, she had one boarder in there. She had one boarder at a time or two. Some stayed here, I don’t remember, a couple of boarders, but the old man, Mr. Tobin, Louis Tobin, he stayed next door. And then she had Shirley’s husband’s grandfather, Mr. Karsen and she had another one who had a son that’s quite well-to-do, Levine or Levin. She had his father, too, and sometimes she would keep somebody for just a month until they got on their feet or something just to help them out for awhile. After that she didn’t do that in later years. She did that for about five or six years, tops. Grandma wasn’t the only one that used to take in boarders in those days. A lot of the women did because I guess their husbands weren’t making any kind of money. Kids had to be fed. Whatever little bills they had had to be paid. That was the only way they knew how. Today a woman can sit at an office desk and turn a paper and become an administrator. In those days they didn’t know from. . . 

Carol: Do you recall any of the other boarders that Grandma had? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well those were the only two that I know of that she had that I mentioned. She only did that for a period of years and after that she didn’t anymore. Of course I had gone to work and helped out a little bit and later on Rose went to work and Izzy and there wasn’t any need for her to take boarders in, plus the fact that she herself wasn’t in good health, which we wouldn’t have allowed anyway. Because when we were working we would all contribute whatever we could and Grandma wasn’t an expensive person. I mean, she did with the merest, the least that she could. She didn’t want fancy stuff like the women of today where they run to the beauty shop, the eyebrows, the noses lifted, things like that. Women in her era didn’t do things like that. Today every yenta is in the beauty shop every eight days with the fingernails they have to have. 

Carol: Tell me about the dances?
RUBENSTEIN: What dances?

Carol: You mentioned South Parkway dances and the Crystal Park dances.
RUBENSTEIN: Yes. Well they were more or less ballroom dancing. The South Parkway club used to have dances maybe once a month from the club. They were young people, a young adult club. I didn’t belong but from the ones that did we were extended invitations so we used to go. I used to go with Max Rosumny up there. I think everybody can remember Max Rosumny. He was the emcee of South Portland. He is in California now. We attended a few of those. 

Then at the Crystal Lake Park in Milwaukie they held dances every Sunday and that was the Jewish people’s picnic grounds, Crystal Lake Park. They would all come with the sandwiches, potato salad, what not, and they would get the free tables and I think they used to get free coffee and stuff in those days. They had a swimming pool. The older folks, when it came dusk they went home and the younger ones ran into the dance hall and whooped it up. We enjoyed ourselves. And later on we used to go down on Fourth and right across the park blocks there used to be upstairs McElroys. We used to go to public dances and Pat and Sophie and I weren’t the only ones. All the Jewish kids went up there. I think in those days it was 25¢ a person, so we used to go in and enjoy ourselves. 

Then there was the Palaise Royale or it was called something else before the Palaise, I can’t remember now. It was on 21st and Burnside. We used to go there. That’s about the only two places we went. I mean in those days there wasn’t so many recreational places for. . . where they belonged to clubs like, it was mostly public places and people weren’t afraid in those days for young people to get out on the street at night or wait for a street car like you are today. Today you are even afraid to get out on a porch. We used to come home from the dances about 12:00 or 12:30 on the street car and nobody would bother us. We didn’t even think of those things, because there wasn’t no mugging going on in those days like there is today. If there was, you never heard of anything. So this was our good times, really, and then we had Jewish weddings down in the First Street Shul at First and Hall. We used to crash in on those. Wherever they had we crashed.

Carol: OK Mom, I would like to ask you to talk a little bit about the things that you and Shirley did together, like swimming in the mikva.
RUBENSTEIN: Oh no, I don’t remember her swimming in the mikva. You see, Shirley and I, we spent, up until 2:30 or 3:00 in school and then after school I would have to go home and she would have to make an appearance. She lived right back here on Meade between and First and Second and then we would meet an hour later and play. I don’t remember. Maybe we played jacks in those days, jump rope, who knows what? Maybe we went up to the park up here at Lair Park. On weekends a lot of times she would sleep with me or I would stay with her. We only lived about ten blocks apart. She was down at my house quite a bit and so I was at hers, and on Sundays we used to take walks and things like that. 

As we got older we both worked downtown in one store. We worked together for about one year so we saw each other practically from morning until night. We used to lunch together, have coffee in the morning together. We were together constantly. We didn’t go to too many dances with Shirley because she got married rather young; I don’t think she was quite 18. She was maybe a couple of months lacking 18 when she got married to Ed Karsen. They had a beautiful wedding at the then Portland Hotel, which has since been torn down and is a parking lot. Later on she lived in California for a while but her mother was here on First and Sherman across the street from Cottel’s Drug Store. Her mother was almost like a mother to me. I used to go down to their house quite a bit. Whenever Shirley would come back to town, and things like that, you know we kept in close touch. 

Carol: Did you spend much time with schoolmates?
RUBENSTEIN: Well Shirley was my schoolmate. We were together all the time. There was a Sonia and Helen Turkenitch. I think she is in a mental institution and has been for years. In the Turkenitch family, this Sonia was brilliant. She was in one of my classes in school and actually she was almost a genius, maybe you would call it that today. But something went wrong and I think both she and her sister were placed many years ago in the Salem hospital. Now whether they are still there or not I do not know. I wasn’t what you would call friendly with her, just someone to say hi to, and, “What did you do today?” Or something like that, and then leave her. But most of my girlhood years were spent with Shirley and Sophie Weinstein and then when I got to be almost 18 years or so, it was Rae Weinstein and her sister Eva, may she rest in peace. She died quite young. She died at the age of 25 or 26. It is just like what you would do today. If you find someone that you really communicate with and get along with and you are happy with and do things with, you don’t look for too many other friends, because with too many friends you can get mixed up and you’ve got to go see a head shrinker and that isn’t good. There is my Yiddisher humor.

Carol: What sorts of activities stand out in your mind as being very important in your life back then? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well, I can’t say that one would be more outstanding than another. It was, you might say a routine thing, living. You knew if you were through with today come tomorrow you would be blessed with the same friends that you could rely upon, you would be happy to do with. And for that reason I looked forward to it, because it was enjoyable being around the same surroundings and with your friend or two that you could count on, and what more could one ask for, so really you might say I was very content.

Carol: Could you tell me something about your religious observance in your family now that you came to America? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well, supposedly, both my parents you might say were from the real Orthodox group. My father especially so. You know, he observed every one of God’s laws. For instance, he would never take a bite of bread in the morning without making a prayer, a brucha, as we say. He always wash his hands before he would take that piece of bread and this is what a good Orthodox Yid is supposed to do. My mother observed what she could. She kept kosher and God forbid if I mixed up a cup once in awhile, I used to hear from her. But you know kids. I didn’t pay too much attention to it and I would say, “Ah Ma, wash it out.” As far as shul, she didn’t go to shul all that much, although we had the three or four shuls around here. But all on the High Holidays she would go, but she was a woman who believed in doing a lot of mitzvahs, good deeds, irregarddless. And they couldn’t have been big because she didn’t have the big spiel to put on, but what little she had she did. 

One thing that will always outstand in my mind with my mother, she always used to say, “You know it’s a funny thing when you come to America, whether you want to or not, Honey, you’ve got to change.” Because irregardless of what time, there is always a change taking place and in life I guess we do. You have to expect a change somewhat, but today it is overturned altogether. On Friday night after I got married, I never lit the candles, so she always used to tell me, “For cigarettes you have money, but for candles you don’t.” So I made her a promise (that’s why I’m keeping it to this day) that after she passed on I would buy the candles and would light them on Friday night in her memory. She wasn’t too hard on me about being like she is because she realized that I was of a different generation and the age, too. She said, “You know when one reaches the age of 13, according to the Jewish tradition and laws, whatever you do is for yourself alone. If you do right, which we know ourselves, you don’ t need what you would call a strong hand or a rough teacher, be it a mother teacher or whatever. When you have a little common sense you can figure things out for yourself.” And then, too, sometimes you get carried away. I used to kid my mother and say, “Ma, if God has room for so many sins, one more he can always crowd in.” I used to tell her that. 

She used to get mad when I would say that. She used to say, “Wait, wait, you’ll get paid for that.” I said, “God forbid.” But it’s true. It’s impossible for the second generation or third generation to do exactly like your parents did. In this country it is an impossibility practically. Even if you want to be good, the tavil won’t let you. You know who the tavil is? The Devil, I mean there’s always temptation; if it isn’t from a friend it’s from a book or something. And you have to be pretty headstrong to let temptation slip you by. You know, we are only human. The mind sometimes does play tricks on us and like I said prior, you figure if Mr. Jones can get away with it, so can Steinberg, or Yossel, or Yonkel. It boils down to one factor. Whatever you do it adds up in your book I suppose, somehow. 

Carol: Why do you think it is? Are there other reasons for this movement away from traditional Judaism than just temptation that you mention?
RUBENSTEIN: Yes, I don’t know whether I am going to be able to put it in the exact form that I would like to. This just didn’t start now, as you the younger generation know. Number one I think one of the main causes to begin with is that when kids leave home, I am speaking of adult kids at the age of 18, when they go away from home, let’s say to school, this is where I think a lot of it takes place. Because you are in a different environment when you are away at school. Your people, you meet all different kinds of kids from all sorts of background and other things and you know I think they tend to add a little bit to all of this confusion and I really mean that. When you go away to school you are no more in the group that you were cooped up with or used to, even not in school. Today, even in at my age when I go out and converse with different people, I mean, their ideas are so different than mine. In many aspects, particularly of course you would expect that because I’m a Yid and they are a Goy, particularly on religion. But yet sometimes even though we are older you put them on the scale and try to weigh them a little bit, each person’s thoughts and ideas, and I don’t know, when you add it up, you can’t get an answer for anything from anybody so you kind of become bewildered, really you can. 

I used to ask Mr. Black, he used to be the shamus in the shul here and he was a very well read man. I used to ask him a question pertaining to why good people suffer on this earth. And he would say, he doesn’t know. I even asked a priest who used to come in where I worked and he would tell me, “Flo, that’s the $64,000 question.” So I mean if you are searching for something, be it religion, or anything else, and if everything is in the dark, in other words you have to accept what somebody gives you or offers you. Even if you are not willing to accept it entirely I can say that some things you must accept. But sometimes the whole load you kind of wonder to yourself, and I think this is the whole crux of the matter. Because even the younger generation, you kids, you know, so you put them through Hillel, they get a good foundation there of Judaism; they go to Sunday schools and all this and that. But when they get out into the real outside world, away from all this learning that you have had and background, it’s a different ball game and you have to accept part of that ball game, don’t you? Whether you want to or not, you have to.

Carol: What kind of a ball game do you mean?
RUBENSTEIN: Meaning conceptions, people’s ideas on doing things. Just like we have now, this Christmas and Hanukkah business, right? Now, whether we want to or not, we meet somebody that we know or don’t know, maybe we don’t like to say that but it’s forced upon us to say, “Merry Christmas.” Isn’t it, more or less? You have to. Then they turn around, and I am sure a lot of them don’t like it either, they say, “Happy Hanukah.” This is what I mean, it has become a give and take world and if you want to take the least bit you have to give the least bit. This is what I mean. And as far I am not saying that the Jewish people today are doing away with it entirely, they can’t, you see that’s why they have these beautiful shuls built up. They’re like palaces. I have nothing against them because not one penny of mine went into those shuls. But what is the purpose there? They have all these shuls today and nobody has a minyan. So you see it all reverts back to that one thing. They don’t practice what they preach and that’s what’s wrong with Judaism. They don’t. There are maybe a half a dozen families in this town who are really what you would call practicing Judaism. Now they take things and they make a farce out of them. Now, years ago, if anybody would mix milk and meat, it would be terrible. You know, you’ve read it in the book. But today, one who is supposed to be a pious person gets out of shul and they go down and order a cheeseburger or ham and eggs and think nothing of it. So to me this is what I call, and I can’t think of the word I want to say, they are practicing one thing and preach the other. They are hypocritical. To me it’s this way: either I do it wholeheartedly or at least half-heartedly but not one-twentieth heartedly and then pretend to be something I’m not. I’m not what you call pious, but in my book, you cannot hide from God because God sees all, hears all and knows all. So why hide from a person, why be hypocritical? So religion, I don’t know. I don’t think this country has any time for religion. They’re too busy making the buck. I may sound like a radical but this is the way it looks to me. Even if you go to shul on the High Holidays, what do they talk about? “Where did you buy that beautiful coat?” “I like your dress, and that butnick you’re wearing.”

Carol: I would like to switch over to a couple of other topics and ask you about the experiences of Americanization and education. I will ask you about those together because I think they are connected. Will you tell me something about your experiences in being Americanized and educated? 
RUBENSTEIN: I’m still working towards my Masters. I don’t know just what you are asking me to tell you about being American. 

Carol: Being Americanized.
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, Americanized. I have been Americanized for many years. As far as that goes even prior to taking out my citizenship papers, which I had to do back in 1937. I don’t know what you mean by Americanized, meaning have I adapted the American ways or went to school here or what?

Carol: Well, maybe you could talk about your experiences right after you came to this country and went to Failing, The experiences there of learning English. Did you attend the Americanization classes at the Neighborhood House? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well, when we first came here I thought I told you that in the last interview. They took me up to the Failing School here (now it is the Community College) and they put me in the second grade and I didn’t know a 1 from a 2 or a Q from a B, so it was hard. There were a bunch of immigrant kids in there. It was the “greenhorn” class in those days. It was hard getting to know a few words at first. I told you about that. Well anyway, I made school in four and a half years. That is the grade school, since I had been placed in an ungraded room in which I made two full grades. In those days, they had As and Bs [class sections] which made it six months for A and six months for B, a full year for the A and B. In the ungraded room I made two grades. That would be four six months, so I graduated, I forgot what year. In 1927 I think I graduated and by the way I was the only one that graduated from school. My younger brother had gone to the eighth grade but he didn’t want to finish and I don’t think he was forced to do so in those days. And my older brother didn’t go. He went to night school in the Neighborhood House. They had greenhorn classes and I thought I would play it smart; I would go to day school, Failing. And at night I would tag along with my brother Harry and I would go into the classes. I had learned a couple of words already in school in the day time and the teacher at night was saying, “I open the door and I close the door.” And she was demonstrating how and then she asked something else and I had learned that in school that day, so I popped up and gave her the answer, and they got mad. I guess I went on there for a couple of weeks or so and then they found out that I was attending day school so they told me I couldn’t come because I was going to day school. That takes care of my grade school education. Oh, I was also going to Hebrew school at the same time. Mr. Trager was the principal then of the Hebrew school. I think he is an attorney or a rabbi someplace in California or New York. I had him in some of my classes and then I had Mr. Maccoby. He used to be a Hebrew teacher. 

But I didn’t go through. I got mad and didn’t want to finish and now I’m sorry. I wished I would have and I guess then I went to work because my brother Harry got married. He promised me he was going to wait until June when I got out of school, to get married, but he put one over on me and he got married in April. I think of that year. I got out of school in June so I went to work at Meier & Frank’s in the Receiving Room. A bunch of us girls, Manya Karsen, Lena Katz, and myself, and the Labby girl; she married the rabbi’s brother. We all went to Behnke-Walker Business College. We worked in the daytime and went at night and we were going to become big secretaries. I’ll never forget. I was paying for the course and so were the other girls. I did not want to take shorthand and they insisted that I must have shorthand, so I took it a little while, but I didn’t like it. It just involved too much thinking for me. I had my mind on other things. I learned how to write a couple of sentences and my name in shorthand and then I wanted to learn the billing machines and the typewriter. We did that pretty good for a month. We paid in I think $30 for a three-month course or something. But being kids, you know, we worked all day, all three girls and we were tired and we became silly at night and goofed off. We didn’t make it and as you would call it today, we dropped out. Then they had the Lincoln High School classes at night, where Portland State is now, the old building. We started there. I think it was free there. And we went there a while and we met some boys. Some Jewish boys were going there too and by the time I listened to their jokes and everything else, there was no time for learning. I went back I think, sometime, several months later. I enrolled in another business college. I forgot the name of that. It used to be on Taylor Street or Salmon. Anyway I didn’t finish the course, because had I, I would have been able to be a secretary, a file clerk or something. We just worked in the stores, from one store to another cashiering, selling, just meager jobs and in those days those kind of jobs weren’t looked down upon. In those days if you told them you worked at Meier & Frank, you had a nice job. So I just went on and on. The next stage in a girl’s life was to get married; some call it buried, some say married; I don’t know which is which. I don’t know which comes first, the chicken or the egg.

Carol: Before we get onto that, can you tell me how you got the job at Meier &Frank?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh Heavens to Betsy. That really was something. You see, I had been working there on Saturdays in the Receiving Room while I was going to my alma mater, Failing School. That’s where you marked the goods that came in, in the Receiving Room, and naturally, in those days, I was bewildered; I didn’t understand it. But since then I realized that when vacation came around they took the college girls first, you know the ones with the higher IQs. But the paper that showed the most education, see, but anyway I kept going. One time, I don’t remember what year it was, way back then, and every day I would be up at Meier & Frank’s employment office like a clock about a quarter of nine, or ten minutes of nine, and that office was full of people filling out applications or being called in and looked at. And I’m sitting like a dunce kop there and nobody calls me–everyday for a solid month. I was getting tired myself, but this one particular morning, Mr. Kiernen, (the Superintendent, of all the people) picks on poor little me. He points his finger and he says to me, “You!” I lost my breath, my voice, and I said, “Yes Mr. Kiernen.” “How did you get in here?” I couldn’t tell a lie because there was only one entrance open which was the employee’s entrance. I said, “Mr. Kiernen, I came in through he employee’s entrance.” He said, “You are not an employee; you’re not supposed to come in here.” I thought, “Well that cooked my chances good already.”

He was the superintendent for the men, and he had an assistant, a Miss Moore. If she isn’t dead she should be 200 feet under. I’ll help push her under. She was the meanest thing that ever walked on two feet. He gets a hold of Miss Moore and he says, “You take care of her.” He said, “Miss Moore, this girl has been coming up here for one solid month every morning; I want you to put her to work.” She takes me in her private office. I don’t know, something had happened prior to this, I forgot to tell you. You know, when I wasn’t working any place, wherever I could get an extra days work I used to catch it, like Lipman Wolfe (in those days it was called Olds, Wortman & King, now it’s called Rhodes) used to call me in to the draperies or cashiering. At Lipman’s I was cashiering in the basement in the ladies-ready-to-wear and I guess I opened my mouth wide one day you see. At Meier & Franks, before they put you on a sales floor, they give you sales training; they send you to class. In those days gave you sales training. I was working a couple of extra days at Lipmans. You know they would just send me down on the floor without any training or anything, information. So while she was talking to me, this Miss Moore, in her private office, she looked like a, did you ever see a mean [inaudible]. Her eyes were crazy looking and she just looked daggers through you. And I was sitting and shivering. I thought to get on the good side of her and that was my bad move. She was telling me, “You know we send you to training classes here and everything.” And I said, “You know, that’s wonderful. You know I was working at Lipman’s and they didn’t give me any instructions or nothing.” and she said, “What what are you saying? My best friend is head of the personnel there. What do you mean, if you can talk against her, I can’t put you to work here. If you can talk against Lipmans  when we give you a job here you’re going to talk.” I said, “Oh no Miss Moore!” I didn’t know which way to get out of it already. I said I was just merely trying to make a point here, that this store is much more accommodating to the help. She said, “Now listen here to me,” and she points her finger, “I am going to put you to work because Mr. Kiernan insisted, because he feels sorry for you, but I am going to keep a watch on you. I am going to have someone tail you all the time and the minute you open your mouth and say one thing that I think isn’t befitting you’re through here and not only here, you’ll be through in all other stores.” So believe me, from that day on whenever I used to see her, I used to get real shaky because I was really scared because she said she would be after me. I thought no matter if she was walking through and letting out some steam someplace that she was coming to let it out on me. Really I was beware of her. Anyway it so happened that I didn’t say anything, I was extra cautious and I worked there for many years. That’s how I got on at Meier & Frank. I worked there for many, many years until I got married and then I went back again too after. I worked on sale days and things like that, holidays. I worked in almost every store in town and before going into Meier & Frank, I think it was, I worked for Mr. Sax in the theater. This is where I think the Benson is now. Right in that block there used to be a Liberty Theater. Mr. Sax, I used to work for him. I used to cashier in the box, and how I got that job is something else, but anyway there you have the story of my life. 

Carol: How did you get the job at the Liberty Theater? 
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, that was a riot. I don’t even remember. I think one time… I don’t remember, Honey, just how it happened, but one time I was working. I also worked one time at the National Dollar Stores for about 10-12 years. I think I quit Meier & Franks. I used to get very depressed around Christmastime. They were so busy and you know the steady help had to take phone orders and things like that. It was frustrating, so one particular Christmas I promised myself, “I’ve got to get out of here; I’ve got to get out of here.” And I quit there on the 15th of December. They held it against my record, too, for some time after that, they wouldn’t let me work steady, but I think this was prior.

I got tired of working in stores and I thought, “Well I’ll try working as a cashier, a ticket cashier in a theater.” And somebody told me about this Mr. Sax owning several theaters. Oh yes, it was Marian Labby. She used to work for the American Theater on First and Main, which he owned many years ago. And then he owned the Liberty Theater and then one on skid row some place. I forgot the name. The Sixth Avenue or something. So I dressed up. It was pouring like it was today. I think it was December and it was miserable outside. 

I was downtown on another job but I didn’t land it so I thought, “Well what could I lose? I’ll go see this man.” I had a dark lavender raincoat now, just like they wear the maxis now, only longer. It almost swept the sidewalks and I don’t know what kind of scarf or hat, but I looked bewildered. The rain was all over me and I came to the window and I asked the girl sitting in the ticket office, I said, “I would like to see Mr. Sax.” She said, “Who should I say is calling?” So I said to myself, “This isn’t good, ‘who’s calling?’” I wanted to tell her nobody, but I told her I was referred to Mr. Sax. So anyway I had to climb up a rickety stairway, about eight or ten steps. They were crooked. And his office was up there. I came in and a big pot-bellied man with a big cigar in his mouth, you know you could tell he smelled of gelt and here I am. I said, “Mr. Sax, I’m Miss Steinberg.” “Yeah, my dear child,” he said to me, “What are you doing out in the day like this?” So I thought, you know I always had a knack of giving hard luck stories, and I looked like a miserable kid. “Why don’t you stay home, go home, get warmed up.” I said, “Mr. Sax, I can’t go home,” He said, “Why not, my dear child?” I said, “Because there’s nobody home. My mother is in the hospital; my father is in the hospital; the house is cold and I don’t want to go home.” He felt so sorry for me. He had a heater in his office. He said, “Please sit down; warm yourself.” He gave me a candy bar. He hired me. So I go to work a couple of days later and I’m sitting there selling tickets to whoever comes by going into the theater. He had a connection from his office down to the box office where I was sitting and he said, “Miss Steinberg, when you get through working today, will you please come to the office?” I said, “Nu? I’m fired already.” I kind of liked that job, there was nothing to it. You just sit there selling tickets and he gives me candy bars and he seemed like a father to me. Anyway, to make the story short, the second or third day I’m there, I go up to his office and he said, “Sit down.” And I said to myself, “Something is going to happen here; I don’t like the smell of it.” So he tells me about his family that he has three sons and one daughter who was inter-married and his one son Sam, evidently was the black sheep of the family. He used to come with a big Cadillac and a chauffeur. They were very well-to-do people and he was married to a shiksa who took him for all she could. And he was a bandit; he was a drinker, a gambler, and running around plenty on her too. So he wants to know, “You know my son Sammy, the others I don’t care, they’re alright. But my son Sammy is married to a no good shiksa and he is a wonderful guy.” And this and that. At that time I don’t know, maybe he was 35 or 38. He says, “I would like for you to marry my son Sammy.” If I tell him no, how do I get out of this predicament? I’ll lose the job. Yes, I can’t say. So I thought for a moment and said, “Well Mr. Sax, must I give you an answer right now?” He said, “No my child, think it over.” I said, “I’ll appreciate it if you will give me a couple of days at least.” I said, “You know I can’t make up my mind on the spur of the moment.” “My son Sam likes you.” He used to come to the box office and give me a kitzel here and give me a candy bar and when it was raining he would say, “Now you wait; my chauffeur will come and take you home.” I thought the chauffeur would kidnap me and hold me for ransom. So anyway, a couple of days went by and I had to tell him, I think I was 17 or 17 and a half, so he didn’t fight me, though. But I thought it was time for me to give him some sort of word and I said, “Mr. Sax, I am going to tell you something. I have an answer for you but I don’t think you are going to like to like it.” I said, “I hope it won’t mean my job and I am sorry if you don’t understand, but you know Mr. Sax, I’m not ready for marriage.” I said. “I’m too young. I don’t even want to think of it.” I said, “And another thing. I don’t want to come between your son Sam and his wife.” He said, “Believe me you wouldn’t be coming between them because I want him to get rid of her.” I said, “I am very sorry Mr. Sax but I don’t think I’m ready for marriage. If it’s going to mean my job then I can’t help it.” “Oh no,” he says, “You can have your job but you can think it over some more.” I said, “Well I know the answer is going to be no Mr. Sax. Your son is a wonderful guy and everything, but I’m not even thinking of marriage yet. I haven’t even begun to live. I want to see a little bit of the world.” 

He never pressed me after that which was very nice. And when I was working there on Sundays selling the tickets, Pat used to ride by, Sophie, with the boyfriends in the Model A and honk and say, “Flo we’re going swimming.” And here I had to sit in that little sweaty box office and sell the tickets because I wanted to have the job. But she used to do that purposely to tease me. I used to give her a curse here and there for that because she had no right to do that. I was miserable enough in that sweaty box. She was going to go have a good time and I had to be cooped up in there but I didn’t mind that. Well, really, of all the jobs I had, they really weren’t that awful. I never had dirty jobs; they were all clean and I always dealt with people. And I liked to talk anyway so I really enjoyed that part of it you know. If you do anything too long for too long a time it gets to you, so you take a little rest now and then, a little vacation away from it. But I enjoyed what I was doing. I really did or I wouldn’t have done it that many years. I could have gone to work in factories but I never did. I never worked in a factory. And then I worked ever since when I was married practically. I got married on Saturday night and went to work on Monday morning. I worked in the Dollar Store then but the work didn’t hurt me, Honey. Work is good therapy. It keeps your mind busy, your legs keep a-going and you are a go-go person. 

Carol: Let’s see – you got married in 1933. Where were you married?
RUBENSTEIN: I was married in Vancouver, Washington. I got married by a Justice of the Peace. 

Carol: But then you had a Jewish ceremony?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh yes, I had a Jewish ceremony next door. Mr. Tonitsky (may he rest in peace) was a reverend who had the option to marry people. 

Carol: He was a Jewish rabbi?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, he was like a reverend. He wasn’t a rabbi, although he could have very well been. He was very well known here. He was a very religious man. I guess sometimes when you get married that’s when your life ends. 

Carol: How long after your marriage did you move to Centralia?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, I don’t know, maybe six months after, maybe earlier than that. I didn’t live in Centralia too long.

Carol: What was life like for you in Centralia? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well, it was alright I guess, although it wasn’t all that beautiful because I had moved to a community where I wasn’t known. They were all strange people. Of course, my husband’s family was there. But sometimes it’s harder to adjust to another family than it is to another outsider. I was much younger than any of those people there. I wasn’t all set and ready to go join the different clubs that they belonged to, the card games, things like that. I wasn’t used to them and they didn’t interest me in all that fashion. I found my own friends, a couple of them up there. I used to come back to Portland quite a bit, about every other week end. 

Carol:  Were there many Jewish families in Centralia?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, about two dozen. Well, there’s the twin cities, Centralia and Chehalis combined maybe held two dozen Jews, in those days, but now there’s more probably, I don’t know. 

Carol: Do you remember the names of any of the families there?
RUBENSTEIN: Yes, there’s an old pioneer family by the name of Robinson, and there was a Mr. Turk, and Charlotte, they’re pioneers up there. And the Barlows, they were in the jewelry business. And Feinglass, or something like that. Your uncle is up there, Morris Rubenstein. 

Carol: What things stand out in your mind as most important? 
RUBENSTEIN: About Centralia? 

Carol: Yes, about Centralia.
RUBENSTEIN: Actually nothing in particular. You see, I was a big city girl to begin with and coming here from Portland and moving to a little dorf like Centralia. I was forlorn. I was lost. You know it had one Main Street and two side streets and a few people and actually there was nothing there for me. The only thing I can remember is that Dad, my husband, used to belong to the Elks Club up there. They used to have doings there, dinners, bridge. In small towns that’s all you do is play cards mostly. We used to go to bridge affairs, that’s all. Centralia I can give back to the Indians anytime.

Carol: You mentioned to me on another occasion that it was only when you moved to Centralia that you started eating traif meat. 
RUBENSTEIN: Yes. Of course in my mother’s house, Grandma’s house, she wouldn’t allow traif meat. Only when we went out to the restaurant when we were young. But when I moved to Centralia there was no Jewish butcher there and I lived with my mother-in-law then. Every time she put the meat on the table I knew it was traif and I wasn’t accustomed to it. I thought if I would take a piece in the mouth I would choke for sure. So I used to have my mother send me up packages, salami, sour cream, kippered salmon, Yiddisher things like that. But after living there about eight months to a year I had to take a piece of meat. You get hungry for meat. But I used to gag every time I would eat it. It hardly went down. That’s what I say, you have to accept some change, no matter where one goes and in this country there is a lot of changing, believe me. Of course now, I’m a pioneer here. 

Carol: Was there a minyan in Centralia? 
RUBENSTEIN: I didn’t go to shul that often there. They would only have a memorial service and between the twin cities maybe they would gather. Now there wouldn’t be, I don’t know. Then there was a few of the older Jewish men. Oh yes, they used to gather a minyan; they did pretty well for a little dorf like that. Look at here how many thousands of Jews in this town, 10,000? They have to call a crisis, almost, to get a minyan here. It’s just like the energy crisis now, with the minyan. 

Carol: How many years did you spend in Centralia?
RUBENSTEIN: I think tops, two and half years. Three at the very most. After Morris was born I moved here when Morris was, I think, 16 months old.

Carol: What was life like for Jews in Centralia?
RUBENSTEIN: I say good. It was good up there for them. They had what they wanted. The ones who had been there for years belonged to the better circles and the clubs, Masons. The Elks everybody belonged to, but the Masons, they had company, you know, the non­Yiddish people or the elite people, but there was no discrimination. You would be surprised, but in the smaller town, they look upon the Yid a little bit different, sometimes, than in the big town, because most of the Yids up there had the cream of the crop for their friends, attorneys, doctors, business and professional men. Even Morris, he’s on the school board there. How many Yids do you find on the school board here? Betty’s husban was the Mayor of the little town of Elmo for 30 years. Yes, we have a Yiddish Mayor here too.

Carol: You mentioned that you used to come to Portland every other weekend or so? 
RUBENSTEIN: I was terribly homesick. I had to come home. There used to be salesmen coming and going through to Seattle from Portland and Portland to Seattle. I used to go into this Mrs. Barlow’s jewelry store and line them all up, when they’re going through for them to give me a call and I would go to Portland with them. You better believe it, I found a way. Of course, the train was cheap then too but this way driving it made it faster. The train made stops. Oh yes, I got a lot of rides with salesmen,

Carol: What things did you do in Portland then?
RUBENSTEIN: When I came to Portland, number one, you know they say when you’re away from something is when you really want it or miss it the most. I missed my family terribly. See, I had really never been away during my whole lifetime and I had my girlfriend, Shirley Fisher Karsen (may she rest in peace). And there I had somebody to pal around with when I came here. There was Ada Rovech here and a few more I had. There they were all older people and I wasn’t used to it. I had been used to kids my own age and it was hard for me to adjust and dad was working for his sister up there in the office. Working for a relative, your time is never your own and whenever they think they need you or don’t need you, when they give you a call you’ve got to go. So when I came to Portland, gee whiz, Shirley and I used to go out. We used to enjoy ourselves. I used to see my family and other people I knew. It was a different world for me here. Wide open spaces. There everything was cramped because you know it wasn’t my style. I could have joined in and played bridge every day. I was never a card lover so that wasn’t my cup of tea. I was an outside girl; I liked the fresh air. I didn’t want to sit on my hoot-nanny for four hours playing cards. 

Carol: How did you happen to come back to Portland then?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, I didn’t want to stay there in the first place and I told dad, he had lost his job in his brother-in-law’s office and I couldn’t see any reason for staying there. Dad was going to go with a truck peddling and I told him, “You want to stay here you can.” I gave him an ultimatum. I said, “I’m going back to the city where I belong.” And that’s how I came back here. There was nothing to hold me there when he didn’t have the job. And I didn’t want to go there to work there in the first place so we came back here in December, 1939. 

Carol: Where did you stay when you came back?
RUBENSTEIN: Right here with my folks. We moved into my folks’. My husband didn’t have a job so we had to move in with the folks and we stayed there for quite a while. We never moved away from here because see, when Grandma died she said I could live in one house, where there were the two girls, my sister and I. So my sister stayed in one house and I in the other, just like a duplex. It’s an older house but its livable and I’ve been content here. I’ve seen other things maybe, other cities, other places. It wasn’t for me. I think I belong here. I like it here, I really do. If somebody were to take me to Onassis’ Island I would refuse. 

Carol: OK Mom, we’ve talked about your situation, things way back when and stuff. How are things different today? 
RUBENSTEIN: Today, I would say that they are entirely different. This used to be a neighborhood where people would congregate. We would have neighbors visiting with one another, seeing one another often and daily. Today it’s just like living out in the countryside. There are no neighbors to speak of. The ones that do come into the neighborhood are the transient type of the younger folks, which no one ever gets to know. And if we were to get to know them they would be evicted. That’s the honest-to-goodness truth because they don’t have enough to pay for a month’s rent let alone for a longer period of time. So the few people such as myself that are left in this neighborhood are purely isolated. I am just fortunate enough to have my sister and one of my younger brothers living next door, which helps to have her not only as a relation but as a good neighbor. If it were not for them I would be absolutely lost in this neighborhood. The only time we ever get to see anyone of yesteryear is when we bump into them downtown or if we go to a Center doing or something like that, or once a year in shul. Other than that we could just as well be dead as alive in this neighborhood because there is no one here. We do have the high rise buildings. Some people may consider that a gorgeous sight but to me it is an atrocity because no building, no matter how gorgeous or how high it stands can take the place of a person. There are no stores around here. There is absolutely nothing. We are completely isolated. We might just as well be on a desert island some place. 

Carol: I would also like to ask you to relax a little bit when you are talking. Don’t worry about it. What things have changed in the Jewish community? 
RUBENSTEIN: Surrounding this area? 

Carol: In the Jewish community in Portland,
RUBENSTEIN: Well, I really don’t know. People have become separated perhaps due to the fact that they have moved on, away to different neighborhoods. And in order to get together with anyone you have to go to a shul doings or a doing at the B’nai B’rith Center, and people like myself, not having any transportation, there’s no way of getting there. It’s just a has-been is all I can say. 

Carol: What’s a has-been? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well, the life, the community life is a has-been. It’s done away with; it’s dead. And even years back when we used to go up to the Neighborhood House, which still exists in this area, we used to meet our own kind. Like we say, “MOT,” Members of our Tribe. But today its mostly goyim and young people too. Some of the older folks have left this earth but still there were a lot of people who used to be around this neighborhood that we never see. Not even at the Neighborhood House, so no matter, today everything is more oriented to belonging to clubs and big shul doings and things like that and not like I say having any transportation available to me and anytime… It just excludes you from those meetings with people. I guess we adjust to many things. We have to. Life always has a new adjustment every day of some sort. Give me the good old days. They’re gone forever.

Carol: What sort of things are missing?
RUBENSTEIN: Everything. Community involvement, good neighbors, friends that you got to know in the neighborhood. We don’t have a store to speak of around here, no drug store, nothing, no market. Everything has been taken out of this neighborhood. No laundromats. As of today’s era so what have we got here? But we are still here because this little house that we live in belongs to us. Therefore it wasn’t taken in the first Urban Renewal. No doubt it will be taken in the second Urban Renewal. It may not be long but I would like for them to come before we get too old to move around. 

Carol: Who moved away from South Portland? 
RUBENSTEIN: Well, that would be kind of hard to say. The majority of the Jewish families moved away actually. We just have… You can count them on your fingers. Maybe three or four families is all. Don’t ask me where they went. I guess they were striving for cloud nine. Some made it I guess, I don’t know,

Carol: Why did they move?
RUBENSTEIN: The majority of them moved because of the urbanization that came through here and then some made a few extra dollars, so to speak, in the American language and they wanted better neighborhoods, I suppose. But the majority of the people that I knew moved on account of the Urban Renewal. They were forced to move, not that they wanted to move. It was get out or be thrown out so there was no choice there. 

Carol: How have community organizations changed?
RUBENSTEIN: What do you mean by community organization?

Carol: Things like Neighborhood House, Community Centers and synagogues.
RUBENSTEIN: I told you that a little while ago. The only thing remaining here is the Neighborhood House. The Community Center is gone from where it was and it is harder to get to. True there are busses running there but it is a bit farther, and then too, I don’t know, I never did go too much to the Community Center, I really didn’t. I don’t know whether they have changed for the better or for worse, because I didn’t participate too much in the Community Center. I was busy working all my life. I had no time for it. I was busy chasing the green buck here what they call it. 

Carol: How have the synagogues changed?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, they’ve become a lot more modernized, reformed. The one little synagogue that we still retain here, the corner up from our house, is the only real synagogue actually that I ever attended and the other synagogues are not within my destination, plus the fact that we do have this little Kesser Israel synagogue which is fine with me. That’s the only one I attend. I don’t lean on the shuls too much, whether it’s over in this area or closer to the Heights. Makes no difference to me because supposedly our God is everywhere. I am sure he visits my house once in awhile. I’m thankful for that, so the synagogue is immaterial, whether they make it extra fancy or less fancy, I could care less. 

Carol: How do you feel about the changes in the neighborhood?
RUBENSTEIN: I’m not satisfied with it, let’s put it this way. I would much rather have had it the old way, but progress must go on so they tell me and what went away yesterday will never come back today or tomorrow. There will be a change. A change is what makes the wheel of life continue. Had we been asked I am sure we would have all agreed to have stayed. The people who did move away, their houses were taken away from them. They would have all liked to have stayed here. The average so-called citizen or mensh, we are not considered. As the young historians of today will find it to be a fact. 

Carol: Did you think any of the changes were for the better?
RUBENSTEIN: Not for me they weren’t, or for the people I have known. They were very dissatisfied. You know they had to move after having lived here for so many years. They were used to the neighborhood and its surroundings and everything else. Everyone who had to get out of this neighborhood was very dissatisfied. But like I said, this was a must for them. They had no choice in the matter. Now whatever years I have, whether there is another Urban Renewal comes through here, they will no doubt take this house and the one next door that my sister lives in. We will not have a choice either but I would much rather finish my years out right here. I’ve been settled in this neighborhood for over 50 years and thus far haven’t lacked anything, outside of inconveniences. You know, they’ve taken the stores away and the markets and everything else but we manage to survive and get along. People are not going to be left alone as long as they live. Not only us in this neighborhood. There will be other neighborhoods that will go through the same clippings or the same chopping with the axe. 

Carol: What’s your memory of the happiest times in Portland?
RUBENSTEIN: In this section here?

Carol: Yes, your memories of the happiest times in Portland since you have been here. 
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, gosh that would be kind of hard to footnote, because there were several occasions in my younger days that I considered being very happy. I just don’t know what to say on that, really because I can’t pinpoint one particular thing. The happiest time, I would presume I would have to say off hand, would be my growing up years with my friend, she is deceased now, Shirley Fisher Karsen. We had some happy times together. We only lived within three blocks from one another. We did many things together. We were very close. We were like sisters instead of friends, but there are so many things during a person’s life time; it’s hard to relate to just one specific incident. 

Carol: What’s your unhappiest memory of life in the neighborhood?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, what I bear in mind has nothing to do with your project, I don’t think. You know, losing my parents, things like that. There were really no special unhappy memories of my recollection. 

Carol: Were there any bad times in the neighborhood, not necessarily personally? 
RUBENSTEIN: Not to my recollection. Everyone seemed to be satisfied and content here and perhaps some years back, whatever people had they were content and satisfied with. Everyone didn’t reach out with both arms to grab everything. That’s the truth, it’s not like today. I don’t recall any unpleasant memories outside, God forbid, when there was sickness in the family or something like that. There wasn’t anything unhappy to my recollection. 

Carol: In what ways did the Depression affect the way of life in South Portland?
RUBENSTEIN: That was so many years ago, really, to be frank with you, I don’t recall it making that much difference in my family’s standing. We didn’t have that much to begin with, so I wasn’t denied anything more than I had been prior to the Depression, really, and I was quite a few years younger you know. I was a lot younger and I wasn’t about to worry about things like that. When you are young all you are thinking about is just yourself. I don’t know if I was working then or not, but I had my friends and we did what we wanted to do, before the Depression and during the Depression and after the Depression. I can’t recall any difficult times for me because you know I was young. I didn’t have any money in the bank and I didn’t have any worries or woes. I just lived from day to day. My mother (God bless her soul) used to fix the meals and that’s all. I would sit down at the table and eat. I don’t recall any hardships. The hardships were in the old country. Here at least we had potatoes without the peelings. There we ate the peelings without the potatoes a lot of times.

Carol: Could you describe South Portland in the time after World War II until the present? What kinds of changes there were?
RUBENSTEIN: World War II ended in 1945. No, there wasn’t any changes. The neighborhood was still intact and everyone was in its right corner at the time and money wasn’t the thought of the day because the shipyards were still going fairly well. In fact, I think I was working in the shipyards then myself, down here at the Commercial. Things were about the same. My brother had come home from the war. Nothing had changed in the neighborhood. Historical things, you know, I can’t recall, I wasn’t that interested in them. I was just interested in what went on in these blocks here. The people were still here, as I said and everything was quite normal. 

Carol: Was the effect of the Urban Renewal project on the neighborhood? You talked about that before somewhat and I wonder if you could summarize. Or do you feel that you have said enough about it?
RUBENSTEIN: As far as I was concerned and most of the people who were left here like myself? Or the people before they were thrown out so to speak? After the Renewal? 

Carol: Yes, what was the effect of that project on the neighborhood?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, like I said, most of the people who had been in the neighborhood were gone. The project stopped on Second and Arthur and we are just 100 feet off of Arthur, so we were the first families left here. It was very inconvenient for all of us because you know all this building that was going on. Some streets were blocked for months, maybe a year, a lot of mud and dirt in the neighborhood. The Labor Center went up. We had nothing but dirt and more dirt and more dirt flying in our faces and all over and everything was taken away. Everything. It was very disgusting. There were certainly no happy memories there when all the bulldozers came around. 

Carol: What happened to the people who left then? Where did they go?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, they went elsewhere. They bought houses southeast , northeast, northwest. A lot of people who moved away, re-settled. I guess some of them have expired since then. I don’t know what happened to the people. Some are on the side of the fence yet, some are over the fence. 

Carol: What happened to the business in the area? 
RUBENSTEIN: Most of the people who had businesses here, I think the people didn’t re-open new businesses to my knowledge and also, like I say, some had expired. That took care of that. And maybe there are a few left who are still in business, like Sol Greenstein. He is with the Acme Roofing. There were a bunch of small stores like Korsuns Delicatessen. He’s relocated northwest and the butcher shops, that’s a thing of the past. For a while Schnitzer was located with Korsun, but that’s out now. The people didn’t use the kosher meat. It’s a big farce now. They’ve got everything in packages clear out past Hillsdale. My sister happens to use kosher meat and she’s lost because you can’t get any. So what good did it do for the average person that just really wanted to exist, nothing. It put a lot of money into the powerful hands and perhaps the city gets a lot of money for taxes, but the average layman it didn’t do them a bit of good. It gave them nothing but trouble. 

Carol: Mom, looking back at the whole thing, from Lublin through New York, Ellis Island and coming across the country to Portland, living in Centralia and coming back to Portland and all the years you have spent here, as you look back, how do you feel as a Jew living in Oregon? 
RUBENSTEIN: Oregon has always been a good state to us. We have not had any prejudices of any kind, no discrimination. Oh, maybe from a terrorist, you might call it, but really no one bothered me. Actually I wouldn’t know what it would mean to live anywhere else because we have always been in Oregon, but Oregon itself and the city of Portland, I have never had any trouble with anyone. In my younger days, I had a lot of non-Jewish friends. I always got along with them. They used to come to my house and eat my mother’s kosher-style cooking and everything else. I’ve enjoyed living in the state of Oregon, particularly Portland, because that’s the only city I have been in thus far. But compared to some of the other states in our union, from what you hear from other people, that this is by far a good state. The weather is good. The people are friendly. You know, you can’t have everyone on your side, but those that you come in contact with have been more or less friendly, so what more can you ask for? And it makes no difference if it’s Oregon, Idaho, Montana, wherever a person gets his three squares, has a roof over his head, really, that’s all that counts. If you’ve got a good dentist who can pull a tooth, that’s all that’s needed. 

Carol: How do you think that things have gone for the Jewish people in Oregon?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, I really can’t speak for the entire lot, but the ones that I have been affiliated with or in contact with, they have never had any complaints. In what respect do you mean that it’s gone for the Jewish people? Are they failing anything? Culpepper Terrace isn’t good enough? 

Carol: I mean if you had any reflections on Jewish community life in Oregon, or on your own particular life as a Jew, in the state and in the city. 
RUBENSTEIN: I really don’t know just what to answer you on that, My Dear, because, like I said I never had any trouble with anybody. No one has ever accosted me saying, “You are a bad Jew.” If they had said it in back of me, to my back and not to my face, that didn’t bother me in the least because it was unbeknown, but I never had anyone discriminate or be prejudiced against me. In fact, I think I get along better with some of the non-Yiddishers than I do with the Yids. 

Carol: Why is that?
RUBENSTEIN: Because they speak my language better. I mean, they’re not so hung up on material things, the non-Yids, that’s why. If my house isn’t in a certain location, or I don’t have maybe $20 a yard wall-to-wall rugs, I could be looked down upon, but then the lot that I bought isn’t going to have wall-to-wall rugs either in Mt. Scott. When I get there the rug business will be out . . . 

Carol: When you compare your expectations of America, the dreams that you set out from Europe with and what’s happened to you and your family in this country, what do you think?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, it’s a little too late to think. I mean, the fish went back into the water, so to speak. The expectations we had, of course, were never met. Again I think we were much better off in this country than we would have been had we stayed there. Of course, we would have been annihilated completely through the Hitler regime. Eventually we would have to leave anyway, whether we got a passport or not. If you want me to reiterate my former statement to you? We made the best with what we had and what was more or less in store for us. We took things in stride. The way they had to be and we were satisfied. We never complained. I would never have thought that if I had had the chance, some years back, to go back to Poland, I would have refused a thousand times over. At least here we did have an opportunity to get some sort of a bit of an education and one is always, if they were well enough, was able to go out and get some sort of a job and help yourself. Whereas in Poland, chances are that that might have taken place too, had I been older, but leaving there at an early age, I didn’t know what would have come out of it. I am not a bit sorry here. Of course, naturally, a person’s eyes are open, you always think you are seeing that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence. Of course, we were told some tall tales you know over there that’s why our expectations were so high, but thank God, as we say, the years have gone by and we have been satisfied and that’s all. Looking back doesn’t do any good. As they say, you have to look ahead and with a good optometrist you can look ahead a little bit.