Jeanne Mittleman Newmark

Tarlow: Here we are sitting in your kitchen on Downs View Court. Let’s start with where you were born.
NEWMARK: I was born here in Portland, Oregon, on April 10, 1930.

Tarlow: Were you the youngest? The oldest? Where do you come in the picture?
NEWMARK: I was actually the fourth little girl. My parents were Helen and Harry Mittleman. I’m certain that my father, as well as my mother, wanted some boys because of my sisters’ names as well as mine. My eldest sister was Marian; I was told that her name could have been Marvin. My sister Charlotte, who was born two years later in 1924, her name, I understand, could have been Charles. My sister Bobbie, Babette, who was born in 1929, would have been Robert. And I, as Jeanne, was supposed to be Eugene. But it was Marian, Charlotte, Bobbie, and Jeanne.

Tarlow: So there were four of you. Were you all born here?
NEWMARK: We were all born in Portland.

Tarlow: And how did your parents get to Portland?
NEWMARK: From what I know, my father was from Omaha, Nebraska, and my mother was from Lincoln, Nebraska. My father’s education only went to high school. He, as the only son in that family, was also working. His sisters were all in Omaha. But my mother’s family was in Lincoln. My mother was actually born in Lincoln, Nebraska, in 1900; both of my parents were born in 1900. 

Mother had two sisters that had already come to Portland. One was the eldest sister, Miriam Cohen. “Auntie Mimi” — my sister Marian named all of the relatives — married David Cohen, and they were the editors of the Jewish paper called The Scribe. So Mother’s eldest sister, Miriam, was here. Then Cecil, who we called “Auntie C,” was here with her husband. He was involved with a grocery-type of delivery service, then later on they had a hardware store out on Burnside. As a child of 11 and 12, in 1941 and ’42, I would go out to their store on Saturdays and be with them all day “selling.” They had a potbelly stove for heat in the back room. I loved the days with them. 

When my parents got married, when they were 21 years old, the expression “Go West, young man” [struck them]. They went west and came to what was then as far west as they could go. They settled in Castle Rock. My father opened an itty-bitty grocery store. Marian was born a year later. I remember the stories. My mother said that they used to tie Marian to the clothesline outside in front of the store, and she toddled up and down the length of the clothesline while my mother worked all day in the store with my father. Charlotte was born in 1924. 

But before Charlotte was born, when Marian was just an infant, the story that had filtered down to me was that a cross was burned on their yard. My father, at age 22 with a wife and a baby, could not deal with it. It wasn’t the Klu Klux Klan. What group was it that was anti-Semitic? I was talking with Jerry Stern, and he new exactly the era and who was doing the persecuting here in the Pacific Northwest at that time. So then the folks moved to Portland, and that’s when Charlotte was born. Then Bobbie and I were born shortly after.

Tarlow: I bet your mom was glad to be where her sisters were.
NEWMARK: Very much so. My entire childhood was spent with the family. We went from one house to another for dinner. Sunday afternoons we would go for drives from one house to another. Neither of my two aunts [mother’s two sisters] had children. But Mother’s brother had also settled in Portland by then, Arthur Leonard. He had Leonard’s Pipe Store, which was downtown. He had done very well, and he and Aunt Beck had a home fifteen minutes away from us. They had one son, Lou Leonard. 

Every single weekend of my entire childhood, we would go from one relative’s home to another. We would have dinner, and they would come to our home and have picnics. In later years, the young — they were young at that time — doctor Rosenbaum brothers, Dr. Ed and Dr. Bill Rosenbaum, who are my first cousins, would also come with their families to our home. Their mother, Bess Rosenbaum, who married Sam Rosenbaum, was my father’s sister. Through their medical school and later on, my father, to some degree, helped the boys, and eventually they came to Portland.

Tarlow: We have Dr. Ed on tape.
NEWMARK: Dr. Ed is a very remarkable man and a credit to his family.

Tarlow: I should say. Let’s go back to your childhood a little bit and talk about school. Where did you go to school?
NEWMARK: As the youngest of the girls living on 17th and Klickitat Street — all my sisters and I went to Irvington Grade School. I made such a fuss and was crying when they went off to school that my mother at that time simply asked the kindergarten teacher if I could go when my sister Bobbie went. Bobbie was fifteen months older than I. Then there was no problem; if anyone wanted to go to school, they went to school. So I went to Irvington Grade School with my sister Bobbie, and then I went again the next year when I was supposed to start school. Several of my dear friends, including Lloyd Rosenfeld, were in class with me. Zadell Cogan was either in my first year of kindergarten or my second year of kindergarten. I would have to check the pictures. My dear sister Bobbie, who passed away many years ago, used to love telling her friends that she had the only sister who had to repeat kindergarten. 

Tarlow: So you went all through Irvington?
NEWMARK: No, my folks moved when I was very young. In 1938 they left the east side, where we had a large brick home that my father had built on 17th and Klickitat. It was a happy, wonderful neighborhood. It was filled with many, many families: the Finkelsteins, the Zells, the Rosenfelds. On any block there were my friends and all of my sisters’ friends. The bicycles, the roller skates, and the camaraderie made it an amazingly happy neighborhood. My folks were some of the first to move. They were very young. They were 38 years old when they moved up to Green Hills. It was the west side. It was an entirely different neighborhood. We lived in an area where there might have only been ten homes. I then started the third grade at Ainsworth School. At that time, I think there were only two other Jewish children at Ainsworth. It was very isolated, a different feeling completely. The folks had purchased a very large home. It had a swimming pool, a tennis court. It was what would have been considered a mansion then. We just thought it was our home. We ran around, the four of us little girls, and . . .

[Phone rings, tape stops and restarts]

Tarlow: Let me ask you who the two Jewish kids at Ainsworth were? 
NEWMARK: Joan Cohen and Gerel Blauer were there, and probably Irwin Holzman. Gerel and I met when I started in the third grade, when I was eight years old. I mentioned that we were pretty isolated. It was so different. My older sister, Marian, who was then in high school, continued at Grant High School.

Tarlow: She didn’t want to leave her friends.
NEWMARK: My father would take her over. Charlotte, Bobbie, and I then went to Lincoln High School. When I was still in Ainsworth, everybody — little children can either be friendly or cruel, as children are, and even though I’m going to mention some of the things that seemed cruel to a little child, young people were only imitating what they had seen and heard in their family. They were imitating their parents, and I was the first Jewish person they were exposed to. When the war broke out, I knew so little of history and of politics. My life was wrapped around the Jewish Community Center and B’nai B’rith Camp; the whole big world out there was something that I truly wasn’t involved with. All of a sudden I found my school friends dipping my pigtails into the ink well behind me. I had a swastika put on my notebook. I wasn’t asked to be on softball teams; I was the last one chosen to be in any production. When I thought about it later, I knew that my teachers were aware, and that is what hurts me more than anything, to think that it was allowed. One of the hardest things I remember was that for two days everyone in the class chose not to talk to me.

Tarlow: Why?
NEWMARK: I didn’t understand. I couldn’t comprehend what had happened that my little friends would suddenly turn against me. I couldn’t talk to my parents because that wasn’t the sort of thing I talked to my parents about, so I would walk with my dog around Green Hills. There was a small area we called the “small walk” just around Green Hills. Then if we went for a bigger walk, we would walk up Humphrey and Hewett and then come back up to Green Hills. I would take my dog, Lady, and I would walk around the small walk crying. And I told my dog all about it.

Tarlow: It was a good thing you had a dog. 
NEWMARK: She was the only person that knew until just about a half a dozen years ago, when I shared this story with my kids. They said, “Mom, what are you talking about?” Later, in high school — and now, of course, they’re some of my closest friends, my grade school friends, but in high school some of them came up to me and said, “You know, we really did dumb things back then, didn’t we?” As they experienced more of the world around them, they realized that they could be Christian and I could be Jewish and it was okay.

Tarlow: Sounds like they wanted to be forgiven.
NEWMARK: They wanted to be forgiven.

Tarlow: When did you graduate from Lincoln?
NEWMARK: In 1948.

Tarlow: What kind of a Jewish education were you getting while you were at Ainsworth and Lincoln?
NEWMARK: Very, very intense. We were members of Temple Beth Israel. My parents also were members of every synagogue in Portland. So even though they wanted us girls to go to a Reform temple  — our Sunday school years were at Temple Beth Israel. I was confirmed there and went to the high school program. We also went to Hebrew school. That was not the average thing for young Jewish girls to be doing then, especially Reform Jewish girls. 

Tarlow: Where did you have Hebrew school?
NEWMARK: Well, my older sisters went to cheder over on the east side with Mr. Chenokofsky, but I was at the Center.

Tarlow: So you went all through Sunday school at temple?
NEWMARK: And the holidays. We celebrated the holidays for two days. Both of my parents came from very Orthodox families. For the second day of the High Holidays we would go to each of the shuls, and all the dear old men would pat us on the heads as we would go from one to the other. When I would think about it later, or in college when somebody would say something about the fact that I was a Reform Jew but it seemed like I understood and carried through the traditions that were more Conservative, and even some that were more Orthodox, I used to answer by saying that I was really more of a traditional Jew. I think that probably holds true. The candles were always lit on Friday night in my parents’ home. Shabbos was always observed. There was music and reading. My father never left the house on a weekend. 

In fact, several years into my married life, when I already had two or three, or maybe even four children, all very close together, one Saturday my father came over, and I was putting a load in the washing machine and a load in the dryer. He stood there, and he said very, very calmly, “Do you have to do the washing on the Sabbath?” And I looked at him and heard what he said, I pressed the button to stop the washing machine, and I said, “No, I don’t.” And we walked back up the stairs together. I remember that all the years I was in college I used to write to my parents two or three times a week, just because that’s what I did, but I never ever, ever wrote the word Saturday on the beginning of the letter. That was just part of my upbringing.

Tarlow: Was your home a kosher home?
NEWMARK: No, it wasn’t a kosher home, but there was never bacon or ham there, and I don’t remember ever having tasted something like shrimp. But my mother didn’t keep a kosher home. When my grandparents, my father’s parents, my bubbe and zayde, came to visit, the whole kitchen was turned into a kosher kitchen. 

Tarlow: Let me ask you about your experiences at the Jewish Community Center.
NEWMARK: That really was my whole life as a child. Twice a week, on Tuesday and Thursday, I would be at the Center after school. It was what we call now the “old” center. It was the Center. There was Mickey Hirschberg, who was our swimming instructor and probably one of the biggest influences in my life — I still enjoy swimming. Even though some children were absolutely terrified of Mickey, and her style of teaching would not be the style that we would encourage today — she actually frightened so many of the young kids — I was in the water, as was my sister Bobbie. 

We were there twice a week in a swimming program, and twice a week after school we were with Harry Policar, whom we lovingly called Polly. He adored and openly loved children. He would start young people on shell collections. He would encourage them with stamp collections. He would tell us as we got older and into gymnastics — if I was slumping in my chair, or not standing up straight, he would put his hand on the top of our head and say, “Imagine a string on the top here. You pull it up like a puppet, and then your body is in the exact spot it is supposed to be.” I remember him telling me things like that. 

And every summer we were at B’nai B’rith Camp in Neotsu, Oregon. We were all there from the time we were babies, through junior counselors to counselors. In fact, there again, I cried and screamed and made such a fuss when my sisters went off to camp that I got to go to camp a year before anybody else.

Tarlow: Wow, you were a privileged person.
NEWMARK: I was a privileged child. Once I got there, I didn’t want to drink milk, and I didn’t want to make my bed. But I was at camp.

Tarlow: And did you do other things in the summer besides go to camp? Did you and your family take vacations together?
NEWMARK: Every once in a while. I remember four or five trips back to Omaha, Nebraska. That trip took two days on the train. Bobbie and I used to have the upper births. We never went anywhere else when we were little. My parents never took a trip. Their lives were just involved with us and their family. My parents weren’t golfers. My father didn’t go on fishing trips. They didn’t go out to dinner with their friends. It was all family. 

Then up in Green Hills, when we were up there, they would have picnics for the family. I remember watching my cousin’s children, the Rosenbaum boys, as little boys. One of them, Jimmy, who is now a doctor, as most of them are, he was a beautiful little child. I remember my sister Charlotte and her husband, and Ed and his wife Davida, sitting outside at one of the picnics. Ed turned to Jimmy — we all knew that he was very gifted, as an infant — and said, “OK, Jimmy. Do you want to add these numbers?” And he rattled off things like 365, 17, 192, and 418. Now little Jimmy could not read or write yet. Jimmy looks around at the sky and the stars and the trees and the grass and comes up with the answer. So I watched these young people, and I thought I was very mature at the time because maybe I was already 20.

Tarlow: You had a wonderful childhood. You have so many good memories and a close family, and that has carried over to your own family. Let’s go on to college now. You graduated from Lincoln High School, and off you went.
NEWMARK: That was in 1948. My sister Charlotte had gone to USC. She was only there for a couple of years. She had gone to Reed one year and then transferred, and then was married after two years down there. So I knew the name of USC, and that sounded very exciting. My sister Bobbie had gone to University of California at Berkeley, but she only went one year, and then she met Leonard, and they got married when they were both very young. My eldest sister Marian started at the University of Washington and then graduated from Lewis and Clark as a dietitian. She was the only one that graduated. 

I thought going to California was very exciting. I actually thought that I had applied to UCLA. The lack of knowledge was amazing when I think of what young children are really capable of doing. But Charlotte had gone to USC, and my mother’s brother, Saul Arenson, who was a chemistry professor at the University of Cincinnati, had a heart attack and had to leave Cincinnati, and he settled in Los Angeles. So I thought that would be a place I would want to go. I applied. It was interesting. It was 1948, and I remember my parents questioning whether I should be allowed to go to California because polio was more prevalent there. They let me go. And with a steamer trunk and a hatbox and some gloves tucked in, off I went to the University of Southern California. 

I really had a very good four years. I chose to be what they call an “independent.” I didn’t go into a sorority because my sister Charlotte had and my sister Bobbie had, and I was going to be my own person and be an independent. That was a good choice for me. I had lots of friends because, at that point, I already realized that I enjoyed the role of leadership. I enjoyed being on committees. I joined the Independent Council; I was all of a sudden the secretary. Then I joined the Sophomore Council and became the vice president. I was involved with the swim team. I wasn’t on the college swim team. I wasn’t good enough to compete at that level, but I worked out and swam with them, which was just great because it allowed me to be athletic without any pressure. 

I kept meeting all of these wonderful people. One group that was new for me, Hillel, was on campus. I would go once in a while to a Hillel function, and my junior year I went to Brandeis Camp for the summer at Santa Susana, California, which was an outstanding experience for me. I loved being there, in Los Angeles, for the High Holidays when I couldn’t get home. I would find myself in a synagogue or temple, depending on which one I would attend. I knew all the prayers and the songs, and I would be aware of people turning around to glance at me and see who I was. It made me feel so good that all those years — that I knew that I was Jewish. 

I remember one time, one of my “boyfriends,” who was a nice person but was not Jewish, all of a sudden he said to me, “I would convert.” And I thought, “What do you mean, convert?” He’s not going to know my bubbe and zayde. And I realized how important it was. When I was in high school here in Portland, it was understood that I would never, ever date a boy who wasn’t Jewish. But as soon as I left Portland, as soon as I was on my own — it was like forbidden fruit.

Tarlow: The rebellious Jew. And did you go to the dances also at the Center?
NEWMARK: Oh, yes. Going back to high school, I think the reason I was so happy in high school was because there were Jewish sororities. There were three: there was QED, Queen Esther’s Daughters, there was Sub-Deb, and there was K’maia. K’maia and QED met on the same days, every other week, and Sub-Debs met on the alternate weeks. So you could be a member, as I was, of both QED and Sub-Deb. Many of my dear friends today still look back to those wonderful, happy, youthful, innocent times. We had parties at my home. We had slumber parties. We had parties with AZA boys. It was a very happy time.

Tarlow: So going back to your college days, did you come home for your summers to be with your family?
NEWMARK: I did. I came home for vacations as well as summer. Summer was spent at B’nai B’rith Camp. I was already a senior counselor or had a position at the waterfront. Every year I would be home for Thanksgiving, until the year I was a junior. My sister Charlotte was then living in San Diego. She had married a San Diego man, an AZA boy, when she was AEPhi at the University of Southern California, and then they settled into his hometown of San Diego. Charlotte had three children, two little boys and a darling infant baby girl, when I was a junior. 

That year I wasn’t coming home for Thanksgiving, so I had three or four days. I wanted to go down to San Diego and see my niece and my nephews. Charlotte wanted to fix me up with some blind dates. Well, when I was in college, those were the years when the veterans were returning with the G.I. Bill. At that time, between ’48 and ’52, the ratio on campus was nine men to one woman. I didn’t need blind dates! I didn’t want blind dates. I told Charlotte that all I wanted to do was play with the children. Magnanimously on my part, I said, “Okay, the last two days I’m in town you can fix me up with two different people. I don’t have to date them again.” 

Friday night somebody came and wanted to whisk me off to his mother’s ranch. She greeted me with a martini, and I thought, “No, this isn’t quite what I’m used to.” It was a very large avocado ranch. He was telling me about his father’s airplane with a martini in his hand. I thanked him for a lovely evening. 

The next day, which was Saturday, my tall, dark, handsome Herbie shows up. His sister, Florence Seltzer, was Charlotte’s best friend and bridge partner. Florence had been telling her brother about her girlfriend’s “co-ed sister.” Well, the last thing Herb needed was a blind date with a college co-ed, as he had already been in the Second World War. He was, in the truest sense of the word, the “hot-shot pilot.” He flew planes off of ships as a Navy pilot. He had already served in one war, had come home and finished his law school degree, and was going to pass the board the next day, when his entire squadron was being called back. So he never did take the state boards. They made the cover of Time Magazine, where it said, “Fighter Squadron 874 volunteers to the man.” They didn’t volunteer! They were called back.

Tarlow: To Korea?
NEWMARK: To Korea. So Herb comes in his uniform, and I was, as my children would say, swept off my feet. We went to a movie or something, I don’t even remember. The next day he showed up, and we went for a walk. It was a Sunday afternoon. Then two weeks later I decided to go back and visit my sister Charlotte and see the children again [laughing]. Then Herb and I had another couple of days to be together. His parents lived just a few blocks away from my sister Charlotte’s home. It was a nice area of San Diego. I was with Herb’s parents and his sister, who had two little children. We had another couple of weekends when I would go back to San Diego. He was never able to leave because his ship was going to be leaving shortly. At some point, a month or so later, when I went back “to visit my sister Charlotte” . . .

Tarlow: It was a good thing she lived there.
NEWMARK: Yes. This was in my junior year, in 1950. Herb was going oversees for the Korean War. He gave me his gold wings. That was pretty special. It was understood between the two of us that I would still date, that I would still have two full years of college. But he was my boyfriend. There was no question about it. 

Tarlow: When did he meet your family?
NEWMARK: He didn’t meet my family until he came back. He was stationed up here at Whidbey Island, Washington, which was again convenient, or as I would say, “It was beshert,” because there he is in our area. Then I graduated, and Herb came to Portland, and that’s when he started meeting the family. He would get a ride down on one of these huge Navy planes. He would call me, and I was there up at Green Hills living with my folks, wondering when I should get a manicure and if and when he’s going to get around to asking me to marry him. I am taking classes at the art museum, and I am taking classes in ceramics and thinking, “What am I doing?” My degree was in child psychology, but I really wanted to get married. Herb kept coming in every weekend, and then we would schlep and drive all the way to Road’s End, where my folks had a beach house. Then he would come back to Portland and fly back to Whidbey Island. We kept doing that until finally one of his commanders up there said, “For God’s sake, just marry the girl!” And then, in November, after I had graduated in June, we got married.

Tarlow: Here in Portland?
NEWMARK: In my parents’ living room. It was lovely.

Tarlow: Before we go on to talk about your marriage and your kids, tell me about Road’s End. Did you spend some time there at the beach?
NEWMARK: Road’s End was absolutely wonderful. When we were very little, it was understood that Seaside was much too “honky tonky.” My parents didn’t approve of the arcade and the freedom that was allowed to young people at Seaside, so Seaside was definitely someplace that was not acceptable. My parents settled in this very quiet, very natural, lovely area called Road’s End. Dad built a home. They put up a second house, a guesthouse. That was when Marlene Village was being built. My father built a neighborhood called Marlene Village out in Beaverton. It was named for my niece Rita Marlene Schnitzer. Rita is now 50 years old. 

So when I was still in high school, we were at Road’s End. We were there as children every weekend. Mother would stay in the summer for a week or two weeks, and my father would come in on the weekend. We picked blackberries. We walked on the beach. We gathered starfish, which nowadays is not acceptable. It was the sort of childhood which is healthy and wonderful. That was what my children were exposed to because I would be down at Road’s End with my kids when they were little. Even in those years, the “guest house,” which was on the same property, the Rosenbaums would always be there. So the family was always together.

Tarlow: OK. So you got married. Where did you live?
NEWMARK: Herb was still stationed at Whidbey Island and was being told that he would be going to what was called CIC School back in Chicago. We had two or three weeks living here in the northwest, up by Whidbey Island, where we lived first in a motel and then in a little cabin. Then we went to Chicago and lived in Des Plaines, and he was stationed at the air station out there going through an additional program. 

At that time, I got pregnant, and we came back to Portland because Herb was going to be in Hawaii, and God forbid I should have gotten to go and live in Hawaii [laughing]! My father thought it would be better if his little girl, being the youngest — even though I was an old married lady of 22, I came back to Portland. Herb was in Honolulu and then shipped overseas. That was the Korean War. I was pregnant with Richard, who was born in 1953. I was semi-devastated thinking that I was going to have my child without my husband. Dr. Kinsel was my doctor, and he knew how much I wanted Herb to be home when the baby was born, so he wrote a letter to the Red Cross stating that due to some physical problems, there might be some complications at the birth. His suggestion was that it would be wise for Herb to be with me. The Red Cross said “yes” and sent him home for five days, so he was there when Richard was born in 1953. I had a private room, which cost $25 a day.

Tarlow: It cost an extravagant $25 [laughs]!
NEWMARK: I am smiling because it cost so much money and the room was so large. There was a private bathroom. It was a corner room at Wilcox Maternity, which is a part of Good Samaritan Hospital.

Tarlow: And you stayed a week.
NEWMARK: I stayed more than a week. Eight days. Then there was the bris, and I stayed a day later. I don’t think I ever got out of the bed. I never walked anyplace. I don’t think I even lifted up a hairbrush. 

Tarlow: The princess had a baby. That’s what happened in those days.
NEWMARK: Exactly. It was just so different that nobody could comprehend it now.

Tarlow: So then did you and Herb live here in Portland?
NEWMARK: We went back to my parents’ home, and he stayed for two days with me and then went back to Hawaii. Then I ran into a complication, and I had to go back to the hospital for a couple of days. He was then in San Diego, and his ship was going to be decommissioned and go up to San Francisco. At that point, I did not want to stay in Portland another single day, and against my parents’ wishes — because I had just gotten out of the hospital — I took myself and the baby and went to be with my husband. 

With my new baby in my arms, I went to San Diego. His mother, Nana, who dearly loved me, gave me two tablecloths, a red-checked one and a blue-checked one. I made curtains out of both of them. She gave me pots and pans and three dishes and four forks, and off we went to San Francisco. We were living in officers’ housing a block away from the shipyard. Well, the San Francisco shipyard was a nondesirable place to be living, but the officers had three or four blocks where they lived. 

As far as I was concerned, it was seventh heaven. It couldn’t have been more wonderful. Now it would be described as a Motel 6. I had a living room, a bedroom, an itty-bitty bathroom, and an itty-bitty kitchen. I didn’t have a washing machine or a dryer. Herb was able, for ten dollars, to buy a washing machine with a hand wringer, and I was told not to hang my diapers outside because they would be stolen. So I dried Richard’s diapers in my oven, and some of them got singed on the edges, but they dried. I had two pots that my mother-in-law had given me. I was either making stew or boiling a bottle or washing something. 

We were so happy that it never occurred to me — as my kids would say, it was like crossing the plains in a covered wagon. I ironed on the bed — I had no ironing board — and I couldn’t have been happier. Herb was involved with the ship, as it was being decommissioned, so he was gone all day, and I had a baby. And then instantly I became pregnant again. Those were the first couple of years in San Francisco. I remember once my parents came down to visit us. My father said they were “out for a drive” [laughs].

Tarlow: So was your second child born in San Francisco?
NEWMARK: No, Phyllis was born a year and two weeks after Richard, and at that point we were living out in Rose City on the east side of Portland. At that time my sister Bobbie and Leonard were out there with their two little girls, Rita and Gayle. My cousins Dr. Ed and his wife Davida and their little boys were living out there also. My father owned Rose City Court. Margaret and Dr. Hy Kavitt lived next door to us. They had two little girls, Benita and Betty. I remember that I thought it was incredible. I used to watch Margaret Kavitt ironing little tiny, exquisite dresses every day. 

There were many different types of people living there besides my family and my friends. I remember once looking out and seeing a three- or four- year-old child sitting outside, having been locked out of their house because the mother was watching the World Series. I was suddenly exposed to so many different types of families. I had been so sheltered by my own family that I didn’t realize there was a big world out there. For a mother to give a child a peanut butter sandwich and lock the door so that she could watch the World Series was new for me. This was in contrast to my upbringing. 

Tarlow: Was Herb out of the Navy then?
NEWMARK: Yes. He chose — as he says, he might not have made that choice, but I think my father encouraged him not to continue in the [Reserves] in the Navy, so he resigned from the Navy and started working for my father at that time. My father was involved with real estate. He owned and operated apartments. He had a hotel, the Sovereign Hotel. He built many of the apartment buildings that are still here in Portland today. The logo on his stationary read, “What Mittleman builds, builds Portland.” His story was truly from rags to riches. He was a self-educated man. His education did not go further than high school, but he was a bright man and he taught himself and succeeded. It was the American dream. 

At that point Herb was working for my father. Even though he had his law degree and it has always been important that he had that background, he never practiced law. He continued with my father for several years. Then, through the personalities that weren’t able to meld, he chose not to continue with my father but to start his own business, which was Newtronics. He was involved with Newtronics, an electrical company. At that point, we had moved to the west side on Patton Road. Phyllis was born while we were living in Rose City. She was just an infant of a couple of weeks when we moved. We were there on Patton Road until my son Miles, who is now 47 years old, was born. Then we purchased the property we live in now and built our large, beautiful home. 

Tarlow: Where does Jerry come in the lineup?
NEWMARK: Jerry was born in the old house. Jerry is number three. Miles is number four. Richard, Phyllis, Jerry, Miles. Then there were six years before I had our youngest, Janice. There are 12 years between the eldest and the youngest. 

Tarlow: You and I have talked about raising five children before [laughs]. Tell me about raising five children. I know it’s a lot of work. 
NEWMARK: Thinking back, yes. And when the young people today that have two children or maybe three say, “How did you do it? I can barely cope with three” — I see the young ones with three children and a nanny, or with someone they need to take on the plane with them because they can’t handle the children when there are that many, and I smile to myself. I don’t know how we did it. We did it with very little money. The money just wasn’t there. Herb was on his own. 

I even started working when Janice started kindergarten at Bridlemile. I chose to start working to bring in a little more money. I needed to do something. Herb was completely on his own. We were in this huge house which we couldn’t afford. Five children. And I smile when I say this. You will understand. My love and devotion to my parents was so deep that I couldn’t just get “a job” to earn money. That would have offended my parents. Herb and Dad were not getting along, and as much as I loved Herb, I adored my father. I was the baby. So I had to think it through. 

I mentioned that in my college years I was involved with child psychology, and I was always involved with an arts and craft program. I had even thought about going into occupational therapy. Children were a part of my life. I knew I would be comfortable in a teaching field. I did not have a teacher’s certificate because I hadn’t been thinking of going into that. Then I inquired at the little Montessori School about a block from the house. They were happy as a lark to have me start with them, but I realized I needed something Jewish. Deep down inside I knew that it was more than just teaching that I was looking for, so I went over to Neveh Shalom . . .

Tarlow: Which is the Conservative synagogue nearby.
NEWMARK: It is a Conservative synagogue, but I was very comfortable there because I had been there so much. Now I am going to back up for a moment — my children had all gone to the Neveh Shalom nursery school. That was what I chose. I could have sent them to the Center or one of the nearby schools, but I had chosen Neveh Shalom, so I knew that I was comfortable there. And I started there. It was probably one of the better things that I ever did. It made me feel good about myself. 

I followed the role of my mother who was submissive. Her goal was to keep the family happy. I had never realized, until I put myself in that position, how hard that is. Very, very difficult. I was speaking to a therapist once, and he said, “Why did you think that you had to keep everybody happy?” And I answered, “Because my mother did.” It was the way I was brought up, not to be controversial. So I chose to be at Neveh Shalom, which was wonderful. The little bit of money made me feel good. I stayed there for seventeen years while my children grew up. 

How we raised the children, it was 99% because of Herb as a father. His only interest, other than trying to survive in the world of working and earning money, was for his children. He wasn’t a golfer or a fisherman or a tennis player. He wasn’t out bowling with the boys. It was all about the children. He bathed the children. He was in the kitchen with me. On Sundays he did all the cooking. Our entire weekends were spent together. As the children grew up we went camping. We went down to the beach.

Tarlow: Did you go back to Road’s End again?
NEWMARK: Yes, and we went to Fogerty’s Park. We went to Florence and Captain Bill’s Dock, where Miles dropped all of the fishing poles in the water. We went to Devil’s Lake on a little, itty-bitty boat. Wonderful memories. The children, in their years to come, will look back at their childhood with fond memories.

Tarlow: So while you were raising these five children with no nanny and no maid, you were working. 
NEWMARK: I was, but I believe that we always had a maid of some sort. I always had some type of help. They never did anything as far as taking care of the children, but they were always somewhere. So I never had to hire babysitters, as such, when they were young, maybe once in a great while, when I didn’t have anyone living with us. In the house that we are in now, the house is large enough that we had an apartment set up downstairs. At that time, we were able to have a couple come and live with us. The man would be outside doing yard work while she would be inside cleaning the bathrooms. During the war years, we had a conscientious objector, a lovely young couple, live with us. They were Amish. Once we had a wonderful Black couple. His name was Wesley, and he was a huge man. She was a delightful young woman. So I do remember having help with the children. 

Then, when the different months came and went and I didn’t have anyone here, then I would have the neighbors’ children. Because I had both boys and girls in the family, I was able to have boys as babysitters, which just wasn’t done in those days. I had my friends’ teenage sons as many of my babysitters. We all lived in the same neighborhood, so Ed Galen, Bruce Blank, and Jim Poplack were all my sitters for the children. In later years, Ed Galen taught Janice how to swim in our pool when she was four years old.

[Interview is interrupted by Herb coming in. Tape stops, starts again.]

Tarlow: Let’s go back now. What I want to talk to you about is all of the things that you do now that your children are grown. I know that you are physically active. Tell me some of the things you do in the community generally, in the Jewish community, your volunteer work.
NEWMARK: I realize that my Judaism, from my youngest days, made such an impression on me that I am more active in Jewish things. I am happier surrounded by Jewish people than by the Christian world at large. So following the footsteps of my parents, I saw them not involved in garden clubs or with community organizations, although my father, of course, had to be and chose to be as a community figure in Portland. My mother was very involved in the synagogue, with sisterhood. Hadassah was very important to her. She was president at one time. So all of my background was with Jewish organizations, and I realized that that’s where I was happiest. 

Hadassah was a natural for me, even though so many of my young friends at the time might have thought of Hadassah, because it’s a Zionist organization, as “too Jewish” for them. There was another group at the time, the Council of Jewish Women, that was an easier organization for many of my friends to be involved with. I was also a member of the Council. And through the years you remain members because — it seems like with any organization — you become a life member. But it was in Hadassah that I went up through the ranks. I remember the blue “eye banks,” just like I remember in my mother’s home and my grandmothers’ homes the tzedakah boxes that were always in the kitchen. The Hadassah “eye bank” was “a dime a day the Hadassah way.” A dime a day? Unbelievable when you hear that as a slogan. 

I became involved with Federation, the Women’s Division in Portland, and at one point I was the president. We thought, at that time, to raise $360 a year was amazing, and we felt so proud of ourselves. I remember how some of my dearest friends chose how to earn this money so that it would be “their” money that they were giving. I remember one of my dearest friends chose not to have her hair done that week. Someone else would collect coupons, and the money that she saved from coupons would be put aside. Even though we weren’t working and were on limited amounts of money, it was important to us. That was the way it was. 

I continued with the school PTAs and participating in the various activities of the children. I still loved to swim, so swimming became a natural thing to do. At one point, Herb wanted to join the Multnomah Athletic Club, and I made such an issue that it would not be acceptable to me because I absolutely did not want my children to be exposed to that type of influence that wasn’t Jewish. I said, “No.” I wanted my children to be involved with the Jewish Community Center, and I was very firm, and Herb acquiesced. Why he acquiesced, I found out later, was that we simply didn’t have the money to afford the MAC. But he really wanted this. He needed it at a different level, and he put our name back on the rotating list for membership. 

Many years later our name came up again. My children were already well situated in their Jewish backgrounds, and I said, “Okay.” It’s funny when I think back. I wouldn’t set foot in the club for many, many months. It goes back to when it had been offered to my father as the “token Jew” that they would accept him. Well, there was no way that my father was going to go anyplace as a token Jew, and he refused. Because of that, I’m sure, I wasn’t going to have anything to do with the Multnomah Athletic Club, either. Then, little by little, I would go, and I would get involved with a dance class or a gym class. 

When I was in a smaller group, I realized that they were really very, very nice people, and they were very friendly. I realized that it was okay that they were all not Jewish. I think we have been members for thirty years now, and I have very close, dear friends. I have continued swimming. I’m in a group called the Synchronized Swim Group, and that has been very good for me. I now, for the first time, have gentile friends. And incidentally, some of my grade school and high school friends are now my friends at the Multnomah Club as well. 

But all those years, when I was involved with Temple Beth Israel and the Sisterhood and Hadassah and [the Women’s Division of] Federation, that was an important part of my life. It’s a way of life that I have continued. I love the fact that some of my children are involved in the community on a leadership level in Jewish organizations. It’s three generations now.

Tarlow: Another way you spend some of your free time, on Mondays?
NEWMARK: On Mondays! With my dear Jewish friends, I play Mahjong. One of my daughters asked me, “Mom, do you just love Mahjong?” And I said, “No, but I love being with my friends.” The camaraderie is wonderful. I never was a card player; I didn’t play bridge when I was in college. When my eldest sister Marian used to play Mahjong years ago, I would frown with a very superior attitude because I was raising my little ones at the time and I thought, “Really, Marian! Don’t you have anything else to do?” But whenever she would have her Mahjong group, or then it was called a “sewing group,” she would have a dozen of her friends over and she would always invite me. I realized what dear women these were and what close friends they were. How special women are to other women. I have gone through sad times and good times, and my girlfriends have always been my support. When I share that with other women, they nod and say, “Oh, yes,” because it’s a sorority that’s very deep. 

Through many, many years, through the Multnomah Club, I used to go on a Thursday afternoon ski trip. I would be the only Jewish person on the ski bus. But because of the physical activity and the sport, which I learned to love, I was exposed to many good, nice people. I have been very blessed with their friendship. But my happiest times, my most comfortable time, is when I am with Jewish people; the camaraderie is very deep. 

Tarlow: Tell me a little bit about your grandchildren. How many do you have?
NEWMARK: I have seven grandchildren. Jerry and Barb have two very good, special children. My eldest grandson is Adam. He is now 21. He was bar mitzvahed. He went through Sunday school. He’s a good boy. He has his own problems. He is an adopted child, and he has a deficiency which makes it difficult for him in the business world. Because Barbara is a teacher, she has been able to give him extra, wonderful advice and care. For his last year of high school, and now for several years, he has been working at a place called the Sunset Athletic Club. He was the only one of his class that they continued to keep on as an employee there. He’s well liked and very handsome. The owner of the club took Adam out for dinner on his 21st birthday, and the rest of the employees gave him a birthday party. It’s that type of relationship that he has there. He doesn’t drive, but he takes the MAX and his bicycle and is comfortable throughout the entire city. That’s my Adam.

Then they have a daughter, Chelsea, who is 18 and is just bursting with life and can hardly wait to be on her own out in the big world. She’s a swimmer. She’s been on the Sunset swim team and she does well. She has dozens of friends. What makes me so proud of Chelsea is that she not only continued through a bat mitzvah and confirmation at Temple Beth Israel, but she continued through high school and is there teaching on Sundays. She’s with the temple twice a week. And I give my Barbara all of that credit. She’s the one who has taken her for all of those carpools. Those are the two eldest of my grandchildren. 

Then I have Richard, my eldest child. He lives outside of Los Angeles in an area called Newberry Park, which used to be Thousand Oaks. He has a very sweet, dear wife, Liz, who was a nurse practitioner, and they have two children. Hannah, who is 15, had her bat mitzvah. She’s quite beautiful, quite lovely, and very smart. Then they have a dear little boy, Jeffrey, who is 12 and is what would be called “all boy.” They have a good life there. They have a nuclear little family because they had lived in New Jersey, and now down there, where they have no aunts, no uncles, no cousins. Their family life is the four of them. 

Then my youngest child, Janice, is a single parent. She has a daughter named Houston. Because she’s the youngest and because she’s here in Portland, she literally is the apple of our eye and we adore her. 

In between all of those, my son Miles, who is 47, married a charming, dear young woman, Barbara Gilbert, who had two little girls. Incidentally, I had those two little girls, Alison and Amanda, when I taught nursery school at Neveh Shalom. So I’ve been involved with Barbara since her children were very little. Miles and Barbara got married, and we have watched those little girls grow up to be beautiful young women, Miles being a part of their life all of those years. 

Then the elder of the two, Alison, whom we call Allie, was married a few years ago, and they are blessed with a little girl who is now a year and a half whose name is Jaidyn [spells out]. I don’t know where the name came from. Thus, my son Miles, at 47 is a grandfather to this adorable baby, and I am called Great-grandma Jeanne. I’m going to have little Jaidyn here for a couple of hours Friday. Both Alison and Amanda have known from when they were babies that I don’t compete with their grandmas. I’m simply there as a part of their life. We have spent vacations together from when they were three, four, and five years old. We have been a part of their family, and it is a blessing.

Tarlow: That sounds like a pretty good crew.
NEWMARK: It is very impressive. We took everybody, all of the children and grandchildren, for our 50th wedding anniversary on a Caribbean cruise, and when I see the picture of all of us with our black dresses and our grownup looks, I’m very proud of my children.

Tarlow: You should be. You have been influential in their lives.
NEWMARK: I’m truly happy.

Tarlow: If you had to think of an accomplishment in your life that you were really proud of, what would it be?
NEWMARK: I would have automatically said, “the way my children have developed and where they are.” They are all quite different, as my sisters and I were  — I have lost all three of my sisters. Even though all four of us had the same mother and father and the same upbringing, we were all different. My five children are all very different from each other. I had the first four in six years, and then there was a six-year period before Janice was born. So the first four were at a time when money was not that easy. We didn’t do the things that we did after Janice was born. 

I remember on our first ski trip, when we were going to Sun Valley with all of the children  — at that point Richard had already taken a couple of ski trips by himself with his friends, which he paid for himself — when we told the family that we were going to take this trip and that Janice was going, Richard said, “How can she pay for it?” I said, “Honey, we’re going to take her with us and we will pay for it.” 

The 12 years between the eldest and the youngest, there was quite a change. Each of the children knew how important it was to work, how important money is in their life. The work ethic was a part of their lives. They’re good people. We are blessed that they got through difficult times in their lives — peer pressure, schooling, marriages. They’re solving their own problems, and they’re good people, and I feel that that’s the most wonderful thing that I’ve done.

Tarlow: What does the future hold for you?
NEWMARK: I hadn’t quite put myself to that place yet. I’m very privileged. Herb allows me to do anything I want, even though he chooses not to travel anymore. His health really isn’t as good as mine. I’m blessed to be in perfect health. I have always been able to go on a week ski trip with my lady friends. I don’t do that anymore, but I used to go every year. I remember the first time, as a surprise for my birthday, he sent me on a tennis week experience. My eldest sister, Marian, said, “You’re sending her away? What kind of a birthday present is that [laughing]?”

Herb has always let me do the things I have wanted to do. I have in the last few years taken several European trips with my girlfriends. He’s comfortable to be at home. With pride he says, “Yes, she is off on another trip.” If I wish to go to a movie in the evening without him, he’s more than happy to let me do that. I’m comfortable that he is content to be at home during these years. 

I think what I have in the future — I am blessed having my children. I know that I will always be taken care of. But I also know that I have enough strength so that when the years come, I’ll be able to meet new friends and travel. I see a good future for me.

Tarlow: I do thank you for this wonderful afternoon to get to know you a little better.