Patricia Neuberger

Tarlow: I’m going to ask you when you were born and where.
NEUBERGER: I was born August 14th, 1947, in Baker, Oregon, at St. Elizabeth Hospital. The nurse that helped deliver me is still alive, and her first great-grandchild was born at St. Vincent’s Hospital at the same time one of my friend’s baby was last year.

Tarlow: So you really have a bond.
NEUBERGER: Yes. She and mom were friends, my parents’ friends, and . . .

Tarlow: Let me hear a little bit about your parents.
NEUBERGER: My parents were Gert and Erna Neuberger.

Tarlow: Gert?
NEUBERGER: Gert.

Tarlow: Is your dad?
NEUBERGER: And Erna’s my mother. Mom was born September 15th, 1914, in Vienna, Austria. Dad was born September 27th, 1914, in Heinstadt, Germany. It’s a small town in Baden. He came to Baker in 1934 or ’35. Things were already getting bad in Germany. He had uncles that had come to Baker years and years ago in the 1900s. Actually, the Neuberger family has been in Baker since the gold rush days.

Tarlow: I was reading on the website fascinating things. I believe it was your dad’s obituary. It said that with his passing it was the last of the Neuberger family to be in Baker in 134 years.
NEUBERGER: Correct. In fact, sometimes just the way the calendar falls, his great uncle . . .

Tarlow: Who was . . .?
NEUBERGER: S.A. Heilner — and his yartzeit are at the same time. Just the fact, the year he died they were. You’re just sitting there, and it’s just such a — the group of people at the synagogue don’t realize who that is. His aunts were married in Temple [Beth Israel]. There’s been Neubergers and Heilners belonging to Temple since the 1870s.

Tarlow: That’s fabulous. Why did they ever come here in the first place, to Oregon?
NEUBERGER: The gold rush.

Tarlow: The gold rush.
NEUBERGER: They were in business. Then dad came with his cousin. His brother came two years later. They helped get him here. That’s how they could come, because they had jobs. I’ll tell you later about how they started the business. Dad became a citizen in 1940, and in 1942 he was drafted. At the time he was drafted, there were 15 or 16 men who went together, and they kept an eye on Dad. He kind of played dumb because he still had this German accent, so they covered for him.

Tarlow: Did they send him to Europe?
NEUBERGER: These guys were all together. In fact, he and one of the guys were due to go to Normandy on D-Day on the same ship, but they didn’t go until four days later because their first ship was sunk. And they were together until Normandy.

Tarlow: So were all these men from Baker?
NEUBERGER: They went to different places, but Dad and this one man were together.

Tarlow: So when your dad came to Baker, how old was he?
NEUBERGER: 20, 21.

Tarlow: So he was already an adult.
NEUBERGER: Yes.

Tarlow: And did your mother come with him?
NEUBERGER: Oh, no. That’s the best part of the story. Dad, now he’s in the army, and he gets leave. He had an aunt and an uncle. They had three daughters. Only one daughter escaped, and she came to England. I’m not sure how or why; I never was told. She met and married a man named Otto Silberman, who was my mother’s brother. He escaped from Vienna, I think early in the 1930s, because things were bad there first. Dad gets leave when he’s stationed in England, so he goes to visit his cousin. When they were in Germany, there must have been 12 or 13 cousins. They all grew up together. So he went to see her and meet her new husband, and he fell — there was her sister-in-law.

Tarlow: Just waiting for him.
NEUBERGER: That’s it! And so they were married January 15th — or 16th, depending on who does the paperwork —1944, in London, which is the same day as Andrea’s birthday [laughs]. And then they came and got to Baker April 15th, 1946, and then they were there. Mom had no family left. Her brother was in England, and she never saw him again. 

Tarlow: Oh, my.
NEUBERGER: Well, communication was different. It’s not like now with email. And he died, when I was in junior high, I believe, so it’s been a long time. He had one son. He lives, I think, in Chicago. Bob’s met him once. But again, we were so far apart because of everything.

Tarlow: Let’s go back to Baker. So your mom and your dad were then married after his army stint.
NEUBERGER: While he was in the Army, yes.

Tarlow: And came back to Baker. How many Neubergers were living in Baker at that time?
NEUBERGER: My grandparents, Dad’s two brothers, two of his great-uncles, and his cousin, and his second cousin, Sam Heilner.

Tarlow: All right, let’s have their names. Can you start with your grandparents?
NEUBERGER: Joseph — Yosef — and Yeta Neuberger. They got to Baker December 25th, 1940. His brothers were Bert Neuberger and Hans Neuberger. His uncles were Berthold Neuberger and Gerson Neuberger. They ran Neuberger and Heilner, as did his cousin, who was Herman David. 

Tarlow: And they were all in what kind of businesses?
NEUBERGER: Dad and his brothers started a furniture store in 1940. The rest of them ran Neuberger and Heilner, which was a clothing store, and that was in business until the mid-’80s. I can show you the sheet with the exact date. That was one of the oldest businesses in Oregon when it ended. When Herman passed away he had no family, so it was closed. That’s what his decision was.

Tarlow: How many people lived in Baker, Oregon, when you were growing up?
NEUBERGER: Eight to ten thousand. When I was growing up, it was farming, ranching. Lumber was very big. Mining ended, from what Dad and Mom said, in the ’40s. Now it’s become very touristy, lots of art things. A lot of people are retiring there. It’s a nice place to . . .

Tarlow: When you grew up there, who lived in your house with you?
NEUBERGER: Just Mom and Dad, my brother and sister.

Tarlow: And your brother?
NEUBERGER: My brother Robert and my sister Rosalind.

Tarlow: And you went to school? I’m sure you went to school there.
NEUBERGER: Oh, yes.

Tarlow: Tell me about school, elementary school.
NEUBERGER: It was an old elementary school, but now it’s been remodeled. I went to grade school, mid school, high school. I graduated in 1965 and then went on to Oregon State to become a pharmacist. Lived there in the summers. I worked in the drugstore. Family friends owned it, so I worked at the drugstore. While we were kids we helped at the furniture store. So I’ve always worked retail.

Tarlow: So when you weren’t going to school and you were growing up, you worked part of the time?
NEUBERGER: Yes.

Tarlow: Because you needed something to do?
NEUBERGER: No, because Mom and Dad expected us downtown where they could keep an eye on us [laughs]. But we were active in 4-H and Brownies and Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts.

Tarlow: In 4-H, what did you do?
NEUBERGER: Sewing and cooking.

Tarlow: Good for you. What was it like to be Jewish in Baker?
NEUBERGER: We were the only [ones], except for our uncles. I’m sure there was probably somebody that made a wisecrack now and then. I remember one school principal who called it an unexcused absence when we needed Rosh Hashanah off. My mother was down to school very quickly and pinned his ears back. I was the cutest angel in the Christmas program. Parents, when they grew up in Vienna and in Germany, they both talked about celebrating all of the holidays with their neighbors. Except Easter, which was still a problem. Those were the people that helped save their lives, and so you just — we were Jewish and we kept Hannukah, but we still honored our friends. We gave Christmas presents, we got presents, but we celebrated Hanukah, too.

Tarlow: Where did you go to celebrate the Jewish holidays?
NEUBERGER: At home. By the time I was in high school — Robert’s six years younger than I am, and they wanted him to be bar mitzvah. He was bar mitzvah at Congregation Shaarie Torah, and they arranged for him to stay here in the summer. And we went to Neveh Zedek a couple times in downtown Portland. I think we might have gone to Temple once. But it was hard. It was 300 miles away; they had a business to run. You couldn’t just . .

Tarlow: How many Jews were there when . . .?
NEUBERGER: When I was there, that was all, just the family basically. Dad said in the ’30s, when he got there, there were several hundred at least. Again, when the Depression came, lots of people moved away. The gold rush ended. The war came. 

Tarlow: So these Jewish people that went there during the gold rush, they didn’t go there to find gold, they went there to open businesses?
NEUBERGER: I think some of both. They came from Europe, and maybe they were in New York. I don’t really know that much. Gary might be the person who could tell you a little more about that.

Tarlow: And this is . . .?
NEUBERGER: Gary Dealman. 

Tarlow: He’s a friend, but he’s not Jewish.
NEUBERGER: Not Jewish. But he and I, one day — let’s see, my uncle passed away in 2001. He did not have any children. Dad was the only one who had children. He left my sister and Robert and me his business, but my sister and I were the ones who were cleaning it up and selling it. After I graduated from college, I never really lived in Baker; I came home to visit. Gary came and wanted to do something about the — he kept saying “the Jewish businessman of Baker.” And I finally took him aside and said, “That’s not who they were. They were good businessmen, but it wasn’t because they were Jewish.” And once we had a little talk and he understood what I was saying, he . . .

Tarlow: Yes, you wanted to be defined by what you did.
NEUBERGER: Right. And he wrote these beautiful articles, one for the Jewish businessman thing at the Jewish Museum. He’s come down to see that a couple of times. He’s really into the history of the town. That’s a hobby. He’s worked on the library exhibits.

Tarlow: Back to growing up in Baker, because I’m fascinated by the fact that you grew up in a small town as I did. I kind of know where you’re coming from. So who were your friends? Tell me about your friends.
NEUBERGER: I have five or six friends who have been friends since we were little, and we still contact each other. In fact, we talk to each other at least once or twice a week. I have Melissa, and Fred Greg. Fred’s parents came to Baker — there was, at one time, an Air Force base, and that’s how he came. Melissa’s father was the Lutheran minister, and then they moved away, but we’ve stayed in contact and we talk to each other. We’ve been friends since we were little. My friends, a couple of them we email every once in a while. Some you lose contact with.

Tarlow: And they came to your birthday parties?
NEUBERGER: I went to theirs. Just the usual, nothing different.

Tarlow: And you went there at Christmas time, and they came to your house at Hannukah time?
NEUBERGER: We didn’t really have people over for Hannukah. A couple of my mother’s good friends, they always exchanged presents. In fact, my dad’s yartzeit was last week. [We observe the date according to the Hebrew calendar] because we were raised more Orthodox. I just was feeling in the dumps, and so I called one of her friends. I hadn’t talked to her for ages. She said, “You know, we were just talking. Bob [her husband] was just saying he missed his bottle of whisky from your dad this year. Nobody went and bought him one.” We were friends. It’s no different from anywhere else or any other group of people.

Tarlow: It’s one of the pluses.
NEUBERGER: Yes. They were there when we needed them. That was one of the nice things about going over there, to have to be there to run this business so we could get it sold. We made contact with so many more people again, and it’s nice to be in touch with them. I don’t talk to them all the time, but it’s nice to know where they are, and every once and a while I’ll get an email from somebody or vice versa.

Tarlow: Was your mother able to keep an observant home?
NEUBERGER: Yes.

Tarlow: How did she do that?
NEUBERGER: She did it.

Tarlow: Did you keep kosher?
NEUBERGER: Yes. Roz and I still keep kosher, not as much because we are religious, but more as a sign of respect to them. She didn’t have two sets of dishes, she wasn’t that — and Pesach, Passover was her big holiday. I have her cookbooks. I don’t think I could ever make her cake again. From scratch. She made ten or 12 cakes every year from scratch. I saved her cake pans. Nobody else can have them. I probably can’t use them, but . . .

Tarlow: So when you were getting meat to keep kosher . . .
NEUBERGER: Just at the grocery store. And a lot of times they bought a half a beef. You can buy a half a beef at the market, or they would —there were lots of people selling beef there. We just bought it at the grocery store, or we had fish. We ate deer and elk because people would bring those in. There was a lot of hunting there. That was one of the reasons Dad kind of liked Ben after all, because he’s a hunter and he’d slip him a few elk steaks. And the way they cut them up, it’s the way you do it kosher [laughs]. That’s the right way to do wild game.

Tarlow: So did you have Friday night dinners together? Did you observe . . .?
NEUBERGER: Yes, we observed Shabbat and havdalah. We kept the holidays. They put an ad in the paper, “We’re going to be closed da da da da [sic] which days for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur.” People showed respect for it. On the other hand, if people needed something delivered for Christmas and they wanted it on Christmas Eve, they probably figured out a way to get it done for them so somebody could surprise somebody with a new chair or something.

Tarlow: What about the war years? How did your parents and your whole family deal with the information that they got about the Second World War?
NEUBERGER: Like I said, Mom was in Austria until 1938, then she lived in England until she came to Baker. So she lived through the Blitz, she lived through that. Dad went back to Germany in the Army, not on purpose because the Army was not smart enough to realize what they had there, but he went back to Germany. He did not visit his — they wouldn’t let him. There’s an article I’ll show you later about that. He was with a group, a unit, and I found pictures after he passed away. He was with an Army unit that took a Torah back to a synagogue in Stuttgart, and I have the pictures of those.

Tarlow: That must have been a very heart-wrenching experience for him.
NEUBERGER: It must have, yes. But he said— this article is really neat. This gal did it. It was the last . . .

Tarlow: In the Baker City Herald we’re looking at here.
NEUBERGER: Right, it was done for the the Baker City Herald. It was to be printed November, 2005. Lisa interviewed Dad and Mom in August of 2005. Dad wouldn’t do it until I was there, so I came and Lisa came. Her mother and I are still close friends. Dad’s known Lisa since she was a baby. Mom started talking, and then all of a sudden they were telling stories that I’d never heard. They told us a little bit about the horrors . . .

Tarlow: That’s what I’m alluding to.
NEUBERGER: But never quite the whole story.

Tarlow: It was tough to talk about it.
NEUBERGER: It was. This girl, her grandmother was a WAC, and that’s why she interviewed a lot of the women. And at the $64,000 interview [an allusion to the TV series The $64,000 Question], Dad was asked, “What was it like to go back to Germany?” He said, “I wasn’t German. I’m from Baker.” We never spoke German at home; we were Americans. We have Jewish names in his prayer book, but we are American. There was never a question. We did not speak German. We were Americans. That’s all there is to it.

Tarlow: Well, that’s why they came here.
NEUBERGER: That’s right. There was no going back. They didn’t talk about it much. Every once in a while, Rosalyn and Bob and I would, especially after they were sick and passing away — I knew that I didn’t know something, like the pictures from the synagogue. Roz said she remembered seeing them but didn’t know where they were. Bob knew some things, but it wasn’t discussed. Some of the stories I heard that day were the first. And then I said to Lisa afterwards, “Please, Lisa, don’t write about these things.” Because then mom started talking about things, having to scrub the streets, and I said, “Please, Lisa, do not write about this until they go.” Mom passed away a few months later, and Dad shortly . . . 

Tarlow: Because their dignity would have been compromised.
NEUBERGER: They didn’t want anybody [to know]. And again, after they passed away a few people said, “Well, your mom talked about this.” Then I realized they were good, close friends, and especially after 9/11 that really shook them up. But about two weeks after Lisa interviewed Mom and Dad, she went to Washington for a writer’s conference.

Tarlow: Washington, DC?
NEUBERGER: DC. And where she went was the Holocaust Museum, one of the places. So this was the editorial that she wrote.

Tarlow: And we’re looking at the . . .
NEUBERGER: Editorial from November 11th, 2005.

Tarlow: Is this in the museum?
NEUBERGER: No, I don’t think so. This is . . .

Tarlow: Are you going to let us have . . .?
NEUBERGER: You’re going to have it. This is what Lisa wrote. After talking to Mom and Dad and talking to all these other people and seeing this, she realized what they had seen and what they had lived through, and that she, to this day, has never written about what they told her that day. This was quite an honor, but on the other hand they showed other honors. My parents, when their cousin came from New York to visit about ten years ago, Roz and I came over. We were wandering around town. It’s a small town. People stopped to see Roz and me and, “Oh! Give us a hug. Glad to see you!” And Bruce said, “They show such respect to your father.” I said, “Excuse me? Those are his friends.” You know how it is. It’s just like when you go to the grocery store and you see somebody you know. It doesn’t matter what — and yet they’re fairly Orthodox, fairly Conservative. I doubt if they have any friends that aren’t Jewish.

Tarlow: That’s because they are not from Baker, Oregon.
NEUBERGER: Exactly, and that’s important. And the year Dad passed away, in September, and Mom had already passed away — one of the fundraisers for Downtown Historic District is they sell a Christmas ornament, and they put one of the old houses on it. They put the Neuberger-Heilner house on that year. And I had to explain this. Roz and I were just in tears over it. What an honor!

Tarlow: So do you have that?
NEUBERGER: I have it on Ben’s tree, and he has it.

Tarlow: I was going to say you could hang it anywhere.
NEUBERGER: Right. But again, we do Hannukah, and his little grandkids who probably know zippo about being Jewish, they do know that at Hannukah Pat probably has some gold coins [they laugh]. And one of his granddaughters lives in Bend and has a friend who’s Jewish. We met her — “This is my Jewish friend. This is my Jewish grandmother.”

Tarlow: Now that you’ve mentioned Ben, let’s talk about Ben a little bit.
NEUBERGER: OK.

Tarlow: Ben is, his name is . . .
NEUBERGER: Ben Watkins, and we have been together since the mid-’80s, probably 27 years now. I worked for him, but there was nothing going on, as they say. About 30 years ago he was in an accident with his wife. She was killed. He was badly injured. He always was just hanging around the store. There were several of us who were single, and we were all hanging out after work . . .

Tarlow: What store was it?
NEUBERGER: It was Economy Drug. He owned a drugstore in Hillsboro.

Tarlow: This is Ben’s store.
NEUBERGER: It’s been sold since, but . . .

Tarlow: And he, too, is a pharmacist.
NEUBERGER: He, too, is a pharmacist. As we got more involved, there never was a question. When I was coming to dinner with the kids, “We don’t have pork that night because Pat’s Jewish.” His children honored that. He came with five kids, and he has 17 grandchildren. We have quite a collection that’s running around.

Tarlow: I think from what I’m hearing from you, your growing up in Baker with your close family, you were the perfect person for Ben because you knew how to deal with . . .
NEUBERGER: I’m not sure, but we’ve managed to mumble through, and we’ve taken care of parents and done the right things. He’s a very nice man. He’s just fun. I don’t know what else to say. You go on with life. That’s just what happened. I’m very blessed. I have lots of friends.

Tarlow: Let’s go back to your college days for a minute. We’re skipping around. I have so much to . . .
NEUBERGER: OK. I went to pharmacy school at Oregon State.

Tarlow: Why did you choose that?
NEUBERGER: I always was in love with science. I thought I was going to be a science teacher. One of our friends in Baker, she was probably one of the first women pharmacists to graduate from Oregon State. I always liked Charlotte, and Mom said, “Why don’t you think about it?” My parents always encouraged us. We were going to school, all of us, and even back in the ’50s and ’60s, especially Roz and me, “You’re going to school. You have to be able to take care of yourself.” That was important.

Tarlow: Did they go to college?
NEUBERGER: Neither one of them did, of course.

Tarlow: And so you went to Oregon State?
NEUBERGER: I was the first Neuberger woman to ever graduate from college. Well, one of Dad’s cousins might have had a daughter that graduated sooner, but I think all the cousins’ kids have graduated from college, the ones I know about.

Tarlow: How much older are you than Roz?
NEUBERGER: Two years.

Tarlow: And six . . .?
NEUBERGER: Six than Robert, yes.

Tarlow: And then, after you graduated from — how long is pharmacy school?
NEUBERGER: At that time it was five years. I was in one of the first five-year classes.

Tarlow: Oh, my gosh. So you went four years . . . 
NEUBERGER: It was five years in Corvallis. Now it’s almost eight years.

Tarlow: And then what?
NEUBERGER: It was hard to find a job at that time. I don’t know about now, there’s such a shortage, but I worked in The Dalles for two years, and I worked at Lloyd Center Pharmacy for a couple of years.

Tarlow: So to go to The Dalles, did the school place you there?
NEUBERGER: I can’t even remember. I knew somebody that . . .

Tarlow: Knew somebody?
NEUBERGER: Yes. I think one of the guys in the class was being drafted; he was going to work there, but he was being drafted because the Vietnam War was on, and I just took his place, I think. I’ve never seen him again.

Tarlow: So living in The Dalles was like living in Baker.
NEUBERGER: No, because I didn’t know anybody and I really didn’t want to be there. I’d rather have been in Portland where all my friends were.

Tarlow: Your friends from school?
NEUBERGER: Yes.

Tarlow: And when did you come to Portland?
NEUBERGER: Let’s see, in ’72 I got a job at Lloyd Center Pharmacy and worked there for a couple of years, and then I went to work at Economy Drug.

Tarlow: And where did you live?
NEUBERGER: When I moved to Portland to work at Lloyd Center Pharmacy, I had an apartment over by Washington Square, and then I bought this house just about 30 years ago.

Tarlow: In Aloha.
NEUBERGER: In Aloha. And I’ve had this house, and it’s mine, and . . .

Tarlow: So what do you do for fun now?
NEUBERGER: I like to read a lot. I have lots of friends who I’m on the phone with. I go out and work in Ben’s garden.

Tarlow: Which is monumental, I understand!
NEUBERGER: It is. We have lots of fun. We have lots of friends and neighbors. We’ve gotten Mom and Dad’s businesses closed. We’ve taken care of all the property in Baker. I have no one to be responsible for except me, so I come and go as I like pretty much. I travel a little bit. We try to get away in the winter. Lots of friends.

Tarlow: Are you close to your brother and sister?
NEUBERGER: Somewhat. Robert’s been busy with his career and has lived in Portland, and Rosalyn actually lives up at Tannesbrooke. I think the most interesting thing is all of us still have lots of friends from Baker. One of the girls at Bob and Andrea’s wedding was one of his friends from Baker. Dad sold her father his first suit to go to college. When I was a kid I was sad because I didn’t have cousins and grandparents like everybody else did, but now that I’m older, I realize what I do have. I have all these friends. They were Mom and Dad’s friends. And they were her family because she had none.

Tarlow: But there was family in Baker.
NEUBERGER: Yes, but they . . .

Tarlow: Now what about the cousins of some of those people? Where does Richard Neuberger fit in, who was the state senator from Oregon?
NEUBERGER: Richard’s father and my grandfather were cousins. His father and uncle came from Germany, I think probably early 1900s, and they had a business in Portland. I don’t know about one of the uncles. One of his uncles I don’t quite know about him, but Richard’s father and mother owned the Bohemian Restaurant. How or where they got to that, I don’t know. He and my dad were about the same age, within a few months of each other, and looked a lot alike, and he had two other uncles that were still in Germany. Dad knew them. They weren’t close or anything. Once in a while they talked.

Tarlow: What did your dad’s parents do in Germany?
NEUBERGER: He was a livestock dealer. They had a farm, but Dad didn’t want to stay on the farm. He went into, I think it was Mannheim, and worked in a men’s clothing store. He was an apprentice in a men’s clothing store. Mom worked in a ladies’ dress shop. She was a seamstress.

Tarlow: Did your mom work in the . . .?
NEUBERGER: She worked in the furniture store, yes. 

Tarlow: She was busy! She raised three kids and worked in the store.
NEUBERGER: She was the buyer. She had such fabrics and design. All my furniture, some of it’s kind of hard to replace, but it’s all Mom and Dad. Dad was a little pissed when I remodeled the kitchen, “That carpet was still OK.” “Wrong, Dad.” And this carpet should be replaced, but Dad and his carpet layer came down and did it. It’s hard to . . .

Tarlow: Yes. You’re very sentimental. I can tell.
NEUBERGER: In some ways, yes. I have a girlfriend. Actually, her father and grandfather came from Germany, but they’re Catholic. They got out for other reasons. World War I wasn’t going to be a pleasant sight, too. She’s so wrapped up in who’s getting the silver and the crystal, and I’m going, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Don’t worry about it.” That’s not what’s real important. By the time they’re through after her mother passes away, I don’t think she’ll be talking to her brothers and sister, and that’s going to be real . . .

Tarlow: Wouldn’t that be a shame.
NEUBERGER: It would be. We each have different lives because we have different interests. We have different lives, but we all get together. All of us have friends that we still are close to from Baker, as well as college and our daily lives, and I’ve only had a couple of times when somebody made a wisecrack or an improper remark about somebody being Jewish, or that I was Jewish, and . . .

Tarlow: It works.
NEUBERGER: Yes.

Tarlow: It doesn’t define us. We’re going to define ourselves.
NEUBERGER: We are.

Tarlow: And now you’re semi-retired. You have a good life, my dear.
NEUBERGER: I do. I’m very lucky. I don’t have to worry.

Tarlow: Tell me about your job.
NEUBERGER: I’m a pharmacist. I work one day a week for Fred Meyer in Cornelius, Oregon, and my pharmacy manager is such a sweet man. When we got to talking— he’s of Chinese descent — his parents are in Hawaii now. They escaped from China, and . . .

Tarlow: Similar story.
NEUBERGER: Similar story. If we just realize what we are, and somebody doesn’t need to open their — they’ve learned.

Tarlow: And when you’re not working, you like to read.
NEUBERGER: I’m trying to find a new hobby or something to keep me busy. I probably should be volunteering for the library or something this winter, or maybe I should talk to you about if the museum could use a little helper.

Tarlow: I think that would certainly be something to talk about.
NEUBERGER: Your life changes as you grow older, and times are changing, and traveling is fun but not . . .

Tarlow: Not as much as it used to be.
NEUBERGER: Exactly! And it’s nice to be home and have time just to enjoy people. I’m so lucky that I keep meeting new people, you and Larry and Bunny.

Tarlow: Well, when people meet you, Pat, they’re very engaged with you.
NEUBERGER: Oh, thank you for saying that.

Tarlow: That’s very true. So what’s the future hold for you, do you think?
NEUBERGER: I don’t know. Sometimes I think that’s a little scary. I was going to go back to Baker and visit this summer because I hadn’t been back in a couple of years, but I had my surgery that weekend, so that was out. But like I said, there are several friends I talk to all the time, and it’s funny, Roz and I both will bring up the Baker newspaper about every day or every other day to see what’s going on. It’s just kind of one of those communities that you have an attachment to. The other day at work I stopped and went to talk to somebody, and I said, “I’ll talk to you when you’re done here.” Her name’s Marie. Her grandparents owned the community grocery store in the neighborhood where I grew up. I think she’s almost ten years younger than I am, so of course I missed her in school. We just got to talking one day, and she said something about being from Baker. “Who in the heck are you?” And when we realized who we were — and when she comes in the store she always comes to say hello. So I took her aside. She wanted to know where I was, so I went to explain. We had helpers from the main office there, and they’re, “What are you doing over there talking to her?” And I’m like, “Hey, I’ve known her since before she was born.”

Tarlow: So one thing that comes to my mind, how’s Baker different now, do you think, than when you were growing up?
NEUBERGER: Of course, there’s no lumber, there’s no manufacturing. They’re having to redefine themselves, a lot like here. They’ve become more touristy. They’re working on the tourists. One of the boys who grew up there is an architect, and he and his wife have come back to Baker. His master’s program was “making Baker City downtown an historic district.” So if you come to Baker and buy a new building, you can’t just level it. You have to keep it within the historic means that it is. And there are certain state and federal rules. There are also lots of tax options. So people are doing that now. People are remodeling the buildings and living upstairs. There’s one old hotel people have remodeled, and they keep expanding it for some conventions they’re getting in. There are lots of artists.

Tarlow: Has the population changed in numbers?
NEUBERGER: I think it’s shrinking. Again, I haven’t lived there for two years, and I think more retired people — more of the young people are moving away because there are no jobs for young people. It’s the same as everywhere right now. But they’re working on the tourism. They have good schools. 

Tarlow: Hospital?
NEUBERGER: Yes, St. Elizabeth’s Hospital. It’s a Catholic hospital. They have a consortium, they’re all linked, and now they’re redefining themselves and there are going to be some business changes with the model. There are lots of doctors. Not many specialists, but they’re an hour away from Boise, an hour and a half. They have links to those. They see doctors in Ontario, which is about 80 miles away, and the specialists from Boise come over there because of insurance issues. It’s easier to treat a patient in an Oregon hospital. However, when my dad was in the hospital in Boise when he had his surgery, somebody came up and said, “I saw your name when it crossed my desk.” It was a friend, and she said, “Don’t worry about your insurance. I work in the business office, I’ll get in done for you.” It’s just like as if you and Larry are in Boise and have Oregon insurance. Well, now insurances are a little more mobile, but it used to not be.

Tarlow: And you are a member of Temple Beth Israel?
NEUBERGER: Yes.

Tarlow: How long have you been a member of Temple Beth Israel?
NEUBERGER: Probably about eight or nine years. I just took my uncle’s membership over. There’s always been a Neuberger belonging.

Tarlow: And buried in the cemetery.
NEUBERGER: The one Neuberger plot is one of the oldest plots because there were people that were buried there in the late 1800s.

Tarlow: Are there Neubergers buried in Baker?
NEUBERGER: Just one. Just Sanford Heilner is the only one that is.

Tarlow: Everyone else is buried . . .
NEUBERGER: Here. Sanford married a lovely woman. Her name was Marianne. Their picture is on that website. But she was Mormon, and so their children were raised as Mormons. I don’t know if he ever, even before, kept the faith that much. I remember him. He was so much older. His youngest child is 18 months older than I am. There’s just that much distance between us that we never really . . .

Tarlow: Well, Roz, for somebody who didn’t think she had anything to offer . . .
NEUBERGER: I’m Pat.

Tarlow: Why do I keep calling you Roz then?
NEUBERGER: Because everybody does.

Tarlow: I’m embarrassed. 
NEUBERGER: Oh, don’t be, dear.

Tarlow: All right, Pat. You said you had nothing to offer, and we’ve been talking for quite a while with a lot of marvelous information. Is there anything that we left out that you may want to include on this tape?
NEUBERGER: I don’t know. I’ve been a very blessed person. Like I said, I have lots of good friends. I was taught, “It’s how you live.” Or, my mother’s favorite saying is, “What goes around comes around.” That’s what I was taught. If you are kind to people, they will be kind to you. If you are polite, then people are polite to you. That’s what I was taught. That is the best advice. My parents both were very polite. I’ve never been judged because I was Jewish or not Jewish. I was Pat Neuberger. 

Tarlow: And you still are.
NEUBERGER: And I still am.

Tarlow: And it’s a very good thing.
NEUBERGER: It is, and I’m very lucky.