Sanford Adler

Tanzer: Sanford, do you remember your grandparents? 
ADLER: No, they didn’t live in this country. 

Tanzer: Where did they come from? 
ADLER: One of them was from Germany and the one from my mother was from Salem, Oregon. And they were all passed away. 

Tanzer: By the time you were born? 
ADLER: Uh-huh. 

Tanzer: Do you know where in Germany he came from? 
ADLER: Stuttgart, my father did. He left there, I think, when he was about 18 years old. He went via the Panama Canal and then via ship to California. He had a sister that was married there in Berkeley and from there he went up to Oregon, Astoria, Oregon. And he met my mother, who was a Hirsch, in Salem, Oregon. They got married and had this stationery store and a combination jewelry store for a few years. Then he moved up to Baker, Oregon because my mother’s sister was married to a Mr. Sam Baer in Baker, Oregon. It was a mining community and quite a busy place. That was in about 1885, I think. My sister Theresa was born there in Astoria and I remember at a later time, going to Astoria after my father moved to Baker. We stayed at a hotel over plank walks on the Columbia River. Our old home was pointed out to me on the hills farther up in there. 

Tanzer: And what year would that have been, your return to Astoria? 
ADLER: After I was five or six years old, I should judge. 

Tanzer: So approximately what year would that have been? 
ADLER: Oh, 1882 or 1883. We were back in Baker in 1887 and my mother moved there. 

Tanzer: I see. How did your father’s sister come to Berkeley? 
ADLER: Oh, she was from Germany. I couldn’t tell you that. She was settled there. Her husband’s father was a wholesale jeweler by the name of Eisenberg. He was a very successful jeweler because I was invited at later years when Dad went to San Francisco to buy jewelry or diamonds. Why, we went up to their house and they were quite Frenchy, as I would say. 

Tanzer: And what would you consider “quite Frenchy”? 
ADLER: Well, that they might have come from France instead of the [unintelligible] or something that way. I don’t know, because they talked French. Shirley, they spoke French in the home. 

Tanzer: I see. Is the family still in the California area? 
ADLER: No, the girl passed away and the brother went east and I lost track of them entirely. They were just far relations of ours. And the girl, in her old age, I think. 

Tanzer: You mean she lived there.
ADLER: She lived there. They had to send her to a nursing home but she always felt that she never should have been sent and everything. She was an heiress, because she stayed at one of the more expensive hotels in the Nob Hill in San Francisco. 

Tanzer: Did she marry? 
ADLER: No, she never married. She always tried to marry but it never worked. 

Tanzer: Now you mentioned that… 
ADLER: –And my father’s sister lived in Berkeley; she wasn’t very well off. Their daughter never married. In later years, when I got married in Baker, I would go down to Berkeley to see her. And then her mother died and she went off-center and they sent her off to… I think they called it the asylum then. I was able to [see her]; she was getting better; and they got her to a rest home out at San Jose. 

Tanzer: And what was her name? 
ADLER: Theresa Eisenberg. [Unintelligible two words] and finally Margo got her out of this other place because she thought it was terrible; because she had been in the same condition at one time. 

Tanzer: Now Margo —
ADLER: The Eisenbergs of San Francisco. 

Tanzer: So there were two Eisenbergs, these two were they sisters? 
ADLER: They were cousins. 

Tanzer: I see. So your father’s sister lived in Berkeley. 
ADLER: Yes 

Tanzer: She was an Eisenberg. 
ADLER: Yes. 

Tanzer: And the third Eisenberg family, which was related by the father…? 
ADLER: I can’t tell you very much about them. Wholesale jewelers. Eisenberg & Co. 

Tanzer: I see. Is the company still in existence? 
ADLER: I can’t tell you that. I’d always call on Margo as she lived like a queen and everything and she tipped very freely with her money. She always blamed the Eisenbergs for not getting her out when she was ill. And she didn’t have very much good to say about Mrs. Eisenberg, who had this old German habit of putting away money when she had a little extra. When Theresa died I had to come down and be administrator and let the doctor say she wasn’t able to live alone ’cause she had these spells and hollering and all this. I had to take his word and commit her to the place and going through her clothing we found four or $500. My brother and I took care of her but Margo was very tight on helping us at all even when she did come home. And she lived four or five years later and then passed away. And one reason I traveled… I’d stop at the hotel and see Margo when she was still living. 

Tanzer: But that was the only family on your father’s side. 
ADLER: Yes 

Tanzer: So on your mother’s side you mentioned that your mother was a Hirsch from Salem. 
ADLER: Yes and she married Sam Baer of Baker who was in [the] mercantile business. 

Tanzer: Oh, that was your mother’s sister who married Sam Baer. 
ADLER: And one of the sisters died and then Sam married the second sister, which was the one in Baker, which is the Baer that we’ll speak of later. 

Tanzer: I see. Now, this Hirsch family, were they a large family? 
ADLER: Well, all I know are the three girls. 

Tanzer: But were there uncles and aunts? 
ADLER: Well there might have been. I didn’t know. He was a postmaster down in Salem, as I remember. But the girls had to [unintelligible] relatives in San Francisco where they married and they went to New York. See… because… I don’t know exactly. We never talked about their life very much so I can’t tell you. But they were the most well-educated girls. My mother loved Baker, was a very fine cook, liked to play cards and I remember one night she came home and fell down the steps and broke her leg. I remember the doctors came to the house. There was a doctor across by the name of Atwood and the other doctor by the name of Dr. Dodson, who was in the Indian war. And they came over. It was 9:00 or 10:00 pm and [they] had me hold the chloroform sponge while they set the leg. And I remember him saying the femur should be this way or that way. I was sleeping on the bed on the porch and that was the first night I prayed that my mother would live. 

Tanzer: How old was she at that time? 
ADLER: Oh, I guess she was near 50 years old, or around that age. 

Tanzer: Was your father alive? 
ADLER: Yes, he was alive, too. 

Tanzer: When was your mother born, do you know? When the year was? 
ADLER: Well, I remember her birthday was on April 1, April Fool’s Day but I can’t tell you the exact date. I would have to look that up. 

Tanzer: Was your mother ever employed? 
ADLER: No. She was just a housemaid. 

Tanzer: Did she ever help your father in the store at all? 
ADLER: No. She was just busy with Leo and I and the sister Theresa. 

Tanzer: And what do you remember doing with your mother when you were small? Do you remember traveling? 
ADLER: Well, we used to. I’d go down to Gearhart Park, where in the summertime [there was] the train. We’d get on at 8:00 pm [toward] Meacham, [Oregon]. It was about 75 miles to the first station. They didn’t have diners in those days. And they had a Baer out there. We would have our supper there and then wake up in the morning. We were going down the Columbia River and could see the sights there and the Indians fishing out of Celilo. And then we would go to the Portland Hotel. The bus would meet us at the depot and take us there. And then we’d go down the train to Gearhart and the train would stop about a half mile from Gearhart. They had an old wooden hotel and the Jewish people mostly stayed there in the early days. I enjoyed it, just as a child. I was too young; I always looked forward to going down there. 

Tanzer: Did you go every summer? 
ADLER: Yes. Every summer. Dad got away for a week or two. 

Tanzer: And how long did your family stay? 
ADLER: We’d come back all together, a week or ten days. 

Tanzer: And what other people from Baker went? 
ADLER: Well, I don’t know. Probably the Baers did. I don’t remember the other people. I was quite young in those days. I just remember the big porch and some of the old people. 

Tanzer: What did you do down in Gearhart? 
ADLER: Well. I just don’t remember. I must have played around a little but I was quite young. 

Tanzer: Were you allowed to go to the beach yourself? 
ADLER: Well, I can’t tell you that. 

Tanzer: What do you remember doing with your father? 
ADLER: Well, as a child I would go down to the store there. As I grew up I worked in the store in my spare time. I remember my brother was born in the house there. I was three years old. There was a commotion and he was born there. 

Tanzer: He was born at home? 
ADLER: At home. In those days the doctors…. We had a doctor by the name of Snow. We grew up and the Baers were next door. They had an orchard there and we had a barn. And Bernie Baer was a cousin. He lived there and we grew up. I remember when Bryan came through on the Chautauqua. Sharon heard him talking on the silver dollar. I think I crawled under the tent to get in. And I remember in 1898 when the war was over, our ship from Oregon went around the Horn. The flag rolled in the window and I was ten years old then. 

Tanzer: How much older was Theresa? 
ADLER: I think she was five or six years older. And she lived, let’s see, I guess she lived to be 30 years old before she died. She was a Christian Scientist and didn’t believe in the doctor. Although the Catholic school was across from us she didn’t like the Catholics very well. And she never had any words to speak of. I know that one [unintelligible] came up to see her and my dad but it didn’t work. 

Tanzer: When did she become a Christian Scientist? 
ADLER: Well, I don’t know. Some people got after her because she was always worried about herself. And she wasn’t very cooperative with my mother. She didn’t like to do housework. I remember getting up and starting the fires in the stove and running around with the boys. In those days it was colder. In those days and we had an icehouse [in the] back of our house and stored the ice for the summer. 

Tanzer: Where did the ice come from? 
ADLER: Out of the Potter River. 

Tanzer: And how did you get it? 
ADLER: Well, there were people who would saw it and cover up the ice at the back of our house. I remember making ice cream. We had a chicken coop out there and were taking care of the chickens and all those things. But I never could chop a head off. I always had Dad do it. I didn’t like to do it for some reason. But we always had fun in the neighborhood. 

Tanzer: As a child Sanford, did you want a life like your parents’? 
ADLER: Well, I worked in the store and I was satisfied with that. I mean, after school I went there. When I went to school I remember my mother taking me to school to start and she took me to the girl’s lavatory; I thought that was terrible. That stuck to my head (laughs). In those days I was quite bashful but got along. I know, go to school. As I went to school, my dad had a store in the post office, kind of a cigar store and a candy store. And I’d fill my pockets with candy and take it to school. All expected and one day I put some pepper in some of the candy. I had to report to the superintendent. He scared me to death, telling me he was going to make me eat an egg with pepper all over it. We had a professor by the name of Churchill, who was one of the outstanding teachers of the day. I graduated from high school in 1910. My cousin Bernie was going to the University of Oregon and he took me down there to stay one day. He wanted me to go there. As a kid I was kind of electrically inclined and I wanted to go east to Rensselaer Polytechnic. I knew it was a good place and my dad said I better go to the other place. 

Tanzer: And what was the other place? 
ADLER: Eugene, Oregon–the university. And there was what we called the Tow-Wow Club, mostly Baker boys and some others. So I went down there and signed up for electrical engineering. I went for two years; there were six in the class. And all these other boys had been working with electricians in some electrical place. I just figured they were smarter than I. I wanted to be a doctor but I didn’t have any Latin. My dad said I better come back and work in the store and see what I did want to do. We stayed in this Tow-Wow Club. Dad had sent me $45 a month for club dues and tuition and I’d have about $10 to spend. And another boy and I — when we cashed the checks, we used to throw dollars at the crack food (laughs) and got along fine. I loved the course. I should have taken the calculus. I was mathematically inclined but not inclined enough. I wish I had stayed. I’d have been probably a head of an electrical company or something and the manager or a type of it. But after two years, why and then the World War II …

Tanzer: Now, let’s see you came back after the University of Oregon…
ADLER: Worked in the store for quite a few years. 

Tanzer: So that would have been about 1912 that you came back? 
ADLER: Yes, 1912. To Baker 

Tanzer: So those next few years? 
ADLER: I worked in the store. Automobiles came and we had musical instruments in the store and jewelry and when [unintelligible] around the country, there were mines there. I had friends all around, so I started trying to sell radios and musical instruments and jewelry around the country. My brother started in the Saturday Evening Post and we went together. 

Tanzer: In your car?
ADLER: Yes, the car. We went over to Grant County and John Day. 

Tanzer: You were an early traveling salesman
ADLER: An early traveling salesman. 

Tanzer: Tell me, what was it like traveling then? 
ADLER: Well, we’d got this car, why I should judge it was about a 1914 or ’15 when they would sell for about $600 or $700. I think it was an Oberlin. It had ivy lace side curtains on it. It was a touring car. You had to crank it and you had gas lamps on it for your headlights. Gas tank was under the seat. I remember one time we were going up to Cornucopia, which is about 75 miles from Baker. We went to Halfway [the] first night and stayed there and met people around town and canvassed it a little. And the next day we went up to Cornucopia. 

Tanzer: And where did you stay the first night? 
ADLER: In Halfway. And I think there were bed bugs. I remember Leo and I were up most of the night. 

Tanzer: Now the town of Halfway is halfway between Cornucopia and Baker? 
ADLER: Yes and Richland is the first town this side out of Baker. 

Tanzer: Did Halfway have mines in it also? 
ADLER: No, the mines were up at Cornucopia. 

Tanzer: I see. 
ADLER: And it was a quite a flourishing place. There was a big hotel and stores and homes for people. They must have employed 250 miners in those days. The big mine was a [unintelligible] Cornucopia. I can’t tell you whether it was Queen or the Westminster but I remember half way up to the mine our Oberlin car stopped. I tried to back it up in the ravine to turn around but it fell over on its side. I sent my brother up to the mine (it was pretty close to it) to get a couple of men to help right the car to see what happened. I sent my brother up because the gasoline tank was under the seat and I had my finger on the air hole. Pretty soon he came back and without any help. I said, “What’s the matter?” And he said the men were eating and he didn’t want to bother them. So I said a few words to him to show him what I wanted him to do. I went up and got one fella by the name of Pryer Romstock. He graduated with me. I know he got one more man and we lifted it up. It started right away. I found out I had a gas lock. In those days the car didn’t work so hard they overheated, the pump on the car. So we worked at Lavine around there that day and then we went back to Cornucopia and stayed that night. There was another mine beyond that; they were mining up in a higher position. They had cables taking the ore down to the mill in Cornucopia. Leo and I stayed there. Rat’s Ladd ran that by and we asked if we could stay there. And he said sure. We worked in there trying to sell jewelry and other things. Leo got in a poker game and one fella by the name of Kid Harpen was a miner but he was a card player also. Leo came back about daylight; he had $150, which was a lot of money in those days. Next day we signed away our lives to ride down in the empty bucket without any ore. I’m ahead of my story. We got on two horses. When I got Leo, saddled horses to go up this trail to this mine ’cause it was quite a way up Leo says, “Is this horse tame?” And so we went up to the mine and we turned the horses loose and they went back down to the stable. And as I told you, we won something. We got in the buckets and went down and we were right back in Cornucopia again where our car was. 

Tanzer: You mean it was like a lift? 
ADLER: It was a lift. Just like on a ski lift. The ore buckets we got in would carry about a half a ton of ore down. 

Tanzer: So you signed away your life. 
ADLER: Well, the responsibility, in case there was an accident. It was just an experiment. 

Tanzer: Did you ever pan for gold yourself?
ADLER: No, I never panned for gold. And we would canvass in Prairie City or John Day 
In the evenings why we’d have dances and Leo would stay home and watch the 
jewelry while I went out and danced with some of the girls [laughs]. He was too long in some of these houses where he’d go to solicit subscriptions for the Saturday Evening Post, which he represented. His pockets were full of silver dollars before the times used paper dollars. We all boasted we owned the Edison phonograph that came out with the cylinder records. It was quite a fad those days. Then it developed in the disc records. I would carry phonographs in the back seat and then we made good sales. In fact, we did more business on the road than we did in Baker. 

Tanzer: Well, you were going to the heart of the miners. 
ADLER: And we had lots of friends we knew, business people all along the way and I 
would point some agents to have the phonographs and split the sales with them, who knew the people. And pretty soon when we drove over to Prairie City and John Day, we had to go via Austin, which was a railroad stop in the old days. [They had] famous food; we could get their meat or anything and stay there. Then the next 18 miles was awful dusty, mountain road. I remember the first car we had [had] Fiske tires on it. It just tore ‘em all up. I had to buy new tires in Prairie City. But it was all nice work and experience and we met lots of people. I remember in Canyon City, which is the county seat, the sheriff would go out and raid a still. And we always looked for the sheriff to come in because he’d always have some good liquor to drink. 

Tanzer: You made friends with the sheriff, then? 
ADLER: The community, everybody knew each other — the newspaper people and the blacksmith and the young people. We had always, when the fair time, we’d get a [booth?]. I’d set out the phonographs and the records and want to send people records. And when we had the agency, the Edison records were so near perfect to what the singers were. They would send out the singers and they would sing right along. I would hire the Elks Hall and I’d give out free tickets to prospects who we thought would promote this. The company would stand half the expenses. Louise and I would entertain these people and we had some very fine people. We had a Nig Dorfman, [who was] a fine pianist. I remember one night after that we rented the country club and I had some of my good friends out there —

Tanzer: This was afterwards?
ADLER: Later time, after we got married and all that. 

Tanzer: Let’s go back to before your army experience. You mentioned —
ADLER: I [and] all the boys when the war started in 1919 (I think that’s when World War I was). It must have been in ’18 that we went to Vancouver, Washington to enlist. I remember when I enlisted, I had a Spanish War uniform; it was all yellow and a pea jacket, short. It looked terrible. I knew a gal in Portland that I met at the university. Went up to her house and they all decided to laugh about it. But that’s what they had those days. 

Tanzer: That’s what they issued you? 
ADLER: Issued. That was the issue. 

Tanzer: A uniform from the Spanish-American War? 
ADLER: They had got out of all the regulars. Everybody was flocking in to volunteer to fight for democracy, you know, with the Kaiser; we had that war. We were put onto tourist cars across the continent. We were going to Augusta, Georgia. We got on the train; we went through Baker. My father was sick at that time. I’d been home the week before. We passed through Hot Lake. In those days they went down there for mud baths and so forth. I remember as a child I went down there. We’d take him because they didn’t know about pulling teeth in those early days, if you had an infection. 

Tanzer: This is your parents?
ADLER: My father. 

Tanzer: And how close were the hot baths to Baker? 
ADLER: Oh, it was about 30 miles. The Union Pacific ran through there. We stopped in 
Baker for a few minutes and my mother and sister and brother were down at the 
train to see me go through with the division. I remember going across the 
country. I think I had an upper berth and we’d sleep over and lay on the cord 
twice as it went through the train and that would stop the train to blast. We did that so many times they didn’t pay attention to it. Some of the goody boys in the company said we’d get court-martialed for doing all these things. When we got to Kansas City where they were going to put two cars on to go down to Georgia, why the boy – I didn’t have anything to do with [it] – a sergeant that had our tickets disappeared, so they couldn’t put us on the train, so we could take the night out in the town. And we went up to Elk’s Club and other places; I don’t remember just what. We got back in time to get hooked on to the train to Augusta, Georgia where our camp was. 

Tanzer: Did you finally get rid of your Spanish-American war uniform? 
ADLER: I don’t think we did. But in Eugene I had an uncle that was in the clothing 
business and I ordered a uniform to have when I was out of service. I remember when we got to Georgia and the first thing we heard, a boy said, “Well, we didn’t expect you ‘til 1:00 tomorrow.” So our goody boys didn’t have to worry about this. And we were put into square tents, a certain number of us in each tent. And they were so old, the tents, they leaked and I had to sleep with a washbasin on my stomach when we went in the rain. I mean they just ran out of everything in those early days. I know we finally got some other uniforms and so forth. It was such a rush. All the young people wanted to get in the service to fight for democracy, which we still are fighting for. I remember there were some Baker boys — one was a lieutenant by the name of Prescott Lilly. He’d gone and enlisted earlier. He was going to go overseas. My cousin Bernie Baer was there and he was farmed into a company to go overseas. Several others were there; would seem to be a popular place. 

Tanzer: Did you get to go overseas? 
ADLER: No, we were being farmed into a company when the Armistice came. But we were there for several months. I remember there was so much [unintelligible] somebody forgot to salute the commanding officer of the camp. When he got tired of boys not saluting to him, he put us in quarantine for a week and I couldn’t go out. 

Tanzer: What year would this have been when you were in Georgia? 
ADLER: Well, it was in 1918 or ’19. We went in the early ’19.

Tanzer: The war was over by then. 
ADLER: It was in the fall of ’19. 
Then our company was broken up and went to Atlanta, 
Georgia and we were formed in another company and somehow I got to be mess sergeant because I’d had business experiences running a store and so forth.

Tanzer: But the Armistice was in November 1918? 
ADLER: No, ’19. It was ’19, I think, or ’18. Anyway, we got to Georgia, on the outskirts. It was quite a town. I got to be mess sergeant and canteen sergeant. It was awful hot, so I could have all the salt drinks I wanted. Our cook was a circus cook and we got along very fine. We had a man that was [on] a Rhodes scholarship. And others. We were better than an ordinary company. The boys always got after me that [unintelligible] an excuse to get out of it. They had to take their duty and get up at 4:00 am and help prepare breakfast and work ’til 8:00 pm at night. I think they were on for ten days and it got so bad that I just turned it over to the cooks with the roster. I just couldn’t be bothered with it. 

Tanzer: When were you discharged? 
ADLER: Well, when the Armistice came. I think it came in fall, about in October and I applied for discharge because my father had died and I wanted to get home to help settle a small estate. We still had the store. My brother was about to enlist and he’d disposed of the jewelry store. But they kept the music store in that part. When I applied for a discharge, they didn’t allow it, so I wanted to get home and I thought, “Well I’ll call.” I knew the manager of the hardware store was head of the Red Cross in Baker. So I wired my brother to see Mr. Frank and wire the commanding general [that] I was needed home. And the next day the captain came to me and he said, “Damn you, Adler, if you wasn’t… if the war wasn’t over, you’d be court-martialed!” I said, “What’s the matter?” “Well,” he said, “I got an order from the captain, from the generals, that you should be dismissed as soon as possible.” 

Tanzer: Why did he react that strongly? 
ADLER: Well, they liked the way I served the food to them, I guess. 

Tanzer: Did you ever encounter any antisemitism in the service? 
ADLER: Not a bit, not a bit. Most trouble I had [was] when I served liver to the boys and they weren’t used to eating [it] and you thought I had committed a crime. But we were only allowed 45 cents a day to feed those people in that time and it went a long way. They wanted good steaks every night and that. Of course, I always liked liver. But I went home a couple of times to settle things. It was always a good standing joke: if you want a furlough, why, see Adler. I remember one time it was dry and [in] Wyoming we could buy liquor and send somebody over to cross one of the trains. I brought in a couple of quarts of good liquor. I went to sleep and nearly missed the train at Dallas. So I went in to buy some and was asleep when we got in to Atlanta. They had to wake me up. It’s a good thing they didn’t take my baggage. We wanted to mix some cocktails the next afternoon for the cooks and myself. You have to have a little fun with what goes on. Finally, the furlough came and they paid us by the mile to go home when they had 1 cent a mile. I’d been down to the Elks Club the night before in Houston and won $150, so I decided I’d go home via Washington, DC; I had never been there before. I stayed there a couple of days and went to see the different museums and so forth and enjoyed it and visited with our Congressman and decided to go New York. 

Tanzer: Who was the Congressman at the time? 
ADLER: I can’t remember who he was, or the Senator but I know I contacted him. And then I went to New York where I had relatives. I stayed there at the McAlpin Hotel. It was $5. When I was going from Washington to New York on the train, somebody asked where I was staying and he said, “Isn’t that expensive?” Because you know in those days, ordinary hotels were probably $1.50 or $2.50. When I got off the train in New York, the McAlpin was right across the street. We come in on the New York Central and the highest skyscrapers are here and I said, “Here we are in the big city!” and started to enjoy it. That day we were selling also Victor talking machines and I went over to Camden, New Jersey out of Philadelphia. No, I went over to the Edison phonograph company, [which] was across from New York. We went right across the street in New Jersey there. And I called up my aunt and told her we were in New York and she said to come to dinner that night. 

Tanzer: Which aunt was this? 
ADLER: This was a Helfhamer. He [my aunt’s husband] was a very distinguished lawyer. He enjoyed us fine. And one day they went up to Atlantic City to spend the weekend, so they invited me up there and I enjoyed it very much. The person in uniform was very popular in those days, coming home. Then I decided, I went to the opera and I heard Caruso. I sold his records and all those and sat in the front row in the opera house, the Metropolitan Opera House and I got up with the rest of them and hollered, “Bravo Caruso!” He did have a wonderful voice and I heard him sing Pagliacci that day. He was just wonderful and I always did like good shows. And the next day I went home and started for Chicago and was going to stay there a couple of days. And there was a music [store], Lyon and Healy, we bought pianos from them. Went to see them and there was some music that they had, some popular songs. Somebody was [unintelligible] popular [unintelligible]. I can’t remember the name of that now. 

Tanzer: How long did it take you to get home? 
ADLER: You mean after the discharge? 

Tanzer: No, I mean from New York to Baker by train. 
ADLER: I think it was about three nights and four days, something like that. But when we got close to Denver, the train… another was hitched on to it. There was some people from Baker that I knew and quite happy to be there. And nice to be home again and go to work. 

Tanzer: The family, I imagine, was very happy to see you. 
ADLER: Oh yes and I’d been accepted on the [unintelligible]. Oh no, that was another time. 

Tanzer: But Leo and Theresa were still living at home?
ADLER: Oh yes, oh yes. 

Tanzer: And had Leo gone to work in the store while you were gone? 
ADLER: Leo was in a kind of wholesale magazine business. He started working for the Saturday Evening Post. He had an office up on the balcony of the store. He had a girl or two working for him because he started to spread out. 

Tanzer: What about Theresa? What was she doing then? 
ADLER: She taught a little. The rural school was … I remember running across some pictures the other day. But she would never stay out there. 

Tanzer: What pictures?
ADLER: Of her class. She taught kindergarten. 

Tanzer: Where she taught? Oh, kindergarten? 
ADLER: In the rural district out of Baker. 

Tanzer: Do you remember the names of the towns? 
ADLER: I do not. It was close to Baker rural schools. 

Tanzer: How did she get back? 
ADLER: Oh, she’d have him [Leo] bring her back. She was a scaredy-cat. 

Tanzer: Oh, what was she afraid of? 
ADLER: Oh, she was afraid of everything — afraid to be alone or this or that. We’d go someplace. I had to take a trip with our mother. She’d want to come along and I couldn’t afford it. 

Tanzer: But you close to your brother Leo? 
ADLER: Oh yes, we were pretty close friends, family. 

Tanzer: What kinds of things did you do with Leo when you were kids? 
ADLER: Well, we were on our own more or less, I guess. And we went to school together. I know I always got up and made the fires and so forth. I was the oldest.

Tanzer: Did you all have to help your mother in the house? 
ADLER: We all did something, yes. Go up to the store. Dad had a store, jewelry and music store. And one of the men was teaching me to ride a bicycle when they first came out. And then when the Edison phonograph came out, the miners would come in the store and give me two bits to play a record for them, which was a lot of money those days to hear your voice — to hear these voices and so forth. 

Tanzer: What were the type of games that you and Leo [played] when you were children? 
ADLER: I just don’t remember. We probably shot marbles and things that the boys did in those days. We did a lot of things. There was a Jewish lady, Mrs. Carl Wolzheimer. She did start a Jewish school but it didn’t last for some reason. We went maybe once or twice a week to teach us something in her home. 

Tanzer: How many? 
ADLER: Oh there were nine or ten Jewish families in those days. 

Tanzer: How many of the children went? 
ADLER: Well, I think that most of them did; I can’t remember. But we didn’t learn very much there. That was a hard thing. We had to go down to Portland and I think the Temple was just starting in those early days. 

Tanzer: Do you remember the young children in the class? 
ADLER: I couldn’t remember. I don’t remember the class. I just remember we went for a while. 

Tanzer: How often did you get to Portland to the Temple? 
ADLER: Only once or twice a year. Portland was long trip, you know. We thought it was expensive. I used to go to Salt Lake one time with Dad to buy toys. I’d line them all up and they’d break, some of them. We’d go into the Salt Lake. Dad couldn’t swim but we could float in the salt water. And then my mother got typhoid fever in Portland and I remember going with Mrs. Baer down there. 

Tanzer: How did that happen? 
ADLER: I don’t know. They caught it down the beach or something. 

Tanzer: Maybe drinking water from the Willamette River. 
ADLER: I don’t know what caused it. There was a very famous doctor named Dr. Lockey. He went down to him. I guess [we] took her down. I leaned out of the Imperial Hotel and they thought I was going to fall out the window. 

Tanzer: Did your father ever talk about first coming to Baker? 
ADLER: Very little. We didn’t ask and we didn’t receive much, history wise. I remember in my married life. I’ll tell you that we were going to Stuttgart where he was married but we just didn’t want to take the extra day or so. We were on our honeymoon. 

Tanzer: Well, I wonder how difficult it was for him from Astoria and to settle in a place like Baker? 
ADLER: Well, his wife’s sister lived there and Baker was a booming town. That was the reason, I think. 

Tanzer: I wonder how difficult it was, first of all, to make the trip. 
ADLER: Well, there were trains both ways. Trains from Astoria to Baker and Baker to… I think the train was running in those days. Maybe they had to take the stage but I don’t think so. 

Tanzer: I have a feeling they may have taken a boat.
ADLER: To The Dalles…

Tanzer: They may have taken a boat to The Dalles and then a stage from The Dalles. I don’t think the trains were running at that particular time between the — 
ADLER: In 1890 I think they started running to Baker to Portland, around there. 

Tanzer: But I have a feeling that they came from Astoria and would have come —
ADLER: But I remember when the trains that were going for those nine years. That was 1895 or ’98. 

Tanzer: You remember going by train to Portland? 
ADLER: I’m pretty sure. 

Tanzer: Well, maybe to Portland and then by ship to Astoria. 
ADLER: No, I think there was a loading train. They had the trains to go down the coast there. I’m not sure. Is it running now? 

Tanzer: Oh yes, it’s running now. But that’s all right. I just let it, let it… 
ADLER: Let it go with that. 

Tanzer: I just let it run. I just wanted to ask about your neighborhood. I know that your cousins lived… 
ADLER: Next door, in the same block. The two houses were alike. One was a left-handed house and one was right-handed and we turned around and they had a barn and horses. Mr. Baer was more prosperous than the father. They used to go to New York with their children and visit the relatives. I thought that was wonderful; looked up on them. We were very close to each other. The Jewish people seemed to have parties together and the holidays were — Joe Hiley was a lawyer. He read the prayer books for the two holidays; that was the most we ever did. We would rent the Elk’s Hall in those days; usually it was a hot day or something [unintelligible]. After I got married, Louise was very interested in the Jewish religion because she worked in the Jewish section of the New York Library and had a library there. [She] knew all, having all the dishes for the different holidays and so forth and she would write [it] down. Rabbi Berkowitz, who came up to Baker once in a while, would send her lectures so she could read them at the services for him. Later on, when Joe’s parents died, he gave up doing it and I took over something to have the readings on the Sabbath. We observed the holidays at home. Some of the boys, later there were Jewish boys, had the other more Jewish church…. what do you call it? 

Tanzer: Synagogue? 
ADLER: No, the other, we were the modern Jews and the later Jews, you know, more strict. 

Tanzer: You mean the Orthodox? And Reform? 
ADLER: Yes, they didn’t come to our services. They had their own. 

Tanzer: I see. Who were some of the people that had their own services? 
ADLER: Well, that’s the younger Neubergers. And there were some other people too. I don’t remember names — the Adlers, the Bambergers, the Weils, the Dilsheimers, Wallburns, the Heilers. It made quite enough to have a holiday dinner and all that.

Tanzer: How long did you rent the Elks Club? 
ADLER: Just a day, when the holidays came. 

Tanzer: But for approximately how many years, Sanford? 
ADLER: Oh, three or four years, probably, when they were mostly there. Some of them moved away and some died and just less all the time and there’s less families now. There’s the Heilners now, the Adlers, the Baers. That’s about it. 

Tanzer: How about the Emrichs? 
ADLER: Well, they come sometimes. 

Tanzer: And, the Neubergers. I mean, in terms of Jews in the community. 
ADLER: Sure, there’s a Sumner. 

Tanzer: Was there ever any talk about a synagogue or bringing a rabbi?
ADLER: No. No there was never enough of us. 

Tanzer: Well, at one time there were probably, what… 25 families?
ADLER: Oh, I don’t think that many. 10 or 15 was the most. 

Tanzer: Did they ever talk about bringing a teacher in? 
ADLER: No. 

Tanzer: Only the effort with Mrs. Dilsheimer?
ADLER: That one time. That was short. I don’t know why. I don’t think there was probably enough interest but maybe she wasn’t interested enough. I don’t know what was happened. They were very fine people and they had a mercantile, Dilsheimer and Weil, a dry goods store similar to the Heilners.

Tanzer: Oh, I see. So they were in business with the Weils. 
ADLER: Yes. 

Tanzer: What ever happened to the Dilsheimers? 
ADLER: Well, they moved. Dilsheimer died, I think. And his wife went to her 
parents in Portland. They had a store there, I forget; they had fine groceries and so forth. 

Tanzer: And that was Marguerite? 
ADLER: No, Marguerite married Lloyd Dilsheimer. Somebody else, I forget what. There’s a very famous store down there, fine food, in Portland. 

Tanzer: This was Mrs. Dilsheimer that was here. 
ADLER: Yes 

Tanzer: I see. I wonder if there are any people from the family left. 
ADLER: No, they all died — the Dilsheimers and the Weils. Their daughter married a Dr. Parness. She lives in Los Angeles. That’s about the only one. And the Wallburns have a daughter and her daughter lives in St. Louis. That’s about the only ones I know. I’m sorry to say that we don’t have any children and the Baers don’t have any children. So our names will just be [one] generation here. 

Tanzer: A great number of the young Jewish did not get married, or else married very late. To what do you attribute that, Sanford? 
ADLER: Well, not enough association with Jewish people, I should guess. 

Tanzer: Mm-hmm. Were they particular about marrying Jewish people? 
ADLER: No. They were, I guess, religious enough to… Of course, I never thought of marriage ‘til I was 37 and you know, didn’t get interested or thought I could afford it or something. Didn’t meet the right girl. 

Tanzer: This must have been true for a good many others because a great many of them just simply didn’t get married. 
ADLER: No, I couldn’t tell you why. 

Tanzer: It was a tradition in Portland for a good many of the young Jewish gentlemen and ladies to go to San Francisco for someone to find them brides and bring them. Was there ever any kind of arrangement here? 
ADLER: No, no. I guess our folks weren’t [unintelligible] that thought enough, than in… 

Tanzer: But I’m interested in what the Jewish families did together. 
ADLER: We were always together and doing things. 

Tanzer: They picnicked together?
ADLER: In the early days we went out to Ebells, which was about 12 miles west here. And they had a German vehrein. The German people and Ebells would come on over here hunting for gold and come over the Blue Mountains and saw this beautiful valley and homesteaded. 

Tanzer: Now were the Ebells Jewish? 
ADLER: No. But that Ebell Park was the famous place to go.

Tanzer: How long did it take you to get there? 
ADLER: Oh, it was about 12 miles and took a couple of hours but we’d go early and stay there. They had running water in their washhouse there and good food and had buttermilk, I know, in the cold air and all that. It tasted good in those days and the families would take out good old German dishes. It was [a] feast. 

Tanzer: So you had a family potluck. 
ADLER: And then finally they’d put on a big coach — what do you call that one? Sit on top and we’d go out on… 

Tanzer: A surrey.
ADLER: Well it’s more than that and anyway we got up there somehow. I remember it was usually just for a day, then come back at night. It was probably 15 hours or 12 hours. We’d play around and [have] a big lunch. These people had a big garden and we were always bringing home something. 

Tanzer: Now was this a place that you rented or did somebody — 
ADLER: No, we just knew the Ebells. They were German and my dad was a German and they had the German verein [turnverein – sports club]. here in Baker. 

Tanzer: Tell me about the German verein.
ADLER: Well, they had a room upstairs someplace, where they [met] once a week or so. During the war they were all interested in the battles. I remember the telegrams on the walls, the newspapers when the ships were being sunk and this and that, all those things. Then this war came on and we all enlisted. 

Tanzer: Were German Jews members of this German verein, or were they just German? 
ADLER: No, they weren’t German Jews. They were just Germans. Of course, a lot of the early Jewish people were mostly German anyway that came over.