Sanford Heilner

Tanzer: —-But you remember a good deal about the family, though. 
HEILNER: Yes. Well, I wouldn’t say a good deal. But let’s see. 

Tanzer: Did they ever talk about why they had come to the United States? 
HEILNER: No.

Tanzer: And what about coming to Baker? 
HEILNER:  Well, my father came from Europe and settled in California, in mining. Then he decided to come up to this part of the country. He stayed in Sparta, a place called Sparta and he had a store there, a small store. He eventually moved here to Baker. He married in Portland and then he moved here to Baker and opened a store with different things. He got into merchandising, and one thing and another, and here’s where he located and settled.

Tanzer: What was your mother’s maiden name? 
HEILNER: My mother’s maiden name Clara. Well, Neuberger is her original name.

Tanzer: Is that why the store was called ‘Heilner and Neuberger’? 
HEILNER: No. It was originally Heilner. So when these relatives came out from Europe, the Neubergers, they went to work for my father in the store and he put them in the business. He gave them an interest in the business. And in later years he retired and the Neubergers bought a certain amount of the interest in the Heilner store and changed the name from Heilner to Neuberger & Heilner, after my father retired and was gone. That’s about the end of that. Then I and the Neuberger brothers went into the business in a partnership. 

Tanzer: How many brothers and sisters did you have? 
HEILNER: I had two brothers and one sister.

Tanzer: And what were their names? 
HEILNER: One was Joseph Heilner and Jess Heilner. That’s the boys. Mildred Heilner was the sister.

Tanzer: Did all of you live in Baker, did you continue? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Were your brothers in the store also? 
HEILNER: No, one of them was an attorney and the other brother was in the store with relatives and me. I was in the store. When I was in school I went to work in the store and I remained.

Tanzer: Did you go to school in Baker? 
HEILNER: For a short while. I went to the grade school and then my parents sent me to Portland, through some friends that wanted to go to a military school called the Bishop’s Scott Academy. I attended that school. Then I came home and went to San Francisco later and went to school there and lived with my aunt and uncle. Then I came home and went into the store, I didn’t graduate from any school in San Francisco. I just didn’t go back to school. I stayed home and went into the store with my brother Jess Heilner and my cousins. We went into the business and father retired.

Tanzer: Who was the family that you lived with in Portland? 
HEILNER: That who lived with?

Tanzer: That you lived with when you came to Portland? 
HEILNER: I went to the military school day and nights – what do they call it?

Tanzer:  Boarding school.
HEILNER:  Boarding school.

Tanzer:  Oh, I see. You mentioned some friends that had arranged for you. 
HEILNER:  Well I went to boarding school, the Bishop Scott academy.

Tanzer: Did you always intend to come back to Baker? 
HEILNER: I didn’t know for sure. I came home and Dad wanted me to go into the store and I wanted to go into the store and I went into the store and worked in the store for a number of years. My father was sort of retired and I, and Jess Heilner went into the store together, with the Neuberger Brothers. They were cousins.

Tanzer: How many brothers were there? 
HEILNER: What, in my family?

Tanzer: No, in the Neuberger family. 
HEILNER: I wouldn’t be able to say. I really wouldn’t know how many brothers. Two of them were here in the store.

Tanzer: Who were the two that were in the store? 
HEILNER: Gerson and Berthold Neuberger.

Tanzer: Are any of the Neubergers here today? 
HEILNER: No. They passed away a number of years ago. A nephew came out from Europe and they put him into the business with their interest in it and he was a partner also then.

Tanzer: What was his name, the nephew who was in the store? 
HEILNER: Herman David.

Tanzer: Who runs the store today? 
HEILNER: Herman David. He recently retired and he owns the business now.

Tanzer: Mr. Heilner, do you remember the family activities when you were a child? 
HEILNER: A regular, natural life we lived here. We had our home, our business and friends. I was a pretty small child then.

Tanzer: Where were you in the family? Were you the younger, or the middle? 
HEILNER: I am the youngest.

Tanzer: I see. Well, what type of things did you do on the weekends when the store wasn’t open? 
HEILNER: Just stayed around home, just loafed around.

Tanzer: Did you have picnics? 
HEILNER: Picnics, yes. We would go out to the mountains for the day, on Sunday picnics.

Tanzer: Were they large family picnics? 
HEILNER: Well, several large families in Baker, pretty good size families also went with us on these picnics.

Tanzer: Who were these families? 
HEILNER: The Bamberger family, the Weil family, the Baer family and the Adlers.

Tanzer: Tell me about the Bamberger family. What type of business were they in? 
HEILNER: They were in the mercantile business here, Mr. Bamberger.

Tanzer: How many children were in that family? 
HEILNER: One boy.

Tanzer: Was he close to your age? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Then were you friends? 
HEILNER: Well, his father had the business, and he went away to college. Sanford I mean went away to school and never came back to go into the store. I don’t know what all he did.

Tanzer: Did you grow up with him? 
HEILNER: Yes, practically grew up with him.

Tanzer: What kind of things did you do with him? 
HEILNER: Oh, just as children we played around with friends.

Tanzer: Did you ride horseback? 
HEILNER: Yes, sometimes. My father liked horses and he always had a few horses. I loved to ride. Just ordinary riding horse, you know. Well, father had a ranch here. He had a few horses that he owned and he liked horses. They went on picnics and rode around just like any other ordinary person would do. They were riding horses and didn’t do much riding. We had a stable of horses and that’s where he kept those horses and he had some fellow attend to them and whenever they wanted to do any riding, he had the horses ready for them and that’s all I know.

Tanzer: Were you allowed to ride the horses? 
HEILNER: Yes. I didn’t do a lot of riding. I didn’t do a great deal of riding. I did ride though.

Tanzer: Now, at this time when you were growing up, did you have uncles and aunts here? Were your father’s brothers here? 
HEILNER: No, my mother’s aunt was married and lived here.

Tanzer: Where were the other Heilners, your father’s brothers? 
HEILNER: I don’t know of any other place. They all lived around Baker in the big home. The big home over here was the home of all the family all the time.

Tanzer: How many people lived in your house? 
HEILNER:  Just the family.

Tanzer: Now, the family consisted of your father… 
HEILNER: And mother.

Tanzer: And what was your father’s name? 
HEILNER: Sigmund.

Tanzer: And your mother and four children? 
HEILNER: Do you want the names? Clara Heilner was the mother, Jess Heilner was the brother, Joe Heilner was a brother and Mildred Heilner was the sister.

Tanzer: Did you have relatives that lived with you in the big house?
HEILNER:  No. The relatives lived here in their own house until they moved away. They all lived in their own home here. No, well, Gerson and Bert lived in my parent’s home with the family when they first came over from Europe. Then they went into the store in the business. Father put them in the business.

Tanzer: Now, this was Gerson and Bert Neuberger? 
HEILNER: Yes. These were cousins. My mother was their aunt.

Tanzer: This house was built by your father? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Do you remember the year? 
HEILNER: No. I do not.

Tanzer: You were born in that house? 
HEILNER: I was born in that house.

Tanzer: And what year were you born, Mr. Heilner? 
HEILNER: Well, as close as I come, about nine years ago, I’ll have to figure that out. In my mind, this year [laughing]. I forgot all about the dates. I never paid much attention to birthday dates.

Tanzer: Did you pay much attention to birthday dates when you were growing up? 
HEILNER: Sometimes.

Tanzer: Do you remember birthday parties? 
HEILNER: Not much. We never had much of birthday parties. Just the family kind.

Tanzer: You were telling me about the family picnics. 
HEILNER: Well, we would go out here to the mountains around here and spend the day, usually on a Sunday, with these other friends and then stay there during the day and when evening came we all came back home again.

Tanzer: Did you go by horse and buggy? 
HEILNER: By horse and wagon. That’s the way we went out to the mountains.

Tanzer: Now, many of the families that you mentioned were Jewish families. 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Did the Jewish families stay together? 
HEILNER: Pretty much.

Tanzer: How about the Fuchs? 
HEILNER: The Fuchs. We knew them well but not too well acquainted. Just as friends. They were friends of ours. Mr. Fuchs worked for my father in the store for years. I think before my time. It’s as close as I can remember.

Tanzer: And when they came did they stay at the back of the store?
HEILNER: No. They never stayed in the store. I don’t know where they stayed, I was too little, too small a child. I don’t know where they stayed. I don’t know where my father built his home, the original home here. I was small and a little child.

Tanzer: Who is living in the home now? 
HEILNER: Herman David, a relative, who owns the store now.

Tanzer: Marian says he is your first cousin, once removed. 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Talking about the Jewish families coming, did your father encourage other Jewish families to come to Baker? 
HEILNER: No, I don’t think he did. They just came here and settled.

Tanzer: And what businesses were the other Jewish families in? 
HEILNER: Mercantile business, and worked for others. Some of the other families worked for others. That’s what I can remember. I was so little.

Tanzer: Were any of them ranchers or farmers? 
HEILNER: No.

Tanzer: Did the families stay together for some type of religious experience? 
HEILNER: No.

Tanzer: Did you have anything like a Sunday school? 
HEILNER: No, we had nothing here. No religious school. Just what we were taught from the Jewish works, you know.

Tanzer: Did you have any teachers that came in? 
HEILNER: No, not that I know of.

Tanzer: What did you do on the High Holidays? 
HEILNER: We kept them religiously. The family kept them.

Tanzer: In what way did you keep them? 
HEILNER: Well, for what they were meant for.

Tanzer: Did you keep them at home? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Who conducted the services? 
HEILNER: Oh, different members of the different families, of the Jewish families.

Tanzer: In whose home were they held? 
HEILNER: Well, let’s see. Some of them in the different homes. The Bambergers, several of them. The Weils, the Baers, these different homes, Jewish homes. They held the services in these different Jewish homes.

Tanzer: Do you remember the services when you were a little boy? 
HEILNER: Not very well. We used to keep them, but I didn’t know the real but I kept them with the family.

Tanzer: Would you classify your parents as observant Jews? 
HEILNER: They were religious.

Tanzer: In what ways did they observe Judaism? 
HEILNER: Just the natural way. Mother used to pray from the prayer books at home. Here in Baker there is no place, no synagogue or anything here, just in our own family. I don’t know how the others did, but I know mother used to pray from the religious book.

Tanzer: Did you have Sabbath on Friday nights? 
HEILNER: Sometimes.

Tanzer: Do you remember her doing things like lighting the candles? 
HEILNER: Well, I have a faint remembrance.

Tanzer: Did you go into Portland at all? 
HEILNER: Yes, I went to school in Portland.

Tanzer: But did the families go in for the holidays? 
HEILNER: No, but sometimes during the holidays they went to Portland.

Tanzer: Do you remember, Mr. Heilner, the families getting together and discussing the building of a synagogue? 
HEILNER: No. We went to Portland to a synagogue. We belonged, the family did.

Tanzer: I have heard that when there were a number of Jewish families here that there was some discussion of bringing a teacher in and building a small synagogue. I wonder if you remember? 
HEILNER: No, I wouldn’t remember any of that. I wouldn’t remember any of that.

Tanzer: But you do remember the family going into Portland to the Temple? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: How long has the family been affiliated with the Temple? 
HEILNER: That I can’t say. I have no memory of that. I belong to the Temple now.

Tanzer: Are your parents buried at Temple Beth Israel? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: And what about the rest of the family? 
HEILNER: My married sister you mean?

Tanzer: Where are they buried? 
HEILNER: In San Francisco and Portland, that’s all.

Tanzer: Did your married sister live in San Francisco? 
HEILNER: In Portland and then San Francisco.

Tanzer: I see. What was her married name? 
HEILNER: Bissinger.

Tanzer: And does she still have family in San Francisco? 
HEILNER: Yes, she has a living daughter.

Tanzer: You have four children also. 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Where are they now, Mr. Heilner? 
HEILNER: They are in California and some live in Utah and some live in Idaho. They are scattered around, married.

Tanzer: Your children decided not to live in Baker. 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Do you know what the reasons were for this? 
HEILNER: No, they just got scattered around. I don’t know much about that. They are married and live in these cities.

Tanzer: As you look back on your life in Baker, do you care to make any comments about what it was like to grow up in Baker and to have lived your life here? 
HEILNER: I enjoyed it, is that what you mean?

Tanzer: Yes. 
HEILNER: My life has been spent here, that I can tell you.

Tanzer: Do you remember the hard times? The difficult times? 
HEILNER: No I don’t. I never paid much attention to that.

Tanzer: Well, during the Depression, places like Baker must have been hit by the hard times. 
HEILNER: Yes, in different ways. I don’t know why, but Baker was always considered a pretty substantial, small town. That’s all I know about it.

Tanzer: There weren’t any difficult times when there would have been crop failures or mines would have closed? 
HEILNER: Yes, in the early days.

Tanzer: But that would have affected the merchants very much, wouldn’t it? 
HEILNER: Yes, the mines closed down on account of they weren’t producing.

Tanzer: And did that effect you at the store? 
HEILNER: Well to some extent. We still had a lot of farming and ranching around here. It affected the store some, I would say. I was pretty small too then, in my early days in the store.

Tanzer: In these times, in these difficult times, did you have to extend credit to the people in the town? 
HEILNER: Yes, we did.

Tanzer: Did you find that they repaid you? 
HEILNER: Most of them paid well; they paid their bills. That’s all I can say.

Tanzer: So actually, your family has been business in Baker for really over 100 years? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Marian asks that you tell me what your father did aside from being a merchant, the various other things that he did. 
HEILNER: Yes, he was interested in farming and shipping. I would say that he had a warehouse business here. He was in the warehouse business and handled that at the railroad, for the railroad. He was interested in the trains that would haul it.

Tanzer: Like the railways. 
HEILNER: Yes, like the railways, he was interested in that. He worked with the railroads.

Tanzer: In their right-of-way? 
HEILNER: In their right-of-way. He gave the railroad their right-of-way into Baker I think.

Tanzer: What capacity did he have to give them the right-of-way? Did he own the land? 
HEILNER: Yes, my parents owned the land. I didn’t own anything. I was a pretty small child in those days.

Tanzer: So he was interested in the railway, warehousing. And what farming did he do? 
HEILNER: Oh, he was just interested in dealing with the ranchers and he bought – well, some of the sheep men, he would buy their wool and then sell it to wool dealers in the East and that was his business too, in connection with the store business. He handled hides and wool and made a living with that too.

Tanzer: Now, did he sell his horses, did he raise horses to sell? 
HEILNER: No, no.

Tanzer:  Just for himself? 
HEILNER:  Just for himself.

Tanzer: Was he interested in politics? 
HEILNER: Yes he was.

Tanzer: What positions did he hold? 
HEILNER: Well, he was mayor of Baker.

Tanzer: What year? 
HEILNER: Oh, I don’t know. I was pretty tiny.

Tanzer: Was this when you were very young? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Was he the first mayor? 
HEILNER: Yes, I think he was one of the first mayors and he took quite a bit of interest in the city and politics, Oregon politics.

Tanzer: That’s wonderful. Did he have any other positions besides being mayor? 
HEILNER: No, just a Baker business man, an Oregon man in business. That’s all I know.

Tanzer: One of your father’s brothers, as I understand, was killed in Baker. 
HEILNER: That’s what I understand. He had some mining trouble with somebody and he and some other fellow got into a quarrel over some mining deal I think it was, and he shot him, the brother. I don’t believe I was even born then.

Tanzer: Well that’s what we want to know, Mr. Heilner, we want a history of the family. It is really an amazing tribute to human tenacity that people like your father came here, started a business here, raised a family, brought other Jews and lived in areas where there weren’t any other Jews and remained here and remained Jews. And it is very interesting and exciting for young children, for all people to know about this. This is the pioneer spirit. 
HEILNER: Yes, yes. My father was a very prominent man. Everything that he went into, around here, was all for the interest of Oregon. He was very much interested in the State.

Tanzer: Was he interested in Jewish causes as well? 
HEILNER: Not in all cases, but somebody would come up and they would need funds sometime and he could give them some help. That’s all I know about that.

Tanzer: But he was very charitable within this area? 
HEILNER: Yes he was.

Tanzer: Was he interested in the schools? 
HEILNER: Well, that I can’t remember. He saw that the children all had a schooling.

Tanzer: Did he ever go back to Europe to visit his family? 
HEILNER: Never. Never been in Europe.

HEILNER:  [Unclear comment when tapes resumes].

Tanzer: And he had this right in the store? 
HEILNER: This he had right in the store, but in a separate spot. I never saw him do much painting that l can remember. Very well.

Tanzer: What interests did your mother have? 
HEILNER: I would say, she was interested in Baker and what went on around here.

Tanzer: Did she work in the store at all? 
HEILNER: No she didn’t.

Tanzer: Your grandmother didn’t come here? 
HEILNER: I don’t know. I don’t know anything about the family in Europe, what they did or what they didn’t do. I never heard the folks speak a great deal about them.

Tanzer: Did you have other relatives from Europe who visited? 
HEILNER: No, just the Neubergers.

Tanzer: Who came and stayed? 
HEILNER: Who came and stayed? The Neubergers.

Tanzer: I wondered though if some – – 
HEILNER: No parents. I can’t remember of any of them visiting here.

Tanzer: Do you remember when you were a young child being taken to the store? 
HEILNER: Yes I do. When I went into the store, when I came back from school in Portland where I went to school you know. I was a boarder in a boarding school and then I went into the store as a clerk and learned the mercantile business the best l could.

Tanzer: What was the mercantile business like? Were there set prices for things? 
HEILNER: Do you mean what we had?

Tanzer: Yes. 
HEILNER: In the early days it was groceries and crockery, dishes and that stuff. In the crockery business and grocery business. That was the main thing.

Tanzer: And then what did it become? 
HEILNER: Then in later years the Neuberger cousins came over to the United States and went to work in the store. They gradually went into the dry good business, clothing for men and women. I can’t remember it too well, but that gives you an idea doesn’t it? That’s it. I worked in that store ever since when I started to work there.

Tanzer: Were there set prices on things? 
HEILNER: Yes, pretty much so.

Tanzer: The reason I ask about the set prices was that I understand in the early days of some of the department stores they didn’t have set prices, they had code numbers and only the people who worked in the stores would know the prices. 
HEILNER: No, I don’t think so. I think they knew the selling prices. There was a staple, most of them, as far as I knew about this.

Tanzer: Did only family work in the store? Did you hire other people?
HEILNER:  I think there was only the family who worked in the store, the ones that I told you about. That’s all that worked in the store.

Tanzer: When you go back to your schooling, do you feel that it prepared you to go to work at the store? 
HEILNER: No, I just went to school there and came home and went into the store. Just what I learned from the family is what I knew about selling and store work.

Tanzer: Did you do some of the buying for the store? 
HEILNER: Yes, some of the buying in later years.

Tanzer: What were your interests in buying merchandise? 
HEILNER: Buying crockery, dishes, dishware, and groceries, just general stuff when the salesman came. I interested myself in the buying of stuff.

Tanzer: Now did the salesmen come here or did you go some place else? 
HEILNER: They came here, in most cases. Sometime we went to Portland or San Francisco to buy. The wholesale houses were in Portland and some were in San Francisco.

Tanzer: Mr. Heilner, growing up in Baker, did you ever feel any antisemitism? 
HEILNER: Not that I know of.

Tanzer: There were no times that you felt that being Jewish separated you from the rest of the community? 
HEILNER: No, no, never. Always very friendly and good friends.

Tanzer: Was this true of the other members of your family as well? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: And what about your own children? They grew up in Baker, did they experience any antisemitism. 
HEILNER: Of course I married out of the Jewish faith. My wife didn’t belong to the Jewish faith.

Tanzer: How did your family react to that? 
HEILNER: Well everything went along. The elder parents were gone, had passed away, but my brothers, and everything was alright, satisfactory. That’s about all I know much about. I’ve spent my whole life here you know, from the time that I was born until this day and worked in the store all the time that I have spent in Baker.

Tanzer: Have you seen changes occur in Baker through the years? 
HEILNER: No, it seems very much the same.

Tanzer: It does? 
HEILNER: Yes, it seems very much the same. The same line of businesses. The families all seem to be very cordial together.

Tanzer:  Except that most of the Jewish families are gone? 
HEILNER:  Yes.

Tanzer: Why do you think they left? 
HEILNER: Just on account of death where they were buried, some in Portland, wherever they were taken to and buried, the family. Some of them are buried in San Francisco and some of them are buried in Portland. It’s going back pretty far to remember.

Tanzer: Were they here before World War II? These families, did they remain here until World War II? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: Did the war seem to change things? 
HEILNER: No. Changes, divorces?

Tanzer: No, changes because of World War II? 
HEILNER: Not much that I know of. Things seem to go along steadily, that’s all I would say.

Tanzer: Well, after World War II there were so many opportunities in many places, that sometimes people moved on and moved away. That’s why I ask. 
HEILNER: Well, some of them did. Some moved to different places. Where I can’t remember.

Tanzer: Do your children come back here frequently to visit? 
HEILNER: Yes. They have friends here, family, relatives.

Tanzer: But they were not interested in going into the store? 
HEILNER: No. Our store remained always under the name of Heilner. The name Heilner was the original name of the store,

Tanzer: I want to ask you about this property that we are sitting on now. This is the new house that you built, but originally I understand that this was the old house. 
HEILNER: It was the old home, yes.

Tanzer: And that was the windmill? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Tanzer: And then the carriage houses were here? 
HEILNER: Yes, in the rear there where he kept the horses, the few horses that he had, and his own carriage or buggy, that we would ride around in, you know. Just lived a natural, good life, that’s all.

Tanzer: Did you have gardens where you raised your own fruits and vegetables? 
HEILNER: Not that I can recall. We had a nice yard, but mother never took much of an interest in that. The people around the town, so many places raised everything, vegetables and fruits, and mother used to buy this produce and stuff.

Tanzer: Did you have help in the house? 
HEILNER: Yes. She always had help, cook and a maid, always had two in help as far as I know.

Tanzer: Do you remember the cook? 
HEILNER: He was a Chinese cook.

Tanzer: How long was he with the family?
HEILNER:  For years. I don’t know how many, but for a long time.

Tanzer: And whatever happened to him? 
HEILNER: He got older and wanted to go back to China. I think father sent him back there to China and that was the last we ever heard of him.

Tanzer: Why did he come to the United States? 
HEILNER: That I don’t know. They used to have a Chinatown section here with a lot of Chinese, where they lived and he just came out naturally with the rest of the Chinese.

Tanzer: Well some of them came to work on the railroads and some came to work in the mines. 
HEILNER: Yes, that is right. He worked in the mines.

Tanzer: What about the maid? You had a maid in the house too. 
HEILNER: Not a colored maid, just an ordinary nice person, helped mother. She helped with the housework.

Tanzer: Did your mother have activities outside of the house? 
HEILNER: No, she had a lot of… pretty near everybody in town were friends, you know, and there wasn’t much activity. She belonged to one of the women’s lodges, something like that. I know she did, but I don’t know what went on, just lodge members, and father was a lodge member, Masonic lodge here.

Tanzer: Do you remember the old house that was here?
HEILNER:  Yes.

Tanzer: You were born in that house? 
HEILNER: That house.

Tanzer: I understand that this Victorian house had running water? 
HEILNER:  No, pump. A well to pump the water and in later years they had running water. That was a long time where they pumped the water.

Tanzer: Tell me about your mother’s sister. 
HEILNER: Her sister came out here. That I don’t know much about. But she married and lived here and her husband he worked in the store, in some store, in business here and they moved to San Francisco.

Tanzer: What was your mother’s sister’s name? 
HEILNER: Emma. Emma Frank.

Tanzer: Emma Neuberger Frank. 
HEILNER: Yes, Emma Neuberger Frank.

Tanzer: And do you know who he worked for here? 
HEILNER: I think he ran a liquor store. You know, a kind of a family liquor store where you could get a drink or something, I don’t know. I was pretty small then and then he worked in the dry goods business, Bamberger Frank. They were in the same kind of store that we are.  They called it Bamberger & Frank. That was away from any saloon; that was earlier. He went into that as sort of a side business.

Tanzer: And then they ultimately went to San Francisco? 
HEILNER: In later years he moved to San Francisco.

Tanzer: Did they have children? 
HEILNER: Yes, one daughter and a son.

Tanzer: Are they living in San Francisco now? 
HEILNER: Yes, living in San Francisco. The boy just died, but the daughter is still living in San Francisco. Edna was her name and she is still living in San Francisco.

Tanzer: How many years did they live in Baker? 
HEILNER: Oh, I wouldn’t know. I have no idea.

Tanzer: Did they leave after the children were born? 
HEILNER: Yes, they did, they went to San Francisco.

Tanzer: So you had a good deal of activity right in Baker, among the Jewish families and among your own family? 
HEILNER: Yes, the family business, that was the activities, good friends, invited each other to different homes.

Tanzer: Do you remember when there would be family meetings about the store? 
HEILNER: No, I wouldn’t remember any of that. They didn’t interest much in the family affairs.

Tanzer: Didn’t the family who was working in the store and managing the store get together and talk about the business in the store? 
HEILNER: Only working there, that’s all.

Tanzer: Then you communicated? 
HEILNER: Couldn’t say, they worked for my father, they came here, and I don’t know where they came from. That was way back before my time.

Tanzer: Was your father retired when you went into the store? 
HEILNER: No.

Tanzer: He was still there? 
HEILNER: I worked in the store.

Tanzer: When did your father retire? 
HEILNER: That I couldn’t say. I wouldn’t know. He just stepped out and my two cousins, the Neubergers and I, became more active. And my brother Jess Heilner became active and father just gradually took it easy. Didn’t do much work and we ran the store then.

Tanzer: Tell me about the 4th of July celebrations in Baker. 
HEILNER: They were big, big celebrations. They came from all around and had wonderful parades and celebrations. It was very important, the 4th of July.

Tanzer: What did your family do on that day? 
HEILNER: Well, not much. Sometimes picnic and then they had the parade and fireworks and we would watch that stuff.

Tanzer: Did you march in the parade? 
HEILNER: Sometimes. I was awfully little. I don’t know whether I paraded around with them or not. I always stuck around where there was activity though.

Tanzer: How much younger were you than your brothers and sister? 
HEILNER: Average around, I wouldn’t know, eight years, seven years, I don’t know exactly. I don’t remember those things. The family always stuck together, I do know.

Tanzer: You remember the family always sticking together, doing things together. 
HEILNER: Yes, yes. If anything went on among the family, the family always took part in it, you know, just family affairs and friends, regardless of religion or what. Everybody was very good friends, like his family, the Baer family, all those families were very good friends and when they had parties in their homes, they would invite each other. They would have a dinner or an evening they always kind of got together. That’s about as good as I can say.

Tanzer: Do you miss those things now? 
HEILNER: I really do. I miss that, the family was always close and they were friendly with everybody, and very much liked. That’s the way we lived, father was great and a highly thought of man here. He did different things in different enterprises, I don’t know what all, but he did business in a business way with different businessmen here. He was always considered a fine citizen.

Tanzer: But even after your father was gone, the families were still close together? 
HEILNER: Yes, my mother and father were gone. My sister married and Jess Heilner (one of the boys) married and one was the lawyer and I was in the store and that’s where we were together. I worked in the store.

Tanzer: When did things really begin to change with the family? 
HEILNER: That I wouldn’t know. I absolutely don’t remember those things. When they moved away, some of them, that’s all I know, they went to different parts. My sister married and lived in San Francisco. My brother stayed here and that’s all I know.

Tanzer: Are any of them alive now, your sister or brothers? 
HEILNER: No.

[side conversation: Shall I sit here? Sanford Adler entered into the conversation]

Tanzer: You sit right there. 

Adler: What did you say about the band? 
HEILNER: I just wasn’t a very good musician, but I took up and played an instrument. 

Adler: What did you play? 
HEILNER: The clarinet and wasn’t very good at it, and I was a member of the band then. 

Adler: Freitag? 
HEILNER: Freitag was the leader and it was a pretty good size band. 

Adler: Your cousins joined too, Bert and Gerson played? 
HEILNER: No, Bert did. 

Adler: He played at all the entertainments and parades. 
HEILNER: We played in parades and gave street concerts. Maybe one night a week and people used to turn out on Main Street and listen to the band. 

Adler: When you were in the grocery business didn’t the farmers just pay you once a year mostly? 
HEILNER: No. 

Adler: Lots of them did. 
HEILNER: Lots of them did. 

Adler: Sometimes they paid you in other things besides money. They never just paid anything, they just volunteered. 
HEILNER: Yes. 

Adler: Didn’t the farmers bring in beef to pay for their bills and butter and so forth? 
HEILNER: Yes, they were honest and pretty much all honest in paying their bills. That’s about as close as I can remember.

Tanzer: You are doing very well. 
Adler: The house was on this property where your house is until you built like the carriage house torn down when you built this house. 
HEILNER: Yes. 

Adler: It was still there until then? 
HEILNER: Yes. Tore down this place and rebuilt this home, yes. 

Adler: Your brother Jessie had a grocery store. 
HEILNER: Yes, one of my brothers. 

Adler: He left the store, didn’t he? 
HEILNER: Yes, he didn’t stay in it very long. He went to Portland to work.

Winfield: What did he do in Portland? 
HEILNER: Worked for some insurance company, I think. I’m not sure what they called it.

Winfield:  Did he like living in Portland? Or did he like Baker better? 
Adler: What was his wife’s name, Jessie, I don’t remember it? I don’t remember who he married. 
HEILNER: I wouldn’t remember her either. I never knew any of her family or anything of her.

Adler: He was very popular. 
HEILNER: Yes.

Winfield: This little house, over here, Mr. Heilner, is that little house over here part of the original home, or is that a new building? 
HEILNER: Where?

Adler: This little tool house, was that part of the original? 
HEILNER: No, as far as I know, they were not original.

Adler: I remember you were quite a gay boy when you were young. 
HEILNER: Just like all the boys around, always enjoying the town. Did you get them alright?

Tanzer: That’s fine. I got that one and it’s nice and what I am going to ask you to do is to get rid of this and give it back to good old Sanford to hold. 
HEILNER: Do you want me to sit over there?
Mrs. Heilner: No, stay right where you are.

Adler: We can move this chair out of the way. 
HEILNER: Just like I am? 
Mrs. Heilner: Just like you are, that’s fine.

Tanzer: You’re just fine, as soon as I am certain that I mastered this very complicated camera.
Adler: Make it snappy. Snap, snap, snap.
Tanzer: You say snap it because you are not behind this and I can’t run back to Baker to take pictures. I have to hold my head up when this is in the dark room and they say, “What kind of pictures are you taking mother?” This camera has so many little things that you have to figure out, like light meters, then they have to be adjusted down.

HEILNER: Where’s Marian, Sandy? 
Adler: She’s in there running the tape for some reason. I don’t know.

Tanzer: You look just lovely. Would you like to give me a smile? That’s beautiful. That really is. You stay just where you are because I am going to go back here and I’m going to take one of the house. 
HEILNER: She wants to take some pictures of the house?

Adler: Yes. She might want to take another picture of you. 
HEILNER: We just live like anybody else, a regular life, Sandy, nothing special. What I’ve told her is practically what we did through life.

Adler: He was kind of the Rabbi on holidays. He always read the services. 
HEILNER: Yes.

Adler: We used to go in the Elks Club, we had so many Jewish people then. 
HEILNER: Yes, I guess she knows that.

Winfield: No, tell us about it. 
HEILNER: Well, that’s what we did.

Adler: We had enough Jewish people here to rent a hall. 
HEILNER: That’s right.

Winfield: Was that for the holidays? 
Adler: For the holidays.

Winfield: Was that Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur? 
Adler: Yes.

Winfield: What did you do on Passover? 
Adler: We never did anything,

Winfield: When you were young did your mother ever have a Passover dinner? 
HEILNER: Yes. Mother kept the holidays pretty well.

Winfield: And how did you celebrate Passover? 
HEILNER: Passover? Just not eating.

Winfield: Passover, when you had the matzos. 
Adler: When we had matzos. 
HEILNER: Yes, we would eat the matzos and not bread.

Adler: Did you have special plates? 
HEILNER: Special dishes.

Winfield: Did you not eat bread all week long? Did you stop eating bread all week for Passover and would just eat matzos for the week? 
HEILNER: Yes, that’s right.

Winfield: And did you have a special dinner the first night of Passover? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Winfield: Did you have special food at that dinner? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Winfield: And you had things on the table that was part of the Passover service? 
HEILNER: They kept Rosh Hashanah. They have to eat, you know.

Winfield: Did you read from the Haggadah? Did you read from a book during your Passover Seder? 
HEILNER: Yes, we read from the prayer book.

Winfield: Your father did that? Who did that, your father? 
HEILNER: Different members of the Jewish people that were here.

Winfield: Was it always a man? 
HEILNER: Always a man, I think.

Winfield: He read through he whole book? 
HEILNER: Yes.

PART 2

Marian: If you don’t give it, it’s going to be gone. You talk about all of the early happenings of Baker all the time. Every time we are with company, I can’t stop you, and today you don’t want to do it. 
HEILNER: Well, I scattered around. I don’t know.

Marian: Well, I know. These are nice pictures in this thing that Sandy had fixed at the library. Now this is something that I wrote down one time… [Sanford coughing].

Marian: This says, Andy Sachs married Rohr, who was Mrs. Andy Sachs’ mother. Oh it says, Mrs. Andy Sachs mother was a half sister to Sanford’s mother, Clara Neuberger Heilner. Andy Sachs and wife had two sons. Do not know if the sons married, but they did not live to be very old. Mrs. Sach’s sister was Dena Rohr. Amelia Hecht was the San Francisco Hecht who owned the Emporium there. Their sons, well I don’t know who it was with Amelia, who was her husband? Who was Amelia Hecht’s husband? 
HEILNER: I don’t know, I was too young.

Marian: Well, their sons were Joel Hecht and Elias Hecht. Audlehide was the daughter, I guess. [Marian reading] Joel married and lived in Europe. He married a German girl and Elias did not marry. William Kaufman was a nephew to Clara Heilner and he became head of the Emporium. Is that right? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Marian: William Kaufman married. He may have come from Baltimore, Sanford thinks. He was born in Baltimore, I believe that Mrs. Hecht was a half sister also of Mrs. Heilner. Is that right? 
HEILNER: I don’t know.

Marian: She may have been a Rohr. It could be that Mrs. Andy Sach’s mother was a Hecht, but she wasn’t, because she told me many times she was a Rohr. The Rohr family lived in Baltimore. The Hecht family also lived in Baltimore. The Hechts also had a large store in Pittsburgh and in Washington, D.C. Is that correct? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Marian: The Baltimore Hechts were the largest store and the main one. It then says that Sanford cannot remember the maiden name of his mother’s half sister, the mother of Mrs. Sachs, or how they were related to William Kaufman, but he was a nephew of Mrs. Heilner. William Kaufman was your mother’s nephew. 
HEILNER: Her maiden name may have been Kaufman.

Marian: It wasn’t though, by golly, I know it was Rohr. Mrs. Heliner had a brother, Ike Neuberger living in New York. She thought he was a professional gambler, but he would never tell. 
HEILNER: You would never put that in.

Marian: No, I guess not. Well it’s in now. He married – didn’t he marry before he married Emma? 
HEILNER: Yes, and they divorced.

Marian: And then Emma was sent back to him, for him to take care of her. I guess it was just more convenient for him to marry his niece than to just have her there. 
HEILNER: I wouldn’t like to have anything like that in print.

Marian: Or in sound. Well it’s alright for our kids, they’re the ones to hear it. She married Ignatius Fishel after Ike Neuberger died. They had no children, but, of course, they reared Bertyl after her parents died. Sanford says that the Durham family in San Francisco was in business with the Hechts in San Francisco, but he doesn’t know whether there is any relationship between the Durhams and the Hechts, is that right? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Marian: You don’t know if the Durhams were relatives. Do you think they were? 
HEILNER: No, I don’t think so. I don’t know a thing about that.

Marian: Well, that’s kind of far out probably. 
HEILNER: Didn’t Joel have some stuff about it?

Marian: It says in here that Joel gave me a write-up on Millie’s wedding. In fact he it says that he gave me the marriage license of somebody, but I don’t know where that’s gone. It’s probably here somewhere in the house. It says – this must be what I have copied from whatever he gave me. It says, “Portland young man claims a bride in Baker City. Baker City, March 9th, married 3rd of March, last Sunday, at the home of the bride’s parents, Mr. and Mrs. S. A. Heilner of Baker City was solemnized the wedding of Miss Millie Heilner.” and her name was Mildred, I don’t know why they would write that to Mr. Newton Bissinger of Portland. A large number of friends gathered from different parts of Oregon to attend the ceremony and congratulate the couple. At the dinner following, about 80 telegrams and cablegrams were read from friends all over the United States and in Germany. Six congratulatory dispatches came from Germany. Can you believe that? Dr. Stephen S. Wise, Rabbi of Temple Beth Israel of Portland came to Baker to officiate at the wedding. 
HEILNER:  That I knew of.

Marian: Being accompanied by eight guests from Portland. Who came, do you know? Who else? The large double parlors of the home had been tastefully decorated for the occasion. Oregon grapes and lillies, potted plants, predominating. Wreaths and festoons of the former were profuse, giving the apartments a holiday aspect. Over the alcove occupied by the minister and the couple during the ceremony were unique designs, one being a double triangle, a Heilner symbolism. Well, now isn’t that interesting? I would have liked to have seen that. A crown bearing the words, “love, peace, happiness” were suspended over the center, guarded on either side by a cupid. Orange blossoms were arranged on the background of the alcove. The order of the procession to the altar, which moved to Lohengrin’s Wedding March, was Mr. Jack Lewisohn of Portland, best man; Sam Bissinger of Portland, brother of the groom; Jessie Heilner, brother of the bride; Sanford and Joseph Heilner, also brothers; Mrs. S. A. Heilner, accompanying the groom; Master Leonard Kaufman, page; and the bride leaning upon the arm of her Father, S. A. Heilner came last. Miss Heilner was dressed in duchess satin and train, with trimmings of old point lace and silk crepe de chine. The veil was held in place by orange blossoms reaching to the bottom of the train. She carried a splendid bouquet of lillies of the valley, bound with white satin streamers. 

The guests repaired to the bouquet room following the ceremony where an elegant supper was spread. Toasts were proposed and drunk by many present, amidst hearty congratulations and felicitous addresses. The table decorations consisted of simplex carnations and roses. A large number of presents were received by the couple. Those present joined in a merry dance, which continued until a late hour. The bride and groom departed at 3:30 A.M., on the west bound train bound for Monterey, California via Portland. The honeymoon will be spent there and in about two weeks, Mr. and Mrs. Bissinger will return to Portland where their home has already been fitted up. (Boy that was some wedding wasn’t it?) What a beautiful thing. 
HEILNER: That’s really good.

Marian: How much do you remember of that Sanford? 
HEILNER: I can remember the wedding, but I wasn’t not into it, I wasn’t too busy about anything. I was pretty young.

Marian: Even if you were young. Tell me. 
HEILNER: It all sounds like it was.

Marian: Isn’t this funny. It tells March 9th, but it doesn’t tell the year they were married. Isn’t that a strange thing? 
HEILNER: That’s a good write-up on the wedding.

Marian:  Yes. Someone must have given that to me. I guess Joel. It must have had the date on it then. I can’t remember it. I have written little snatches. Well, tell me honey, what you remember? What do you remember first about Baker? Tell me, how was Baker when you first remember? 
HEILNER: Very much like it is now.

Marian: Oh, it was? 
HEILNER: All I know is that they had the muddy streets, no pavements. I went to the Central School.

Marian: That’s where the Junior High is now. 
HEILNER: Yes. I always enjoyed our life in Baker and I was sent to the Bishop Scott Academy Military School in Portland.

Marian: How long did you go there? 
HEILNER: I think two years. Then I came home and started working in the store. We had a grocery store then. I used to drive a little delivery wagon to deliver the groceries around.

Marian: You used to tell a story about delivering those groceries. Tell that story about how you were putting the delivery wagon away. 
HEILNER: Well, we had a nice painted delivery wagon. It was closed up, you know, and the name was on the side of it. You know I think that once was in a parade here on the 4th of July, the delivery wagon. I don’t know, but my whole life was spent in Baker.

Marian: But tell when you were putting that delivery wagon away, you didn’t unspoke the horses or something ? 
HEILNER: I used to take it to the barn during the lunch hour and I took the responsibility once of taking the bridle off the horse’s head and he ran to the other side of the corral and slammed the delivery wagon against the wall as he made an exit getting out of there and I ran back to the store to tell my Father about it.

Marian: What happened to the wagon? 
HEILNER: Well, they had it re-fixed again.

Marian: It mashed it all to pieces didn’t you say? 
HEILNER: Well, it got mashed from one side to another, you know, with a nice top on it and I never delivered any more after that and most of my time was spent in the store, learning the grocery business and Jess Heilner worked in the store too.

Marian: Where was Joe? 
HEILNER: Joe was at law school.

Marian: Where did he go to law school? 
HEILNER: University of Oregon. They had it in Portland, there was the law department of the school. He graduated. There were 100 students that graduated and he was the top, the highest honors.

Marian: How old was he? 
HEILNER: Joe was about, I think, 19, with the highest honors and then he came to Baker to practice with Judge Smith. They had the law office across the street on the corner of that building,

Marian: Yes, Judge Smith was Mary Riter’s Father wasn’t he? 
HEILNER: Yes, that’s right. Then Joe settled here in Baker in law. They built the Baker Theatre, a number of business men, Father was one of them that built the Baker Theatre which was a beautiful theater, very modern and had a balcony and a gallery, a building of three floors, three stories, and I ushered in the theater a long time. I was in the store, but in the evening, we used to get all the finest shows here then. The finest shows came to Baker from New York and played Boise, Salt Lake, Baker and Portland. LaGrande had nothing, and Pendleton, but here there was a beautiful theater, modern, and they could stage the biggest shows here. With their scenery, these shows, they would put on these shows here. In later years they hired George L. Baker of Portland who was with the Heilig Theatre in Portland. He took over the management of the theater here and he made me his secretary and I did usually the selling of the tickets of the shows that came to Baker. They had a downtown box office, where people would go and buy the tickets you know for the shows that were coming, and then at the theater I was at the box office there and would settle up with the managers of these shows when they came, their percentage of what their percentage ran 80% and the theater got 20% of the proceeds. We had all the finest shows that were coming out west played in Baker in those days too.

Marian: Can you remember some of the people? 
HEILNER: No, well, oh my Gosh, there were so many of them, I couldn’t even remember the play. I use to interview some of the actors and actresses. They would give me the story of their lives. How they became actors and actresses. It used to be very interesting. Then after years in the theatrical business, legitimate shows quit coming and then the movies came in and we leased the theater. The theater was owned by, in later years, my brother Joe Heilner and the two Neuberger brothers which were cousins of mine, Gerson and Bert Neuberger, we took over the theater. It went into the hands of receivorship or something and we took over and fixed it up very beautiful for a movie house. We rented it out as a movie house.

Marian: It was gorgeous. It was beautiful, I know. They had beautiful red velvet curtains. 
HEILNER: I think we spent some odd thousand in re-modeling it up-to-date with plush seats and everything nice like that and we rented it out.

Marian: It had gilt boxes on the side. 
HEILNER: We rented the theater out.

Marian: Was there a first and second balcony or more? 
HEILNER: A balcony and the gallery. You could say a second balcony, but it was called the gallery.

Marian: Then it burned, about 1939 or 1940. 
HEILNER: Yes. Nobody knows how. Something happened during the night there and in the morning it was just a big out, you know and the theater burned down.

Marian: Tell me about your home. I mean how your mother ran the home. You had so many people living in it all the time. 
HEILNER: Well, Mother always more or less had company, from Portland, San Francisco, New York, friends. Mother was always nice and then some of the big mines were operating then and they had prominent men as managers of them and through business connections with the store, we sold groceries to these mines. We would ship them up to the mines from Baker and they would come down to Baker, these managers with several of the mines and mother used to have them for dinner at home. They were fine people and Father owned a mine called the Mammoth Mine and he bonded that mine out to eastern – a tooth wash outfit, I think it was called [Fulthom?] and they sent the manager out here to manage the mine. It didn’t pay and they just gave it up. They did not operate it right.

Marian: Who is that nice family that you used to know? Melzer? 
HEILNER: Oh yes, they had the mine. They became very good friends of Mother and Father! Mr. and Mrs. Melzer and whenever they came down to Baker they always visited with us.

Marian: They stayed with you at your house? 
HEILNER: I don’t remember whether they did or not. I never paid much attention to it.

Marian: Then you knew the Geysers and Frohmans when they had their mines too, didn’t you? 
HEILNER: Yes, what was their mine called now? I forgot it. It was producing big too then.

Marian: Was it the Bonanza? 
HEILNER: The Bonanza, what did I call Father’s mine?

Marian: Mammoth. The Bonanza mine was the Frohman mine or the Geyser mine and they sold it, I think, years later. 
HEILNER: Mining played out here. During the mining days here it was fabulous. All those mines producing and Baker was a very lively town then, you know.

Marian: How did your father get all the groceries up to those mines? Didn’t he have to get them and bring them somehow overland from The Dalles? How was that? 
HEILNER: No. That had nothing to do with it. You see in the early days, I didn’t know much about business, how they shipped stuff in here, but in later years they used to ship over the Sumter Valley Railroad up to Sumter and then it was distributed from there to the mines. And Sumter became quite a town and we used to ship groceries to Sumter to restaurants and hotels up there. They bought their groceries from us and had it shipped up to Sumter, I remember that.

Marian: Sumter was quite a place then. 
HEILNER: Oh Sumter had several thousand people living there. They had a fine hotel there, a two story fine hotel. It was a very busy mining town with gambling going on up there, an open town. Dad gave the Oregon Railroad and Navigation company a railway which later became the Union Pacific, gave them the rights to come to Baker from the east and the west because he owned that property where the railroad depot was built. And he had two big warehouses out there that handled all the freight from the railroads, for years there he was the freight agent and everything was distributed from his warehouses to different parts up around Sumter, Halfway and all those surrounding places. They came with their teams to Baker to load the freight on, to get the stuff that was in these warehouses and at that time the family traveled on passes, our family, through his connections with the railroad and giving them the rights to come into Baker with their trackage. And wherever we went, wherever the family went was always passes. In later years they stopped that you know.

Marian: Where would you go to take a boat to San Francisco? 
HEILNER: To Portland. Mother, Joe and I went on the steamship Columbia one winter, early winter. We went to San Francisco to visit relatives and while we were on our way to San Francisco on the Pacific Ocean, a storm came up and we were two or three days anchored in the Pacific Ocean. They didn’t know whether that boat was going to make it or not. It was slapped from one side to another. Now mind you, I was only a little fellow, I must have been 12 years old. I was a little kid, and after the storm subsided, we were probably two or three days and couldn’t get any connections where the ship was or what happened in those days into San Francisco. After the storm subsided, after several days the boat made it into San Francisco. In later years, it sank, the Columbia. I read about it in later years. I don’t know where it was. Someplace, but it did sink.

Marian: You told me how sick your mother was, and Joe, on that trip. 
HEILNER: Mother and Joe became seasick and were practically in their… we had the nicest quarters on the ship at that time because being connected with the railroads. Joe and mother became sick and I was watching, because they told me as you cross the bar from the Columbia River into the ocean, the bar, and I was a little fellow and I went out onto the deck of the ship and was looking over – and I remember that so well and watching down to see where that bar was, it was just called the bar.

Marian: An imaginary bar. 
HEILNER: Going into the Pacific Ocean and I felt coming on sick too and I ran to our room on the boat and I was sick the rest of the trip, all the way. That was where it started right there, across the ocean and we were sick the whole time that we were anchored out in the Pacific Ocean. Finally the storm subsided and the Captain, I can remember Mother was saying that the Captain had told them, I didn’t pay much attention, I was a little fellow, they were lucky that they made it. They thought sure that that boat would go down, because it wouldn’t be able to stand – – I can remember, Marian, that thing slapping from one side to another and we were on the top deck in what they would call the exclusive, deluxe room and I could see that water slapping against the windows. The windows were little in those days. That was something you know.

Marian: And your family, how did they greet you when you got to San Francisco?
HEILNER: When we arrived in San Francisco, my Aunt and her husband and my sister Millie, who was going to school in San Francisco at the time with their daughter, Edna Frank (they were going to a girl’s school) and we were on our way to visit during the Christmas holidays. When we got off that boat, they greeted us, they were all in tears and it was something that I will never forget. They never knew whether we were ever going to arrive in San Francisco. Like I said before there were no connections to tell where we were or what was happening, until we got there.

Marian: Your father must have been worried. 
HEILNER: Of course, I don’t remember what Father thought of it or how he got the news. He wouldn’t have heard anything of it until we got to San Francisco, anyhow, and that’s as far as I know there. He went from Germany to London. How he got over here I don’t know. He said that he sat on the Church steps on Christmas Eve in London, without any funds, but I never learned from him how he made it over to the United States.

Marian: He was coming over, it seems to me, to an uncle, in either Philadelphia or Baltimore or some place like that. 
HEILNER: Well, I didn’t know, I knew nothing about that.

Marian: What about your mother? Did she speak of her parents? 
HEILNER: Not much, not very much. I never heard her talk about them.

Marian: Didn’t they ever get homesick? Didn’t they ever talk about going home? 
HEILNER: No, never. They never mentioned going back to Germany again.

Marian: They never talked about their brothers or sisters? 
HEILNER: Nothing.

Marian: Of course your father had a brother here. 
HEILNER: But I have no recollection of their ever discussing their parents. That’s the truth.

Marian: Well, we have a lot of letters that your father’s parents wrote to him. You know all those letters in German. 
HEILNER: That we might have and I don’t know if Joe Heilner received those things. I never saw them.

Marian: Well, I’ve got them. 
HEILNER: Father used to talk about his brothers in the linoleum business in Europe. That they had a big factory manufacturing linoleum.

Marian: Do you have any memories of yourself, Sanford, before you went to school? 
HEILNER: Do I have a memory of what?

Marian: Of yourself, before you went to school, before you ever went to school. Didn’t you go to San Francisco very early with your mother and have a foot taken care of? 
HEILNER: My Father took me to San Francisco to a foot doctor and they operated on my feet and I stayed at Emma Frank’s home. Then mother came down later to see how I was progressing.

Marian: How long were you in the hospital that time? 
HEILNER: I can’t tell, I was a baby.

Marian: Oh were you, then you wouldn’t know then. 
HEILNER: I was a baby – just born.

Marian: Oh, I didn’t know that. 
HEILNER: They operated on that right away.

Marian: Oh, I see. How old were you when you went to San Francisco to school? 
HEILNER: I think about 15 years old.

Marian: You went to Bishop Scott Academy before that didn’t you? Well you were certainly young when you went to the Bishop Scott Academy. 
HEILNER: I went to the Bishop Scott Academy for a year and then came home and went to a local school.

Marian: You went to the Bishop Scott Academy more than one year, didn’t you? 
HEILNER: No, about a year.

Marian: Oh, I thought it was many years. Tell me about how you traveled around in those days? How did you get around? 
HEILNER: By train, went to San Francisco, went to Portland. Never went very far. San Francisco mainly and Portland and never travelled east at all as a little fellow.

Marian: And here your father owned the beautiful horses you’ve said. 
HEILNER: Yes, he owned a ranch with very fine horses on them.

Marian: Tell about what sports you used to like. What kind of sports did you like? 
HEILNER: Just ordinary. Playing with boys around the house here, run races, played games, hide and seek and all that stuff as a child.

Marian: You had lessons in music, I know. 
HEILNER: Yes, but I didn’t do very well with them and quit.

Marian: Tell me how your mother used to have the piano teacher come to the house. 
HEILNER: After school. She was always there about 3:30 waiting for me to give me lessons.

Marian: That’s the only way she could catch you. 
HEILNER: Yes.

Marian: Then she would stay for dinner. 
HEILNER: No.

Marian: Oh, I thought you told me that. What did you like in hobbies or special interests and pets? What did you have that you liked when you were little? What did you like to do besides play ball? 
HEILNER: Well races and sports stuff. What little fellows would like, sport games.

Marian: I know that you had some special friends that you talked about. 
HEILNER: Yes, neighborhood boys. We were always good friends and played together.

Marian: Did you have any of all the regular diseases I suppose that all kids had? 
HEILNER: No, never had any.

Marian: You never had anything? 
HEILNER: I mean nothing – measles I don’t know, maybe. I don’t know what I had. I was never a sick boy at any time.

Marian: No, you’ve been very strong. Then your dad started you to work very early didn’t he? 
HEILNER: Oh sure, he was about 19 years old.

Marian: Oh, 19 years old. Honey, you were in that store from the time you were 15 you told me. In the store, part time at least. 
HEILNER: Well, I’m talking about when he first came out here.

Marian: Oh, you’re talking about your father and I meant about you. 
HEILNER: Oh, no, I was probably around 17 years of age.

Marian: Tell about how you used to have summer picnics and outings and how you would get to them? 
HEILNER: Well, we would get up early in the morning and friends of the family would hitch up their Studebaker wagons and have all the meals. We would go to Rock Creek and Pine Creek and spend the day and have dinner there in the evening and then come home and play around on the mound.

Marian: Out to Rock Creek and Spring Creek, out toward Wayneville. 
HEILNER: He built roads.

Marian: It must have been fun. I can imagine you had marvelous food with your mother. 
HEILNER: Yes, with the Wells and Baer family and two or three other nice families, used to be Fuchs.

Marian: You just made a whole group that would go together. 
HEILNER: Yes, we planned on it. We would start out early, four in the morning in a horse and wagon.

Marian: Just think of that, just to have picnics. 
HEILNER: And spend the whole day. We would get out there about eight in the morning and they would start getting breakfast ready and we would eat. It seemed that we were eating all day.

Marian: Well I am sure you were. Your mother was good cook, wasn’t she Sanford? 
HEILNER: She was. She used to be a very fine cook.

Marian: She loved beautiful things. Well, tell how her home was. And your father always chose beautiful things for your home. 
HEILNER: Yes, he was very artistic. They had fine, lovely things in the house. You can’t imagine, I can’t explain it was so nice all our living at home.

Marian: Did you have family home evenings together? 
HEILNER: Not just evenings all the time. We would be around, talking and playing and the parents had company and we enjoyed company.

Marian: It seemed to me that you had a lot of company by the way you talked. 
HEILNER: Yes, yes.

Marian: The miners. 
HEILNER: Mother enjoyed company.

Marian: Tell me how your mother came to Portland. 
HEILNER: She lived with my uncle’s family. How she came there I don’t know. They just had her come out and live with them. That’s where Dad met her. She lived in their home.

Marian: Do you know who they were? Who were they that she lived with? 
HEILNER: Kaufman.

Marian: Ike? 
HEILNER: Ike Kaufman, that was her Uncle.

Marian: And what was his wife’s name? 
HEILNER: Too far for me. Clara Well – she was married to Ike.

Marian: The Kaufmans had you over. 
HEILNER: For lunch on Saturday afternoon, and then sent me back to school again.

Marian: Then when they moved here they went right up to Sparta, didn’t they? 
HEILNER: Yes.

Marian: And Jessie was born there? And you told me that your mother didn’t feel well up there, wasn’t that it. 
HEILNER: It didn’t agree with her.

Marian: So they had to move down to Baker. 
HEILNER: Yes, the climate didn’t agree with her.

Marian: Now, where was your Father born? 
HEILNER: [Rushbringen?]

Marian: And where was your mother born? 
HEILNER: [Heinstock?], both in Germany.

Marian: One was in Bavaria, I think Bavaria. Well, you were the baby of the family I know that and Uncle Joe was only 19 when he graduated law school and your father was 19 when he came over from Germany. And Gerson and Bert came over here to live with your parents and went into business with you. 
HEILNER: Father put them into the business in the store. He never worked here.

Marian: Who? Now you see, you have his name on here. Newton Bissinger, 
HEILNER: Newton Bissinger travelled up here for an uncle who was in the fur business. That’s where he met Millie.

Marian: He met her here. 
HEILNER: And after they met, Joe Heilner was a great friend of Newton Bissinger and through Joe I think they met, Millie met Newton and married in Baker – a beautiful wedding.

Marian: Yes, I think we already have a report of the wedding on the tape. 
HEILNER: Yes, it was a gorgeous wedding. Then they moved to Portland and he worked for his uncle in the hide business and in later years moved to San Francisco and took over his uncle’s hide business. That I know.

Marian: And where was Helen born? Where were Helen and Paul born? Their children. 
HEILNER: In Portland.

Marian: In Portland, oh. That’s interesting. Tell how your mother used to have her clothes made, Sanford. 
HEILNER: By a special ladies’ dressmaker in Portland. They were very prominent dressmakers in Portland and Mother used to go down twice a year, spring and fall for her clothes that they made. I know that.

Marian: And how did your father get his clothes? Where? 
HEILNER: Made to order, but I don’t know the tailors, men tailors.

Marian: Were they here? 
HEILNER: He had fine men’s clothes all the time.

Marian: Did he have those made in Portland too? 
HEILNER: I imagine so, I don’t know. I didn’t pay much attention to it, but he always had nice clothes. Some Portland tailor made his clothes.

Marian: Tell me what you remember about Millie. 
HEILNER: Well, Millie went to school in Baker and then she went to San Francisco to live with Aunt Emma who had a daughter, Millie’s age, and they went to a private girl’s school in San Francisco for several years.

Marian: I think that Edna must have been a little older than Millie, a little bit. 
HEILNER: I wouldn’t know. That I couldn’t say.

Marian: That was awfully nice that she lived with her Aunt Emma in San Francisco. 
HEILNER: Yes, it was just like living at home, like living with her own parents. They went to school together, this private girl’s school. And then Millie came home after she got through there and she took piano lessons from a very fine teacher in San Francisco while she went to school, and when she came home she stayed home. She lived home after her schooling. That’s where, in later years, she met Newton.

Marian: Tell me about Jessie, your brother. 
HEILNER: Jessie was the oldest and he was the first one to work for Dad. Jess was born in Sparta.

Marian: Yes, I know. 
HEILNER: I don’t know how long he was up in Sparta. He worked for Dad. We weren’t born – none of us were born in Sparta.

Marian: None of you were? Only Jessie. 
HEILNER: Jessie. We were born in Baker and he had warehouses here and he had connections doing business with the railroad companies and he handled the freight for the railroads. Then he went into the mercantile business.

Marian: And what did you have in the mercantile business? 
HEILNER: Groceries.

Marian: Groceries first? 
HEILNER: Grocery store. Groceries and crockery. Fine crockery, you know, dishes and that stuff.

Marian: I know you’ve said you had beautiful dishes from Germany, didn’t you? 
HEILNER: Yes, imported, mostly shipped from Germany, fine china.

Marian: When did you go into the clothing business? 
HEILNER: When Herman and Bert came over to the United States.

Marian: Oh, I think you said that wrong, Herman and Bert, you mean Gerson and Bert. 
HEILNER: Gerson and Bert and then we closed out the grocery business and that was their lines of work, ladies and men’s dry goods of all kinds. A dry goods store.

Marian: They had apprenticed in Germany. 
HEILNER: Yes.

Marian: But they were very young when they came here. 
HEILNER: Yes they were, but that’s where they learned.

Marian: And you had a very successful business for all the many, many years. 
HEILNER: Yes. We always lived a happy life.

Marian: Wait a minute, until I get to that. 
HEILNER: Had a lovely home.

Marian: [cut off] …things more than you did, I know, and Gerson with ladies apparel. Tell how you met your wife? 
HEILNER: Who?

Marian: Well, who is your wife? 
HEILNER: Marian Yancey. I met her in Baker. I met my wife in Baker.

Marian: It sounds very exciting. 
HEILNER: I met my wife and fell in love with her.

Marian: That’s hard to say. 
HEILNER: That’s all there is to it and we have been very happy always.

Marian: Well, let’s see, I’m not very inspired tonight I guess in asking questions, because usually you can’t …