Ted Rubenstein

Tarlow: This is Sharon Tarlow, and I am going to interview Ted Rubenstein.
RUBENSTEIN: “Stine.”

Tarlow: Rubenstein. That’s very interesting.
RUBENSTEIN: It’s very important, because if you remember, what a German drinks beer out of is a stein, and how is it spelled? Stein [spells out].

Tarlow: You know, Ted? We’re going to get back to that because I think that’s an important issue. I’m interviewing Ted Rubenstein for the OJMCHE, and we are at the Oregon Jewish Museum, in a very palatial room. Today is March 15, 2016. We’ll get back to this, Ted, because how many times do people refer to you as “Rubensteen?”
RUBENSTEIN: Well, when they do I correct them because they’re wrong.

Tarlow: That’s right. I’m glad you corrected me. We needed to get this in here right. Now I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions. I feel like I know you, but you know what? I’m going to learn so much about you.
RUBENSTEIN: I hope so.

Tarlow: I hope so, too! You just said to me your birthday and where you were born. Tell me again.
RUBENSTEIN: I was born in Medford, Oregon, at a very wonderful Catholic hospital and I was one of two babies born that week, because it was the heart of the Depression. Just a little aside: My mother was not supposed to have me. Our family doctor—as a child she had had rheumatic fever so she had a bad heart. Dr. Hayes, God bless him, told her she should not have any more children. She didn’t listen to him, and when she got pregnant she went to him and he—small town—goes running to my dad’s store. He says “God damn it, Harry, I told you not to knock her up again.”

Tarlow: I love it!
RUBENSTEIN: Well, we had to get some of the true stories in, that’s right. But thank God my mother had me. As far as any records we can find, I was the first bris in Southern Oregon. My father actually had Rabbi Fain from First Street Shul—

Tarlow: In Portland.
RUBENSTEIN: In Portland, take the train because the clergy in those days rode for nothing. He came to Medford and performed it. And all the local doctors (which may have been ten) came because none of them had seen a real circumcision done before. And they all applauded Rabbi Fain. And my dad proudly tells me years later, “And I paid him $25,” because the train fare was free and he stayed—I think he stayed maybe at our house or someplace, and then went back the next day by train. This shows you how primitive our state was in 1932. 

Tarlow: And here you are today.
RUBENSTEIN: And what is this? ’33, now.

Tarlow: I know you had a sister. So your mother had had this child.
RUBENSTEIN: Right, and she was five years older than me. Shortly after she was born—born in Portland—times were very tough and my dad felt that he’s not making it in the city because—another interesting little aside. He had been an itinerant peddler, going from farm to farm, buying and selling, buying scrap metal and junk, and he was always making a living. But when he got married to my mother his two brothers-in-law, which was Charlie Zidell and—let’s see, Norm Silver’s dad’s name—Morris Silver who were his two brothers-in-law who were married to my mother’s older sisters. They said, “You know, if you’re going to be married you got to settle down.” So for $500 my dad bought a little grocery store on the corner of Third and Jefferson Street in Portland, Oregon. They were struggling there, not doing well. Now, an aside to the aside, upstairs above the store was a house of ill repute, the madam being of our faith, and she just loved my mother and dad and was very kind to them. My mother was 17 and she sort of adopted my mother. In fact, at one time she came down to the store. She saw my dad looked blue and she said, in Yiddish, “What’s the matter, Harry?” He says, “I’m having a tough time making the rent.” With that, she pulled up her skirt and in the top of her hose had cash. She says, “What do you need?” I think it was maybe $20 or $25 to pay the rent, which she gave him. She was just a dear lady, and she’s finally the one that urged him, she says, “You’re not making it here in Portland, nor will you. You’d better go back on the road doing what you know best.” And that’s what he did, sold the store for $500, found another somebody to take it, and with that he bought a pickup truck and he and my mother loaded up—she was either a six- or seven-month-old baby, my sister Helen, and moved to Medford.

Tarlow: That is amazing.
RUBENSTEIN: That is that story.

Tarlow: I never heard that story.
RUBENSTEIN: Well, you wouldn’t have because you’ve heard it first here, now.

Tarlow: That took a lot of guts.
RUBENSTEIN: A lot of guts. But see, those people—Sharon, it took a lot of guts. My dad came to America at 14 years old with a sister. I’ll give you a little aside there. The father, my dad’s father, my zayde, had come to America seven years prior to that. My dad was seven years old when his father left, so literally he didn’t even know his father. It took seven years to raise enough funds to bring two of the children. My dad and one sister came, leaving a mother with three children. Unfortunately, before they could come, World War I came, so that group of the family—already the mother had passed away (my grandmother) and one child had passed away, so it wasn’t until 1924 that a brother and two more sisters came to America. That took guts, all of it took guts. You know, all of us, Sharon, your—our generation in particular, are so fortunate to have these tales to tell, and the courage of our forefathers. Unbelievable.

Tarlow: I can just see your mother. She wasn’t a very big woman, tiny little thing, holding this baby while your dad is driving a pickup which was probably not brand-new. 
RUBENSTEIN: It was, a brand-new Model A pickup, right.

Tarlow: To Medford.
RUBENSTEIN: Right, to Medford.

Tarlow: Tell me about Medford. Tell me about your childhood.
RUBENSTEIN: I was fortunate. I had wonderful parents, and my sister and I both had terrific childhoods. We have no bad memories of growing up in a small town in Southern Oregon, hundreds of miles away from any Jewish contacts whatsoever. My dad, after a few months in Medford, saw that he could make a living. He then called my dad’s—my mother’s brother, Jerry Kaplon, which is Norm Kaplon’s dad, and Jerry and Sophie, his wife, moved to Medford, so then the two families were in town. They were in the junk business, the scrap business. They finally opened a little general store selling new and used, just about anything that a farmer or somebody in the ag business would need. They had everything, from soup to nuts, continuing with the scrap business, and they made a living. Nobody ever got rich but we were always comfortable. The only thing I remember of the Depression is: We were never hungry but we never had any money. A lot of my dad’s business was barter, so they would exchange merchandise for food or whatever. Our childhood in Medford was really ideal. In fact, I regret that I couldn’t have raised my children as well in the small-town environment. It was really very, very good. My sister, who was an outstanding student, did very well. She always held class offices and was popular in school. Fortunately, I was the same thing. I always had a class office. I was active, I was athletic, I played on the great Black Tornado football teams of that era. I have no regrets, growing up in a small town. My entire Jewish education (in fact, I understand Yiddish and can speak quite a bit of it) was my father’s influence, because we would take these long drives to Portland. My mother had her two sisters that she loved very dearly and had to be with them, so any time, especially for a Jewish holiday, the two partners, my dad and my uncle, they would alternate. One year, my dad would come to Portland for Rosh Hashanah and the uncle would stay and keep the business going, and the next year they would switch and my dad would come Yom Kippur and my uncle would come.

Tarlow: Which uncle was that? Norm’s dad?
RUBENSTEIN: That’s Norm’s dad, and Norm’s family. He had a sister Thelma. So that was life. Coming to Portland—like I say, this is where I got my Jewish education because we would leave Medford at dark in the morning. It was roughly a 12-hour drive, so we’d get to Portland at dark at night, and my mother, God bless her, she would pack two meals because God forbid we should stop at a restaurant. In those days you just didn’t do it.

Tarlow: Did your mom keep kosher?
RUBENSTEIN: No, we did not.

Tarlow: So that wasn’t the issue. There just wasn’t—
RUBENSTEIN: Not an issue. The issue was not having to go to a restaurant and spending money that you didn’t have. So the trip in those days—who had a car radio? So my dad would entertain us, my sister and I, with our Judaism, maybe not religious Judaism but traditional Judaism, which we did grow up in. We recognized every holiday in Medford. During the holidays they would close the store for the one day and run a full ad in the Medford Mail Tribune that because of the Jewish holidays the Medford Bargain House (which was my dad’s store) would be closed.

Tarlow: How many Jewish families lived Medford?
RUBENSTEIN: Two, my dad and my uncle.

Tarlow: You were pioneers.
RUBENSTEIN: We were pioneers. But now earlier than that, there had been Jews in Jacksonville during the Gold Rush, and that was only a few miles away, so there was an earlier Jewish culture. There was even a Jewish cemetery in Jacksonville. So there had been some Jews. You’ve got to remember, Southern Oregon, it was really a redneck community. Most of Southern Oregon was settled by Southerners, so even during the Civil War most of their allegiance was still to the South, not so much to the North. However, they weren’t involved, but I mean that’s where—the background of the people. It was mainly a Southern community.

Tarlow: Tell me about how your family managed to keep their Judaism so important to them, living in a community like you lived in.
RUBENSTEIN: Number one, you’ve got to remember my mother was American-born. Her family had come over, and she was an afterthought. After her two sisters and her brother had been born in Europe, they came to America and I guess the good times delighted them and they had another child. She was an American-born girl. But my dad, after all, was strictly a Polish peasant, and all he knew was his Judaism. He came from a shtetl, so his only education had been going to cheder. He had never gone to a formal school, which always interested me because he was so bright and he was so well-read, and it was all self-taught. He read incessantly, both in Yiddish—he would get the daily Jewish Forward every day in the mail—and he devoured newspapers. By living in Medford we were between San Francisco and Portland, so we daily took a San Francisco Examiner, a Portland Journal most of the time (not the Oregonian, as I remember, it was the Journal), and the Medford Mail Tribune. So my dad literally read four newspapers a day.

Tarlow: How did you in your childhood relate to a community that was so different than your home life?
RUBENSTEIN: Well, at times difficult. I think the one thing my dad instilled on both my sister and I, we knew who we were, and I think that was important. And we knew that in the community we had to be part of the community but we knew who we were. So there was never—there was not even a question in my parents’ mind about my sister and I marrying out of the faith. It was just: You will. It was just like an education. It was never if you go to college, it’s when you go to college. It was having a very positive environment, so we knew we were Jewish. The tales—my dad would tell us the Bible tales, so we learned all the Bible tales. And he would embellish it with his own Polish background and he made it entertaining.

Tarlow: It all worked.
RUBENSTEIN: It all worked, yes.

Tarlow: What about your friends, your neighborhood friends? What did you do after school when you were in elementary school?
RUBENSTEIN: Always athletics. I was very, very—and friends I had—my closest friend just passed away about three years ago, naturally a Gentile guy, by the name of Fitz Brewer who we met—he moved next door to me and I had just finished first grade, going into the second grade, and he was in the third grade. From that day when he moved next door to me until he died (which was just a few years ago), other than when we were both in the military I doubt if there was ever a week we didn’t speak. So this was a real close friend. In fact, when he did pass it was the largest funeral Medford had ever had. I was down there, I gave the eulogy, and it was very touching. In fact, my youngest daughter insisted she come with me, and Davia, my wife, came so the three of us went to the funeral, and Marcy just knew that my affection and his affection toward one another was so important that she wanted to be there.

Tarlow: I think that’s wonderful.
RUBENSTEIN: So she was there, too. It was—I always had a lot of friends. I was very popular. I didn’t have too many problems. I only had one real antisemitic incident. A kid on the block—I even remember his name, Herbert Wing, who was about four years older than me. One day in a neighborhood either football game or something, the term finally came out: “You dirty Jew.” He and I went at it, and fortunately I came out on top, and that sort of said it. No one ever challenged again. This was again my dad. He always said you’ve got to stick up for your rights, and I did, and it worked. What else can I say?

Tarlow: What about high school?
RUBENSTEIN: All the way through from grade school, junior high, and high school.

Tarlow: You lived in Medford and your parents lived in Medford all through your high school years. And Norm, too.
RUBENSTEIN: Yes. I left Medford the year I graduated, 1950, and went to Eugene to the University of Oregon. My folks—I should go back a little bit. When my dad told my mother they had to leave Portland to make a living, he says it won’t be for long because he knew her attachment to her two sisters because her mother had died early, so these two older sisters raised my mother. So he told her it would only be a short time. So 27 years later, he still retired way too young but he had made that promise to my mother. Wealthy he wasn’t but they felt they could come back to Portland, which they did, so probably it was I think ’52 or ’53, several years after I had left. I just never went back because as you know I met my lovey, my Davia, my freshman year and that was sort of it.

Tarlow: We’ll get to her. She’s rather an important part of your life.
RUBENSTEIN: A very important part.

Tarlow: Where was Helen? When you were in college she had already left home.
RUBENSTEIN: Right. She went from Medford to the University of California, but the summer she left she had met Jerry Stern at the beach and he started pursuing her. He was working for Gilbert Brothers at the time. He was already out of the service and he was an outside salesman for Gilbert Brothers, and he always managed to find ways to get to Medford when we were still there, or the Bay Area where my sister was going to school. I guess he convinced her to marry him, so she finished one year of college and was married and was in Portland already. So by the time I got to college I was an uncle. Her first child and my first niece was born.

Tarlow: Let’s go back to high school for a minute. You went to Medford High School. There was only one school then, I’m sure.
RUBENSTEIN: Only one school, and it was only a three-year high school. We had a six-year grade school, a three-year junior high, they called it, which was 7th, 8th, and 9th, so my freshman year was still at junior high, then the high school. One of the reasons that was done is that Medford had always been a powerhouse athletically, and they were doing everything they could do to keep the school small enough so they didn’t have to have another high school so they would have all the athletes in one school.

Tarlow: What a surprise.
RUBENSTEIN: What is a surprise, and now naturally there are two high schools.

Tarlow: And they’re still winning.
RUBENSTEIN: Right.

Tarlow: Did you have a job when you were in high school?
RUBENSTEIN: I always had a job during the summer.

Tarlow: Tell me about your jobs.
RUBENSTEIN: It started out—Fitz, my buddy again, he was maybe nine and I was eight. We mowed lawns, but neither one of us was big enough to push the lawnmower by ourselves so we went from house to house, both pushing on one lawnmower. I think we charged a quarter, no matter what size the yard was. So we used to do that, and then as all kids, we had lemonade stands, etc. Then when we got a little older we worked in the orchards, first in the spring doing smudging. You wouldn’t even know what a smudging is.

Tarlow: Tell me what a smudging is.
RUBENSTEIN: Medford was known for its pear orchards, so during the spring when the buds would just be coming to a certain stage of maturity, the farmers would listen every night at 8:00 on the radio. I’ll never forget it. There was a federal meteorologist and he would come on at 8:00 on the local one radio station and would tell them the different dew points, whatever that meant. On certain nights they knew that if it was going to get cold they had to heat the orchards. That’s called smudging. These were pots that were already out there, full of crude oil. Fitz would get the call because he had a Model A at that time.

Tarlow: You were in high school.
RUBENSTEIN: We were in high school. Oh, yeah, you had to be in high school to do this. He would get the call and then would call me. This would be 1:30, 2:00 in the morning, 12:00 at night. They would say, “We may be firing up tonight.” So we had to rush out to the orchard. We were working for Nye and Naumes which was a large grower. We’d go to the orchard; the farmer would not allow us to start lighting until the temperature really got critical because it was an expensive deal. So if we just went to the orchard and didn’t fire up, we got a dollar each. If we fired, we got a dollar an hour. So we would always hope that if we got the call we would get to fire up.

Tarlow: How long would you be there?
RUBENSTEIN: We would be there until—once you lit them you stayed the rest of the night until the sun started coming up, and then they would say, “All right, put ‘em out.” We’d go through the orchard again and they had a sliding top on the smudge pot, and you’d close that, which would seal off the oxygen and the flame would go out. We were just covered with soot. We’d come home just a mess, get home in time to go to school. One morning we had—gee, how memories come back. It was a very, very cold spring and apparently, I’d been firing up maybe two or three nights in a row. I was coming into my home. Fitz had just dropped me off in the Model A, and I’m walking in the house, and my dad is just leaving for work. He looks at me and says, “How much did you earn last night?” I told him $4 or whatever it was. He says, “You know what? You’ve really been bothering your mother and I. If they call you tonight, I’ll pay you to stay home.” I’ll never forget that. Okay, so we smudged. And then when I was not involved in athletics, Saturdays I used to go to my dad’s store and work. That was all through high school.

Tarlow: What did you do for him?
RUBENSTEIN: We had a store. I’d wait on customers. I’d make deliveries in the truck. In fact, during the war I was making deliveries at 14 and 15 without even a driver’s license because there wasn’t enough help around. I would do that, and the local police knew I wasn’t—I’m sure they knew I wasn’t 16 but they let it be. The war was on and this is what you had to do to exist.

Tarlow: Did you have a car?
RUBENSTEIN: I had a car, because I always worked. I bought a 1936 Chevrolet. In about 1948 or ’49 I bought this ’36 car that I worked on and babied and took care of. But during the year I was driving a truck for my dad. I drove for years, well before I got the car, before I was 16. I was always busy, and it was a joy to go work in my dad’s store. My cousin Norm Kaplon used to work. And then during the summers, I think past 16, it was a fulltime job. I mean, he really needed us in the store.

Tarlow: Did your parents have a car other than the truck?
RUBENSTEIN: My mother had a car. My dad had a pickup. Norm’s dad had a pickup and their family a car. So, yes, we did have a family car, and that’s how we got to Portland.

Tarlow: Who taught your mom to drive?
RUBENSTEIN: I imagine my dad did, because she drove. From the time I could remember she was driving. She was a stay-at-home mother. She and I—when my sister was already in school (I was five years younger) we’d go to the library quite often. My mother was an avid reader, as my dad was a big reader. Consequently, my sister and I both became avid readers.

Tarlow: You are a big reader.
RUBENSTEIN: Big reader, and I still read a lot and my sister still reads a lot. That was a good thing. That was in Medford.

Tarlow: You had a wonderful childhood growing up in Medford. You have so many memories.
RUBENSTEIN: Absolutely, wonderful memories.

Tarlow: Before we go on to the family, tell me about the synagogue when you were a child.
RUBENSTEIN: There was no synagogue. 

Tarlow: What about now?
RUBENSTEIN: Now in Ashland, which is 11 miles away—and I don’t know why it all happened in Ashland. There are three synagogues.

Tarlow: Your family was involved in what?
RUBENSTEIN: That’s a story that would take hours on itself, but Ashland—I’ll give you a little background. Ashland had a terrible tragedy, and I can’t even tell you the year. Two little girls were killed at a vacant football field. I think it was Ashland, not Medford, I’m not sure. Isn’t that funny? It’s away from me now, but anyway it turned out both these little girls were Jewish. It drew a community together. Of course, this was much later, after I was adult, much, much, later. It drew this community together and some Jews met some other Jews. One of the young men who got involved with this who was Jewish was a high-tech guy working at 3M. 3M had a plant and he was in on the early stages of computerization, a Jewish kid. He sort of organized this group and long story short: he then left town and about four years later returned as a rabbi. He’d gone to rabbinical school. He tells this little group, “I’m here and I’m your rabbi.” “Well, we can’t afford a rabbi.” He said, “Well, we’re going to have to work it out.” He really did create a congregation. They finally even bought an old church, so they actually had a home. In fact, our youngest daughter Marcy, when she was married, he and his wife who was a cantor both came to Portland and performed it at temple along with Rabbi Rose. That’s sort of a whole history—there’s just too much to tell there, but that was the nucleus. So when they really formed this, my family made some contributions to help them get going. They eventually built a gorgeous Reform synagogue in Ashland.

Tarlow: And you went to something, I remember.
RUBENSTEIN: Right, we went to several of their opening ceremonies. That congregation today has I think 250 families, which is just mind-boggling, but in addition to them the Chabad is there, and there is another congregation, sort of a spinoff, as every community has. You know, some like the rabbi and some like the rabbi’s wife but nobody likes everybody so there’s a spinoff. There are three congregations serving Southern Oregon.

Tarlow: Is the original rabbi—
RUBENSTEIN: No, he left.

Tarlow: What was his name?
RUBENSTEIN: Rabbi Schwab. His wife had a beautiful voice. She was a cantorial singer but very well adored. Again, all the details slip me but they left and others were hired. They left and he got a congregation somewhere in Central California. Eventually they split and she had a congregation where she was cantoring and he had a congregation where he was rabbi-ing, and I really don’t know where they are now. Several years ago Davia and I did get in touch and we talked to them. They were wonderful. We felt so bad when they split. Anyway, that’s what happened. Ashland now is a Jewish center. It serves not only Ashland, Medford, Grants Pass, Klamath Falls, so it’s an area of now, probably a radius of 75 to 100 miles. They’re very active.

Tarlow: Let’s move you from Medford and take you to Eugene.
RUBENSTEIN: Eugene was probably the greatest experience of my life.

Tarlow: You became a Duck, through and through.
RUBENSTEIN: I became a Duck, and I had my first real Jewish contact. I joined a Jewish fraternity, which I loved and I loved all the brothers. We just had a great time, but at the same time I met this cute little coed called Davia. We both liked each other and we dated a lot. That was sort of the start of a—we’re now going on 62 years of marriage.

Tarlow: The name of the fraternity was?
RUBENSTEIN: Sigma Alpha Mu. We were Sammies.

Tarlow: Some of those young men have remained your friends.
RUBENSTEIN: Absolutely. The ones that are in Portland I still see.

Tarlow: Can you tell me who some of them are? You don’t have to tell me all of them.
RUBENSTEIN: It’s sort of sad. A lot of them are gone. In fact, I just had lunch with two of my fraternity brothers, Stan Geffen and Harry Glickman. Jerry [Nudelman] was a pledge brother of mine along with Stan Geffen. Al Sherman, Ron Sherman. We had Dick Davis and Merle Davis. We had Bob Rudolf and it just goes on and on and on. Merv Hampton, and most of these guys really did well at the University of Oregon. Merv Hampton I think was vice president of the student body. I ended up as president of the inter-fraternity council which was really unusual, and that was interesting. Sort of an aside on that: A year ago my grandson who is at the University of Oregon, who was not a Sammy because we have no chapter there any more, was a Sigma Chi and he ended up president of the inter-fraternity council, so it was a grandfather/grandson deal. Quite a surprise.

Tarlow: That’s a wonderful story. Talk to me about your college life. What was it like being a small-town kid?
RUBENSTEIN: Eugene was big to me.

Tarlow: And a Jewish community you’d never experienced.
RUBENSTEIN: Right, never experienced. Naturally it was an awakening of who I was and what I was and why I was. It was a small school. In fact, Stan Geffen and I were just now talking before we came. Our freshman year, which was 1950, was the year that the World War II GIs were all leaving. They had already gotten educated, so the population of the University of Oregon was under 4,000 students. We were marveling at that because today it just borders on 25,000, so there’s been a lot of changes. But to me it was big with 4,000 students, and Eugene was big compared to Medford, so it was a new experience.

Tarlow: What was your tuition?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, it was so cheap. I’ll tell you why I remember. My dad really thought that college was the tuition. That took care of everything. So that was $45 a term, and that he gave me. He did pay for my tuition. The room and board sort of never entered his mind, so I worked part time at college. In fact, at the house I was breakfast cook, which paid part of my house bill. There was always—I had jobs, I had the program concession at the University of Oregon for the athletic events. That paid a few bucks. So college was good, very good. No bad thoughts about college. The camaraderie, the whole experience of just having—living in a group situation was exciting. I’d never had that before. College was good. And my love life was good. We were having a good time, Davia and I.

Tarlow: Three times now you’ve mentioned Davia. Let’s hear more about her.
RUBENSTEIN: Well, she was a little coed that I met. I really met her a couple years prior to Oregon. We were both at Seaside together, both in high school, and I met her on the prom and we visited. I went back to Medford and I told my cousin Norm Kaplon, “I met the girl that I’m going to marry.”

Tarlow: And he said?
RUBENSTEIN: He said, “No way.” But he wanted to know about her and I told him. Then we’ll flash forward another year or two, I guess. I’m in Eugene and Jerry Barde, another fraternity brother who was president of the house at the time, either I asked him or he asked me to get fixed up with Davia Saul. So he called, and would she be interested, I guess whatever he said, and he said, “Yeah, call her.” So I did call her and that was December 23, 1950, was our first date, in Portland. I think we went to a cousin of mine—I think that was our first date—a wedding. In those days when there was a Jewish wedding in Portland, after the ceremony and after the dinner it was wide open for all the young people to come and go to the dance and the party and meet one another. I mean, it was just a great Jewish tradition, I guess. I don’t know if it was unique to Portland or where it came from. I think that was our [third] date, and I think it was five years, maybe six years to the date—five or six years to that date, December 23, our first child was born, Susan was born. So that date had some significance. It was our first date and it was five or six years later. But we were married before she was born.

Tarlow: Okay. So you met her before college, and then you reconnected in Eugene. And you dated.
RUBENSTEIN: Continued dating. When we got serious about one another, there was no way I or she could afford to get married while we were in college. I mean, it was just out of the question. So we decided we would get married after I graduated. Davia did not finish school. She stayed in Portland for two years and worked. I was in the ROTC program so we knew right after college—this is all the result of the Korean War being going, and they were drafting guys at the time, and the only way you could really insure that you wouldn’t get drafted right out of college was to be in ROTC which guaranteed you a commission if you fulfilled all the requirements. Then you would go in the service. Well, I think we were making—going into the service was like we’d found a goldmine. I was making $400 a month and I don’t think we’ve ever lived as good. So that was our military experience. So [Davia] was with me the whole time. We were stationed at McChord Air Force Base.

Tarlow: Which was in Tacoma.
RUBENSTEIN: In Tacoma. I was the base [property accounting officer].

Tarlow: What was your commission?
RUBENSTEIN: I was a lieutenant. I was the property accounting officer, which means maintaining records for all the warehousing. We were supporting two fighter squadrons at that time, so that was very important to keep those airplanes flying. So under my jurisdiction it was mainly civilians that worked for me. I had like 150 ladies who were posting these hand record cards of all the material that we had to maintain to keep these planes flying, plus to operate this base. During that time, I was involved with service testing the first mechanized stock control program, meaning the early, early days of computers. The first thing we had to do was convert an entire warehouse to be totally climate-controlled, because you had to maintain humidity and temperature because of the sensitivity of this equipment, and that took a while. Then we had to put in a subfloor because there were big cables that ran between all these machines, so they had to be underneath or you couldn’t have gotten through because all these cables were connected. We ran this service test, then after the building was ready, then these big machines came in from a company I’d never heard of, from Endicott, New York, called International Business Machines. That was my first experience. They came in and we actually wrote the manual of how to do mechanized stock control. They didn’t call it computers in those times, but it was punch card input. We had gals on keypunch machines. Most people don’t even know what that is anymore.

Tarlow: What year was that?
RUBENSTEIN: That was ’55, ’56.

Tarlow: How long were you at McChord?
RUBENSTEIN: A little over two years. We got out January 31, 1957, something like that. I don’t have those dates in mind but it was approximately that time. It was roughly two years at McChord, and it was a good two years. Our first child, Susan, was born at a military hospital. Our hospital was a very small base hospital and there were two babies born at that time. I knew which one was mine because she was white. That was it. When Davia knew it was time to go, I rushed her to the hospital. I was preparing myself for the long sit, and there was a captain nurse who was in charge of the hospital that night that I took Davia. She said, “Well, Lieutenant, aren’t you going to kiss your wife goodbye?” I said, “Captain, I’m not going anywhere.” She said, “Oh, yes, you are. We don’t have anybody stay. I’ll call you when there’s something to know.” So I had to leave. I’d locked myself out of the house. I had to wake up another buddy to help me get in. I’ll never forget it. Then Davia was in labor for quite a while so I started calling the hospital, and this captain finally told me, “Lieutenant, I told you I would call you. Don’t bother me. I will call you.” And she did.

Tarlow: What was life like there for you and Davia?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, fun! We enjoyed it. We lived in a court apartment, and it was all—call it the Great Equalizer. We were all lieutenants, either in the Army for Fort Lewis or in the Air Force for McChord. We became a community. We even had a community Thanksgiving dinner. We were all in the same boat, all making the same money. All of us had just graduated college the year before. It was the Great Equalizer. That was a wonderful two years. We enjoyed that also. In fact, I think during the two years maybe we came back to Portland once or maybe twice, because we liked our life there. It was our way of getting away and starting our own life. It was good.

Tarlow: It sounds wonderful.
RUBENSTEIN: It was good, that was good.

Tarlow: If you needed to be with your family you got in the car.
RUBENSTEIN: And drove home. That’s right. They came to visit. They had to come see the new baby. Those were good years.

Tarlow: And then there was a discharge from the service.
RUBENSTEIN: A separation. You never get discharged.

Tarlow: So what’s next for you?
RUBENSTEIN: We came to Portland and got involved in my first life which was the manufacturing business, which we’re not going to spend much time dwelling on. I spent a lot of time, worked very hard, and ended up not too successful. I eventually went into another career field where I was much more successful. This was our life in Portland.

Tarlow: When you first came to Portland, where did you live?
RUBENSTEIN: We lived in an apartment on NE [48th]. It was also a court. Interesting. Vic and Toinette Menashe lived there and he was reporting then to go to the Air Force, so the place became empty and we took that, because Portland did not have all a lot of apartments or places to live.

Tarlow: I have to tell you, that’s where I first met you, in that apartment.
RUBENSTEIN: Is that right, in that apartment?

Tarlow: For some reason Davia must have contacted Larry because I didn’t know Davia before you.
RUBENSTEIN: But she knew Larry her whole life.

Tarlow: So we went to see the new baby.
RUBENSTEIN: Okay. I remember we had to paint that apartment, especially the nursery, whatever color we painted it. It was a do-it-yourself project. I think maybe we paid $75 a month or whatever it was. It was plenty cheap in those days. And that was our life in Portland, Oregon, starting out.

Tarlow: How long were you at the first company you worked for?
RUBENSTEIN: I didn’t work for it. It was my company. 

Tarlow: Well, that you were part of.
RUBENSTEIN: Way too long, Sharon, close to 20 years.

Tarlow: When you moved on to the next, tell me about that a little more in detail.
RUBENSTEIN: Okay. I got involved with my brother-in-law’s company. He was in the plumbing business.

Tarlow: That’s Jerry Stern.
RUBENSTEIN: Jerry Stern. Then we had an idea. We had a lot of discussions. We had an idea—I had had some offshore experience in the garment business. In fact, that’s why I had to go out. I wasn’t big enough to get involved in offshore sourcing, and the whole industry turned that way. There was no more domestic manufacturing as far as garments went. So we had an idea to do some offshore sourcing on engineer-type products, things that had not been done in this country. So we got some contacts, scuttlebutt through the industry, and finally I started making trips over to the Orient to line up some manufacturers. This was the early days. In fact, China was still closed. This was well before Tiananmen Square.

Tarlow: So that was 1980s?
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, before that. I think ’79, maybe. Anyway, long story short, I found a manufacturer in Taiwan that was doing some really unique work. It’s technical, but called “investment casting”, and he was doing stainless steel investment casting which had not been done in industrial products up to that time. I got him all the specs that were required to meet US specifications, and they created samples for us that we tested and looked at and were good, and we started a relationship with this company that I did business with for the next 20 years. It branched out into—I then found a contact in Korea to make another type of product, still in the valve industry, and eventually ended up doing a lot of business in mainland China because China then opened up. So we built a very good reputation, our own label. We private-labeled it ourself, competing with all the name-brands with our own brand, and went not only national with it, we really did global business.

Tarlow: You went to the Orient a lot.
RUBENSTEIN: A lot. I traveled a lot in those days. I’d go to the Orient usually two times a year. I’d go to Europe once a year because I was also manufacturing in Italy, and that guy’s another story, still a very dear friend of mine, Aldo Bonomi. I still correspond with him, like on a weekly, monthly basis. I would do the Orient, Europe, then I would go to South America where we did selling because there was a lot of industrial stuff going on, the copper mines, etc., that used our type of products. I had a salesman in Mexico that I would go work with at least twice a year. Then I had guys in the States that I traveled with. Yeah, I traveled a lot. It was easy travel, good travel. Again, that worked out good.

Tarlow: From the time you moved to Portland until you quit traveling, I know you had some children in addition to Susan.
RUBENSTEIN: Two years after Susie came Sunny, in Portland naturally, and then about two and a half years after Sunny came Marci. So that was the three girls.

Tarlow: You moved out of that apartment.
RUBENSTEIN: We moved out of the apartment. We bought our first house, SW Brenne Lane. That’s exactly right. It was a lovely little house.

Tarlow: It wasn’t so little.
RUBENSTEIN: Well, it was a nice-sized house, $21,750 it cost. I remember I needed—in order to use my GI loan I was short $1000 to make the deal work. I forget all the—so I went to my dad and I said, “Dad, I’ve really got a problem. We found this house we like.” “How much is the house?” I told him $21,750. “That’s an awful lot of money.” “I know it, but I can handle it but I’m short a thousand bucks.” He says, “That’s a lot of money that you need.” I said, “Well, I do.” He said, “Are you sure you can handle it?” I said, “Dad, I know I can handle it, and I know I’ll be able to pay you back the $1000.” “Well,” he says, “You know I’ll give it to you, but I just want you to be sure that you’re not going in over your head.” I said, “Well, I’m sure it’s going to work.” And he did, and we did, and that all worked. One cute story with that house: Davia still had a living grandfather and grandmother in Portland. They lived on NE whatever.

Tarlow: What were their names?
RUBENSTEIN: Meyer Barell (I don’t even remember how you spell it) and I think her name was Becky. Yes, Meyer and Becky Burrell. So after we go into this house on Brenne Lane, Davia wanted to show the grandparents, naturally. We both did. So she arranged on a Sunday afternoon—it was a beautiful day—I would go over to Northeast Portland and pick them up and bring them out. They’d see the house and see the kids. So I did. We came to the house. I’m sure Davia had tea and cookies and the kids and the grandparents. Meyer Burrell, which was a marvelous, marvelous gentleman. They were starting to get nervous. We could tell it was time to head back, so we’re standing on the front porch and her grandfather, Meyer, puts his arm around Davia and I and says, “You have a beautiful family and you have a beautiful house. I only hope you are successful enough in life that you can move back to the city.” In his mind it was a sacrifice living clear out where we lived. That was a beautiful, beautiful story. That was their exposure to our first house. We were there 14, 15 years, something like that, and then moved around the corner to Sharon Lane and were there a long, long time. It was a big house with [enough] bedrooms and three floors and a lovely, lovely, lovely home that we truly loved. But all of a sudden we were empty-nesters and the girls—some were done with college, some were still in college, I don’t know who was what or where. We decided we’ve got to scale down, and we found a home again within spitting distance practically of the first two homes in the same general area that [grandpa Barell] was hoping we would be successful enough to leave. We’ve been there on Montclair [Drive], which was just on the other side of Scholls Ferry Road from where we had been, and that’s where we currently are. We’re still happy and still love it.

Tarlow: Pretty nice life, and you’re such an upbeat guy. I know that life can throw you hammers now and then but you are a survivor in many ways.
RUBENSTEIN: Oh, yes. You know, I told you this before, but Joe Loprinzi who was the guru of health at Multnomah Athletic Club had little sayings on the walls. This one stuck with me all these years that I’ve lived by. We’ve been members there close to 50 years. The saying was “Age is a matter of the mind. If you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter.” I just think there’s so much wisdom to that. That’s probably the philosophy that Davia and I both still live under. We just don’t let age bother us or a few aches and pains bother us. We keep plunging ahead. That’s all we can do, you know. She just turned 84 and I’ll be 84 in two months. We’re not kids anymore. Our oldest daughter turned 60 this year. That was more of a shock to us than our own age. You can relate to that. That’s where we’re at.

Tarlow: What about the Jewish community? What kind of changes have you seen in the community since you first moved here that really strike you? You don’t have to tell me everything.
RUBENSTEIN: No, I won’t. I think the biggest thing was, for years and years and years we really had three congregations. We had Shaarie Torah which was the so-called Orthodox, we had Ahavai Shalom which became Neveh Shalom which was the Conservative, and we had Temple Beth Israel, and we had three rabbis in the State of Oregon. The biggest change is I’ll bet you we have probably close to 50 if not more rabbis in the State of Oregon. I think Portland alone has 18 congregations or something like that, all spinoffs of something or other. That’s probably the biggest change. We’ve just got a lot more Jewish people. For years—the word used to always be from Federation of 10,000 Jews in the State of Oregon, and that went on for years and didn’t change. I think the last I heard, and you can correct me if I’m wrong, Sharon, I think they said 56,000 Jews in the state, something like that. I think that’s what they’re claiming now.

Tarlow: Have you always belonged to Temple Beth Israel?
RUBENSTEIN: Yes, we got married at Neveh Shalom by Rabbi Stampfer. I think it was the second year he was in Portland. My parents were members of Shaarie Torah. Davia’s parents were members of Neveh Shalom, but when we came back from the service I wanted something more that I could understand. We went and visited several times at Temple and then decided this would be where we’d like our kids to be educated. We’ve been members ever since. When we came on we had Rabbi Nodel only for a short time then. He was at the end of his career, and then Rabbi Rose came, and we went through his entire career there. And now Rabbi Cahana is there. Yes, that’s the history of Beth Israel, and that’s where we’ve always been. Davia’s been much more active in the community than I. I was not a good public servant as far as Judaism went. I paid my dues; I did what was necessary. But she gave with her heart and worked very, very hard. She was always committed to whether it was Hadassah or Oregon Jewish Museum or Temple or Council of Jewish Women or whatever it was. She supported our family on that side of it and did a super job, always involved, always active. In fact, even when the kids were babies, her one afternoon off a week that she would always have a babysitter—and it was only one afternoon a week—was always devoted to one of the charities. She always took that time to do her Jewish thing, which was a wonderful contribution. I think a lot of you girls of that era were the same way, Sharon. You gals all carried on.

Tarlow: Well, we had the time. We didn’t necessarily all of us work all the time. Some of that changed.
RUBENSTEIN: That’s true, but you all had commitments.

Tarlow: We did, we enjoyed that.
RUBENSTEIN: And you still do.

Tarlow: Yes, here I am. So, then you retired. You became a lazy guy where you could sit and read all day if you wanted to, but you didn’t.
RUBENSTEIN: Right. Our company got sold to a global company with headquarters in Britain, with operations all over the world. They were a multi-billion-dollar—but we still had our small little FNW Valve Company that I had started. We were existing and going on. Because it was sort of a very entrepreneurial enterprise, meaning I was involved in every facet of that business. The Brits got worried at times, “How long are you going to stay? Are you training anybody?” I always told I would stay as long as I’m having fun. By the time I got to be 72 it was not fun anymore. The Brits had really taken over and the company took on a whole—the overall corporate took on a whole new perspective and we became just another corporate entity. So I finally called the powers-that-be together and I said, “Fellows, I made a commitment that I think I kept to. I said I would stay with you as long as I was having fun. Well, it’s not fun anymore.” And that’s when I quit. That was in December of 2003. I finished that year, 2003. So really starting 2004 I was retired. So it’s 2016, it’s been 12 years already. Time flies.

Tarlow: How do you spend your time? As if I didn’t know.
RUBENSTEIN: Sharon, I’m so busy.

Tarlow: I know, it’s great!
RUBENSTEIN: Doing nothing.

Tarlow: That’s not true.
RUBENSTEIN: Davia and I both keep very busy. She has an active life and I try to have an active life, and we both keep busy. I made a commitment to myself I was not going to hang around the house. I wasn’t going to be attached to television. I usually get home from a very busy morning doing nothing about 2:00 in the afternoon, where I spend a little time on my computer. I finish reading the Wall Street Journal. By then it’s 5:00. That’s when I pour myself a drink and I watch the news. That’s the first time I turn TV on, for the 5:00 local news, going on to the 5:30 national news. And that’s my day.

Tarlow: I have to contradict you, because you say you spend your morning doing nothing. Well, it’s not true! You play golf.
RUBENSTEIN: Yes, I keep active.

Tarlow: And you’re at the MAC Club, pumping away.
RUBENSTEIN: Every day. But I’m not productive.

Tarlow: Well, that’s pretty good stuff.
RUBENSTEIN: No, it is. I have no complaints. In fact, I’ve made this quote many times: I like my life in Portland, Oregon. I’m happy with my life, and I think Davia’s happy with her life. Fortunately, we have two of our daughters still live here. Sunny unfortunately lives in Los Angeles, but it’s nice having the bulk of our family here. Our three grandchildren grew up here.

Tarlow: I want to talk about them.
RUBENSTEIN: Well, the first two—Susan, the oldest daughter, has a son and a daughter.

Tarlow: Married to Barry Menashe.
RUBENSTEIN: She married Barry Menashe, so the two kids are Menashe kids.

Tarlow: And their names are?
RUBENSTEIN: We’ve got Jordan Menashe who is now I think 28, and we have Lauren Menashe who’s 23. They both had very active high school careers. They graduated Jesuit. That’s a cute story also. Jordan, when it came time for high school, he was very, very involved in golf up until high school, and he wanted to go to a school that had a good golf program. Plus he was pretty good in academics, so he sort of pointed himself to Jesuit, which was the private Catholic high school. Susan could tell Dad was not too happy with this selection. So on her own she called Rabbi Rose. She said, “Rabbi, Jordan has decided he’d like to go to Jesuit, both for the golf and for their other activities, and I know my dad’s not too happy.” She said, “How’s the best way to handle this?” He said, “Well, I can either tell your dad and you can tell him. Jordan knows who he is and what he’s going to be.” And that’s what Susan said. She said, “You know, I talked to Manny Rose.” She said not to worry, Jordan was not going to become Catholic and he would get a good education. 

And he did. He was on the golf team, they played for the state championship. He had a good four years and then went on to Southern Cal where he graduated in four years. Naturally, his younger sister had to follow in his footsteps, so she also went to Jesuit and had a good time and a good education, was very active, and played on the women’s golf team, also made the state champions, got onto the finals of the state championship, and she graduated SC also. 

Now, the third grandchild is a grandson, who is my youngest daughter’s son, who is now 21. His name is Max Lehman. Max Lehman is graduating the University of Oregon this year, and God knows what he’s going to do, but he’s a very special guy and we have a lot of faith in him. He’s just been a joy. He’s been a good friend of mine, for some reason even closer than the other two, and they’ve been very close. But he and I have hit it off from Day One. I had a lot of contact with him because his mother was a working mother, so I would pick him up from school certain days and we’d go have coffee together certain days, so we built a rapport. I think what really sealed it with him. We used to visit and talk as friends, not as a grandfather and grandson. One day he was going to tell me something. He said, “No, I’d better not tell you that.” I said, “Max, I want to tell you something right here and now. If we’re sitting in my car, I guarantee you anything you say here, stays here.” That seemed to really seal it with him, and we were bonded with that statement, and he shared a lot of his life with me. And still does.

Tarlow: I will never forget his bar mitzvah, the way he talked about you was—I want to cry now, because it was unbelievable that he could talk at that young age, to be able to express himself like he did.
RUBENSTEIN: Very sensitive. In fact, what was so interesting about that, I would schlep him plenty of times to his bar mitzvah classes, and toward the end he wanted me in to hear the whole deal, but he would never share the speech with me. I said, “Don’t you want me to help you with the speech?” He said, “No.” So I sort of let it pass at that but he knew what he was doing, so I would just emphasize, “Be sure to speak out and don’t go too fast,” and all that. Then he knocked me over with his speech. So it was special. But he’s still a special guy and we’re still good friends.

Tarlow: I know you’ve done a lot of traveling, and you’ve always enjoyed that. I don’t know if you want to elaborate on that.
RUBENSTEIN: I’ll just go back to my business travel.

Tarlow: But I also want you to talk about your trips to Italy with your friend and his car.
RUBENSTEIN: That’s all part of this. As a result of my business travel, about every other or every third or every fourth trip, Davia would go with me. The two of us got to do a lot of travel, and we would always extend it to go somewhere special or do something different. In fact, even some of the times—we were just talking about it. We’re just back from Hawaii. And several times she met me in Hawaii on my way back from the Orient, because it was a rough couple weeks traveling the Orient, and I would go there for a little R&R and she would meet me. We spent some time in Hawaii strictly winding down from a business trip. A lot of the trips, especially—she went to the Orient a few times with me and she went to Europe a few times with me. 

The fellow you are talking about, this Aldo Bonomi, had a large family foundry in Brescia which is northern Italy. He made brass valves[?]. Somehow we hooked up. I think he came to see me first. We’d already had a pretty good reputation as a company and we were not doing any brass. We were doing mainly stainless steel products. He came to me with some ideas from Europe. We sort of hit it off, and I started using some of his products, again with our label on it, not his label, which he resisted at first but I convinced him this is the way we were going and if I couldn’t do it with our name on it we really weren’t interested. It ended up as a very successful business relationship. He provided an outstanding product and we did a good job selling that product, to the case where we were getting a container a week from Italy, doing a lot of business. That amounts to a lot, a lot of business. But we became very good friends and I would usually see him once a year in Italy and then without fail in August he would always stop in Portland to see me at the end of his American trip. He came every August. He had customers on the East Coast, he had customers in the Midwest, and he would always end his trip in Portland, and from Portland he’d go to San Francisco, and then home to Italy because there was a good flight from San Francisco to Milan. That was his closest airport. Even in the years that I’ve been retired, he’s never missed an August. He does no business in Portland at all anymore, so he still ends his trip to have dinner with Davia and I in Portland in August. 

Two years ago—I’m sure that’s what you want me to talk about—two years he said, “Save the date, next year I’m going to have a party in Italy.” He gave us the date. It was July 4, 2015. He says, “It’s our 40th anniversary, I’m going to have a little party.” We said that sounds good. We didn’t take it too seriously, but as the time got closer I started getting notes from her. Now you get a formal “save the date” notice, so we got that, so Davia and I started talking a little more about it. Then we said, “Well, it’s a good excuse to go.” There were two cities on our bucket list that we hadn’t been to and I thought well, we could tie the two cities in. We had not been to Barcelona or Berlin, so we could do those two cities and then just spend a couple of days in Italy (because we’d been there many, many times) at my friend’s party. 

So he told me this. He had built a beach home on the west coast of Italy, just an hour’s drive from Florence. We had to land in Florence, which we did, and he told me how to do it. Then he helped me book a hotel in the town. I can’t remember the town, it’s a strange name. It turns out to be a very exclusive residential beach area in Italy, where all the beaches (differently than Oregon) are private beaches. We flew to Florence and I had arranged (I didn’t know what else to do), I had arranged a driver to pick us up in Florence and drive us to this little town an hour away from Florence, which he did, and we checked into our hotel. The party was going to be the following night. So all I did was call my friend Aldo, “I’m in town and I’ll see you tomorrow night, I know you’re busy.” He said, “Yes, that’s fine.” So the next day Davia and I sort of take off just to see this little community, and what we’re seeing is these magnificent estates, all gated and fenced. Then we walked down to the beach and we see this span of a lot of beach but covered with umbrellas and tables, etc., etc., as far as the eye could see. Oh, let’s spend the day down here, and I started inquiring about beach time. Well, the beaches are private. They’re all owned by somebody, and you can rent spaces. I asked one of these beach boys or whatever, I said, “I’d like to rent an umbrella and a stand for a few hours.” “Well, no, we don’t do that.” I said, “Well, what do you do?” He said, “We rent them for the season.” So these people rent these umbrellas and tables and chairs for the season. 

Consequently we could not spend any time on the beach. It’s not public, it’s private. Anyway, now comes time to go to this party. We had never been to this house. He told me he had built this house. A hotel driver took us to this home, and we were just blown away. Number one, it was on several acres of ground, all landscaped, and it was a typical Italian mansion. It looked old but was two years old. He had just built it. In front of it was the largest outdoor swimming pool I’ve ever seen, an Olympic-size pool for swimming, and the grounds are all landscaped. There are hundreds of people. It turned out this party was over 400 people. Around the perimeter were cooks, and each chef had their own thing going. Number one, you were assigned a seat, where to sit at a table. Our table fortunately—the party planner knew what they were doing. We were at a table with—we were the only Americans who were at this party, but at our table were all English-speaking. There were some people from Austria and some people from–I can’t remember what other country. Anyway, there were other Europeans at our table, but all of them spoke English so we had—you know, it was an outstanding party. What can I tell you? It was just over the top. Davia and I had never seen anything like it, with a full orchestra and entertainment and clowns and stilt walkers and jugglers. It had a little bit of everything. That was our experience with Aldo just this last summer, the summer of 2015. That was an outstanding event, and we did get our last two cities on our bucket list. Well, I never thought I wanted to go to Berlin, but Berlin was a marvelous experience. That’s really the story of—

Tarlow: Of Ted Rubenstein and that trip to Italy. I think we’ve done it.
RUBENSTEIN: Well, I hope we’ve done it.

Tarlow: Is there anything we’ve left out that you might want to include on this interview?
RUBENSTEIN: I think we covered it, didn’t we? I’m sure I’ve worn you out. I think it will be interesting for somebody a hundred years from now that wants to know about Ted and Davia Rubenstein.