HL=Harold (Hal) Lurie
JH=Julie Henigan

Tape I, Side 1
JH:If we could just start with your family background: where your parents came from and emigration stories--anything like that.

HL:My father--Edward Samuel Lurie--came to this country from Lithuania in 1912; landed at Ellis Island, as so many have. He came from a family of six brothers--six boys and three girls; and four of the brothers had preceded him to this country. And one of them worked in Sheffield, Pennsylvania, and two worked as salesmen for a clothing manufacturer called the Star Clothing Company. When he came--the only story that I loved to hear him tell was how they arrived at Ellis Island, on either the third or the fourth of July; and they had all come over in steerage, which was literally the hold; and I remember that he said he'd worked three years raising a cow to get the twenty-nine dollars for his

ticket--ship's [cartoon?]. Anyway, my father was a darned good student who had--in those days, they learned--. The Jews in Lithuania were not allowed to own property, but my grandfather rented a farm--and they had the company store, and that sorta thing: there's some fascinating stories about that; I'm gonna try to go back--maybe next fall. But, anyway, the education was in the Jewish school itself--much as the Catholics and the Christian schools of today--but they were not only religious schools, but they were [facts]. And Dad loved history; and so he knew about the Fourth o' July. And they landed, and they were on Ellis Island, and here came--that evening--were all these fireworks. And Dad told the story of this guy who he was traveling--not necessarily with him- but was on--and they had become friends; and he saw all this and he said, "What's that all about?" "Oh," he said, "It's such a great country--that whenever another boatload of immigrants come, they celebrate!" And this guy believed him! Said he never had the heart to tell him he was kiddin' him; he wondered how many years it took before he found out. But, anyway, the Fourth of July--there was a movie recently called "Avalon," where a guy arrives, I think, in Baltimore, on the Fourth o' July. But, anyway--and he was put on a boxcar and sent to Sheffield, Pennsylvania; they were actually just things with benches. Actually, he had twenty-nine dollars in his pocket, but he had borrowed twenty-five o' that; so he had four dollars that belonged to him. And he never forgot: the concessionaires used to come through the cars--and he said these were just literally like boxcars with benches--and he had a tag around that said "Pennsylvania Railroad" and "Sheffield, Pennsylvania"--and the name of my uncle--Simon--and where to contact him in Sheffield--'cause he spoke no English. But the butch sold him a box o' candy--he was hungry--for a dollar; and it was rotten. Oh! He never, ever forgave--! He said that was his first--as much as he loved this country, he said, "Boy, my first taste was bitter!" [Laughter.] There were bugs in it and every-thing--so he had to throw it away. Anyway--so much for Dad; he went to Sheffield. And his two brothers in the Star Clothing Company had gotten him a job in California, Missouri--sweeping floors.

HL:Well, because there was a Star Clothing Company factory there. So -he was sixteen years old, and--as he said--he got four bucks a week, and he says he really wasn't worth any more than that; he just had a strong back. So, three dollars went to his landlady, and a dollar--he got a dollar a week; he spent a nickel on a package of Bull Durham, a nickel on gettin' his collars cleaned for church, and a nickel for laundry soap for the lady to do his laundry.

JH:Why did he leave?

HL:Why did he leave. Probably because they would have had to serve in the Russian army. They were under Russian rule, and the pogroms were in those days; and they had some minor pogroms--if you saw the--"Fiddler on the Roof": this was the kind of a little village that he had come from. My oldest--.

JH:Do you know the name of it?

HL:Yeah! Skaudville--it's on the map: S-k-a-u-d-v-i-l-l-e. And I was much surprised to find it in the atlas--still there. I have some pictures that my mother--my mother went there in 1934--and visited. But his older brother had had to go to the army--Max; and my grandfather had--you could buy them out of the army--and he bought him out. And he was the first to come to this country--and then Levi and Isadore. And Levi and Isadore worked for Star Clothing--and Simon--who was in Sheffield. But they got him this job. And then, he had been there a while, and they sent him to Richmond, Virginia, to learn to be a cutter--and use those big electric knives. And there was a Mr. Oberman, who also worked for Star Clothing, as a salesman, and had done very well--and was, indeed, a distant relative. And so, Mr. Oberman opened up his own business. And the factory is still there--on Boonville Avenue--here in Springfield--where the flea market is? Well, if you ever go down to the flea market, look in the middle on Tampa Street side and you'll see a crease where the two buildings are joined. Well, anyway, Mr. Oberman hired my dad. And he had opened factories for overalls and work clothing in several places--but three penitentiary factories: Missouri, Nebraska--in Lincoln, Nebraska--and Mississippi--in Jackson, Mississippi. And so he got Dad to go to work as a cutter in the Jefferson City plant. We always talk about that as Dad's "hitch in prison," you know: his "stretch." And the old man Oberman said, "We can't work the convicts but eight hours a shift--in those days factory workers worked twelve hours; so he asked Dad to work two shifts--for a few weeks--until he could get somebody else; and almost three years later he was still workin' three shifts. But from then on, he was the apple of the old man's- Oberman's--eye, so to speak; and in '16, he sent him down here as second in command to help build that plant on Boonville. And then he went to St. Louis; and by that time the old man Oberman had a cutting factory--did nothing but just cut the stuff--and then they'd ship the pieces to the--sewing--to the factories where they'd sew 'em together. And they had opened factories in Monett and Aurora and--little towns around Missouri. And finally--in about 1921, I guess--the old man Oberman said--Dad was twenty-six years old- and offered him a job as general superintendent of the whole shootin' match. And he went from like three thousand a year--he was up to at that point--to about thirty-five thousand a year; and everybody said, "Don't take it; you're too young." So he listened to everybody and then he did as he [chuckling] pleased.

JH:And he had started how many years earlier with him?

HL:He had started--actually, he came here in '12 and started with Oberman in '14--'13 or '14--and had been in the penitentiary factory for three years. And while he was there--o' course, he lived in a boarding house--we always talked about his "stretch," but he actually did live outside. My mother's family, who was from Chicago--actually, Mom was born in New York, and when she two years old her folks moved to Chicago. And he was in the scrap business: the cloth scrap--whatever you call it. And somewhere along the line--about the time Mom got outta high school--he opened a plant in Jefferson City. And it turned out that my grandfather's family--that is, my mother's father and mother--had come from the same little area of Lithuania as my father. And so, someone made the contact, and they began--and they dated then in Jeff City, and eventually were married in 1919--and moved to St. Louis, where he had this cutting factory for the old man. And in 1921, I guess, he was made general superintendent, and the folks moved down here- in the old Schwab apartments on the corner of Elm and Kimbrough, which I think are still there.
JH:Was this the administrative center--or why here, if he was the supervisor?

HL:Well, this is interesting, because when he had come down here in '16 to build the plant, he spent six months or so here; and he loved Springfield. And when the old man Oberman offered him the superintendent's job, he said, "Okay; on one condition: I can have my headquarters in Springfield. I don't wanta live in Jeff City." He didn't like the politics of it; he didn't like a lot of it. And so he moved to Springfield. And the old man said, "Fine, I don't care where you are. As long as you come into the office and report into me whenever I need you." And the old man said, "I'll be here." And he was. And so, he moved in '21, and lived and died here. I was born here in '22. My older brother, Sid, had been born in St. Louis in 1919; the folks were married February, 1919, and Sid was born- prematurely--as my father said, "Thank God my aunt knew that- that it was "kosher"! [Laughs.] It's a long story, which I won't go into. But, anyway, Sid was born in October--a premie--in St. Louis. Then they moved down here in '21; I was born '22, in April; my kid brother was born in August of '23; and we moved into a home on South Fremont, which Reverend March now has.

JH:Oh, I know him!

HL:You know Curtis? Yeah. As a matter o' fact, I was talkin' to him the other day; he was lookin' for a picture that might show the house in its early years before their--. I have pictures from later. But, anyway--so that's where I grew up. And, initially, we had the--as far as the Jewish community--Dad had been here when the Shaare Zedick was founded; and he and people like Edgar Herman--that I remember--who was a haberdasher here--and so on. So, we went to Sunday school--our synagogue was actually the second floor of the Masonic Temple. And there was a big room--a prayer room--with benches there, which are still the same benches--many of them- that are still in the community center. And we had our little Sunday school; the Reforms had something goin' somewhere. But Dad always went to Friday night services, and he had a good knowledge of Hebrew; and so he and a few of the others sorta led things.

JH:Did people take turns leading the services?

HL:Yeah! Yeah, because we had--well, they had a rabbi for a while.

JH:Oh, really!

HL:They had a guy who was more--actually, what he was--as I recall- and one o' the Lotvens could tell you more about that than I could--I think he was actually a shohet--which is a guy who kills the meat- and had a little kosher shop down on Walnut, as I recall--could've been on Walnut.

JH:Not Littman.

HL:Not Littman; no, no! No, no; Littman was not a shohet. No, no; this- you had to be a rabbi type guy. I don't know what the requirements- but you could clear that with the Lotvens, 'cause they--.

JH:But he wasn't actually a rabbi, but he--

HL:He was close to it--you see; he at least had had some training. And I don't know--and that's the reason I'm askin' you to check with them, 'cause I'm not sure how much training or just how far it went, or what it was. But he had the little store--where he killed the chickens properly and had the kosher meats. And then he--as I recall, any-way--conducted services frequently, or--all the time; I remember him only from the high holidays--I mean, remember when I was up there. I do think that--even in those days--we brought in a rabbi on the high holidays--prob'ly from St. Louis.

JH:Some people say that it was more frequently a cantor that was brought in.

HL:Could well have been. You know, I was a kid; I had no idea. All I knew was--the old man Karchmer that you interviewed--his father used to--hit the pulpit [hits table]--and say, "Shah! Shah, kinder!" Tell the children--"Be quiet"--so we wouldn't--. We loved to run across the hall; they had another big room over there--it was kinda like a bit library--and we spent more of time over than we over there than we ever did in the synagogue, I can guarantee you.

JH:So you rented--there were a couple of rooms?

HL:There were a couple; there was a room across the hall.

JH:I see. Now, did you grow up speaking Yiddish?

HL:No. I grew up--I never really learned any Hebrew; I learned enough to get by--the prayers for a bar mitzvah; I never learned to read from the Torah, as the kids do now. I learned the so-called "brochas," or the Hebrew prayer for the opening and the closing of the Torah: that's all. As far as Yiddish was concerned, I had two brothers and

myself--

HL:My parents--they spoke Yiddish to each other; or my parents spoke Yiddish to each other so we children wouldn't know. But I had asthma--childhood asthma, and finally when I was in the seventh grade I went down and spent a couple years in Mississippi--with an aunt and uncle in Clarksdale, Mississippi; and my uncle Simon--who had a little store there--believe me, I just visited with my cousin, and he was laughing about what my father used to say about Simon: he said he never learned English and his Yiddish was gettin' lousy! And they used to communicate in Yiddish--and write letters; and that's when he told me, "His Yiddish was lousy and he never learned English." Well, I learned a lotta Yiddish down there--from living with them; but I never told my folks, [laughs] 'cause I listen in on the conversations. [Laughter.]

JH:You say you went to Sunday school, but did they not teach Hebrew in the Sunday school?

HL:They did not teach Hebrew per se.

JH:Do you remember who taught?

HL:Yeah--yeah; I had Evelyn Freiberg--you'll run across the name of Burt and Burtie Freiberg. Burton Freiberg's daughter, Evelyn--she died early on of something--I don't know--before I even came back; and she was a sweet lady: she taught; seems to me Mollie Kransberg taught.

JH:Bernie Fetter mentioned her.

HL:Mollie Kransberg taught and Evelyn Freiberg, and those are the only two I can think of offhand.

JH:Were they just volunteers?

HL:Yeah.

JH:Uh huh. A couple of people have thought they remembered people from the Reform congregation coming to Shaare Zedick services and vice versa. Do you remember any of that?

HL:To a slight extent--to some extent. By and large--by and large, they really didn't--very often--at least that I ever saw. But there were some--for example, where the--there were some o' the families where, for example, the guys had grown up in a Reform atmosphere, or they had grown up in an Orthodox and their wife had grown up in Reform; and they might come to the Orthodox service, and then we might go--some o' them might go over to the Reform: yeah, there was an intermixing. But there was always--I always felt that there was sort of a competition. And then--this went on when I was really young--but then, in the late '30s, in the days of Adolph Hitler, we got this refugee rabbi--Rabbi Richter--and I'm sure he's come up; and Richter did a lot to--. And he actually came as the Reform rabbi; that's where his office was, and--. But when Richter came, then more and more people from the younger group--particularly the Orthodox--would go to temple.

JH:That is, go to the Reform?

HL:Go to the Reform, which was then built on Kickapoo.

JH:At 1930, it had already been built, yeah.

HL:Yeah. It had been built when he came, but that was the first rabbi that I remember--on a permanent basis. And he came. And then--he was for here for a short time and then left--I think went to St. Joe, but I'm not sure. Anyway, then Rabbi Jacobs came, and when Rabbi Jacobs came--they stayed for a long, long time--and he tried to bring them back over. Well, part o' the problem was the Reform service was not exactly something that appealed to the Orthodox. My father, for example, said he didn't wanta listen to the--as he put it -"the shikses [shcrien]"--which meant that the gentile women who were the choir--that was hired--and they would sing the Hebrew- phonetically. [We move to escape vacuum cleaner noise.]

JH:There was definite competition?

HL:There was competition. My father was one o' the old-timers, and, o' course, as he [sic] say, he didn't--they had a gentile choir of three people--I remember Mr. Wyman Hogg who had a beautiful voice, and I know his daughter--Mrs. Parnell--to this day, and we talk about it. For a while, Ruth Palmer has sung there. But Dad just never could see that. A cantor, yes; these people, no: no way. So, then they finally tried to get together--along about right after World War II. It was interesting that they did not call themselves the "United Hebrew Congregation"; it was called the "United Hebrew Congregations." And that plural became a real bone of contention in later years. They finally agreed that they would build the community center, and they would get the Orthodox a little prayer room in the back.

JH:Was your father one o' the people who was real active in that?

HL:Yeah! Yeah; he was--well, as I recall, there was a time when he was opposed: he got unhappy about som'p'n and didn't go; but he finally got over it--and he would go on Friday nights. When I first came back to practice, I would be at my office, and he'd say, you--he'd call and ask me if I was through, and I'd say, "No, I haven't even been to St. John's yet." And he would say, "Well, do me a favor: stop by; we need another man for the minyen. Stop by, and at least come in long enough so we can have a minyen." And I would literally have to go by and stop and make the tenth man.

JH:You didn't have to stay!

HL:And then go--. Oh, no! I would stay for a brief period, and [I] would stay and then hope someone--but if anybody else came, believe me, I got the hell outta there! [Laughs.]

JH:Is this the '50s?

HL:This was in the early '50s.

JH:After the community center was built?

HL:Yes, in the early '50s--1952; I came back to practice in '52.

JH:So had--at that point were there fewer members of the Orthodox?

HL:Oh, yeah--yeah; there were fewer members--at that point. And they certainly were fewer members that--I don't how many are fewer; but the point is, they never were that many--that went to Friday services. And I would say there were more in the Reform that went to Friday services--because of Rabbi Jacob. But what the actual numbers were I have no idea.

JH:So there was difficulty sometimes getting a minyen?

HL:Oh, heck, yes!

JH:Had there been previously, or was it really a decline?

HL:Oh--it was not that big a decline; it was always touch and go to get people who wanted to go to Friday night services. This is not a very religious town--as far as the Jews were concerned. I not only never learned Hebrew, I learned little enough Yiddish; and for my part, I grew up with all gentile friends. I didn't know which ones were Catholic, which ones were Protestant, and they didn't know--what the hell a Jew was, or--and it never really mattered!
JH:This is the sort of thing that seems very strange to people who grew up in big cities, where your Judaism is so much part of your identity.

HL:Oh! Big cities--. Oh, listen--even in Clarksdale, Mississippi, where my uncle lived--they had a small Jewish community--it was a town of six, seven thousand; but they stayed to themselves. And I remember that there was a gal--two of us were almost outcasts- Polly Bernstein and myself--because we ran around with the gentiles; well, that's the way I'd grown up!

JH:Well, what do you think made that difference here?

HL:There weren't that many of us.

JH:Were there more in Clarksdale?

HL:There were probably as many in Clarksdale, Mississippi--

JH:Which was a smaller town.

HL:--which was a much smaller town--as there were in Springfield, Missouri. And in my own age group, there were no more than three or four gals--for example--that I could 'a dated; and in Clarksdale there were probably a dozen or so. But that didn't bother me; the kids asked me to go ridin' on Sunday, I went ridin'. And I never had known the difference. And I went to--well, I traveled all around afterwards: I went to a military school for four years--in St. Petersburg, Florida, and--there I didn't know the difference; and went to Duke, and I did join the Jewish fraternity--the ZBT. My brother went there before me, and he didn't join; he stayed an independent: his friends were mostly gentiles as they had been here. And mine were--many of them, if not most of them--gentile.

JH:What about your parent's generation?

HL:Parent's generation--they stuck together to some extent. But now, my father, for example, belonged to the Elks Club, and he had lots o' friends in the Elks Club who were gentile--and mixed with them; he belonged to the Shrine, and had a lotta friends in there who were Shriners--and we never--.

JH:You have to be a Mason to be a Shriner?

HL:Yeah. Yeah. And people think, well, Jews can't--well, really, there's nothin' in Masonic work--there is in the York rite, but not in the Scottish rite; anyway--a lotta Jews in there. And, no! We--we mixed, and--hell, Dad was a--Herman Lohmeyer used to say he was a professional pallbearer--'cause he buried all the Jews, all the Elks -and he was always a pallbearer. And he would tell stories; and Herman said, "You gotta quit tellin' stories in the pallbearers' car, because the bereaved are right behind you, and we turn a corner and everybody's laughin'--they don't think--." And he said, "Well, you're supposed to laugh at a funeral." Herman said, "What's that? Some kind o' Jewish idea?" He said, "No, no; it's just good sense." He said, "What do you mean?" He says, "You wanta cry, go to wedding; at a funeral you should laugh, because at a funeral, his problems are over; at the wedding, that poor bastard's problems are just beginning!" [Laughter.] And, no--it was a great town, and has been. We had a country club that opened here in '33--.

JH:Hickory Hills?

HL:Hickory Hills. And I think we had a hundred members; actually, we joined, I think, about six months after it opened; but there were prob'ly a hundred members, and although the Jews represented certainly less than one percent o' the community, there were six Jewish members.

JH:What about anything when you were either a child or an adolescent in terms of the congregation? Was there a youth group or anything like that?

HL:Not that I recall.

JH:So how much of a role did that play in your early life?

HL:Very little. Very little, and that's the reason I say I'm a bad one to talk to.

JH:Well, not necessarily.

HL:In the sense that I prob'ly went to the synagogue when I had to, which was at Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur--and on a few other rare occasions.

JH:Do you how large the community would have been when you were growing up? [Mr. Lurie shakes head.] No?

HL:Prob'ly not a whole lot more than it was when I came back: prob'ly fifty to seventy families--but I'm guessing.

JH:Is that in the whole city?

HL:Yeah. But I'm just guessing.

JH:So you didn't really have a sense of growing up Jewish in this town?
HL:Never did. I didn't know about bein' Jewish till I actually--up in college, when I got to California. And I couldn't figure it out; I thought it was ridiculous.

JH:How so?

HL:Well! You know, everybody--"Oh, we've gotta have better relations with the gentiles!" I says, "What the hell you mean, better relations? What's wrong with gentiles?" [Chuckling.] You know. And so, God, you'd bring a gentile friend to the fraternity house, and everybody would rush over and fall all over themselves tryin' to make them feel at home, and--how--great--. This was at UCLA, and I never quite got over it. And the Jewish guys didn't date gentile girls; and the gentleman's agreement was in full swing out there, you know. Hell, I'd never been restricted. And I found out later that it was kinda nice in one sense: some o' the gals liked to date the Jewish boys--we were like forbidden fruit, you know. [Laughs.] And I couldn't figure it; it was ridiculous, you know! And then I came back to medical school in Missouri, and I was back in my element, and back where most o' my friends were gentile. And we had one other Jewish kid in the class, who was--an unmitigated shmuck--is the only thing I can think.

JH:Where was this?

HL:It 'as at University of Missouri.

JH:In Columbia?

HL:In Columbia. And there were only like thirty--well, we started with forty-six, but in eighteen months, they'd already flunked out--we were down to twenty-four. But this guy would've been an s.o.b. if he'd 'a been a Mohammedan! As a matter o' fact, I understand he just recently is under investigation to have his license jerked. [Unintelligible.]

JH:Well, was education emphasized by your family?

HL:Oh, very much so!

JH:And in the--do you think--the Jewish community generally, too?

HL:Always--always. In that we--you know, this idea: you're Jewish and you're gonna have trouble--getting into graduate schools and all this sort o' thing, and you've gotta be the best. So you went out and became the best you could. And I did. And I went to the dean--by that time I was at Southern Cal; I had moved up on campus: I was business manager o' the yearbook, and quite frankly--and I'm not sayin' to

brag--but a pretty popular guy--had damn good grades. And went to get into med school, and the dean said, "Look, I am acting dean, so I don't intend to keep this job; but I would tell you, Lurie, I have two stack--if you ever repeat it I'll swear you're lying--but I have two stacks of applicants, and they're gonna take seventy-one out of this stack, and this is about a third as high, and we're gonna take four outta this stack. And I would further tell you that the top twelve guys here all have straight As. You would never get in here in a million years. So don't apply on either coast; go back in the midwest, apply to everywhere up and down the middle west that you can, and with your record, you oughtta finally get in somewhere." Well, I finally got in the University of Missouri, which had a two year school.

HL:That was 1943. Yeah--'43. And also got accepted at three other places, finally; but I took the first one I got, 'cause it was either that or be drafted; you know, it was during the war.

JH:Oh, you could get an exemption?

HL:From the draft, from being in med school, yeah. But I had always set out to be a doctor--it had nothing to do with my exemption; but, yes. I finally--when I got in--and I took the first one. I did, and I went in; and then they had a V-12 program--an army program with the students who were studying to be doctors. But I never--after that- again, I've never known what it meant to be Jewish. In the sense that I always had more gentile friends, because they were the people I was in contact with.

JH:How did you decide to go into medicine?

HL:Oh, that was easy. I was a childhood asthmatic--that's the reason I went down to Mississippi, 'cause of--a milder climate. And there was a guy--we were delivered by an old German doctor, Reinhoff- and his son became a professor at Hopkins--the head of neurosurgery, or--Reinhoff. But--when I was almost--about four years of age, a pediatrician came here--Dr. Busiek--U.J. Busiek; and, God, I worshipped that man. And here I would be; I couldn't breathe, and he would come with that magic needle of adrenaline, and--all of a sudden I could breathe again. And you can bet he was a hero. And he'd come at two o'clock in the morning, and he'd come at--. And one o' the nicest things about my career was that many, many years later--I used to always come and visit with him--and he told this lady that Dr. Lurie got me started in practice. She'd look at him and look at me: "How's that?" Said, "Well"--said, "You don't look that old, Doctor, to me. Dr. Busiek said, "Well, you see, his dad was one of the few guys in the community that could pay my bill!" [Laughs.] And anyway--when I came back to town--he was a patient of Maddox and Park--two of them. And later--they quit--they didn't go up to Cox- or Burge, in those days; and I didn't go--I went to St. John's, but they didn't come up to Cox and I did. And Dr. Busiek was very close to Burge or Cox; as a matter o' fact, he used to keep a resident down here from St. Louis. And so, they asked me to take care of him; and, oh boy! that was the crowning--one o' the crowing things of my career. And so for many years, I took care of him, until he died, in his mid-nineties. And I told that to both his son and his daughter when I retired recently; had nice notes from them, and I said one o' the highlights was Dr. Busiek--. And I knew I was gonna be a doctor from the age o' four.

JH:Well, had there been any Jewish doctors in Springfield? Or were there later? Contemporary with you?

HL:Later? Max Rose--no, well, I came to town; Max Rosen was practicing--Bill Rosen's father--in ear, nose, and throat. Ernest Tarrasch was a refugee doing eye work.

JH:That would have been after the war?

HL:Mm hmm. I came back in '52.

JH:Max Rosen was earlier, though, right?

HL:He was here when I came back in '52. But he hadn't been here very long. No, I don't know when Max came; Bill would know that. But he was here when I got here in '52. Ernest was here. Ernest came about that same time--I don't know; Ena Tarrasch could tell you when they came to Springfield, but it was not too far off from my arrival in '52.

JH:Had you ever heard of a--I read somewhere of a Dr. DuFrank. [Dr. Lurie shakes head.] No? That might've been real early. But was there any feeling that it would be difficult to practice here as a professional--a Jewish professional?

HL:Never entered my mind. No feeling--I have never known-- [knocks on wood]--to my knowledge--any open anti-Semitism. And, if anything, I have had patients who said--even recently--"Is there another good Jewish doctor? 'Cause you Jews are the best!" Now, that is a quote from at least three people--who are looking for Jewish doctors. One woman said, "Because you people have suffered and you care." Now, that's strange! But that's the only mention. But they--as far as being any resentment--none that I knew of.
JH:What about people who--I knew there was Irving Schwab--but there weren't too many lawyers here, either, early on, from the Jewish community.

HL:Not a--no. But Irving never had any problem.

JH:No? I guess I ask, because--for at least a time--there was a kind of understood policy--at least I've been told--at SMS, not to hire Jewish professors.

HL:If such were the case, I was not aware of it. I knew nothing of it. And I took care of a bunch of professors over the years at SMS, who preferred to come to me in contradistinction to the clinic; even at the time of my retirement, I was takin' care of several. But these were all gentiles. But I never had heard that.

JH:Well, I've only heard about two people mention it.

HL:Well, you see, when the rabbi--Ernest Jacobs--taught at Drury; and then, after Ernest's death, and we began to get these other rabbis, they mostly taught at SMS. And I have no idea what the situation was there.

JH:You never got married?

HL:Oh, yes!

JH:Or you did. Okay. Where did you meet your wife?

HL:Her cousin and I had gone to military school--St. Pete. She lived in Tampa; and I went down to visit him some years later, and met her- which I--we have pictures showing us when I was like fifteen and she was three or something--in the background, but I, o' course, didn't remember her. But when I came back in--early in 1950 and visited him, why, I met Bobbie, in January or February. And she came up here to visit that summer, and we got engaged, and we were married in October. Have two children. One--David, a lawyer in Kansas City, and Loretta, who is an advertizing executive in New York and--has done very well. And then, Bobbie and I were divorced; actually I left home in about '82, and we finally got a divorce in about '85. It takes a long time to get a divorce.

JH:Did Jews here tend to marry within the faith?

HL:Yes. Yes, for the most part. Particularly among the Orthodox, it was important; even as liberal as my father was, he was very much opposed to any intermarriage. My kid brother was killed in World War II--and never married; and my older brother stayed single till he was in his forties--and Dad was actually dead--and he married a gentile--who was a convert. Who was a convert. Bobbie, o' course, was Jewish, and that pleased my father no end.

JH:When you were growing up, what were the most important families in the congregation?

HL:Karchmers--the Lotvens--Bernie Fetter's father, I guess-- that I knew. Kranzbergs--and then, they died off or left. The Samors--and they were here a short time; I remember them. Then, in the Reform, people like the Schwabs: there were Max and Dave--Dave Schwab and Max Schwab. Dave's daughter, Dorothy Soskin married a rabbi, and the Soskins are still around somewhere. Irving Schwab was the son of Max Schwab, and--then Edgar Herman, who was the haberdasher. And the--of the richer people, to be honest with you, when I was growing up, they mostly were among the Reform. [Chuckles.] The LeBolts, Levy-Wolfs, LeBolts, the Barths--Barth's clothing--and the Liebmans came [here] later. The LeBolts came after Saul Wolf and Tess Levy, I remember. And, oh, the Faymans.

JH:They were jewelers?

HL:Jewelers, that's correct. And she is now Gloria Kershenbaum--Abe Kershenbaum's wife.

JH:So the Reform were more likely to own businesses?

HL:Yes, they were more--. And the Littmans, o' course, had the little delicatessen that you were talkin' about. And I grew up with that; and that's where we went to get our corned beef and our bagels.

JH:I heard something about him having trouble when they introduced the blue laws--I'm not sure when that would have been--because he closed on Saturdays and wanted to be open Sundays.

HL:And wanted to be open Sundays.

JH:Do you remember anything about that?

HL:Not really. I always told his son, who is the managing editor of the Post-Dispatch--Dave Littman--I said his father had the heaviest--I said, "You know, his thumb--his thumb put you through [college]."

Tape I, Side 2
HL:We received a faculty alumni award up there--I received an alumni award one year, and I think it was the next year Dave got it. But we still--everybody laughed when I told him about his father's heavy thumb. [Laughs.] He's still there in St. Louis, as far as I know--still. But there were--I'm tryin' to--the Federows; the Federows were here when I got back, but they hadn't been here--they came down from St. Louis. They were in the junk business; o' course, the Karchmers were in the junk business. And there were the old man Karchmer and then his son Jake, and Nathan went off and got in the heating business.

JH:Now, you've named a lot of different families. Were they important for different reasons? Or--when you say "important," was it that they--

HL:Only because they were names I recollect. As far as their importance to the community--it was different. Some were like- you know--just like I get very tied up in alumni affairs; my older brother wouldn't have a thing to do with 'em. Nathan Karchmer loved politics, and he ended up bein' mayor. The fact that there was a very small Jewish community, he still ended up bein' mayor, was no problem.

JH:Was there any shift away from business and retail towards white collar professions?

HL:Probably, but I didn't recognize it as such.

JH:What percentage or proportion of small businesses in Springfield, when you were younger, were owned by Jews?

HL:Oh, much larger than right now--I would say; because--I just was thinking when you said that--you know, we had Barth's, and we had Edgar Herman's, and we had Fayman Jewelry, and we had the Sass jewelry, and we had--

JH:Rubenstein's.

HL:Rubenstein's--I hadn't forgotten them, by the way--were very prominent. The Rubenstein's; and Sammie Gold had the Tog Shop. And downtown Springfield had a lot of Jewish stores--yes. And then, as time went on, o' course, these people--the small businesses--have been replaced by chain stores and what have you.

JH:Did people of your generation or the next generation tend to leave Springfield?

HL:Gosh! It's hard to say. Some came back, some left; but whether to any greater extent or lesser extent than the gentiles, for example- 'cause, of my friends, some stayed and some left. But to say there was any significant difference: no, I don't think so. As a matter o' fact, I think the Jewish community right now is prob'ly larger than it's ever been.

JH:What was it like in Springfield during the Depression, and did it affect the Jewish community?

HL:The thing that I remember most, as far as the Jewish community was concerned, was the feeling among the Jews to take care o' their own. And if some guy came through here, and was down on his luck, all he had to do--and we found out about it--the whole community went together, and they'd get him clothes--and Nathan can tell you about this: he was always at the forefront o' that. They would buy him clothes--they would furnish him clothes and food, and even take them into their own homes; and get him a bus ticket to wherever he wanted to go, and--. But it was--the only thing I remember was it was almost a sin to think that a Jew would depend on public charity, so to speak: we would take care of our own. Now, that much I do remember. It's a strange thing I should remember, but--that's funny. My dad would get a call, and it'd be the old man Karchmer--Nathan's father: he'd found one somewhere. And my father used to say--my father was a great believer in charity--[ducka]; he always thought that the good Lord had been very kind to him, and part of the--and he always wanted to give back. And I grew up with the idea of charity being--we were--my father, as you mentioned, the Depression was -we were--o' course, well, he quit Oberman and went into business on his own in the '30s--right in the heart o' the Depression.

JH:What was that?

HL:Clothing manufacture. And he started up this factory over on Commercial Street. Later it burned down, unfortunately, which was a real tragedy, but anyway--at the end o' the war. But Dad's view of charity was that, as long as you didn't tell 'em where you got it; he did not want any publicity over it. And it was--as far as the Depression, I remember--he caught one of us boys braggin' about something, because we were--despite Dad's startin' up a new business--we still had more than most, through the '30s. And I remember him sayin', "Look, that guy next door"--or wherever it was--"is as smart as I am, he works as hard as I do, he wants as good as--clothes and vacations and trips or whatever--for his family--schools--anything--as I do, for my family. And because the good Lord seemed to have his countenance shine down upon me, by God, I don't want you to tell him about it, because you're only gonna to hurt his feelings. He's as smart as I am; I just got luckier." And -but he said, "I catch one o' you kids"--and my father was a strong disciplinarian--"Keep your damn mouth shut!"--you know, when it came to--. And this was true. And so he would--after he died, I was amazed at some o' the people that came to me with stories of what he'd done. And he used to keep a scholarship at Drury--but he wouldn't let Jim Finley, who was president of Drury bring the guy over and introduce him; he never wanted him to know who gave him the money. He says, "As it stands, all I want you to tell him is that -I want him to remember, if--when he makes it, I would like for him to do the same thing. If he wants to thank me, that's how he can thank me. But if he sees a face, then he's got someone to be obligated to. If he doesn't know who it is, he's obligated only to a principle."

JH:It's good psychology, isn't it?

HL:And I found out afterwards there were a number of people that that went on with. But anyway, no, we--I was lucky; I really did not know depression. We didn't have a lot, but we had more than most. And we certainly didn't know hunger and--and so on.

JH:Did any of the members--you've sort of answered this already--of the community become particularly well off?

HL:Well, I think the Barths got pretty healthy--pretty well-off. My father, by today's standards, certainly didn't, but he was better off than most; and he never became an extremely wealthy man, but he was always well up in the community. The same holds true for the Karchmers; they all did pretty well. Bill did well in law, and I think that Karchmer and Kaplans have done very well in real estate--over and above the heating business; Irving Schwab certainly did well with the law. And some o' the others have gone backwards--that were very prominent and wealthy, and dropped back somewhat.

JH:Did this affect their standing in the community at all?

HL:Nah. No, I don't think so. I never heard it if it did. I can't imagine how it would--or why it would.

JH:Well, were they possibly more prominent or active, because they contributed more or anything like that?

HL:No! I don't think so. No, I think in terms of--well, in one family, particularly, in the Reforms that did very well, for example, was Lester Strauss and the Kramers and so on. And they were leaders in the Reform, and at one point, she was not going to--Jeanne Kramer was, as I remember, one o' those who was opposed to their becoming combined, because she didn't want any Hebrew. And--so there were these sort o' things that went on, but it had nothin' to do with wealth. And, on the other hand, families like the Rubensteins were much better off--I think--and I've never looked at their bank accounts--when Herschel and Arthur had Rubenstein's store downtown. But it never affected George and the rest of us--our position in the community--or anybody else.

JH:What would you say the standard of living has been in the community in general?

HL:In general, they're--upper middle class. No, I don't th--you know, we didn't have any John Q. Hammons or extremely wealthy people, but we always had people who had a fair amount o' money, and we had some who labored and didn't do as well; but some of the more prominent people in the community really were never big money makers. The Lotvens are the nicest guys--two nicest guys ever lived--and their families are beautiful people! And neither one o' them ever set the world on fire financially, but no one ever really gave a damn. They were highly respected.

JH:In talking about relations between the Orthodox and the Reform, you mentioned competition. Was that just because of the way the services were celebrated?

HL:Primarily because of the services. As a matter o' fact, when they formed the United Hebrew Congregations--plural--you had to be registered as an "O" or an "R." And this always rankled me. And this was before I came back here, and I came back and found this out, and I about--I said, "This is ridiculous!"--you know. And there were people, as I say, extremes on both sides. My father didn't want to listen to the gentile choir; he said he could do that at his friend Arthur McClung's Presbyterian church--that was one thing. My father used to have his ministerial dinner each year with Reverend [Anschutz] from the Episcopals and McClung from the Presbyterians -actually McClung was Presbyterian. And it was great, because--I loved Reverend McClung; every year at Christmas he always made the same statement from the--at the Christmas service: that it was still a great country when a Presbyterian minister got his Christmas turkey from his Jewish friend--because Pop always sent him a turkey at Christmas! He was liberal enough, when it came to anyone else's--but he knew what he wanted. And, by the same token, people like Jeanne Kramer didn't want to listen to the Hebrew. And so, over the years, their influence of people like that has faded, and they've finally come to a compromise--and wisely so; they should've years ago. But they didn't.

JH:Well, your father was, you think, active in the community center- getting the community center built?

HL:No, he really wasn't that active about it; he contributed, but he really wasn't that active in it. People like Mooney Sass and--some other people were much more active than my father. My father wasn't real sure that this was a great idea; he didn't like--

JH:What, the consolidation and everything?

HL:Yeah.

JH:Well, it's interesting, because some people have described the, quote, "Orthodox" congregation as never having been truly Orthodox, but more Conservative; and other people have said it's become--the whole congregation--has become Conservative.

HL:Has become Conservative; that's correct. I believe that. And there were those that said--you know--people like Ben Karchmer--that's Nathan's father--and Ed Lurie, and a few of the other really diehards--. See, the Lotven boys really were very devout--and very Orthodox, but they were most ready to compromise. And my father- may his soul rest in peace--was a great guy; but he was not that anxious to compromise. He just thought--they'll leave us alone, and let us have our little service. But he finally said, "Hell, [if] that's what they want, let's go." And they did. And he went along with it. And he used to go to services every Friday night in the little--in the little whatever--chapel there.

JH:Was there anything else that distinguished the two sides besides that? I mean, for example, were weddings celebrated any differently?

HL:Not a whole lot, no.

JH:Did people from the Orthodox side ever get confirmed, as opposed to bar mitzvahed?

HL:Some. Some, yeah. There began to get more mixing as they went along, and then, o' course, Rabbi Jacobs took care of everybody for the bar mitzvahs. And so, here he was, the Reform rabbi, but he was getting--frequently--Orthodox--so-called Orthodox families' sons ready for bar mitzvah. And so they had the bar mitzvah in the temple frequently. Or they had it up in the synagogue--but that was before Jacob's time. So--no, I don't think there was a whole lotta difference. And there was a lot of intermingling, and--it became more as--

JH:Socially, you mean?

HL:Oh, yeah! Socially, they were all okay; socially there was quite a bit of intermingling.

JH:Even before the consolidation?

HL:To some extent--yeah! Yeah.

JH:In what kind of activities?

HL:Well, for example, in the old days when they used to go--. I remember we used to--when we were kids, people went "calling" in the evenings. There was no tv, and we would call and say, "Can we come over?" and--well, even as children, I remember. And we would go over to--go make a call on the Schwabs--be it Max or Dave--and my folks were very friendly with them, even though they were Reform and we were Orthodox; and were very friendly with all o' the Karchmer clan, and they were Orthodox, we were Orthodox, but by the same token, they had a lot o' friend--well, the Faymans- Faymans we were very close to--and they were Reform. So, no, no; socially, there was no real--to my recollection, anyway--any real disparity in--.

JH:Well, it sounds as though Richter and Jacob were both in favor of bringing the two closer together.

HL:Yeah, I think so. I think so--oh, absolutely.

JH:Would you say that was the main difference that having a rabbi here would have--

HL:Certainly it was a big factor. I can't say whether it was the main factor; but it was certainly, I think--truthfully--that the times themselves lent--particularly Adolph Hitler and the war--made the Jews realize it didn't make a hell of a lot o' difference. You see, when you get to Hitler, it didn't really make any difference: you could be a quarter Jew, but you were Jew. And the German Jews used to think they were a little--this is my concept, anyway--of how I saw it in Europe: the German Jews had tried to assimilate; as far as they were concerned, they were Germans; whereas the Russian Jews were congregated because the Russians insisted they be congregated. And when the Russian pogroms came along, they got very little help from the German Jews; they said, "We're not Jews, we're Germans." And then suddenly Hitler came along, and they found out they were Jews. And so, where there had been a divisiveness between the so-called [Deitchesy] Jüden--or the old German Jew- and some resentment by the Russian and the Eastern European Jews -even the Sephardics--that they were being let down by the Germans--when it happened to the Germans, there were some people initially who almost said, "Well, by God, they deserve it"--you know: "That'll show 'em." But that didn't last long, thank God. And everybody then suddenly realized that we had to, number one, stick together, but, number two, they became very aware of being Jewish; whereas--for example, here in town, when I was growin' up in the '30s--there was not even an--barely an awareness. This awareness became more prominent when Hitler came along, because all of a sudden it frightened a lot of people, and they began to reevaluate their position in this world as a Jew, and that might become--might be that it went against them if they--you know--and so on. So--we began to see anti-Semitism for the first time, and feel that there was--had been there a long time, but it became more and more open for a while. And this drew the community a bit more together.

JH:Would that've been before the war?

HL:Just before the war; yes--yes, yes.

JH:Was that less so after the war actually started?

HL:No, I don't think so; I think we all had pretty well grown together- particularly with the war effort. It was not like Vietnam or anything else you'll ever see, in that the country was one for all and all for one; and the Jews had taken a hell of a beating and we all, in those days, everyone--all my gentile friends--recognized it as being pretty dang rough.

JH:Right, but what I was asking--was there less open anti-Semitism after the war started than--you mentioned that you started noticing--?

HL:Yes. Yes. I think that not only there was less, but I think that what really happened was we'd never thought of it in terms o' that, so that when we did see it--and it was during the war, for example, that I went to college, and saw it in California--then I for the first time actually recognized it. And it wasn't that it was so strong; it was just these patterns had grown up--but we never had thought about it--at least, I never had.

JH:Well, was it because they didn't exist here, or they were weaker here, or--?

HL:Oh, here it was just because they didn't exist and they were weaker, and no one even thought about it. And then, here at least, one got the impression, that the gentiles who said, "You know, what the hell, I never thought about you bein' Jewish--but I sure feel bad about your people"; and there was more a feeling of sympathy--for the German Jews and the Holocaust and the whole--Hitler thing.
JH:But you think this actually brought the Jewish community closer together?

HL:Oh, I think so; I think they--yeah, I feel it had to.

JH:Do you remember a cross burning in the '30s?

HL:Yes. On the temple lawn--yes; they burned a cross on the temple lawn. Interestingly enough, why, my father was asked to join the Ku Klux Klan!

JH:Tell that story, please!

HL:Oh, yeah, back in the '20s--and they said, "Hell, Ed, it'll only cost you ten dollars, and really we need the membership." And Dad said, "Don't you know--that the Klan is very much anti-Semitic?" "Aw," he said, "Hell, no, Ed; they just hate niggers!" And--"Goddam, you don't want them niggers takin' over!" [Laughter.] And this was one of my father's friends from the Elks, I believe--probably. And he said, "Joe, I think you better look into what you're really doin'--and what you really represent--before you go out recruitin' for 'em. Because" -said--"What you're doing is--you're peddlin' hate." And he tried to explain this to the guy. And the guy never did quite understand why Dad was opposed to it! They really--he said, "Why, we don't hate Jews; we just hate niggers!" So Dad rejected his offer of membership, I might add.

JH:What was the reaction of both the Jewish community and the Springfield community to the cross burning? Do you remember?

HL:Indignation; indignation. Across the board. You know. Sure, there are some biased people--absolutely--to this day, I'm sure that there are anti-Semitic people who would never admit. But by and large- at least in this community--there's damn little. And there was indignation.

JH:How was it expressed?

HL:Just by people sayin', "Hey, that's terrible; that's not the way I feel. And I'm sorry."

JH:Did anybody give any lectures or speeches about it?

HL:I have no idea; I don't recall.

JH:Letters to the editor?

HL:I don't recall. I'm not even sure I was here. I really am not. I just remember the incident--and I could've been away at school and--but I sure don't--. I have very little recollection, except that it happened, and it--oh, my God! it was a terrible thing. And the gentiles all said, "Eh, it's a shame; that's craziness."

JH:Do you think there's been more consciousness of anti-Semitism more recently than that?

HL:If so, I haven't seen it. Now, there may be those that have. I've not seen it; but then what does develop, I honestly don't know, Julie. Because--you have to understand people--to an extent. I always think of the guy who came down and he was v-v-v-v-ver-ver--ver very ups-set b--because he--he was a s-s-stutterer, and he had just b-b-been turned down for a job, and he said, "B-by God, they're--th- th--they're--anti--anti--anti-Semitic." "What job were you applying for?" "R-r-r-radio announ-nouncer." And--you know, you put a turn--there are people who will blame everything--on anti Semitism--on anything else except their own faults. But, no, I've not seen it.

JH:How else do you think have a rabbinical presence affected the community--besides maybe bringing it closer together?

HL:Education of the rest o' the community. They do go out and give lectures; and some people, like Arthur Rosen, for example, have gone out and talked to other churches and so on, and I think the better the education, the more the understanding, the less the anti-Semitism. I have friends who, for example, were absolutely shocked to find out Jews believed in God. Now, that sounds stupid--and it was stupid; but I remember it just like yesterday this gal lookin' right at me and said, "Well, Hal, I didn't know that Jews believed in God." I said, "Honey, we invented the game."

JH:Well, what about some of the groups like the B'nai B'rith chapter, and Sisterhood and Brotherhood, and all of those--did your father or you participate in any of those?

HL:No, I came back to town, I joined the B'nai B'rith; I still pay my dues every year; and prob'ly the first year I went a half a dozen times; I've never gone since. I've just been too busy.

JH:Do you remember your mother being involved in anything--like Sisterhood or--there was something called Ladies' Aid at one time.

HL:Oh, I think she was involved in that years ago. My wife--or ex-wife -was involved with both Sisterhood and Hadassah, but particularly Hadassah, because that's what she'd grown up with. My ex-wife was a--pretty religious person--and very knowledgeable of the Jewish religion; and she was very active, as compared to me.

JH:How much do you think Jewish social life in Springfield has been organized around the synagogue or the congregational--

HL:Probably much more so recently, I think; but I've not been a part of it, so I really don't know.

JH:Would you say you socialize equally with Jewish and non-Jewish friends, or more with one group than another?

HL:Mostly non-Jewish. And don't get me wrong: as the saying goes, "Some of my best friends are Jews." Particularly my mother and my father. [Chuckles.] But go ahead.

JH:What about social and service organizations? You mentioned your father being in the Elks and Shriners and things like that.

HL:Yeah, he was a Rotarian his life long, and loved it. There's never been any restriction; we all try and participate. And--I worked with the Shrine, 'cause I like the Shrine. I got in the Elks and didn't particularly like it or care for it--and it's a great organization; never went back--after my dad died. Up till then, [laughs] I used to say I was gonna resign; he'd say, "Now, but damn it, son, they need your money!" So I would pay and for several years after he died I did that and let it go. On the other hand, I went to Rotary Club for a year and it was just too dang much trouble--and I dropped it. But I've been on various boards--charity boards: cancer board and heart- now I'm on the Visiting Nurse Association boards. And--these are all community things that I feel are important.

JH:Did your family keep kosher?

HL:No.

JH:No? Never did? Did you see any changes in religious observance? Like you say your father objected to the compromising in the service; but were there other changes like not keeping kosher or other things that were changes from Orthodox--.

HL:Oh, he never kept kosher, and yet he was very opinionated about the service. He never was bothered whether his friends--you know, whether he kept the sabbath or he didn't keep it. But he did get kind of unhappy with some o' the storekeepers who wouldn't close their stores on Yom Kippur--the holiest day of the year--but instead, rush out for the memorial service at four-thirty: that bothered him.

JH:At one time I thought that most people--at least on the Orthodox side--would close--

HL:Oh--the Orthodox, most all of 'em did.

JH:Oh, but he was not happy with the Reform members?

HL:With the Reform that would not close their stores.

JH:Do you remember the stores closing up to a certain point? Was there a point after which they--

HL:I have no recollection.

JH:Do you have any recollection of when the two--well, there were two under roof at one point--separate ones--when they finally merged into the same service?

HL:Don't know. I really don't; it was during my time here, and they finally got together on it--I think it may have been under Rabbi Wucher; but they finally--the Orthodox got too few and too few that would go, and the Reforms--there were more and more going to the Reform, and they finally got

it--. Izzie prob'ly could tell you, since he goes all the time.

HL:Oh--oh, almost a hundred percent--men.

JH:'Cause some women have some, "Oh, I used to go to Shaare Zedick."

HL:Yeah, they went on the high holidays, but they didn't--

JH:Not on the regular--?

HL:But most of them--I would say--now, there were a few exceptions- but women didn't count--toward the minyen.

JH:But I asked Nathan Karchmer, for example, if the women ever sat separately, and he said, no, they were all together.

HL:No, they were together. They were together. But most o' the time, the women were there were for the high holidays--not Friday night services.

JH:Oh, okay, that's just starting to come out.

HL:At least what I saw. And that was mostly post-'52, when Dad used to insist [chuckling] on my coming by.

JH:Well, you mentioned Nathan Karchmer being elected mayor. What was the feeling in the community about his election?

HL:There were some guys that liked him as mayor and some who didn't; particularly, there were people that didn't like the mayor commissioner form of government--and shortly thereafter we went to city manager. There were people who disliked Nathan--or Bill Karchmer, as he was called--but because they didn't like him; it had nothin' to do with his being Jewish: that didn't bother anybody.

JH:What was the reaction in the congregation?

HL:I don't know. [I mean, I] never thought anything about it. They were kinda proud that Springfield was liberal enough they elected a Jew- but, yeah, it was kinda nice. That we recognized the fact that we were in a community that was pretty liberal and--that had very little anti-Semitism, or he could never have been elected. That was the only reaction I can think of: they kinda liked the idea.

JH:How active have Jews been in Springfield politically, generally, do you think?

HL:No. Again, it just--one's individual. Bobbie and I were very active- she still is: she's just finished her eight-year hitch as a Democratic national committeewoman. We were very active with Tom Eagleton; we had big bashes at our house on Jackson Day--with the governor, the lieutenant governor, the whole--. It started out with just Eagleton--and Haskell Holman, who was the state auditor; and boy, from then on, you better damn well be at our place, 'cause--after Jackson Day--well, hell, you can collect a lot of folks with free booze and free food; but everybody did show.

JH:Who's everybody?

HL:I'm talkin' about on the ticket: the governor, the lieutenant--when it used to be the Democrats were in control. Hearnes was there, and Morris was there, and--

JH:Where would you have these?

HL:At my house--over on Skyline--next to John Q.s, which used to be a -well, it was built for big parties. Hell, we've had as many as seven hundred and fifty people in there--in and outta there. But it gets a little tight! But--it had bars upstairs, downstairs, and on the patio -a lotta fun. There were an awful lot of Jews, but we did that as people, not as Jews.

JH:Do you have any sense of whether members of the congregation in general leaned more to Democrats than Republicans or--?

HL:Not really. I think--and really--we hit 'em all for money, so [laughing]--I don't know; we had a fair number o' Democrats, but- awful lot of Republicans, too. I don't think it was any real feeling in the community.

JH:A couple of people have suggested that there hasn't been as much participation from the Jewish community in politics as there might have been--and also, in general. I think one person mentioned that they thought that one of the rabbis got criticized for too much outreach activity and things like that. Did you ever have any sense that there was this feeling of keeping a low profile?

HL:Hm mm.

JH:No? Okay.

HL:Oh--for years I heard this crap about, "Well, you know we have to be doubly cautious because we're Jews."

JH:You heard that.

HL:Oh! I mean, this was sort of--years ago, yeah--[the standard].

JH:Here?

HL:Yeah! You know: "We're Jews; we don't wanta be criticized, because -."

JH:Did you hear that mostly from the older generation?

HL:The older generation--more so. I haven't it recently; as I say, years ago I heard it. But--no, other than that, I have no recollection of it.

JH:You don't wanta be criticized, so you wanta make sure that nobody- goes outta line?

HL:Yeah, if you get outta line, then they're liable to be critical of the Jews, not just you as an individual. It never bothered me, but I--

JH:Well, you mentioned the effect of the Holocaust or Nazism here. What about other historical events affecting the Springfield Jewish community?
HL:Not that I know of. But as I say, I have been so inactive--for much o' the time--that I honestly feel I'm not the, you know, one to say; because there may have been feelings or there may have been problems that I wouldn't know it. I was busy practicin' medicine, and--rightfully or wrongfully--did precious little--and had little contact with many of 'em.

JH:Do you remember when the soldiers at some of the outlying camps and O'Reilly used to come over to the temple for--

HL:Oh, yeah!

JH:--during the Second World War?

HL:Yeah! Oh--as a matter o' fact, we had a house that was--we rarely sat down to a meal without at least two or three extras there.

JH:Were they usually Jewish kids?

HL:Yeah--oh, yeah. Yeah; almost exclusively. And we're still friends with many of them--it's interesting--that are still alive. But, yes, we had a home for the Jewish doctors, particularly. We had met a couple, and then they brought their friends with 'em; and--we had a big house, and we had lots o' food, and we had a full-time maid and cook--and we had dinner with five or six every night. The boys were gone--and I was gone; and they were at O'Reilly. So--yeah; but they were almost all Jewish.

JH:Did any of them stay on--these doctors--to practice?

HL:None that I know of. Hm mm.

JH:So people like Dr. Rosen would have just come in independently?

HL:Yeah, I don't know where Rosen came from, truthfully. His son would know, but I don't.

JH:Bernie Fetter mentioned Dr. Shackter.

HL:Shackter came a little later; he came as a general practitioner with Ferrell-Duncan, and then he went off and became an orthopedic surgeon, and then came back and--as a matter o' fact, died recently.

JH:Can you think of any ways in which the congregation has affected Springfield--through--?

HL:Not really.

JH:--activities or--? Well, for example, events that may have connected to the larger community, like some o' the dinners or--?

HL:Oh, I think that some o' the dinners, where they served Jewish foods and things like that--just like Arthur Rosen's lectures or the rabbi's visits to the churches--simply made the people of Springfield more knowledgeable of Judaism. And that's the main think I can think of. And just prove to people we really didn't have horns!

JH:What about in terms of influencing education?

HL:That I couldn't say.

JH:Business life?

HL:Not as Jews--I really--only as individuals.

JH:Right, but like in terms of having so many members from the Jewish community having businesses, and things like that? Having an impact, I guess; I don't know.

HL:I don't know how it would work; I really don't. And I don't know how to answer that, because--you know, we had Jews that owned a lot o' stores when I was growin' up, and then the bigger places took over, and now there are Jews that prob'ly own businesses that I didn't even know about. But, as far as the influence on the entire community, I just don't know.

JH:What about civic and cultural life, do you think? Just involvement of members.

HL:Just involvement of individual members, but as a--

JH:Right, right; well, that's what I mean--that's what I mean.

HL:But, as a group, I can't say that we've changed the cultural life or anything else.

JH:Well, I guess--I'm thinking that even if it's a significant amount of the members of the community, to me that would represent, in a way, the concerns of the community.

HL:Don't know.

JH:Like involvement--it seems like a lot of the people I've talked to have been very involved in civic organizations or charitable things.

HL:So are most o' the people I know. You know, whether they're Jews or gentiles: doctors, lawyers--that I know--are all in these various things. But as Jews, no; I can't really--. I don't know.

JH:Do you think that the Jewish community had any role here in the civil rights movement in the '60s?

HL:Not a whole lot--but I wasn't here--well, yes I was, but--sure I was. But in the '60s--no, I don't think so. There were several very active people in the Jewish community. But there were a hell of a lot more of 'em that were very active in the gentile community--the college kids and so on. And I never thought of it in terms of--. My son, for example, went to Drake, and he liked to get involved in some o' this, but--only as my son, and not his whole fraternity or otherwise; just as friends--and there were many, many kids around campus; and he did the same thing.

JH:Do you think there were--during the '60s and the ecumenical movement--any more efforts from the Jewish congregation to do this kind of thing of going out and speaking to--Christian groups?

HL:I'm sure there were, but since I was not around in that particular circle, I really don't know. But I'm sure that people of--I keep thinking, going back to Arthur Rosen, 'cause he strikes me as one who went out and really tried to--settle; but I don't know. I'm a bad one to ask, because I have spent so little time with 'em as a group. As patients, yes; but as a group, no.

JH:How about Zionism? Much activity here?

HL:Oh, we have some people that I think that are anti-Zionist. I think I'm very much--Zionist; I still have family in Israel, and have been there a couple of times. I think there are those of us who are very much interested in it, and I think there are some o' those who are very much opposed. But, again, an individual thing. Now, that is, o' course, the Jewish community; but it still is a--. The second trip I went, I went with my wife--who is Jewish, of course--a Catholic couple, and a Protestant lady--her husband wouldn't go; five of us went and had a great trip. All of us interested--and the Catholic couple were interested enough he took his whole family back. And- we're all very proud of Israel, and I think, by and large, most o' my friends among the gentile community are pro-Israel. But Zionism, per se, I'm really not--it's a term that I'm not really--. Yeah, there was a time in the '40s and '50s when we all had our little pushkes- for the Jewish national forest--and that, for me--trying more and more for the life of Israel: that was true--to me--true Zionism, whatever that--. Today, it's whether you're pro or anti-Israel almost. And there are an awful lot of Jews who are very pro-Israel; there are an awful lot o' Jews that really are not anti--like it--used to get the anti-Zionists; I think they're more just disinterested.

JH:Can you think of anything else that I haven't touched on, that--?

HL:No, not really. As I say, I'm a bad person to ask. I really ended up spending most o' my time practicin' medicine.

Tape II, Side 1
HL:No, I just said I belong to a country club, where I--but I don't go out there for months on end. I belong to the synagogue and I don't go there. I belong to a number of things that I haven't been involved in. I support them financially, and that's about it. So I say, I'm a bad one to ask, because I don't know that much about the Jewish community.

JH:This occurred to me--I didn't ask earlier: your grandparents--did they never emigrate? Your father's parents?

HL:No! My father's--the rest of my--my grandfather on my father's side remained in Europe and died during my lifetime--I mean, during my childhood. My mother went there in '34--in 1934; my grandmother was still alive; the youngest boy, Abe, was still there with his family--a wife and two children; and the oldest sister, Saraliebe, was still there. The two younger--Dubka--Doris--had gone to Israel, and her family is still there; she died there during World War II. The youngest was Tanya, and she went and trained in Beirut--at the American University--and became a dentist and practiced in New York, and died in recent years in San Diego. The other four boys and my father had all come to this country, and they're all dead. But my grandparents--my grandmother died just prior to the time that they moved in--some time in the late '30s. But then, in the early '40s, my Uncle Abe and his wife and two children were picked up, along with [Soraliebe]--or Sarah--and all thrown in a concentration camp and died there. We know people who know when they went to the gas chamber. So they're dead. My mother's family--who had come from the same area--both Grandpa and Grandma had come from Lithuania, but I know nothing of their families.

JH:Right. You said that your grandfather had run the company store. What did you mean by that?

HL:Well--actually, they owned--they rented a plot of land--which they farmed.

JH:Was that unusual, to be able to do that--in that area?

HL:I have no idea. He was known as ["Usse von Haft,"] which means he had a farm. And they had a store--actually, my grandfather--he was religious: he got up, like the guy--and he went to the synagogue and he prayed every morning. Grandma did the work--and the boys--and they ran a little store there. And that's all I know about it. And then the Russians came along--not too far into the '30s--and they closed 'em down and took away his lease, and--.

JH:But it was a little community store?

HL:And it was for the people who worked the farm.

JH:Who worked the farm.

HL:Yeah, it was like a sharecropper's--

JH:Who worked his farm?

HL:Who worked this farm that he leased. And that was my understanding of it: that he had a little plot o' land--these people- and they had a store, and that was--.

JH:So this was for his employees?