My mother was from Gorlovka, a small town near the border in Lithuania. My mother's family was very education oriented and the education was always towards their Jewish background. I think there was at least one Rabbi in the family. They were people of "the book". The women did not count for very much. There was no women's lib then. The men merely studied while the women kept the house and a little store. My father was Russian and the Russian's considered themselves much better than the "Litvaks" as the Lithuanians were called.
My parents came to America in about 1902. They immigrated here because they were worried about the conscription and pogroms in Russia, and they had relatives here. They settled in Lacrosse, where I was born, for a short time as they had family there. They then moved to Milwaukee where I think the family helped my father to buy a horse so that he could go from house to house selling things.
When they moved to Milwaukee, it must have been very difficult for my mother. In Milwaukee she came into a family of seven brothers and two sisters who were all more culturally oriented then her family.
My mother's family was Schelesnyack. David Selznick of the Hollywood movie fame was a distant cousin. However, he never knew of us.
My father went to night school. He learned how to read and write English. As far as I can remember, he always read very good literature. I still remember his reading the "Prince and the Pauper."
My parents opened up their store when I was a little girls on St. Paul Avenue. It was in an immigrant neighborhood mostly populated by Czechs and Greek men in the railroad section. I say Greek men because very few of them brought their women over. They would try and make a living first and then bring their women over to America.
We were the only ones in the family with a dry-goods store on St. Paul Avenue. My other uncles stores were all located on the south side in the Polish neighborhood. The stores were near Mitchell Street, quite a distance from where we lived. We rented the dry-goods store and we lived in the back with just one bedroom and a folding cot. After a while we rented the store next door and we sold furniture there. Most of it was simple furniture, box springs and mattresses for immigrants who had to have something to sleep on.
We always had plenty to eat, from the proceeds of our dry-goods store, and there was money put away for education. We were the only Jews in our neighborhood. We lived there because it was good for business. I had no social life because my mother was afraid to let us go out at night.
I remember my brother Jay had to fight for us all the time because we were the only Jews in the neighborhood. My brother Nate, was a year younger then Jay, and because of his "cocky" nature would be mistreated by the neighborhood boys. Many times Jay would have one or two fights a week because we were so harassed and mistreated on the way home from school.
My father was always protecting people. That was why I loved him so. Not having very much else in life, the neighborhood immigrant men, the Polish, the Czechs and the Greeks, used to get drunk. The women were very fearful that they would spend their wages on Sundays, so they often would come and bring the money to my father to put it away for them. My father was a very honest man and he liked people.
As we became a little more affluent, we rented the apartment upstairs from the store. Originally we had lived in the back room of the store. Upstairs we had a rug on the floor, the girls had a bedroom, the boys had a bedroom and my mother and father had a bedroom. Even when we lived upstairs, the kitchen was downstairs. The upstairs was wonderful. I remember every Friday I had to scrub the stairs leading downstairs to get ready for the Sabbath. There was no varnish on the stairs and they were just snow white. Our basement did not have a floor, it was just stamped down. We had dogs. We had old Nellie who had several litters. My mother was a marvelous housekeeper. She always had all the curtains starched and white. We had a parlor stove which I used to love.
We sold everything in our store except groceries. It was a small department store. I did envy Uncle Abe who lived on the south side. He really had a department store. I would say it was more "posh." I thought he must be the happiest man, he sold candy. We used to go there to visit on rare occasions and stand in front of that candy counter just drooling. Occasionally he would give us some candy.
Later on we moved to a Jewish neighborhood. It was at 5th and Sherman, near Walnut Street. It was there I met my husband. I went to high school at West Division. My brothers had gone to college and were now doing postgraduate work. We had two stores. I ran one store. I did all the buying for both stores and all the mark-ups. I was supposed to be a crackerjack saleswoman.
We bought a beautiful home at 30th and Jerome and eventually gave up one of the stores. At that time my father was not feeling very well. I did all his bookkeeping, sent out all the checks and we became tremendous friends."
