LEONARD STREAR AND ALBERT DINNER ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney. I'm here today in Denver, Colorado, with Leonard Strear and Albert Dinner, recording an oral history interview for the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record this interview?

LEONARD STREAR: You have my permission.

ALBERT DINNER:Yes.

CW:Thank you.

AD:We're married. (laughter)

CW:All right. So, you were beginning to tell us -- can you tell me how you know each other, your family connection?

LS:Well, we're connected -- I guess you'd call it genetically, don't you? Yeah. (laughter)

AD: Well --

LS:His -- go ahead.

AD:My father and his mother are sister and brother. And there were four of the immediate family: my father, his mother, Edith, and Sol. And then, they had a number of half-brothers who had already emigrated to the United States: Hyman, Nathan, Harry, and -- another one.

LS:Nachum.

AD:Nachum. Nathan, that'd be. And a sister, Gitl, Gertrude, and one sister that stayed in Europe. They had emigrated -- the half-brothers had already emigrated to Denver. My father was asked to stay and say Kaddish for his father, who 2:00would've died, and -- who was gonna die. Which he did. At that time, after he was buried and Kaddish was said, dad took aunt Sophie. They went by foot to Danzig. And from Danzig to, I think, Manchester, and came over on the Lusitania. At one time, I had the manifest. I gave it to my sister, and that's most probably the end of it. And since then we've -- even though we haven't lived together, we have been friends. Not just cousins, but friends. I used to come to Denver and Leonard'd take me to the theater or that, and then later on, I'll get 3:00into that. I'll let him go on. We stayed -- we went to the yeshiva here for a couple summers.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:What parts of Europe did your family come from?

AD:Well, I have with me our genealogical background up to ten years ago, if you wish to see it. But they came from Vilna guberniya [Russian: governorate], Galicia. My father and mother. And his mother. I do not know the exact -- you'll have to tell them about your father Morris, which I don't know. But they came from there, which is a lot like Greeley, Colorado. It's agriculture in the Ukraine, and the Carpathian Mountains to the west. And they were basically in -- 4:00as serfs or whatever that was under princes there. And --

CW:So, were they working on the field in -- I mean, back there? Do you know?

AD:A lot of lumber going on in that area.

CW:And Leonard, your --

LS:My --

CW:Yeah. Well, your parents came --

LS:My father came here in 1898, when he was six years old. And he settled in the area of Morrison, Colorado. And that's where my two sisters and brothers were raised, on a farm in Morrison. And the economic conditions became so poor at 5:00that time in this area they moved back to Detroit, where my dad had some relatives. And I was born there. And after about six years, we moved back to Denver. And --

CW:And your paren-- your father came -- or someone came through Galveston, no? And --

LS:Pardon?

CW:Through Galveston, Texas? Did they come? Or was that wrong?

LS:All Ellis Island --

CW:All Ellis Island?

LS:-- on this side.

CW:Okay. I must have read something wrong. Did you ever hear how they heard about Colorado? How did they end up here? Had they -- did -- yeah.

LS:I think they were -- I think my parents were sent here, or my dad was sent here, through HIAS, which is the Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society. In those years, 6:00when the immigrants came over from Europe, in New York this organization assigned them different states or different areas. And we happened to be lucky enough to come to Colorado.

AD:And my father, they had a cousin -- the Zosk family had a cousin named Gellis, turned to Glass, who lived in New York and ran a large coat factory that sold coats to the pre-runner of Sears and Roebuck. And he worked there for three years, became the general manager at around three bucks a day, a week, whatever. And my older sister was born there. And then, he decided to come to Colorado, where his half-brothers and the other three of his real siblings were. And he'd 7:00married in New York, had my oldest sister. And Mr. Gellis offered when he -- it was during the time of the garment unionizing and all. And he saw what was going on, and he went to Mr. Gellis and told him he was leaving. Mr. Gellis offered him a hundred dollars a week, which was big for that time. And he said, "No, I'm going on to Colorado." And he came here and pedaled a horse and buggy from Denver to Greeley for two years, and then they moved to Greeley, where some of his other half-brothers lived.

CW:And what about your houses growing up felt Jewish?

LS:What was the question?

CW:What about your house growing up was Jewish? How did you know it was a Jewish home?

LS:Well, we observed all the holidays. And when I was about seven or eight, I started going to Hebrew school, so I figured I was a Hebrew. (laughs) And I had a Hebrew education until I was thirteen years old. That's after public schools. I'd have to attend that Hebrew school after school.

CW:Did you have a favorite holiday?

LS:Oh, I think every holiday was favorite. At least I had a day off. (laughs)

CW:And what were the -- were there any special family foods that you would make for the holidays or anything? I mean, was there a special recipe that your mother would make for any of the holidays? Do you remember any of that?

LS:Oh, she made -- for example, she'd make gefilte fish. I don't know if you're familiar with that, but -- which was very good -- but she was also a great cook. I can't imagine anything that she made that wasn't good. 'Cause I ate it all.

CW:She was famous for her rye bread, I hear. For the bread she made, right?

LS:Oh yeah, she baked --

CW:Rye bread.

LS:-- she baked -- well, she baked all kinds of products, including bread. Yeah. Yeah. When she was on the farm, outside of Morrison, there wasn't any type of cooking that she didn't do. Including baking all the bread.

AD:And the gefilte fish came out of a bathtub. (aside) Oh, you were gonna add that. (laughs)

CW:And I'll ask you one more question. What did you usually do in your house for Shabbos?

LS:What I did when I was younger? I went to services at the synagogue.

CW:Did you like going to shul?

LS:I didn't mind it. I kind of enjoyed it. No, I -- I didn't say it was the most favorite thing I did, but -- I enjoyed it. I had good friends.

CW:And can you tell me a little bit about the Jewish aspects of your home growing up?

AD:My father was most probably the most traditional of his own brothers and sisters. The half-brothers also were very traditional. When they moved -- I didn't -- I was born in Greeley. So, that's my first recollection. Our house was very --

LS:Orthodox.

AD:-- Orthodox. (said in unison) And we observed kashres and all phases of that -- Judaism teaching and so forth. We had teachers, of a sort, that we went from 12:00about eight till we came to Denver, in the summers. And so, we were -- my older brothers and sisters had a much more traditional upbringing than myself and my younger brother. They spoke Yiddish, except for one older sister who was a rebel, and that was where we came in later and transformed my parents or ourselves, and they became -- they understood what the new nation was about. And even though they were traditional, they saw what -- that we couldn't really follow in their footsteps totally. But we did go to Hebrew school, and we 13:00observed all things -- on holidays we missed school and observed them all. And for which holiday I liked best? I'd say the Superbowl. (laughs) And --

CW:What did you do for --

AD:We ate ka--

CW:-- how did you celebrate the Superbowl?

AD:No. (laughter) Watching it.

CW:Watching it? (laughs)

AD:Anyway. We kept all -- we got all our meats and everything from Denver. But yet, in the small community that we lived, we -- dad was very adamant about being Jewish. And because of it, I thought he garnered respect from everybody, gentile, Jew alike. And we ended up moving to the better part of town and made 14:00friends and really had a great life. Coming to Denver, though, we attended parochial sch-- "parochial" -- the Hebrew Educational Alliance, where I made friends when I was eleven and twelve that are still self-evident today. And my grandmother, bobe [grandmother] Mintse, spoke only Jewish. And we tried our -- my brother and I tried our darnedest, but as far as linguistically, we weren't there. But we did -- understood, but speaking, as I said to you before, was mit tsebrokhene tseyn [broken, lit. "with broken teeth"]. So, that was -- pretty 15:00much every Friday she'd bake, and we'd have to take it down to the home shelter, for homeless men. And we had a couple great summers.

CW:And what -- was there Yiddish in your home growing up, Leonard?

LS:There were -- for a period of time, my grandmother and grandfather lived with us. At that time, they spoke Yiddish. But generally speaking, my mother and father spoke English all the time. Even though they were fluent in Yiddish, they spoke English all the time.

CW:And did your parents speak Yiddish to each other?

AD:They did. And English also. But as -- they'd start a conversation in English 16:00and (Strear laughs) end up in Yiddish. And my older sister could -- still; she's ninety-six, and she can still speak fluent Yiddish. And my older brother could -- had to write a Yiddish letter home from college to get his allowance. When we came along, as I said before, we broke the mold, and it changed the atmosphere. We had to introduce them, actually, into the school. And became part of it.

CW:Were there any other languages around? Polish or Russian or --

LS:There could've been, but I don't recall them.

AD:In my situation, Spanish was evident. At the -- employees at the feedlot were 17:00Spanish. The people that worked for us at home were Spanish. And I have guilt feelings today with Yiddish and Spanish, why I was so arrogant at the time to pass it up. It was a boner.

CW:Well, can you tell me a little bit more about the community? Who were your friends growing up? Who were your childhood friends? Do you remember?

AD:Go on.

LS:Go ahead.

AD:I had many friends growing up, who are still -- the ones that are left -- are still friends. I was very involved with school, in athletics and the football team. Captain of the basketball team, captain of the tennis team. Just involved 18:00in everything in school. And they -- we had friends from every walk of life. In fact, one of the things -- it takes a while to tell it.

CW:You can tell it. We have a little while.

AD:We have a thing we started after World War II, called the Last Patrol, which was twelve people. And the people from Weld County, just that area, signed up for it. There were 676 since 1951 or '52. And we meet every year and have a memorial service for those who passed on. And have a few drinks, maybe a lot. 19:00And that was it. And each year we would renew it. This past year -- oh, pardon. I forgot the major part of it. We had a bottle of Jack Daniel's and a bottle of Chivas Regal, sealed, in a glass container. And at the end of -- when there's twelve left, you break it open, drink it. And this past year, the head said, "This may be our last year." And there're only eighteen or nineteen left from 676. And people I knew, almost every one of 'em. And if they pass away, we have to break open the container -- if we're strong enough anymore -- and take a drink. So, I don't think it'll be our last year, 'cause I don't think we can consume that much in one year. But --

LS:You're with the wrong crowd.

AD:You're right. (Strear laughs) He is right. He knows from where he speaks. But anyway, growing up, and even in college, I had a lot of friends.

LS:Yeah.

CW:What about you?

LS:What's the question? (Dinner laughs)

CW:Who were your friends growing up? What did you like to do together?

LS:Well, unfortunately -- or fortunate -- I had to work most of my life. Even though I had a lot of friends, I didn't spend a lot of time with them because I had to help my dad go out in the country and pick up poultry and do chores 21:00around the house and -- but I had a nice family life. It was very nice. And in fact, we still all get along well together, so --

CW:And how did you -- your families -- get along with the other families in the neighborhood? Were there -- I mean, what was sort of the ethnic groups that were living in your areas at that -- when you were growing up? Was it mostly Jewish, or were there other ethnicities that you grew up around?

LS:When -- (pause) oh, goodness. Actually, when my two sisters and brother grew 22:00up, they grew up on a farm outside of Denver. It was in a little town called Morrison. But they actually grew up on a farm. And in the environment they were in, they didn't have opportunities to meet a lot of people. But when economic conditions became so poor in Colorado, at least for my dad's family, he had an opportunity to move back to Detroit, where I was born. But then, we found -- they found the opportunities weren't so good there, so we moved back here. Now, this was in the early '30s. And we moved back here, and -- my father was in the 23:00poultry business, where he picked up poultry from the farmer and took it into the markets. And that's how we got involved in the poultry business. And in 1950 -- well, just before 1950 we bought a farm and start raising turkeys. And -- we continued to produce turkeys. At one time, we used to have over a million 24:00turkeys on hand all the time, on the farms, at various ages. And we not only raised them, we had a plant that processed them and made 'em into food of various kinds and sold them all over United States. And --

CW:What was Thanksgiving like? (Dinner laughs) Was it the busiest time?

LS:Actually, for us, even though we had turkey and raised turkey all the time, we enjoyed Thanksgiving. It's a festive occasion for a lot of people, but for us it was particularly important because it was really the basis of our livelihood, so -- yeah, we enjoyed Thanksgiving.

CW:Did you --

LS:And I enjoyed eating turkey.

CW:You weren't sick of it?

LS:No.

CW:Did you choose the best turkey for your family's meal? The biggest one --

LS:Why, of course. Why not? (laughs) They're all good.

CW:And the people that you were in business with, outside of your family, in the community, were they Jewish or Christian?

LS:You mean who we did business with, or --

CW:Yeah.

LS:They were all -- all religions. Yeah.

CW:But what was Denver like in the 1930s and '40s? Who was living there? Do you -- I mean, if you walked down the street, would you -- what kind of people would you meet?

LS:Oh, occasionally you'd meet people. But Denver still at that time had 26:00probably a hundred and fifty thousand people, or close to it. And it kept growing and growing and growing. So, it isn't an area like -- there's sections of Denver, like the West Side, where I wouldn't call 'em ghettos, (laughs) but a lot of, for example, Jewish people lived. Just like in the same time, there was an Italian neighborhood. All these ethnic groups had different areas in which they lived.

CW:And did you live in the Jewish area?

LS:When we moved back to Denver from Detroit, where I was born, no, we didn't live in the Jewish area. No. But I went to Hebrew school.

CW:In that area.

LS:Yeah.

CW:So, can you tell me a little bit about your Hebrew school? Who -- where -- what were the teachers like? Were they American? Were they from Europe? From New York?

LS:Our teachers originally were from Europe. And -- (laughs) I put my hand up because I remember they used to have little switches when -- (laughs) when you didn't behave. Whammo, you got -- you got hit on the hand or the leg or some other places. But that was their method of enforcing discipline, and it hurt. Yeah.

CW:And that was after school? After going to public school?

LS:Oh yes. Yeah. Yeah, we'd actually go to Hebrew school -- well, for example, 28:00between four o'clock and six or seven o'clock in the evening. Yeah. Five nights -- or four nights -- a week. Yeah.

CW:Did you like it? Did you ever get in trouble?

LS:(laughs) I wouldn't tell you. (laughs) No, I was very nice young man.

CW:(laughs) Of course. Can you tell me a little bit about --

AD:In Greeley, the ethniticity of the population was almost totally -- when we moved to the West Side was totally gentile. We lived among -- the college was real close by, a lot of professors and others. And all my friends were Christian 29:00at that time. In fact, I didn't know -- other than when I came into Denver, I really hadn't been -- even though it sounds like an oxymoron that we were the most traditional of the bunch, and yet I was with gentile friends all the time -- totally. And yet, the same atmosphere of going to kheyder [traditional religious school] in Greeley -- when we were young, from four to six, we'd walk down to a little synagogue that most probably is the first synagogue north of Denver. The only synagogues outside of Denver to Cheyenne -- or Colorado in total -- were Trinidad, Pueblo, and the one near Cañon City, where they had a 30:00Jewish farm development at one time that went kaput. But we got along famously with 'em. I learned -- I mean, I had -- oh, you're always gonna run into some -- somebody with anti-Semitic background, and the basic is, in those towns, they're basically German or Swedish backgrounds. But the farms we had were almost all German tenants. And we got along great with them. Like he was talking about, when we were kids, we would drive cattle from the railhead to the feedlot. That 31:00was our job. We'd drive a hundred head; we'd drive hundreds of head, from the -- by the farms. And the gates -- the farms were fenced at that time. They weren't free like grazing. They had crops in them. And we'd do it like a funeral procession. One horse'd go ahead, you stop the gate, and the others'd drive the cattle by, and then -- just like you see a motorcycle doing in a funeral procession. And we'd unload 'em at the railhead and load 'em at the feedlots or farms. And we rode saddle, we rode bareback, we rode every which way. But -- going back to ethenticity, I grew up in that environment totally. So, it made 32:00little difference to me.

CW:So, how'd you learn to ride a horse? Did your father teach you?

AD:I rode -- you know, they'd just finished the Greeley Stampede, which is the largest rodeo, Fourth July and all. And I rode in it when I was six years old, on a horse named Pat. And we'd ride horse -- we kept -- my brother and I -- kept horses where the college dorms are now. We kept horses there in the summer. And we would ride, take a brown bag from mother, and ride off. We talk about kids being more independent now. That's -- I don't believe that. We did things independent that they can't imagine. Like -- I'm veering off your question, but --

CW:That's fine.

AD:At fifteen I took a caboose ride to Chicago on a cattle train. With each car of cattle, you could have a free ticket going east. And we shipped to Chicago. And at Christmastime, the college students who wanted to go east would come and ask for a ticket. It wasn't -- the railroad had already changed the dynamics of it, where they took care of the cattle, really, except the person getting the free ticket was supposed to. But that was long in the past. And I joined. I went and got on my first caboose ride. I was fifteen. With a couple of farmer feeders and some athletes from the college. And I looked up to them. I was only a young 34:00kid. And the ca-- they got off at -- I don't know if you know what a caboose is. It used to be the last car on the train, with a little pot-bellied stove. And if you wanted to sleep, the noise of them bumping kept you awake. So, conversation was evident for twenty-four hours. And when we got to Council Bluffs, they stopped to feed the cattle, which, in the past, you would've done. But the railroad did it. And the guys went down and picked up dates at the -- these college kids -- the show. And I got the fat, ugliest one there was. And -- anyway, at twelve o'clock, I said to them, "You know, we should be going." And 35:00they said, No, no. Anyway, we missed the train. And it -- I knew it stopped about fifty miles down the road for fueling. And we hitched-hike at midnight to get there. And we got on and got to the stockyards in Chicago. Stockyards Inn, and I was broke, so I was too embarrassed to get a room and wait for my father and another friend, Oscar Titman. And so, I slept in the chair. Never did tell 'em where I slept. And that was -- came back on the streamliner. That was part of the ticket. And that was my first venture as a trip on my own. It was kinda different. But everybody oughta try it.

CW:Can you describe for all of us what the rodeo is like? 'Cause not everyone has been to a rodeo.

AD:I can describe it. I used to ride a horse that bucked. But they ride bucking horses without a saddle or with a saddle. Basically without. Well, both ways. And they have a tight belt around the horse to make it buck. And they're groomed for it. And it looks like it'd be fairly easy to stay on, but it isn't. And it's dangerous beside. And then, they have bull riding, which is -- try to stay on a bull. I don't know who invented all this. Somebody in -- from Genghis Khan's 37:00time or something, I don't know. And then, they -- the main really feature of a rodeo is calf roping. 'Cause they have those contests all over anyway. And there's a lot of money bet on them. Where they let a calf go out, throw the rope on the hind leg of a calf, get off your horse, take the other three legs together, tie 'em, in -- they can do it up to fifteen, twenty seconds. If they gave me an hour or two, I might. Anyway, it turned into a -- part of an entertainment for the community. And -- like, the one in Greeley's run from when 38:00it was the Spud Rodeo, for potatoes. And they have 'em all over now. And they're just another form of entertainment and joy, that's all.

CW:Can you describe to me, Leonard, what the -- what was the activity when you went out to gather turkeys? What was a typical day of that kind of work? You would go out with your father, is that right, to get the turkeys?

LS:I'm listening to the question.

CW:Yeah.

LS:Yeah. Oh, how'd I spend a day?

CW:Yeah. To go out and to collect -- to gather the poultry and bring it back to the --

LS:Oh. Well, a typical day with me -- in those years, when I was very young, I generally stayed up pretty late. But it didn't make any difference to my dad, 39:00'cause he came by at four thirty in the morning and kicked me out of bed and (pause) then we went out in the country. Then we had a lot of stops at farms -- there were what they used to call cream stations, where farmers would bring in their poultry to sell. So, we'd spend a day or as long as it took to pick up a truckload of poultry and bring it into Denver. There was -- it was down on -- actually on Market Street, there was a district where you sold the poultry to 40:00dealers who in turn slaughtered 'em and delivered 'em to stores and customers all over. So.

CW:And did you enjoy days like that? Did you like working with your father?

LS:Oh, I loved working with my father. He was a great guy. He had a great personality and didn't -- didn't punish me too much. And if I was up too late, he took it easy on me. But (laughs) -- (pause) it was a -- in a way, it was a nice time in my life. I don't remember the hard times, but the easy times were --

AD:That's right.

LS:-- nice. Yeah.

CW:Yeah. So, can you tell me -- just both of you, looking back on your childhood, what do you think your parents were trying to teach you? Or pass on to you? Values, traditions?

AD:I know that my father and mother both passed on values of honesty, Yiddishkayt, values of compassion -- and hopefully passion -- and the values that we try to live honorably on our life. My dad was a very religious man, but 42:00a very honorable -- and got along with everybody. My mother was a gentle, lovely person. And I think they both, with all the children, tried to pass on the best that they had in 'em. I mean, I can't say we always adhered to it. But within reason, that was the object of their learning. And my sisters and brothers were still -- they all got the same values. And I still think we, together -- our 43:00genetics are so that we become old and wear canes, but I think they did pass on those type.

CW:And when you say Yiddishkayt, I mean, what -- people have different definitions of that.

AD:Of course.

CW:What do you mean --

AD:Of course.

CW:-- when you say Yiddishkayt?

AD:A value of keeping your sense that you're Jewish. And not to dishonor whatever it is, even though you may not practice the same deep forms of religion. Like, I wouldn't be a -- Orthodox anymore. I belong to the temple. But that doesn't mean I don't value 'em all. I disagree with a lot of 'em too. But that's everybody's choice in life is to do that. Then they were -- as Leonard 44:00was saying, I mean, getting up to that point where we were self-sufficient and all was a difficult process for my parents and all to do. It didn't just, Here. They worked exceedingly hard. And when we became of age in our own right, after college and all, we -- well, we did -- even as kids, we did our fair share of what there was to do. In fact, on one trip -- in 1935, Dad took all the family -- not all, but my younger brother, myself, my mother, and an older sister -- to Santa Monica. And he left my older brother home to take care of a sack shop we 45:00had. And took Leonard's older brother, Sid, as the driver. And that's when Sid and I -- I really became deep friends with him at that time.

CW:And what did you go out to Santa Monica for? Just a vacation, or -- did you do a lot of traveling, vacations, in your childhood?

AD:To Thermopolis, to Colorado Springs, to Manitou. It's a resort. To places where they have stinking sulfur baths, which was the yen for that generation. Not really distant places. Estes Park a lot and that, but not like we do today, 46:00where we hop on a plane or drive to no-man's land. No.

CW:Leonard, did your family go on family vacations?

LS:No, actually, we didn't go on too many, because in those years we couldn't afford 'em. And it actually wasn't until I was drafted in the Army that I did a lot of traveling. 'Course, at that time I did a little too much traveling. (laughter)

CW:Where were you?

LS:I was in the invasion of Norway -- of (laughs) Normandy, excuse me -- on D-Day, and our unit fought all the way through Europe until the war was over on May the eighth. And we were in Czechoslovakia, so -- my unit, which I was fortunate enough to survive in, survived all the way from Normandy through France to Czechoslovakia. So, when I look back, it was a very -- I'm very fortunate that I had that experience, and I'm still here today to talk about it.

AD:That's fortunate.

LS:So.

CW:Were you in the Army?

LS:Yes. Yeah. I was a medical aid man. I was drafted, became a medical aid man. When I was discharged, I was a lieutenant. So.

CW:Do you have any stories from the war that you want to share?

LS:Stories? I don't know.

CW:Oh? I hear you have two Purple Hearts? You want to tell me about those, how you earned those?

AD:(laughter) How'd you earn 'em?

LS:The result of getting wounded with shrapnel. Shrapnel are small pieces or fragments of shells that -- that fortunately for me, didn't do a lot of major 49:00damage. Except for the fact it incapacitated me for just a few days. And then, I had to go back to work. All during the war, I was attached to a unit called the Second Infantry Division, which -- went through all the major battles in the -- in Europe. As I said before, I'm very fortunate I survived. So.

AD:Was Sid in service also?

LS:I don't have these funny stories to tell.

CW:It doesn't have to be a funny story. (laughter)

AD:Was Sid in the service, too?

LS:Huh?

AD:Was Sid in the service?

LS:Yeah. You know, actually Sidney was in the service before I was. But he was -- he was discharged, actually, prior to the time that I was drafted.

AD:I see.

LS:Yeah.

CW:And you were in Iceland, right?

AD:I spent all my time -- well, I started out in Tallahassee. And there is one bit of story there that has to do with Jewish -- kashres and so forth. They had a shrimp party down at Acapol-- not Acapolo -- Apalachicola, on the beach. And 51:00I'd never had shrimp, coming from Greeley, Colorado. Never seen it. And they cooked it in a beer in a big ol' lard can and said, Come and get it. So, I went to get shrimp, and I took a bite. "Ew, this is horrible." Nobody ever told me that you're supposed to take the shell off first. But that was my first introduction to shellfish. And I said, Most probably I wasn't supposed to eat it. (laughs) But then, I spent my time in Jefferson Barracks, Tallahassee, and then Iceland. I spent my whole time there on detached service. So, I really didn't -- there're just eight of us, separate. We really didn't have a lot to do 52:00with the Army or anything. And it was -- finally was left in April of 1946. I was released. They gave me a chance to stay there for three months if I'd break in someone else. To go -- I could go to Scandinavia and Paris. I said, "No, I'm goin' home. And I'm headed for college."

CW:And what was your team working on there?

AD:My team?

CW:Yeah, in Iceland.

AD:Oh, we had the best thing of all. We were the post office. I was -- in fact, Iceland was -- APO 610 was in my name.

CW:Did you have to -- I mean, do you remember -- the things going through?

AD:The air forces were going through: Eighth, Ninth, and Thirteenth. It was bigger than Las Vegas at the time. Gambling. I had two brothers in the service. One was out in Seattle. And my older brother was -- like Leonard, went through all the battles from Casablanca up to Berlin.

CW:Can I ask you about your -- (aside) you could ask a question if you want -- your relative that lived --

DEBRA ALEINIKOFF: (UNCLEAR).

CW:Sorry?

DA:The relative that lived near the viaducts? That collected junk, or that sold junk? That spoke Yiddish? Was that your grandmother?

AD:Well, that was -- when we stayed, that -- when we stayed -- Mel and I stayed 54:00with bobe Mintse, our grandmother and stepfather. That's my father's father, his mother's mother. As I said, she spoke only Yiddish and had an outside adobe stove where she made challah. And they had a junkyard. But it wasn't the junkyard as you envision in -- it -- fata [uncle] had a horse and buggy. It seems odd for us talking about a horse and buggy in this day and age, but we visioned it. And he would come in, and the junk wa-- he collected stuff from hotels and that. Like, I can remember green granite from bathrooms and all. And brass faucets and pewter pitchers. In fact, it hurts me today to even relate it. 55:00We'd put pewter pitchers up, and my brother and I'd throw rocks at it. We didn't have the slightest knowledge. They also had a Jack Benny Maxwell, Rochester type, that still ran. 'Course, that led me to another thing later in life, which is very interesting.

CW:You can tell me.

AD:Now?

CW:Yeah!

AD:Oh. When I was fif-- six to fifteen, when I came back that summer to school, I bought a hand printing press from a friend of ours in the women's boutique business. And I had a friend of mine, Don Bedford, who could fix anything: a 56:00pinball, a slot machine, whatever. Anyway, we decided to run a business in Estes Park. And we had a newspaper where we -- you know, one of those with headlines vacant, where you write in -- print in the headline. "Christa Whitney is running for senator of Massachusetts," or whatever. And we fixed it up. Had a cubicle down near the Black Horse Tavern and the dancehall, down the river where everybody walked. And we also bought a -- not bought. We conned the movie theater out of a Maxwell, a Jack Benny Maxwell that Rochester drove. I don't 57:00know if any of you are young enough to even remember it. Jack Benny -- you know, the comedian -- had this Maxwell convertible. And Rochester was his chauffeur. It was all comedy and all. The Maxwell was worth fifty dollars. And we rigged it up with microphones and drove up and down the streets of Estes Park. We had a great time. It really was. He ended up taking the printing press and became a printer in Lodi, California.

LS:The same printing press?

AD:He started out with that. Obviously, he -- it had to be -- this was wooden blocks you did by hand. We became pretty proficient at it.

CW:And you would sell them to the walkers-by?

AD:They'd come by and tell me what they wanted on their headline. And you'd put in the headline. We'd already sold ads or written various items in the paper, which was printed already. And the headline was whatever. As long as it wasn't too pornographic, I guess we printed it.

CW:Great. I'm wondering -- Leonard, do you remember anything about your grandparents?

LS:I was -- my father's parents lived on the West Side, in Denver. And my father 59:00-- my grandfather -- 'course, he farmed all his life. But when he was older, he retired, and he became the manager of the synagogue on the West Side, called him a shammes.

AD:I remember him.

LS:And that's how he spent his last years. And my mother's mother, who's also --

AD:Bobe.

LS:-- yeah, bobe, your grandmother, she lived on the West Side. She lived -- I don't know if you're familiar with the viaduct that goes across the --

AD:Where the --

LS:-- (UNCLEAR) --

AD:-- football field is.

LS:-- but she lived underneath the viaduct. And we used to visit her all the time. Bobe Mintse. Bobe Mintse?

AD:That's right. Yeah. That's her.

LS:Yeah, but -- I never saw her out of that house. I mean, she was always --

AD:Um-hm.

LS:-- she (laughs) stayed there. She was always there when we were there. And -- that's all I remember of my grandparents.

CW:Do you remember --

LS:I didn't spend much time with them. Hm?

CW:-- do you remember any of the Yiddish phrases that bobe Mintse would use? She was only speaking Yiddish, right?

AD:Right.

LS:Yeah.

AD:I don't think she was a comedian, so there weren't any of those.

LS:(laughs) Not the phrases I know, she didn't speak.

AD:I don't really -- I mean, that's kinda hard to pull out.

CW:Right. Well, just --

AD:All I remember about the house and all was the adobe stove, the yard, and she had a Tiffany chandelier and a -- armoire that was huge. I don't know what happened to them. They were gorgeous. Or at least I thought so at that time. But I don't really remember any real phrases.

CW:Were you able to speak with her in Yiddish, Leonard?

AD:Best I could.

LS:No, I never became fluent in Yiddish. We were able to communicate with a few simple phrases --

AD:Yes.

LS:-- but we didn't have any extended conversations. Of course, my mother was 62:00always with me. So, she carried on the conversation and translated for me.

CW:I'm wondering if -- going back to being in the service. I mean, nowadays we look back on that period of history and -- I mean, it's huge. And I'm wondering, what was it like to be Jewish in the service during the war?

LS:I had -- actually, I don't -- I was in a regular Army outfit, which Boonie might understand. Those were soldiers that signed up for regular service even 63:00before the war. And the reason I'm differentiating that between those that were drafted, they were more or less professional soldiers. As opposed to regular civilians that got drafted. Those guys were pretty tough, and very -- they were pretty anti-Semitic. And I had to survive through a lot of abuse to begin with. But when I stood up for myself or fought for my rights, I got the respect, and 64:00we got along fine. Yeah.

CW:Did you meet any European Jews during the war? Did you ever go -- did you ever meet any -- or go to any of the camps?

LS:Yeah. Toward the end of the war, we -- liberate-- I was trying to think of the word. (laughs) We liberated one camp. Actually, it was in Czechoslovakia. Yeah. (pause) It's hard to describe the conditions there. At that time, they'd 65:00neglected those -- well, they were prisoners, which were our own soldiers -- for quite a bit of time. At that time, a lot of the German soldiers were deserting the army. So, in the camps that we liberated, the conditions were very bad. The sanitary conditions, the soldiers were -- they were full of lice, and -- we had 66:00to go -- they had to go through a lot of cleaning before they got rehabilitated. It was not a pleasant time for me to go through. But I'm sure most of those -- most of those soldiers recovered, and if they're around today, they're doing okay. Yeah.

AD:I ran into anti-Semitism only a couple times. In Tallahassee -- was a group of New Yorkers and some hillbillies from North Carolina. And we really got along 67:00well. There was another Jewish boy in there. And he wasn't the most -- well, he was kind of a shlemiel. (laughs) Whatever. And anyway, this large Armenian kid called him a dirty Jew once. And I called the Armenian to go out. He'd'a beat the hell outta me. I don't know what I was doing. Anyway. It shows that if you do defend yourself, he apologized, and that was that. And then, when I went to Iceland, my first introduction there was the first sergeant. There was a kid that went with me from New York who was -- I thought was Jewish. But anyway, one 68:00night he said -- I heard them say, Oh, you're not Jewish! You're Finnish! And I knew for sure he was gonna say some derogatory remark. And I yelled, "No, he isn't, but I am." And that ended that. I think that what Leonard said, if you defend your station in life, that pretty much takes care of it. Other than that -- I know there is. I know it without even saying. But if you take care of yourself within reason, I think it minimizes whatever problems there would be.

CW:And -- I'm wondering if you can talk to me about how the -- I mean, the 69:00Jewish environment that --

AD:Oh.

CW:Oh, sure.

AD:I forgot, you asked were there any other Jews in -- we had Yom Kippur services in Iceland, and my Yiddish did come in, whatever I could speak. There was a Johannes daughter and a Johanson, two Icelandic citizens, who came to the services. How they got there, I haven't the vaguest idea. But I was able to carry on a fragmented conversation. And it was nice to know there was Jews at -- there was Jews in every place you'd ever want to walk. And I even ran into one in the Amazon. So --

CW:Yeah, can you tell that story?

AD:I was on a little ship going on the -- called the "Esmeralda." I called it "Mark Twain Boat." There was twenty-three of us, going down the -- by the Andes, 70:00not the Pacifi-- the Atlantic part. And in the dining room, I looked up and saw this young lad. There, most of 'em were mestizos, Indian-Mexican combination. But this lad had looked a little more Caucasian. But he had a bunch of -- (aside) don't touch -- a bunch of necklaces. And I saw the Star of David. So, I went up and asked him. I said, "Is this -- are you Jewish?" And he said, "Yes. My father came here from Poland in 1933." Well, the Quitos at that time, they had to have been wearing thongs. It couldn't have been really very civilized. 71:00And he said he had relatives in Lima and other places. So, what I said before, all you gotta do is look, and you'll find some Jewish person somewhere. (laughs)

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

DA:Take the forty off.

LS:Take the label off.

AD:I'm number forty. (laughter) Ready?

CW:Um-hm.

LS:Put it down a little.

AD:I was covering my own face! (laughs)

LS:Well, then put it up. (laughter)

CW:Okay. So, who are these people?

AD:This is my parents, Louis Dinner and Ida Dinner, when they were married in New York.

CW:Do you know about what time --

AD:Uh --

CW:-- they were married?

AD:Three thirty in the afternoon -- (laughter) no. Ethel is ninety-six, so take 72:00around ninety-seven, ninety-eight -- ninety-seven years ago.

CW:Around 1910?

AD:And I've got -- I should've brought -- I've got a picture of their fiftieth anniversary here in Denver. It was super.

LS:You can go get it.

AD:No, it's at home. (Strear laughs) Here, let me -- and this is a -- was a snapshot made to a larger photograph to emulate the picture of their marriage. And it's Louis and Ida at most probably the age of eighty.

CW:That was taken here.

AD:That was taken here. It was just a snapshot, and they -- take this. This is 73:00Morris. This is bobe Mintse, my grandmother on my father's side.

CW:Do you know about when -- do you have any idea when that picture was taken?

AD:In either the nineteenth or twentieth century. (laughs) That's about all I can say.

CW:(laughs) That's --

AD:I really don't know.

CW:That's okay. Did she look like that when you knew her?

AD:Yeah. Yes. This is a picture of the Dinner feedlot in Greeley, Colorado. And 74:00it's myself, Albert Dinner -- Boonie -- and my grandson Kyle, and my oldest son Glen. Here, just hold that.

CW:Yeah, I can take it.

AD:If you -- I think there's something --

CW:I got this one.

DA:Do you want to give this to my dad to hold up after Boonie's found it?

CW:Yeah.

AD:Oh.

CW:All right.

AD:And this is a picture of the same feedlot, except we're in the interior, of 75:00myself, my grandson Kyle, and my son Glen.

CW:And when were those taken? (Dinner sighs) (UNCLEAR). I mean, approximately.

DA:How old's your grandson now, Boonie?

AD:Kyle is twenty-three next month.

DA:So, that's pic-- those were probably taken about eighteen or nineteen years ago.

AD:Somewhere in that vicinity.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

LS:This is my grandfather, Pinkas Strear.

DA:No, you need to tilt it -- yeah. There we go. Getting reflections.

AD:(whispers) I thought that was Morris.

DA:No, that's not.

LS:Okay?

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

LS:This is a picture of my mother and father in 1950, when Irma and I were married.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

DA:Dad, tell them about our Thanksgiving. Grammy used to make the best turkey, and people used to -- everyone had to bring stuff, deviled eggs and whatever, and it was the biggest family dinner. And it was just so nice. Just -- I remember going to the house on Glencoe --

AD:But you know what overrides that?

DA:What?

AD:Is their -- the kiddush that the -- Sid --

DA:Well, talk about that.

AD:-- and them --

DA:Is the thing on?

CW:Yes.

AD:That really is.

DA:No!

CW:It's fine.

LS:Which kiddush?

AD:The kiddush you had on Friday afternoons.

LS:Oh.

AD:Sid, Spotty, and -- that's when they -- that has really something to do with the distillery. Because they consumed more liquor there than the city of Denver could've possibly -- (Strear laughs) Sid and his older brother and Uncle Spotty, who was a half-brother on the other side to my dad. And that's when they had the 77:00turkey warehouse on Thirty-Eighth --

LS:Thirty-Eighth Nosage.

AD:-- (UNCLEAR). Thirty-Eight Nosage. And I'd stop in on my way from Greeley to stop and just visit with them on my way home. And they gave me a drink of -- like that. Except of water, it was straight bourbon. And I says, "I can't drink that." And they said, Oh, yes you can. So, I did. I made up for it. I caught 'em both two Friday afternoons where they had to call their wives up and cancel Friday night. But anyway, they had a kiddush that was not only people from all over Denver, people -- I met people there that are friendly today. Weren't there 78:00that many people there? All kinds of people. And (Strear laughs) Aunt Bess --

LS:Well, they filled up our warehouse.

AD:Well, they sure did. Aunt Bess, who was Spotty's wife, second wife, who was actually my -- aunt before she was my aunt. She was a friend of ours in Fort Collins before she married Spotty. But she was a marvelous cook. And she made pletsl [flat roll] that you cannot buy in any deli today. It was that good. And she made fis [feet]. Do you know what I'm talking about?

DA:Kishke [tripe]?

AD:Call it ptcha [dish made from jellied calves' feet]. But -- cattle's hooves.

DA:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

AD:I mean, glue incorporated. And with challah. And they made stuff -- it was a 79:00gourmet delight to go there. An ethnic gourmet delight. But there were people I still run in today. That's where I met them. And it was at their office in -- well, first in the warehouse. Did you have it in the new office?

LS:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for a while. (laughs)

DA:What was the cow's intestines?

AD:The what?

DA:Kishke?

AD:Kishke. They had everything. It was -- it was unbelievable.

CW:And it was delicious.

LS:We had all kinds of delicacies, plus a little bit of liquor. (laughs)

AD:That's an understatement for sure.

LS:(laughs) 'Course, he never drank. So, he always remember what went on, but 80:00nobody else did.

AD:I fortunately had to give it up.

CW:Can you tell me a little bit -- we didn't get it on tape. Can you tell me about the distillery? The bootleg business? What you know about it? Just for the tape, 'cause it wasn't on before.

LS:The bootleg business? Well, I don't know any more about that than what you read in the paper, so -- and that was something that -- the first time I heard about it was when this woman from the Heritage Center at Lakewood showed me the newspaper article. My parents never said a word about it, and they were -- and I 81:00never dreamt that it happened. But I don't have to dream anymore; I know it was a fact, because I -- (laughs)

AD:I was told about it by my older brother, but not in detail like this. So, it's a revelation to me too.

CW:How did you -- how did your brother know about it?

AD:He knew more history than all of us. I wish he was here. He really does. He knows more of the genealogy and more of what really went on.

LS:Who's that, Sid?

AD:Sid. He's still alive. He's in assisted living in Philadelphia. He's ninety-two, and he's still with it.

CW:As they say in Yiddish, "biz hundert un tsvantsik [may he live to be 120]."

AD:That's -- well, he's only got twenty-eight more to go. (Strear laughs)

CW:Well, there were a few stories that you want to tell me, Boonie, about traveling during the glamour period of the cattle business.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

AD:[reading from a notebook] "One of the most memorable cattle-buying trips I had was in approximately 1960. I was at this time trading cattle, buying them and selling 'em to others for commission or profit, depending on the situation." I had to do this, because in the cattle business, you were up or you were down. We were down at the time. "On this venture, John Mayer, Harold Asnes, and I purchased thirty-three hundred head of Hereford yearlings from the Bond branch near Chama, New Mexico," which is northern New Mexico. "I financed the deal, 83:00which was rather a bold venture. That area of northern New Mexico was under considerable dispute at the time. Many Hispanics who had lived in the area, some since the 1600s, were claiming that their Spanish land grants were valid. They were claiming ownership over the modern-day owners of many ranches and areas. Juan Tijerina was the leader of these claimants, or rebels -- and were outside the law of our time, though that was disputable. The ranch owned by John -- the Bond family -- was a huge ranch. The cattle were to be delivered in two deliveries, two weeks, approximately half of each delivery. Bob Hayman, Harold, and I took the delivery. When we arrived at Chama, it was as if I were in Mexico 84:00of a century ago. The hotel we stayed at was a vintage early 1800s. On the first night in the lobby, in walked a cowboy with six guns strapped to his side. I took a double take and wondered what in the hell I'd gotten myself into. That night, we met Mr. Bond and some of his foremens at a cantina. It was a throwback to a Mexicantina of a hundred years ago. The décor and the dress of the waitresses must have been imported from Hollywood. Anyway, we drank margaritas and whatever until 5:30 a.m., when we heard the whistle of the train, which was to haul the cattle away. It was a narrow-gauge railroad, which I had never seen before. We then went out to the ranch to weigh up the cattle for delivery. The roundup and weigh-up was as organized as any delivery I had ever seen. The 85:00caballeros were as good or better than any cowboys I had ever been witness to. The seventeen hundred head we ran through the scales that day was done in record time. Loading them on the narrow-gauge railroad was a labor of love. We had to move each car up manually, and there were somewhere between forty and fifty cars. We listened to the World Series on a portable radio that someone had brought along. After loading all the cattle and setting up on the -- settling up on the payment, we drove to La Junta, Colorado, where the cattle had to be unloaded and reloaded on a standard-gauge railroad. One-third went to the feedlot in Greeley; one-third went to Hudson, Colorado, to be put on a contracted gain basis; and one-third to Humboldt, Iowa, to be sold at auction. 86:00The market had dropped, and what we had to make we -- that's why we had to make these arrangements or take a loss. The next delivery was at [Limi?], New Mexico, a spot on the railroad map. It was really just us and the caballeros. They treated us to a lunch of hot peppers on white-bread sandwiches, washed down with Triple X Moctezuma beer. That was the most enjoyable, as the market had jumped, and we sold them all at a profit. A few years later, I met Mr. Egan in Eaton, Colorado, the same man that had the six guns on in Chama. He told me he wore the guns when buying sheep at the Indian -- Apache reservation. I bought cattle from Indian reservations in Utah and never wore any guns. In fact, I've owned a gun 87:00-- I've never owned a gun in my life. Not true. I won a hunting rifle with a telescopic sight and a leather carrying case in a raffle. I exchanged it for a motorized lawnmower and some Samsonite luggage. I had deliveries of many of -- railcars of cattle from Laramie, Wyoming; Greeley, but that soon came to an end with the advent of trucks that hauled cattle. It made life much easier, but not nearly as romantic."

CW:That was great. (laughs) Thanks. And so, you got to meet all kinds of people traveling around the --

AD:All -- everything. Ranchers -- you talk about ethnic groups? All Utah, 88:00Nevada, Wyoming, Idaho is basically Mormon ranchers, but most of 'em are -- people say this and that about Mormons. They're as nice as any other people. Everything ends up in your presentation to them and what they react to. And so, that never was a problem anywhere. But I traveled all western United States doing this. Idaho. Even California. My son took care of most of that. And then, we ended up in Mississippi doing a lot of business down there. And there's other stories, but some of 'em are for the scenery. There are some scenery scene -- when you ride a horse through some of this country is something you never get to 89:00see otherwise.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW:How did you balance your business life with your -- with your strong interest -- you know, sense of Jewish identity, in your family life particularly?

LS:I didn't -- I personally didn't have any problem. I worked and practiced my religion as much as I felt I wanted to. And I struck a balance that was -- that I was happy with, that my family was happy with. It just wasn't a problem. Now, 90:00it could be in some families who were much more Orthodox. I don't know, because I didn't have that particular experience.

CW:Um-hm.

DA:(UNCLEAR)

CW:Sure.

DA:As they've gotten older, how have their religious beliefs changed?

CW:I was about to ask that. Great question.

DA:And also, you didn't ask Leonard about the values that he learned from his parents, which I think -- I mean, you asked them both, but he didn't have the opportunity to answer.

CW:Okay.

LS:What's the question?

CW:Okay. Well, the first question is what were the values that your parents were trying to teach you, do you think? Looking back.

LS:Well, I don't think that -- as far as my parents went, that they said, Here 91:00are the values I want to teach you, and itemize 'em, if you understand what I'm saying. But I think, as a manner of speaking, I think the first thing my parents wanted me to be was be honest, to be faithful to my religion, to be faithful to my family, and (pause) when I was drafted in the Army, they said, Be faithful to 92:00your country. So. I tried to live up to all those things. Whether I did according to some people, I don't know, but according to me, I did the best I could.

AD:(whispers) Absolutely.

CW:And when you had your own family, how did you try to pass that on to your children?

LS:Well, I think a lot of it is passed on through their observing what we did. And thank goodness they absorbed most of it and accepted what they wanted and 93:00discarded what they didn't want. But generally speaking, I'm very happy with the end results that I see in my family, in my children and grandchildren. So. And that's all you can ask for, I guess.

CW:Well, I'll ask both of you: what do you see different in the generations, your children and grandchildren, as compared to your experience, specifically of being Jewish?

AD:I think we've -- I started out keeping kosher because of my parents. And my wife, even though they -- she grew up in a Reform, they had kept kosher in Birmingham for the same -- our door was always open to traveling people and all. And they did the same there. So, that was no problem. We gave it up about five years later. And I think there's been a transition from that to a not -- kashres became a thing of the past, for us. But as Leonard said, the main values that you had are still ingrained in you, and you try to ingrain 'em -- even when I 95:00was gone traveling a lot, I tried -- if I was at the sale barn in Valentine, Nebraska, and two hundred miles, I got home so that I could be with my children the next day, play tennis or take 'em -- I sold and bought more cattle at the bottom of a ski lift than, I don't know, most people. Or elsewhere. You try to combine 'em both. And do the best -- you know that your children you only have one crack at, and if you pass it, it's gone. So, I kept that in view. And as Leonard said, I think we've done the best that I can do for myself, and I think they're going. And whether they continue -- they're Jewish, but whether we end 96:00up continuing that is problematic. Their intermarriage is a thing that can't be stopped. And what happens with that may end up to -- end up with more Jews! But it may not -- may go the other way too. And -- that's something that as far as myself and the kids that I have, my progeny, I think are -- I'm satisfied.

CW:What do you think? What do you notice different in your children and grandchildren than in yourself, in your generation?

LS:(laughs) Well, probably they're a lot more intelligent than I was.

AD:I disagree.

LS:I think actually --

AD:They have more --

LS:-- they're more worldly than I was, even though I had the opportunity to do a lot of traveling, whether I wanted to or not. I'm speaking of my Army experience. (pause) I think the children are more intelligent than they -- than they were in past generations. And -- in my own mind, as far as I was concerned, 98:00I was successful in what I did. I hope that they're able to, in their own mind, be successful.

CW:What about their Jewishness? Is there anything you notice that's different?

LS:Well, they're probably not as -- they're not as religious as I am. They're not as observant as I am. And I preface that by saying I'm not very observant. (pause) But I think -- I think that they are Jewish. And they practice a lot of 99:00things in the Jewish tradition and the Jewish religion. Maybe a little different than I do or not as much as I might think I would like them to. But I think that probably in their own way, just as observant and just as traditional as I am. So.

CW:I'd like to ask both of you Debbie's question: how has your attitudes towards or your practice of Jewish religion changed over your life?

AD:I would say considerably, from Jewish tradition to being a Jew in mind only. 100:00And overcoming the others with tsedakah or something like that that makes you feel that you're still -- or belonging to ADL and doing things with them. But you're not doing the traditional trappings of Judaism that we knew in the past. They may have been only trappings. I don't know.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

AD:I think in our heart all of us -- and as Leonard said, all of us -- the kids are. But the future is so unstable that I wouldn't bet on anybody staying Jewish.

LS:Of course, I'd like to say in comparing -- for example, Boonie's family. His father is very Orthodox. My father grew up in an Orthodox family, but he didn't practice -- he didn't practice religion. But he was always -- he was always Jewish. He -- (pause) he just did not -- he just wasn't as traditional as --

AD:Right. Well, we aren't either.

LS:-- as the other generations before him were. So.

CW:And how has your practice or ideas about Judaism changed over your life?

LS:You know, I don't think my ideas about Judaism changed. I mean, I think what changed is how I practiced my religion, how I observed it, how I went to -- how I attended shul when I was younger as opposed to not going nearly as often now. How I went to a -- Orthodox synagogue, and now we go to a Reform synagogue. But 103:00I don't think that my family or I ever got away from the fact of we're Jewish, or we denied that we're Jewish or --

AD:But don't you think when you --

LS:-- we're very proud of being what we are.

AD:-- when you went first to the temple, you most probably had the same thing that I did. Didn't the music irritate you terribly? And now I love it; I wouldn't do without it? (Strear laughs) And that is a change, though.

LS:Actually -- but no, it -- I don't think it did. No.

AD:No. It bothered me terribly when I first -- 'cause I'd never been -- had it 104:00with prayers. Like on Yom Kippur. And yet I think the Yom Kippur prayer service at temple is the most beau-- I wish my father was alive and I could take him there to see it. I think it's that beautiful. But as far as attending, I think it's all within us. But you're talking about maintaining it. And that -- no matter what anyone says, that's a question mark.

DA:But you go to EDOS, Dad.

AD:Yeah. You still go to EDOS. I wouldn't go there. (Strear laughs)

DA:It's very Orthodox.

LS:Oh, what Debbie's asking me -- or mentioned to me -- I go to EDOS. That's an acronym for East Denver Orthodox Synagogue. Why do I go there on Shabbos or on 105:00Saturday when I'm in town or available? I began going there because a lot of my friends that I grew up with went there. That was my first reason. The second reason is that I began to appreciate and enjoy the services there. It took me a while, but (pause) I just think it's part of me. And -- that's why.

CW:Has been there a time that stands out in your mind that you felt particularly Jewish for some reason because of the situation you were in? Just to put that question --

AD:I've always felt that I was Jewish, in the -- even in the environment when I grew up, with gentiles and Christians, I was always Jewish. In the service, no matter where I was at, I would let people know that I was Jewish right off the bat. And it was never a hidden item for me. And that I believe. But there's facets of Orthodox Judaism now that irritate me. And for reasons of the world, 107:00economy, or just -- it's funny. When you look at a movie or a TV scene, and you see strange people out there, and you say, Gee, they're totally different in something. And I think of a Christian or a person here who isn't real educated or that looking at a Hasidic man walking around. They think, Geez, are all Jews like that? Is there something wrong? It isn't that there's something wrong with the man, it's just he's dressing different and acting different. But that happens to be a -- something that goes on all over the world. And they're the first to say they're Jewish.

CW:What about you? Was there a time you felt particularly Jewish in your life?

AD:Yeah. When --

LS:When I thought -- well --

AD:When you were eight days old. (laughter)

LS:Thanks.

AD:I just thought I'd throw that in.

LS:(laughs) I still remember that. I have to go back to my time in the Army when there weren't many Jews or -- yeah, in my company or in the particular section 109:00of the Army that I was in. So, I felt particularly lonely at -- when I knew there was Jewish holidays. It did bother me a little bit. But I will say this about the Army: they provided services for us, and we were able to -- the Jewish soldiers were able to get together and have services on holidays. So.

CW:What were those services like? Who led them?

LS:Well, either a layperson read 'em who had more education -- more Hebrew education than I did. In fact, I still have the military prayer book here someplace. That wasn't difficult, to have somebody lead the services. As Boonie can probably tell you, there's probably people in Greeley that can --

AD:Very much so. Well --

LS:-- carry on services regardless of --

AD:-- Judaism was formed as a -- not till rabbinic Judaism came about. It was all done with -- well, the high priests to begin with, but basically all the rural communities wherever you are were run by laymen. And there's -- every 111:00small village in United States had some Jews that ran a synagogue or a prayer without having a rabbi.

CW:Well, I'm wondering if either of you have any questions to ask the other one. Are there any stories that you know or have heard about that you want to ask each other? You can think about it.

DA:Any time in their lives that they felt that it was their religion that kept them strong?

LS:I didn't -- what was that, Debbie?

AD:I think it's been an advantage rather than a disadvantage.

DA:Well, that's why I'm asking, if there's been a situation in your life, or 112:00situations in your lives, that you felt it was your religion that kept you strong during those situations, whether it was the military, whether --

AD:I don't know if it was religion or the fact that I was just Jewish. And the history of Jews going back isn't necessarily all religion, either. I mean, in biblical days, intermarriage and all that was frequent. It isn't like now. I just had a course in the Dead Sea Scrolls that was the most fabulous thing I'd ever taken. And it gives you a early look at the three parts of Jewish life, the three groups: the Pharisees, the Essenes, the Sadducees. And the same is true 113:00today: we have Reformed, Conservative, and Orthodo-- nothing's changed. And it just -- it's inborn in you, that's all. I can't do it -- some people could go out and marry -- and I'm not against -- it's gonna be intermarriage all -- and marry somebody else and enter another religion, Catholicism or Protestantism. I couldn't do that in a hundred -- no way. No way! It wouldn't make any difference who the woman was. I couldn't do it. Some people are capable of it. And that's part of -- I don't know the difference.

LS:I forgot what I was gonna say.

AD:That's all right. I didn't -- (Strear laughs) to add to it, I didn't know what I was saying.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

LS:The time that I really prayed to God -- and this is the truth -- is when I landed in Normandy, and I was crawlin' up the beach. And there was only one person I was talking to is, "God, please get me out of here." Yeah. And He did. So. So. Excuse me.

AD:No. I think everybody goes through that normally in life. There are times -- well, we'll say for reasons of health or reasons of business -- when we were in 115:00you'd go up, and you'd be fluent, and the next year you were broke. In the middle of the night you were perspiring and wondering, What the hell am I -- do for my kids and my family the next day? And you do issue a prayer; whether you believe or not, you issue a prayer to something -- it must be God -- asking for some assistance. So, no matter what I say or do, there's a god prevalent. As I said, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek thing about God. And yet, you've got to have a feeling -- at least I do -- knowing or unknowingly.

CW:Well, I have just a couple more questions, and -- I wanted to -- I realized I never got to ask you what a typical day on the farm was. I was wondering if you 116:00could tell me -- tell us that.

AD:Yep.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

AD:"I was in the cattle-feeding business and ranching business for approximately fifty years. I had knowledge of it, had a foot in it growing up, as Louis was in it for many years. I'd served my apprenticeship on a non-paid employee on many weekends and vacations when the legitimate employees took off. Dad was really one of the pioneers of the feeding cattle for slaughter year-round. Our feedlot was a bunk line feedlot built around 1938, '39." Bunk line means outside the fence. All of it was done inside, Iowa-style, before. And it was a innovation. We were the first ones to build one out here that way. "We had corrals on all 117:00the farms and fed on many other farms in Weld County. Prior to year-round feeding, cattle were purchased yearlings at the fall. They would start out being fed byproducts left in the field: beet tops, alfalfa, corn stalks. They were also supplemented with beet pulp, sugar beets, alfalfa, hay. Getting the beet pulp at the sugar factory at five thirty each morning was a backbreaking and muscle-building adventure, depending on your view. Around the first of the year, when fields were cleaned or the frost ended the value of the field residue, they were loaded up in corrals. They were then fed a nutritional diet of barley, corn, so forth and so on. There was constant supervision of the cattle -- 118:00nutritionally, medically, vaccination, treatment for the sick. Much of the medical indoctrination was done on arrival" -- which I did a lot of that myself. I started out to be a veterinarian and knew I would never practice, and so became this. "Before the advent of chutes, we roped them and treated them, branded them, dehorned them. If we had steers, that was an easy process. With heifers, we never wanted pregnant heifers, but many were, and we had delivered their calves. We later had the means of aborting them. I never became a veterinarian, but I delivered more calves in as many ways as imaginable. Also, all the veterinarian practices became second nature. I had helped and watched 119:00Dr. Mackey so many times that I became a para-veterinarian. The cattle were checked at least once daily, and whether on foot, horse, or car, I could pick out a sick animal or notice when a whole pen was not on par. Anyway, that was the introduction to my cattle business." Skip down to -- anyway, the long and short of it is, I'd get up, check the -- we had cattle in many places. It wasn't just at one, at the main lot. We'd check, and then I'd -- if I had cattle to go out and buy, I'd go out and buy 'em. Or deliver them wherever they were. And I could do anything a cowboy could do. And I rode horses all my life, until I was 120:00-- my back said no. And it was a period of the glamour business of the cattle business. Now you sit in an office with a computer, a video, and a telephone. And it's totally -- you don't meet people out everywhere in the world. To me, it's different. But they most probably make a better living.

CW:Can you maybe just show the -- I was wondering if you could just explain what this is for the camera.

AD:This is a branding iron with our brand, LAZD, which is my father's initials. 121:00We actually had a few brands: the wineglass, which was an old famous brand, and Quarter Circle D. But we would brand them to put in pens so we'd know what pen they came from. Or if we were running 'em on a ranch and they would possibly get comingled with somebody else's cattle, we could differentiate which were ours and theirs. Brand -- right now almost this is useless. Some people still brand. But computer chips are put in or tags in the ear to -- with numbers of the pen and numbers the type. So, it isn't done near as much. It was done in the old times, when they would build a fire and hot up an iron and brand 'em. But 122:00anymore -- it's just a keepsake, more or less.

LS:Can I demonstrate it on you?

AD:I did.

DA:Only if you plug it in. (laughter)

AD:You can do it. You can make -- take a shingle and put it down. It makes a nice thing for a room. Burn one on.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

AD:Actually, horses were good. But sometimes the rider walking across a pen would almost mesmerize himself, and at the end of the ride he'd say, "Gee, I didn't see anything." And so, we'd stop him from riding horses and make him walk to make him spot.

CW:Well, I'd like -- I have just two last questions. The first is do you have a 123:00favorite Yiddish word or phrase?

LS:Mine would be "Azoy geyt iz [So it goes]."

AD:Yeah.

LS:"Azoy geyt iz" means "That's the way it goes."

AD:I can -- I would say that's one of my favorite.

LS:You can't use it.

AD:I've -- all right. Vos den [What of it]? (laughter) With tsebrokhene tseyn [Broken, as in language]?

CW:Can you explain what those mean?

AD:Pardon?

CW:Can you explain what those mean? (UNCLEAR)

AD:"Vos den" -- "What is -- what's on, what's going on?" "With tsebrokhene tseyn" means you speak -- it's an idiom, I guess, with talking through your teeth -- broken teeth. Which means that you speak very little and very broken.

CW:And why do you --

LS:There's one saying my dad used to have. If I wasn't busy, he says, "Vos tistu?" Which is, "What are you doing?" So.

CW:Why do you like these phrases?

AD:Because they're applicable, many instances.

LS:What's the question?

CW:I'm wondering, why do you like those two phrases that you mentioned?

LS:Why do I ask them?

CW:Why do you like them?

LS:Well, I think they're practical questions. "Vos tistu," "What are you doing?"

AD:And --

LS:And the other one is the same way. It's just -- it's what you'd ask in English, almost.

AD:But it's a way of --

LS:Except it's something that you -- it's a colloquialism you picked up from your parents, and it stuck with you, that's all.

AD:And kind of a way of showing you're Jewish, I guess. Are you?

CW:(laughs) The last question is -- what is your advice to future generations? You've both lived very full lives. What would you -- what wisdom would you want to send to the next generation? Or future generation?

AD:Two words: passion and compassion.

LS:What?

AD:Passion for something, and compassion. I think that covers it all.

CW:What about you?

LS:What's the question? What would I li--

CW:What's your advice to future generations?

LS:Oh.

CW:And your wisdom?

LS:In my ultimate wisdom? You mean in regard to Judaism, or what?

AD:Just for in life in general.

LS:Or life, or --

CW:Life. If you want to say something about Judaism, also.

LS:(pause) (laughs) Oh.

AD:While he's thinking, I'd say --

LS:You know --

AD:Go ahead.

LS:-- the first thing that comes to my mind is be kind to your web-footed friends, for a duck may be somebody's mother. Now, (laughter) well, you didn't want that answer. So --

AD:Be yourself.

LS:Yeah, I would just add to that, be true to yourself. So -- you can be yourself, I think, but lie to yourself.

AD:Yeah, you're right.

LS:I mean, that's --

AD:You're right. You're right.

CW:Great. Thank you.

AD:Thank you. Thank you.

CW:This was great.

LS:Thank you, Boonie.

[END OF INTERVIEW]