ARLENE COHEN STEIN ORAL HISTORY

ISAAC MOORE: This is Isaac Moore, and today is February 9th, 2015. I'm here with Arlene Cohen Stein in Boca Raton, Florida, and we are going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Arlene, do I have your permission to record?

ARLENE COHEN STEIN:Absolutely. With pleasure.

IM:Thank you. I'd like to begin by talking about your family background. Can you tell me briefly what you know about your family background?

ACS:That would be very difficult in a few words, because I feel as though I have lived my whole life paying homage to my family background. But I can briefly 1:00tell you that I was born in Utica, New York, and I proudly like to tell people that I was first generation, born in the United States of Jewish immigrant parents.

IM:Do you know anything about your parents' or grandparents' lives in Europe before coming to the United States?

ACS:I just know what I've heard frequently from, particularly, my mother, a blessed memory, who used to tell us about the pogroms that she experienced as a small child. And she would always say, "We had to get out from there and get away from it all," because the pogroms -- that we've seen briefly on "Fiddler on the Roof," where these people would come in and just destroy everything that the 2:00Jewish people of the town had worked for. So, I always knew that my parents were very adamant, very strong about being able to come to the United States.

IM:Do you know where they came from and when?

ACS:Pretty much. My dad came when he was thirteen years old, and he was born in Russia. My mother was born in Poland. I think it was my dad who was born in Nowy Dwr. The town evades me at the moment. But I know he was born in Russia, and my mother was born in Poland. And before my father came, his father came, my 3:00zeyde [grandfather], came to Utica, New York, because he had a sister, whom we call tante [aunt], and tante Berger and her family were already living in Utica. And in those days, for a person to come from another country, one had to have a sponsor, for instance, in the United States or the person couldn't come. You couldn't just get on a boat and hope that you'd be admitted to the United States. That did not happen. So, my father's father had come and was living with his sister and the family in Utica. And then, several years went by before they were able to send for my grandfather. He came, and then not too long after that, 4:00my dad's oldest brother, Herman, and Harry came, and their sister Sara. I don't have any exact dates, I just know from stories that were told us that this is what was happening in those days. And it really took several years before the entire family could come. Therefore, my father, at the age of thirteen, came with his mother, my bubbie [grandmother], and several sisters to the United States. And they came to Utica, New York, and my dad, at the age of thirteen, was in charge of that part of the family. When he came to the United States, he -- and I think I've told this in my book, "The Olive Tree," where I write these stories about coming, he had to put a pack on his back, and went, as they used 5:00to call it, peddling, from door to door, trying to sell some little merchandise that he might have. So, he never got a formal education. His formal education was in Europe, where, at the age of six or seven, his parents put him on a wagon and told the driver to take him to another city a few miles away and to have him study in a yeshiva. So, my father, although he didn't have the English background -- he went for a few months to night school to learn to speak English -- but he had a tremendous Hebrew Jewish background. And that's why he spent his entire life praying, gratis, at many temples, and everybody loved to hear his voice. As a matter of fact, the last one that he did was in Sarasota, Florida, 6:00where we were living at the time. He used to do services at their temple. My mother was only two to four years old, and we're never certain, because also in those days, nobody had birth certificates. So, my parents really didn't know the exact dates of their birth. On the naturalization paper that I have with me today, you can see all ten -- no, actually, probably nine of the siblings. Two died in Europe. And my grandfather has listed their years, exactly. Two years apart. Two years, two years, two years. And I thought, Wow, my grandmother must have had perfect planned parenthood. (laughs) But we found out later that since none of them knew when they were born, each one took a different month, and the seventeenth of the month was their birthday. So, my dad's, oddly enough, was the 7:00third of November. But each one had their birthday in a different month. My mother did not know her birthdate. Her mother, my grandmother, told her that she was born on the first day of Hanukkah in a specific year. I believe it would have been 1903. And only years later, she found another date in December. But things were really desperate for the people who came over. So, my mom came at that early stage of life, and then I have, or I had, an aunt and uncle who were both born in Utica. But, both my parents were born in Europe.

IM:So, you're the child -- you're a first-generation child --

ACS:Yes.

IM:-- sorry.

ACS:Yes.

IM:Can you tell me more about growing up in an immigrant household? What was it like?

ACS:Well, I've come to believe that both my parents did everything in their power to become quickly Americanized, although still strong in the Jewish tradition. I came from a strictly kosher home, and to this day, I've always kept kosher. I still keep a kosher home, many, many, many years later. But I also felt that my parents never let on that we were not a wealthy family. I thought we were millionaires. And when I think back, my wardrobe, I had two dresses for schooldays, and I had two dresses for going to synagogue or the Jewish Holy 9:00Days. And I still see my mother in the kitchen, starching those dresses. She starched everything, even kitchen towels. Starch in those days was a powder, and it was put on the stove with some water, and it boiled and you stirred it, and then you just somehow lightly poured it on the clothing and even kitchen towels, bedsheets. Everything was starched. So, when I went to school, I knew that I looked well. And yet, I always thought I looked different. And now, when I see pictures of me in the growing up years, I did look different. I was the best dressed. My hair, I had hair down below my knees that was never cut until I graduated from the eighth grade. And with that hair, my mother made four braids and then plaited them around, and she would buy ribbons and make very fancy bow 10:00ribbons, and I had one on each side. So, I was well-dressed, well taken care of, and I thought that wardrobe was wonderful. I had one pair of shoes for synagogue and I had one pair of shoes for school. And I was one of very few children who had sneakers for gym. Not all of the children did at that time. And aside from being well taken care of, my parents knew what was important. And so, at the very early age of six, I was taking piano lessons. And I knew at that stage that that would be my intense being, to be a pianist and a musician, from early ages on. And I remember the first day that they had -- old upright piano, was raised up into the sunroom that we had, that I guess we'd call it a family room now. 11:00Was a little room, and they opened that window and raised up that piano, and it was for my older brother to take lessons. But he wasn't interested, and I immediately sat at the piano. And I remember I played "America, my country 'tis of thee," and so my parents thought I was a genius, playing by ear. So, I started with the piano lessons and they saw to it. That was my first piano. I had another piano before they bought me the Steinway Grand Piano that I have to this day. And my dad always -- every Sunday, he'd go in the living room and polish the piano. (laughs) That was his job.But I had wonderful piano lessons, wonderful teachers. And then, of course, I was admitted to the Eastman School of Music where I studied, and --

IM:Great.

ACS:-- the story goes on.

IM:Great, thank you for sharing. I'd like to talk about your home. Can you describe the physical space of the home you grew up in?

ACS:Yes. Actually, it doesn't seem real, but I remember moving into the house on Leslie Avenue when I was only three years and two months away from my fourth birthday. I was about three years, ten months old, and I remember that so vividly. We had moved from a nice, little house on Madison Avenue, and that was a rental. And then, my parents were able to buy the house at Thirty-Seven Leslie Avenue, which we thought was a palatial mansion. At that time, it had a separate dining room and separate living room. And the year that my parents bought me the Steinway grand piano, they had to take out the wall between the dining room and 13:00the living room so that the piano would fit in there after the wall was gone. In that dining room was a full set, and they sold the entire set except one piece that I have to this day. It's called a server. Beautiful piece of furniture. They sold all the rest so that they could buy my piano. And the house had, at that time, one floor. It was called a bungalow. It was in a nice neighborhood. Definitely not all Jewish. Mostly non-Jews living in the neighborhood. And it was on one floor at that time. As I said, it was a bungalow. And there were just 14:00two bedrooms. Two bedrooms. And my big brother and I shared the one bedroom, and my parents had the other bedroom. Years later, my mother's mother, my grandmother, my maternal grandmother, came to live with us for a short time. And at that time, my parents had the attic made into another bedroom and bathroom, so that my two brothers slept up there, and I received the other bedroom as the guest room. I may be a little not clear on that. Actually, there were three bedrooms on the first floor, but one was the guest room. So, I obtained the guest room at that time. And most of those years, we had one bathroom. One bathroom. And everybody was more than happy. And you never locked the door of that bathroom. We always knew if the door was closed, someone was in the 15:00bathroom. There was a certain type of politeness. And I hate that old-fashioned saying, but it's true that children were seen but not heard from. Children kept their distance. And I think it was that distance that kept me from speaking to my parents at any length about my upbringing, about anything. We just lived it. We knew my parents did certain things, and that's what we did. Included belonging to a synagogue. Everything we did was because my parents were doing it.

IM:Who were the people in your house growing up?

ACS:When we moved in, it was my parents, my big brother, and myself. And when I 16:00was about six years old, my mother became pregnant again, and that's when my younger brother was born, my brother, Gene. And he and his wife and several of their children, grandchildren, they all live in Sarasota, Florida. So, we see them frequently. Unfortunately, my big brother, Herb, passed away when he was just fifty years old. He was living in Albany. He became a wonderful, wonderful, prominent lawyer. We used to always kid, and I remember when we still had the dining room furniture, my dad would chase him around the dining room table because he didn't study. (laughs) It was funny and not funny. But we had a very good life, and so my brother, my kid brother was born when we lived in that house, at Thirty-Seven Leslie Avenue.

IM:What was it like to grow up in a large household with brothers and sisters running about?

ACS:Well, actually, it wasn't that large a household. However, we had many, many cousins. See, don't forget, my dad had eight living siblings. There were nine children, nine living children. And so, there were sixteen of us first cousins, and we would visit. There was no television. On Sundays, we would go to one home or the next home, and we were always visiting and speaking. That's probably a carry-over with me, why I like to speak to this day. We did that. So, we had a lot of camaraderie with cousins. As a matter of fact, at this point, I have 18:00cousins visiting down here. I have cousins where I can say two sets of different cousins, their mothers, and my mother were first cousins. And they were like sisters. So, I had aunt Feigy, aunt Lilly, aunt Mamie. We thought they were our aunts, but they were all cousins. So, we did have a very active life with family.

IM:Do you have any particular stories or memories surrounding that active life with your family growing up?

ACS:I remember one time, we went to one of my aunt's homes, and I was probably five or six years old at the time. And this aunt and uncle had a player piano. Do you know what a player piano is? (laughs)

IM:I don't.

ACS:Oh, my! (laughs) I wish I had a picture of one. A player piano had these rolls that probably, in that day and age, were computerized, only we didn't know that that's what it was. They were rolls with tons of little dots all over them. And you could insert a roll in the piano. There were two doors on an upright piano that opened, and in there was this mechanism, and you could put that in. So, these cousins were playing a trick on me. They said I had to go out of the room and then come back and the piano would be playing. And, it was just amazing. I mean, I stood there dumbfounded. I thought, How do they do this? No one is sitting at the piano and the piano is playing. And to this day, you do see that computerized in some of these pianos that they have. They don't need pianists anymore. (laughs) They just push a button. So, that was one time. I also remember, every year, from the time I was probably four years old, going to 20:00Sylvan Beach, which was about thirty-five miles from Utica. And many of the cousins would be there. So, we congregated, and it was on the lake, on Oneida Lake. And life was wonderful then. My birthday is July 7th, so we were always in Sylvan Beach for my birthday. And even out there, my mother would manage to have enough utensils to bake our birthday cakes. She always did that. And I was so enamored, not by gifts that I received but by those birthday cakes that my mother made every year, year after year, for all of our birthdays. So, Sylvan Beach holds a lot of memories for me, and I've written about that in my book.

IM:What languages were spoken in your home as a young child?

ACS:Mostly English, but a lot of Yiddish. And I've met more friends who say to me that they learned to understand Yiddish because most of our parents, when they didn't want us to know what they were talking about, would speak in Yiddish. So, we learned. And unfortunately, I don't know a lot of Yiddish. And I think my parents stopped speaking Yiddish probably about the time I was in my teenage years. So, we're mostly English and some Yiddish. But Yiddish is having a wonderful revival now. I know many of the Lubavitch people, the rabbis, we know several rabbis who speak only Yiddish to their children at home. And I think that's wonderful, because then they know two languages.

IM:Can you tell me more about your parents speaking Yiddish in your family?

ACS:I think, aside from speaking it in the home periodically, they spoke Yiddish with their siblings, especially certain ones of the siblings more than others. Didn't really totally integrate into life in America. I remember, for instance, my aunt Sara, my dad's oldest sister, he [sic] had a very strong accent. And I still have notes to this day that she wrote us and that her husband, uncle Sam, wrote us. And you can see the grammar is not the best. They were much more comfortable doing the Yiddish language. So, some of the aunts and uncles were like that. And, of course, my grandparents only spoke Yiddish. So, there was not 23:00the communication that children have now with grandparents. To our four grandchildren, we are bubbie and zeyde, grandma and grandpa. And I very strongly asked for that, and our children said, Great, no problem, that our grandchildren would refer to us as bubbie and zeyde. But we have very, very strong relationships with the grandchildren. One granddaughter who lives out in Spokane, Washington and is in college now, in her third year, loves to talk on the phone, and we'll talk about everything. Just everything. And it's wonderful to have that relationship, and it's the same with the other granddaughter and the grandsons. So, it's a much different relationship. I think that reminds me 24:00of a funny story concerning my bubbie, my mother's mother, who had absolutely no command of the English language. And a couple of times, she thought my older brother and I were teasing her, and we weren't. We were doing something and it occurred to us that she was disapproving of it. And my brother and I said to one another, Uh-oh, bubbie smells trouble! And she ran in to my mother, just raving, saying that we had said "bubbie smells terrible," which was far from the truth. (laughs) And there were other stories like that where she didn't have command of the English language. Her husband, my zeyde, died before I was born, and that's why I'm named after him. His English name was Aaron, and so, they named me, in 25:00English, Arlene. But my Hebrew name is Esther. We always had an English and a Hebrew name in those days. And my father's father spoke no English, but we'd always hear him conversing either with my dad or one of the sisters, always in Yiddish. And that's why we heard a lot of Yiddish. But we really didn't have relationships with our grandparents, as such. We held them in awe. We didn't know that they were our grandparents. At least I didn't. I thought, Who is this very special person that I should know and I was in awe of?

IM:Can you tell me more about that?

ACS:Well, concerning my paternal grandfather, my zeyde, my father's father, 26:00strangely enough, or I should say sadly enough, he did live with two of his children for a very brief time. Two of the daughters, aunt Anna and aunt Esther, and they both lived on the same street in Utica, on Proctor Boulevard, and they would go back and forth. But unfortunately, none of those children kept a kosher home. And, of course, my grandparents were very strictly Orthodox and ate only kosher food from kosher homes. So, that was a problem. And for one reason or another, this zeyde couldn't come to live with our parents. That wasn't feasible. And so, when I was about ten or eleven years old, my zeyde ended up 27:00living in a nursing home in Syracuse, New York. And almost every Sunday, or at least every other Sunday, we would go to Syracuse to see my zeyde. And let me tell you, a nursing home, in those days, was not the best. I still see that nursing home. Everything was painted dark brown. The woodwork was dark brown, and in the hallways, they had what we called a cuspidor, because so many of the men used to chew tobacco, (laughs) and they needed a place to spit it. So, they had these cuspidors in the hallway. And actually, that's all I remember about the nursing home: having a visit with zeyde and then leaving to drive back to Utica. We might sometimes go downtown in Syracuse and have a bite to eat. And that was our Sunday outing, visiting zeyde. My mother's mother, on the other 28:00hand, had lived with us a very short time. She lived with my aunt and uncle, and that wasn't working out. And then, she ended up in the very first Jewish nursing home in Utica. So, she was there a short time, and then she passed away.

IM:Growing up, was there a particular political atmosphere in your household?

ACS:There was. There was, and you probably --

IM:Could you tell me more about that?

ACS:-- know, I have written the story in my book, "The Olive Tree," called "Election Day." And I get so disgusted. I believe there's an election tomorrow in Fort Lauderdale for something or other. Somebody told me about it. It has gotten to the point where my husband and I both are just so disenchanted with the whole political system that I will shamedly tell you that I only vote for 29:00what I consider important elections: the president, the governor, and so forth. But we just don't even bother to go to these other elections. My parents, on the other hand, were so proud to be citizens of the United States, and Election Day was such a big event. The schools were closed, offices were closed. We would go, my big brother and I, down to the election booth, which was somebody's garage. And I still remember it, way back on Auburn Avenue, it was a few blocks from us. And my brother and I would stand outside, and they had tons, tons -- the size of a business card. They were called election cards. Everybody running for office had election cards. And there were people there passing them out. Vote for this 30:00one, vote for that one. And it was such a big day in our lives. We knew how important it was to our parents. After that, the big treat was taking the bus downtown. In those days, I think I was young enough to remember the trolleys in Utica, and we would take a trolley car down. And then, we would have lunch, kosher rules permitting. Certain things you could eat and certain things you couldn't eat, in a wonderful restaurant called The Home Dairy down in Utica. So, we just remembered how special Election Day was. And that night, sitting at the dinner table, we would listen. We didn't take part in discussions. We would listen to my parents discussing who was winning, who would win, who would not win, and all their feelings about politics. It was a special day.

IM:Did your family subscribe to any publications, such as newspapers or magazines at all?

ACS:Not that I remember. My dad would buy the daily paper on his way to our store. And, of course, that's a story on its own, the store that my parents had for about thirty-seven years, I believe. There was a newsstand on the corner of Columbia Street and Genesee Street. And there was this lady and a man in the ice cold, and I do mean ice cold, freezing weather in the wintertime. But dad would always stop and buy the daily newspaper. And in those days, there was the morning paper, the "Utica Daily Press," and there was the evening paper, the 32:00"Utica Observer-Dispatch." Both papers. And my dad would buy the paper every day. My parents would read the paper every night. I don't think we subscribed to any magazines that I recall. Just the daily papers. And they didn't subscribe to them. They just bought them from a newsstand. I don't think there's any such thing as newsstands nowadays, are there? Isn't there a Broadway show that has to do with the newsstands? The newsboys.

IM:"Newsies," actually.

ACS:"Newsies." Standing on the corner, selling their papers. Yes, that was a day of its own.

IM:Was there Jewish music in your home?

ACS:Not actually Jewish music. We do a lot more of that nowadays. But there was the chanting that I so clearly remember of my father, as he chanted the Friday 33:00night -- Friday night, we always had the challah, the big twisted loaf, and the wine. And my dad would always make Kiddush. And, as I said earlier, he had this beautiful voice, and he could just -- we used to call it davening. He could daven up a storm. But on Friday nights, it was just the prayer for the wine and the prayer for the challah that he did. And, of course, my mother's cooking was really something to remember. We never had meat Friday night. Now I know it's almost a law, but not quite. It's a tradition to have meat, at least chicken or some other meat, on Friday night or on Saturday, or both. But my husband and I, we're not vegetarians, but we do a lot of vegetarian eating. And even though we 34:00observe the Sabbath, I don't consider it a real rule to have to have meat. I hope not. I hope I don't get punished in whatever is to come. (laughs)

IM:Getting back to your mother's cooking, did you have any favorite dishes?

ACS:I not only had favorite dishes -- 'course, I loved to eat. I still do. (laughs) And we were very strong advocates of my mother's cooking. So, anything she made was good. But what I remember is so many recipes that she made, we would call it "from scratch." There was no such thing as going to the store and buying a bottle of borscht, which I do (laughs) periodically. She made that borscht, that beet soup, from scratch. She would stand at the kitchen sink, peeling those beets, and her hands would be the color of beets for the following 35:00week when she did that. She would make chopped herring from the actual herrings. I could still see her chopping the herring and making a beautiful chopped herring. She would make, mostly for the holiday of Passover, the fish that we called gefilte fish. And it was all made from scratch. I can still hear her calling Peshke, the fish man. It was a fish market. Just like a meat market, there was a fish market, and she would order certain kinds of fish to make the gefilte fish recipe. But she only did it for Passover. And I haven't done it ever. I know how to buy the jars, and there's a little quick recipe that my mother discovered, actually, after we were married, in much later years. You would take the -- I don't know what you would call it, the juice -- it's got 36:00another name -- that comes in the jar of fish. You would take that and cut up lots of carrots and boil the carrots in that broth -- I guess you would say it was a broth. And then, it would gel, and then pour it over the fish. So, it would taste a little bit like homemade, but not quite. So, she made those things, she made chicken. She would make chopped -- and I can't remember the name of it now. You would chop up the white breasts of the chicken and make it into chicken croquettes. That's what it was called. And she made it for Passover. And she made so many other things that were so good that I can't recall at the moment. She would make blintzes, cheese blintzes. I know how to buy the box. (laughs) And put 'em in a pan and not let them burn. But my mother would make those from scratch, where you had to take the scrambled egg, 37:00carefully put it in a large frying pan and let it go around into a very, very, very thin batter. And she knew how to pick up that, into this round thing, and then roll it with the ingredients to make the cheese blintzes. Everything was done from scratch. It was amazing. She was an amazing cook. And nothing was too difficult.

IM:Growing up, your family was a member of Temple Beth El, a Conservative synagogue, as well as House of Jacob, an Orthodox congregation. You refer to this as Conservadox. What does this mean?

ACS:I think it's a joke that people picked up nowadays, and I use it. I say I'm Conservadox. I keep the laws of a kosher home. I partially, when I eat out -- I 38:00never eat meat or chicken or fish or anything that's been cooked. I eat fresh salads. Our younger son, Howard, who is strictly Orthodox, would not -- and he and his wife, our daughter-in-law, Rhea, would not eat in any restaurant unless it's certified strictly kosher. So, in that respect, I am Conservadox. Another respect would involve going to synagogue. We do drive on the Sabbath. We used to be able to walk, but in order to do that now, we would have to move. And when you get very comfortable where you are, you don't really want to move. So, we do drive on the Sabbath. We try not to drive on the High Holy Days, which -- there 39:00are those people who would laugh about that, because they say the Sabbath is the most religious day of the week and of the year. The Sabbath is it. But in tradition with what my parents did, we always walked on the High Holy Days. We walked to synagogues. And where we were living, in Utica, you could walk. It was a trip, but you could make the walk.

IM:What did your synagogues look like or smell like? Do you have any stories or memories?

ACS:Well, I remember when I was a very little girl, as a matter of fact, going with my aunt, whose name was Aurelia. She was our aunt Aurelia. She was my mother's sister. And during one of the High Holy Days, my kid brother was born, and my mother was in the hospital. And I remember that holy day, where I stayed 40:00with my aunt, who was not married at the time. I believe she and my uncle were both single, and they had an apartment with my grandmother. I remember staying there and walking to this old synagogue that was in downtown Utica. Many, many people still lived in that area. I think my mom used to call it the Whitesboro Street area. And there were several synagogues there that were formed when the Jews came from Europe, long before my parents had come. And I particularly remember one synagogue that had a double stairway on the outside. There was a stairway here and a stairway there. And, of course, something in the middle, part of the building. And I remember walking up one of those stairways into this holiest of holies. I was only there one time, I believe. But another synagogue, 41:00where I have vivid memories, is the Miller Street Synagogue. And that's the one -- I remember walking to that synagogue, once we lived on Leslie Avenue, which was a bit of a hike, to go to what was called the Miller Street shul. I remember that shul, where there was a balcony. You went up just a little stairway, and there was a balcony where the women sat. And then, I could see my dad down below on the main floor of that synagogue. And I think I write about that, too, in my book. I could still see my father standing there with his tallis, with the kippah [pronounced with short "i" sound], the kippah [pronounced with long "i" sound], the little round yarmulke. And I still see him to this day, davening there. I can't talk about it.

IM:I understand. Thank you, though, for sharing that. I know you sang in a mixed choir while growing up. Would you like to talk about that at all?

ACS:Yes, I would. In that respect, you could also call me Conservadox. The big difference with the Orthodox or the Conservative temples in those days, and I believe the only difference, was that in the Conservative temple, the men and women sat together, whereas in the Orthodox, the women sat apart from the men. But the Conservative temple in Utica, Temple Beth El, was this magnificent structure. It was, I believe, four stories high. The bottom was the basement, 43:00and then there was the first floor where you came in from the street. And then, the second floor, and then there was another floor above that. It was a beautiful, beautiful structure. And aside from being the Conservative temple, it was the community center, where everybody gathered. There was no community center, no separate buildings. So, Beth El had taken upon themselves to have this as the community center. And all of the children gathered there. There were different groups of -- teenage groups, I belonged to a teenage sorority, because in those days, the Jewish people weren't allowed into gentile sororities, gentile country clubs, and all of those things. So, we had this wonderful Jewish 44:00sorority. I wish I brought the picture today, but I didn't. It's hanging on the wall. And, I used to go to other activities there. They had a group called Young Judea. And one day, I believe I was twelve years old at the time, possibly eleven, the cantor of Beth El came over to me. He probably knew who I was. He knew our family. But I did not know who he was. And in this big, booming voice, he came over to me. He said, "Ah, you sing?" I said, "I think so. But I play the piano." And he then said, "You play the piano? You come to my choir. You sing alto." Because he felt that if I could read music, I could sing the alto part, whereas most of the sopranos just sang by ear. They didn't read music. And so, I joined that choir from the time I was eleven or twelve, and all the way through 45:00high school. And then, after living in Rochester, when Harry and I were married, we would come to Utica for all the High Holy Days to be with my parents on Leslie Avenue, and the families all gathered. And Harry and I would both sing in that choir for quite a few years. It was a wonderful, wonderful experience. And I don't think people realize how magnificent that cantor was. I don't know if he had come from Vienna, Austria. He and his wife had come over after the Holocaust and made a life for themselves, and they had two daughters. And his name was Cantor Paul Niederland. His wife, whose name was Fannie, accompanied him for all of the circumcisions that they did. Both our sons were circumcised by Cantor 46:00Niederland. And his wife assisted him. She would hold the baby afterwards, and just do wonderful things for that child. They were a wonderful couple.

IM:I would like to hear more about the choir that you sang in as a child. Who did you sing with?

ACS:Oh, we -- it was a fun group, even though the cantor was very strict, he really was. You didn't monkey around. But somehow, there were some men in the choir who thought everything was funny. And they would laugh at times. But I sang alto, as I said, with several other ladies. I think one of my friends who was my same age sang, also. Her name was Jacquelyn Goldbass, and her mother sang 47:00in the choir. But her mother was soprano, and I believe that Jackie sang alto with me. The choir, in all, had possibly twenty people. And how I wish I had brought that picture today. It might be in the book, though. I think it's in my book, "The Olive Tree," yes. Some of the men, some of them had beautiful voices. Just very natural bass. Manny Mansky was one, and Jake Nussbaum. He had this big bass voice. And, of course, my husband sang tenor when we both sang in the choir. But, of course, in my younger days, Harry wasn't around yet. That came later. And once a year, the cantor and Mrs. Niederland would have a big party for the choir. We would all come. Ironically, I remember something happening not 48:00too many years ago. Two of the men in the choir constantly kibitzed with one another, and who had the better voice and so forth. They were always trying to outshine the other. I hope I can think of their names. Moss Marx was one. I believe he and his wife were from London. He had this huge British accent, and he was a very tall man. Moss, and Albert Merman was the other one. Albert also had come over from Europe, I'm pretty sure. Also, he had a strong accent, and he had a watch repair shop, downtown Utica. I'm not sure what Moss did, what business he was in. I think he and his wife had a business in Utica. But Moss 49:00and Albert acted as though they were archenemies over singing. But in reality, they were real buddies. One of them passed away, and I believe it was Albert who died first. I'm not sure. And the temple was crowded with the funeral. The funeral service was in Beth El. And right after Albert's funeral, Moss Marx dropped dead. And I believe he was at the temple at that time. It was totally horrendous. And you couldn't help but joke about it, because Albert went and he might have said to Moss, "Well, I'm not doing this alone. Come on." (laughs) But it was one of those stories that happened. I remember Manny Mansky, whom we 50:00loved. He was such a lovable guy. So sweet. And he died, I believe immediately after one of the High Holy Days. We heard that he died that night. It was horrendous. Sammy Neuman was another one who sang in the choir and died right immediately after one of the High Holy Days. Had sung in the choir and came home and that was it. It was really strange how those things happened. But we don't know. How do we know? We know nothing. (laughs)

IM:So, I'd like to talk about your community and neighborhood. You grew up in Utica, New York during the 1940s and '50s. Was there a specific Jewish section of town?

ACS:There was not really a Jewish section of town. We lived in South Utica. I 51:00almost forgot the name. South Utica. My aunt Aurelia, and uncle Richard, lived in Cornhill. And a lot of Jewish people lived in Cornhill, in these two-family homes. There weren't any one-family homes, bungalows like we had moved to in Utica, in South Utica. But when I think back to where my parents had their store, at 308 Columbia Street in Utica, I would say that at least seventy to eighty percent of the merchants who had businesses on Columbia Street -- that that block, the three hundred block of Columbia Street, had mostly Jewish merchants, and --

IM:Can you describe the street?

ACS:It was just vivid with stores. Both sides of the street had sidewalks. You 52:00could go from one end of Utica to the other, and you had sidewalks. You didn't have to worry about the roadways so much. So, Columbia Street had sidewalks all the way up and down, and the three hundred block -- as I said, both sides of the street were vivid with stores owned by Jewish merchants. Ironically, my parents' store had, on one side, [Korack's?] fruits and vegetables. Big market. And, 'course, they were not Jewish. I believe they were Syrian. And then, on the other side was Morehouse Appliances. And my dad was so friendly with Henry Morehouse, who was a young man at that time, much younger than my dad. I believe Henry Morehouse just died recently, during the past few years. So, my dad's 53:00store had a vestibule where you'd walk in. And on the right and the left side were these big windows, where my dad could walk into the window area and decorate the windows with all of his different things. And he would do that every few weeks. And it was a big day when daddy was decorating the window. (laughs) He did it during different seasons. If any of the sectarian holidays were coming up -- Mother's Day, Father's Day -- because he had many gift items, also, aside from being able to decorate one's home. And at Christmastime, he used to do vivid Christmas windows. Both of those windows were decorated with all kinds of things for the Christmas holidays. And one day, when he was doing 54:00that, I said, "Daddy! How can you do that? We're so Jewish. How can you be doing these Christmas windows?" And he said, "Honey, that's my business: dealing with all people of all kinds, and it's their holiday. So, I cater to that." So --

IM:When -- sorry.

ACS:-- that always struck me.

IM:What sort of store did your father own?

ACS:It was actually curtains and draperies, they used to call it. It was named Irwin's Home Decorators. Irwin's was my big brother's middle name. I'm not sure how he was named Irwin. I never did find out about that. It might have been a great-uncle. An uncle of my mother's. And they did not dare to name the store Cohen's in those days. Even the past twenty, twenty-five years -- when I came to 55:00this coast of Florida, and I saw Cohen's this and Cohen's that and Cohen's lawyers, I said, Wow. Because even in Sarasota, you didn't do that yet. And that never would have happened. Ironically -- it's funny, the things you remember, because the store was exquisite, it really and truly was. They used to call it Central New York's largest curtain and drapery store. But, of course, they had bedspreads, towels, little guest towels that I still have. All kinds of gift items you could buy in a box. For $1.98 or 2.98, two decorative pillowcases with embroidery on it. They sold a lot of embroidered goods, tablecloths that I still have, things that they called Madeira linens that were just beautiful. But, of 56:00course, they had to be ironed. (laughs) I don't know what we do nowadays. They had all kinds of beautiful things, and the store was exquisite. It's funny, I think I started to say that the bad things you can remember. Practically on the first day that that store opened, and my parents were there -- I think I was there at the time -- a woman walked in and naturally, thinking she was a customer, potential customer. And she walked around with her face going like this and said, "My, this place smells Jewish." Can you imagine that? These are things that you remember forever. Just a slap in the face. And as I said, most of the merchants in that block of Columbia Street were Jewish merchants. I 57:00remember Davey Stone had a store right across the street from our store. And he sold -- I guess we would call it now arts and crafts things. Handmade, and all kinds of decorative items. Tea sets and novelty items that you would have. He was there for quite a few years. Down the street were two paint companies. We were just reminiscing about those the other day. We were meeting with cousins from Utica who remembered. One was called the [Shepherd?] Paint Company and it was like -- what would be one of the big stores now? Is it called Sherwin or Sherwood Paints?

IM:Sherwin-Williams is that --

ACS:Sherwin-Williams, thank you very much. (laughs) Sherwin-Williams Paints. This was Shepherd Paints. Same type of store. And then, there was another store 58:00near that one that sold paints. And kitty-corner across the street from our store was the Utica Paint Company. So, there were those stores. There was a store called Simon's Furniture Store just a few doors from my parents' store. And there were other Jewish stores. Oh, there was Austin's Department Store two doors from us, down next to Morehouse. And they sold little novelty items. It was like a five-and-dime store. And speaking of five-and-dime stores, I remember Woolworth's on Genesee Street in Utica, the most wonderful store. They've only been out, what, maybe fifteen years, I think? Woolworth's were all over the country. I have a story about that, too, but I don't think it's in my book. (laughs) It might be, it might be. When I sold pianos in the window of Woolworth's. I don't think that's in there. I wrote another story about that.

IM:I'd love to hear it. (laughs)

ACS:Oh God. (laughter) It's a funny story. Actually, I wrote it right after that happened, and I sent it to a few magazines, but it's never been published. Maybe it will be after somebody sees this, I don't know. Actually, that story is called "The Lonely Ones." I saw an ad in the paper, in the classified, and I thought, Well, maybe I could do that, to sell organs for Woolworth's. So, I applied for the job and they put me in the window, playing an electric piano. It was a combination organ/piano. Here I was in the window of Woolworth's, and I was so embarrassed. I thought, What if somebody goes by and they know me? They know I'm a music teacher in the system, and here I am in the window of 60:00Woolworth's, playing the piano. It was really something. But what I learned from that experience was because -- before they put me in the window -- it was either before or after, they put me in the middle of the store to draw attention, and maybe someone would buy one of these pianos. And the people who came over to me were the loneliest people in the world that I had ever met. And I describe them in this story. I talk about one woman who came to Woolworth's every day that I was there. Every single day. She was all dressed up, wore high heels, wore a hat, had a lovely outfit, and she would just walk around Woolworth's. And then, she'd leave, and she'd come again the next day. And, of course, she came over to the piano. There was another man who would come, and he would say to me, "Play a 61:00song that I can sing. Play me a song!" So, I would ask him what he wanted, and then I would play something for him. And it turns out that this man had a room in a boarding house, and also came every day to Woolworth's, just for the company, to talk to people. There was another woman who was very slow, retarded, and she came and wanted to buy one of the pianos. And at that time, I don't recall, it was either for her dog or for her cat. Nowadays, that would be very common, (laughs) when I see how some people act with their pets, no offense. I 62:00don't know to whom I'm speaking. But we have quite a few of those people where we're living that really regard their cat or their dog as their child. We had a dog when our kids were growing up. That's a different story. But I certainly didn't regard that dog as our children. But this lady came and she wanted to buy one for her dog or cat, and she started singing for me the way one of the animals would sound. And she just wasn't quite with it. So, I realized, in having this job at Woolworth's, that all those people came. I may have sold one piano during all that time. But they were truly the lonely ones. And people who ran Woolworth's should have known that. There should still be a Woolworth's around. It was the most wonderful store to just go in and do things. I used to 63:00go with my mom every week. They had a counter where you could sit at the counter and order food. And we would always get an ice cream sundae that was probably thirty-nine cents in those days. (laughs) It was just wonderful. And my mom would buy candy. They had these huge -- semi-open, with a clerk on one side. Of course, they were covered with glass on the other side. And my mom would buy a pound of bridge mix, a pound of these nuts, a pound of something else. And we always had candy dishes in the living room, but we didn't touch them. Nowadays, I find it hard to have it in the house (laughs) and not partake. But Woolworth's was just a wonderful place.

IM:Can you tell me more about the neighborhood of Leslie Avenue?

ACS:Yes. Leslie Avenue, aside from telling you about the house on Leslie -- 64:00Leslie Avenue was a marvelous neighborhood. But during the winter, we wouldn't see any of the neighbors, pretty much not. Everybody couldn't wait to drive into their own driveway or walk to their own house and shut the door and be nice and warm and snug. But in the springtime, we all had porches. I don't know if anybody knows what a porch is nowadays. I guess you might call it a balcony. In the early days of spring, my parents would go down the cellar, get the glider out. We had a huge glider. They would carry it themselves up those maybe three steps to the porch. They would set up the glider, unroll the old straw rug, and 65:00put the chairs out. And out there, my mother would sit doing her knitting and crocheting in the nice weather. And we would sit out there. I would have a couple of girlfriends, and we would sit out and play with our paper dolls. You could buy a whole booklet of paper dolls, cut them out, cut out the clothing that they were supposed to wear, and just sit doing that. There was one couple who lived two doors from us, and I do write about them in my book. Their names were Harriet and Mack. Their last name was McGrath. They had no children, and I remember the day they moved in we went up to them, and all the other children in the neighborhood went over. And the first thing we asked was, Do you have any children? And the answer was, No, we have no children. But we'd like to meet all of you. Harriet and Mack, during the nice weather, would allow us, finally, to 66:00sit on one step. First, you had to just go up and speak to them standing in the driveway, and they'd be on their porch. And then, after a while, we would say we had graduated, and it was a real graduation when you could actually go up on the porch and sit in one of their chairs and converse with them. And I don't honestly recall that that happened until Harry and I were married and used to come and visit with our own children. But on Halloween, they would make candied apples and all the kids would ring their bell. They were wonderful. The people who lived next door to us were totally opposite. Very unfriendly. I think my parents and we just dealt with them when we had to. They would shovel their snow right up on our windows in the wintertime. Very unfriendly couple. But Harriet and Mack made up for it. We had a family to the left of us, the Bergmeyer 67:00family. They came from Germany after the war, and we finally did develop a wonderful friendship with them. And to this day, we correspond with two of their daughters, Barbara and Kris. Kris became a nun and has been over in South America for forty years, I guess, or more. She has since retired, and we developed beautiful friendships with the Bergmeyer family. But it took time, because when they moved in, they were very leery of Jewish people living next door to them. And we, in turn, were very leery of people who had come over from Germany living next door to us. But we did work on those friendships and they became beautiful, beautiful friendships. We were friendly with the Dingledines, and that was their real name. (laughs) Dingledine. They lived across the street 68:00from us. Shirley and Joanie. And during the Christmas season, I would be invited over there to look at their Christmas tree. And, of course, I was in awe of it, even though I was very comfortable being where I was with my mom and dad and our family and being Jewish. But it was nice to see that. And to this day, we somehow relate, correspond with Joanie, the younger sister, who comes down here in the wintertime and up in Utica, and in, I believe, in Old Forge, in the summertime. So, we had that friendship. But also, in the summertime, all the kids -- we called them the kids, on the block, would come out of their homes. And we would have anywheres from a dozen to fifteen children, and we would play hide and seek. And what's that expression we used? Olly-olly in free. (laughs) 69:00I'm not sure what that meant. I think if you got back and could touch the tree trunk, you made it. One person, myself included, he had to stand at that tree trunk, close your eyes, count to a hundred and then go looking for all the other children. Then, there was another family kitty-corner from us. They lived straight across from the McGraths, and their name was Morath, Mr. and Mrs. Morath. She was, I would have called it now, very -- I can't think of the word, but she didn't even come home until weekends. She taught in another city, I'm not sure where it was. Owego or Oswego, one of those cities. Oneonta, I think it was. And she came home weekends. Every Friday afternoon, you could see her walking up the walk. And Mr. and Mrs. Morath invited me over one time to play 70:00the piano for them. They had a big old upright piano, and they served tea and cookies. I remember that as a special day. To be invited into their home was really something. And even when we played with other children, we did not go into one another's homes. We would go -- if somebody wanted me to come out and play, go to the back door. We never used the front door. Go to the back door, knock on the door. "Can Arlene come out and play?" And then, that's what we did. We rarely went into another home. As I said, I went into the Dingledine's home to see the Christmas tree. That was it. But there was more of a formality, and of children -- if they weren't well-behaved, they paid for it. I have that story in my book about the Butler boys knocking over the cans of ashes, (laughs) and my dad chasing them around the block. And once he caught them, they never did 71:00that again. But life was very organized, very polite, and children didn't grow up knowing certain things. Now, children know way too much. And now I sound like an old fogey. Well, I'm not young. I'm entitled to sound like an old fogey.

IM:Growing up, did you ever attend Jewish films, theater, concerts, or other cultural events?

ACS:Not Jewish. I don't think there were many Jewish events like that. But we did -- I mean, we were always in temple, doing things like that, but not events. The only events, we put on ourselves. Temple Beth El put on two cantatas. The cantor did that, Cantor Niederland. He had two wonderful cantatas, and in one of 72:00them, I played the piano and the flute. I'm not sure if the choir sang in those cantatas. I don't think we did. But more than that, the events that I went to were concerts. I was probably eleven years old when my dad would drive me over to the concerts of Utica Civic Orchestra. I still have those programs. They're stacked up in the apartment. And he would know what time the concert was over and he would pick me up and bring me home. It was at the other end of the city. It was in Proctor High School. And we could get tickets. The tickets were either twenty-five or fifty cents, to go to these wonderful concerts. And then, in later years, Roland Chesley, who was a wonderful entrepreneur, wonderful man dedicated to the arts in Utica, he sponsored concerts of famous people. And I 73:00have many of those programs. And then, there were shows at the Stanley Theater, where I used to go by myself, usually on a Saturday afternoon. My parents were working in the store, and I probably went to temple in the morning, and then would go to the movies Saturday afternoon at the Stanley Theater. We would see a full-length movie after seeing a full-length floorshow. And I saw some of the world's famous, famous people there. I saw Louis Armstrong at that theater. I saw Lionel Hampton playing. I saw Carmen Miranda. You know who Carmen Miranda was? She used to come out dancing and she always used to have a huge bowl of 74:00fruit on her head. And, of course, it never fell off. I'm sure there was a gimmick to it. But that was Carmen Miranda. We saw just some of the world's greatest artists. In later years, we saw artists that are still around. I saw Itzhak Perlman there, I saw Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, concert pianists, all at the Stanley Theater. And now, from what I hear, they're fighting to survive. They made it into another type of situation there where they could have various things, and it was doing beautifully. But now, I think they're hurting. They were even having weddings there. The last time I was in Utica, there was a wedding taking place in the lobby of the Stanley Theater. Just wonderful.

IM:Could you tell me more about your membership in the organization Young Judea?

ACS:Sure. At the time I was experiencing it, I don't think I knew what it was, and I'm still not sure of Young Judea, but it was a youth group. But it was connected with a bigger group. I know Councilettes, which I have a picture of with me, was the junior group of the Jewish Council, Council of Jewish Women. But Young Judea, I think it may have been part of the American Zionist Organization. And at that time, I wasn't even sure what a Zionist was. But Young Judea used to be made up of young people, teenagers. We would go to the temple every Friday night, and in those days the entire sanctuary was full. Several 76:00hundred people, every Friday night, observing the Sabbath in one way or another. And after services, Young Judea would congregate in the hallway of Temple Beth El, on that level. That must have been the second floor, where the sanctuary was. And we would learn Hebrew dancing. They used to have somebody a little bit older than us, probably twenty years old, who would teach us some of the Hebrew dances. So, what I remember is a lot of dancing, a lot of talking, a lot of singing. Maybe singing some of the Hebrew songs that were popular at that time, and just having a wonderful, wonderful time with all Jewish young people.

IM:Looking back on your childhood, what values or practices do you think your 77:00parents were trying to pass on to you?

ACS:You really want me to cry, don't you? (laughs) Well, I could say in a practical sense the idea of keeping a kosher home. To me, that's been so important all these years. I have a word for it and I can't think of it at the moment. It's really an exercise in strength, just keeping strong, doing this according to tradition. And I have more people say to me -- I can think of maybe one couple that we are friends with who keep kosher, and none of the others do. And they'll always say, Oh, it's such a bother, and it's so hard, and it's so expensive. I've always maintained I could keep kosher on a desert island, 78:00because, as I said, I don't use a lot of meat. I wouldn't have to worry about getting kosher meat. Fruits and vegetables. But I do two separate sets of dishes, two separate sets of silverware, and this is for everyday use. If I have company and you're using your good dishes, I have two more sets of dishes that I use, as we say, for nice, two sets of silverware, and two sets of pots and pans. Dairy set and meat set, so -- all in separate cupboards. For Passover, I have all separate dishes and pots and pans, same way, but for the Passover holiday. But to me, being organized, it's no problem at all to keep kosher. And it adds strength to my whole being. So, keeping kosher was very important. 79:00Traditionally, the importance of family, of keeping the family structure together. And it's with that in mind that I can easily cry nowadays, because it's so difficult to keep families together. We went off and left, and I remember writing that story. My parents were so disheartened the day we left and moved to Florida. I still see them standing in the doorway. They did move down later, and that was good. And some of our other relatives moved. And we still get together, either verbally, telephone, or writing, or in person if we're so lucky, with dozens, as I said earlier, dozens of cousins. So, family was very important. The holidays were very, very important to us, and that's why I've 80:00written about those: the holidays of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year's, of Yom Kippur, a very stringent holiday. Holy day. Most important holy day of the year. Passover, Purim. Purim is coming up now. I remember dancing around in the Masonic temple when I was a little girl, and my mother belonged to a Jewish chapter of the Eastern Star, Order of the Eastern Star. In those days, Jewish people weren't allowed to join any of those gentile organizations. So, many Jewish chapters evolved with that. So, the holidays were extremely, extremely important. Holidays, tradition, keeping kosher, keeping with family. I don't know, you may be thinking of one I've forgotten. (laughs)

IM:So far, we've been talking about the early parts of your life. Can you give me a snapshot of your life today? Just like, to know about your career and where you live and that sort of thing today.

ACS:Right, right. Well, my career has evolved in a unique way through all these years. I've always done strictly my music, and then in the past twenty years with my writing. I've done both. But music has played a very, very important role in my life. I have a picture that I put in a frame. It's on my second piano. I have two pianos. And I cut that out one day, years ago, when I was teaching, when we lived in Sarasota. And I thought, What a good lesson this is for young people. The ad shows a Yamaha grand piano with a little girl sitting 82:00at the foot of the piano. And, if I can remember what it says -- "Long after the toys of childhood are gone, the gift of music remains." To me, this is so important. Most of our friends now, during the past fifteen years are and have been musicians. And we play together. At this moment, I still play with a marvelous cellist. He's a graduate of Julliard in New York. Allen McGill is his name, and he gets the sweetest sound from the cello. He and I perform. On February 26th, we'll be in Sarasota performing at one of these places of 83:00independent living, and we've invited friends and family to come to that. Also, my husband and I, my husband Harry, have been singing together for almost fifty-six years. (laughter) That will be fifty-six next week, our anniversary. So, I've always referred to Harry as a tenor baritone. He still has the most gorgeous voice, and we do programs together. I stopped teaching when we moved from Sarasota to Fort Lauderdale area. I said, I can't do that anymore. (laughs) Just didn't want to teach anymore. So, it's all performing these past years. When I graduated Eastman, I was teaching in a public school in Rochester. I 84:00taught, I believe, second grade, possibly first grade through seventh grade. And then, I taught handicapped children. Little did I know that that would become one of the stories of our own personal lives. One of the reasons I find it very difficult to function the past few years concerns our daughter. And I have said many times, thank God for my music. It's really my therapy. And when I see our younger son perform, it's my therapy. He's a wonderful professional musician. So, our daughter passed away a year ago, last January 24th, and she did have a difficult life. Fortunately, she had two beautiful children. So, two of our grandchildren -- Shoshanna is twenty, almost twenty-one, and Moshe is eighteen, 85:00almost nineteen. And our older son, who lives way out west, has two beautiful children, our beautiful Jessica and her brother, David. So, in between all of the hardships that we have had and still endure, we thank God for our blessings every moment. But it's not easy. So, I guess you would say this has been our life these past few years. Life was wonderful when we had the three children and my parents were alive and we had moved back to Utica. So, life was good during those years. But then, it became rapidly more difficult. And I think my dad always used to say, Nobody is excused in this life. We all get something, sooner or later. My dad always used to say, also -- he had a beautiful Yiddish saying, 86:00"Mentsh trakht, un got lakht." "Man plans and God laughs." And how true that is. (laughs)

IM:I'd like to talk about your move from New York to Florida. How, if at all, did your Jewish identity change after leaving your parents' home and after leaving New York?

ACS:Well, it was definitely a sad day when we left Utica. That's why I say in my story, I can still picture my mother and my father standing in the doorway. And it was also a pending blizzard that day. It was in November, beginning of November. I believe we left November 2nd of 1973. My husband wanted to move to a tropical climate, although he had been a car salesman for seventeen years. He 87:00had gone into another business, and nobody told him that these chemicals freeze up in the wintertime. So, there we were, and leaving what had been the richest days, the richest few years, when we had lived in Utica. It was very, very difficult to move to Florida. Not a happy time. And when we moved, we had no means -- well, we had the means of making a living, but we didn't have anything doing at that time. I literally went door to door with my carton of music supplies, seeing where I could teach music. And I ended up teaching for the vocational school in Sarasota. But I had to go, still, door to door and develop 88:00each class. And then, I would be paid per person by the vocational school. My husband, on the other hand, pursued this business that he had started in Utica. So, life was pretty difficult, but we were very determined. I don't think our children were particularly happy. I think probably our older son was the most unhappy of all. But we made it work. We just made it work. We bought a four-bedroom townhouse. And ironically, we bought it from a Jewish couple at that time, in Sarasota, who just happened to be Jewish and didn't tell us what they had been going through. But it turns out there was a very anti-Semitic family living very close to us in a townhouse, and they made our lives totally 89:00miserable. Totally miserable. That's a story in itself. But we got over that, too, and we lived in that townhouse for seven years. And then, we bought a little lot and we built a home for ourselves on Brink Avenue. And we were there, oh, how long were we there? Maybe, let's see, from 1978 to 1980. No, that doesn't sound right. Anyways, we lived there for a few years, (laughs) and sold that and moved to this coast, because I was not happy with Jewish life in Sarasota at all. I was not happy with the temple there --

IM:Can you tell me why?

ACS:Well, first of all, to this day, you cannot go into a kosher market in Sarasota. There's no such thing. And this coast has lots of kosher markets. Or, 90:00even if they're not kosher, I can go to Winn-Dixie and get what's called a glatt kosher section there where I can buy lots of kosher things. Anything you want, any time. So, that was one thing. And then, the temple -- I felt was becoming less Conservative and more Reform. And in those years, I didn't like that. There was no Orthodox synagogue in Sarasota. And therefore, Arlene with her determination found out about the Lubavitch movement, was sent up to New York. I met a wonderful Lubavitch rabbi. He came over from Tampa, Rabbi Lazer Rifkin. I have his picture in the book, too, with his family. And at that point, I began to cry, right in front of him. (laughs) And he helped us start what is actually 91:00an Orthodox synagogue. It's the Lubavitch synagogue in Sarasota, which is there to this day. But in spite of there being the Orthodox synagogue, there's still no kosher facilities, and most of the people over there are not interested in traditional Judaism. But I must say that Rabbi Steinmetz has made great headway all of these years, much better than when he came, which was probably fifteen or seventeen years ago, when he came, although --

IM:Are --

ACS:-- we started the Lubavitch synagogue there, but then it sort of floundered.

IM:I'm sorry to interject, I'm just -- I have a question.

ACS:Yes.

IM:How did these difficulties shape your sense of Jewishness?

ACS:Well, ironically, I feel there are very, very few things that I do now more traditionally that I didn't do then. I am what I am. I really -- I'm the same person that I was all those years. When I was growing up, I loved tradition, which is why I loved what we had with our family. And in my married years, when I met Harry, I was already going in Rochester, New York, where I was teaching. I went to an Orthodox synagogue there. I've always loved tradition. In Sarasota, I felt as though people laughed at me for what I was and what I presented. Here, even though we have many friends who are not observant in any way, I think they 93:00respect us for what we do, and I think more than a couple of our friends have learned things that we do, that I'm actually the one that they consult. But I'm far from being Orthodox. I do things that I shouldn't be doing. But in Sarasota, the word around was that, Oh, she's so Orthodox, (laughter) and saying it in the tone of voice that -- I got up one morning and I said to Harry, I said, "I don't know what you're doing, but I'm moving to the other coast." And at that point, we made arrangements to move. And my poor husband went back and forth for quite a few years. He still had the business in Sarasota. Every once in a while, I 94:00would take a Greyhound bus over there and then he would drive over here, so that every couple of weeks we were definitely in touch. And finally, he sold his building over there and was able to come here. But there were quite a few years when we went back and forth, and I was in seventh heaven here, in the apartment, in my Jewish world where I could take it or leave it. And that's not to say that -- all these years, I've had many friends who are in the gentile world, and we get along just fine. But when I want to observe, I have the means to do it here. And there, unfortunately, to this day -- it really doesn't exist.

IM:Can you tell me briefly about the Jewish community that you're involved in on this --

ACS:Here?

IM:-- side of Florida?

ACS:Well, it's very interesting, (laughs) because when we moved here in 1990, we 95:00bought an apartment on McNab Road, and no more than a block away was this little old-fashioned Orthodox synagogue. It was wonderful. Rabbi Snyder was the rabbi, and I could actually walk. When I felt like walking, I could walk to the synagogue. It was great. When we made the final move here, we bought a second apartment in the same building, and our son moved over with us. He wasn't married at the time. Our younger son, Howard. Louie was still doing his own thing in Sarasota. But Howard moved over and he was in the downstairs apartment, which also held my music room. I had the living room and dining area for my pianos and all of my music. So, we would go up and down. The apartment where we 96:00lived was the third floor, and this other apartment was on the third -- on the first floor. So, I was constantly up and down, which was fine. And then, that synagogue closed, after we made another move. We have moved to three different places in Tamarac. We moved to Kings Point in Granville. And I found there that the apartment just wasn't big enough for all of my furniture, which I still have. So, we were only there a few years. But the good thing of having moved to Granville was when we met Allen and Lila McGill. He's the cellist, and we have a wonderful relationship with the two of them. So, we met quite by accident, and we have performed together ever since. Then, we moved where we are now, which is a much larger apartment, our upstairs walkup. But a beautiful large apartment, 97:00and that has everything that we need. And even in that apartment, I could walk to the synagogue, on McNab Road. When that closed up, we were left high and dry. Where to go, what to do? And since that time, a few people from the synagogue moved into a Conservative temple, gave them their own little space. Now, they've moved to another one where they have their own little space. And it just wasn't to our liking. I didn't like the whole scenario. So, we haven't gone to that one. Instead, we have been to at least three or four or five different synagogues, and we do drive. At this point, we joined one in Boca, where we know if I need a minyan, the minyan is the ten men. I don't like places where they 98:00count the women. I'm not into that. So, it has to be a synagogue where ten men are counted as the minyan. Just coincidentally, we have what is called yahrzeit [anniversary of death] for our daughter's death. A year's time. And that's coming up Wednesday night and then Thursday morning. Thursday morning, we'll be going to this minyan at Young Israel in Boca. Wednesday night, we're going to another one, which is much closer to us. It's a five-minute drive, but it's too far to walk. It's in Sunrise, and it's called Rashby Synagogue. This is strange, because the rabbi lectures only in Hebrew. Most of the people there speak Hebrew. We do not speak Hebrew. We can follow quite a bit of the service, even 99:00though Harry complains about it. It's not his tradition that he's used to, in the regular, basic Orthodox. But I like it there. Everybody's very friendly and the rabbi is wonderful. And I'm just happy there when we go. I truly believe we are the oldest people who go there. (laughs) And old age has its nice part. They cater to us so tremendously, they're so respectful. So, that's good. You have to have advantages to being old. You're not asking me yet how old I am. (laughs) If you do, I'll tell you.

IM:So, you're the author of three books dealing with Jewish life in America. Why did you want to write about Jewish immigrant life in the US?

ACS:The reason I wanted to write about -- the book "The Olive Tree," and that's 100:00the first one I wrote, was for the very fact that we cater so much -- and I'm saying this not out of disrespect in any way. I cherish the people who survived the Holocaust. I truly cherish them, and it's such a blessing from heaven that they come and they lecture and they have lived to do that, because I think, in my growing up years, nobody talked about the Holocaust. The survivors didn't even discuss it. It was something they wanted to put out of their minds. But we're so blessed that in these past decades, they have talked about it, lectured about it, and this is great. But I feel, in all respect to that, there's a definite need to talk about life as it was, especially in my family, when my 101:00parents and all of our families came to this country, and the upbringings that we all had, and in my case, how wonderful life was for us, that we're so blessed to have that. And I think we should talk about that more. And I always say when I am lecturing with my books that mine was a happy life from beginning, hopefully, to the end, with a few mishaps in between. But I want people to know about that. So, I feel it's extremely important to tell about life and how it was and, in my case, growing up in Utica.

IM:What was the experience like writing the book, "The Olive Tree"?

ACS:Most people say for writers like myself -- and, of course, I'm 102:00self-published, also -- that it's therapy. And I strongly believe that while it is and has been therapy and therapeutic -- but there was a need to share these stories with other people. Not only Jewish people. I have met more people, when Harry and I were touring the country, who would come up to me and say, That's how I was raised. That's how it was when I was growing up. Utica had a huge Italian population, for instance. And I taught in a district in Rochester that was ninety-nine and a half percent Italian neighborhoods. And we were all raised similarly. Many of us had parents who came over from other countries, and many 103:00of the things that we observed were quite similar. So, I felt, in my case, as the first born, first generation born and raised of immigrant parents in the USA, I felt it was very important to share these happy memories. And I have many of those happy memories in my book that I speak about.

IM:What has been most important for you to transmit to the generations after you about Jewish identity?

ACS:I feel it's very important, and I say it like it is. I just feel that we're heading for disaster. I also feel that it's a blessing that in spite of this disaster, pending, there are hundreds and thousands of Jewish people who have 104:00returned, who are coming back, and can make this happen. You see many, many Orthodox Jewish people with large families. And the saying is -- I just heard it the other day -- that we're making up for the thousands who were lost in the Holocaust. And I think this is a good thing. I thank God for Orthodox Jews that are living this life and seeing to it that, hopefully, their children are living it. And, in the Lubavitch case, that are reaching out. Years ago, when our younger son, Howard, and our daughter, Sherry, were, as the saying goes, becoming religious -- they were always traditional with us, but they were becoming more Orthodox. And people would come up to me and, in a derogatory 105:00sense, would say, How and when did your children become so Orthodox? And I would love to say back to them, "I don't know, but you should be so fortunate." And this is how I feel about it to this day. Even though Harry and I are not strictly Orthodox, we go down to our son and daughter-in-law. We'll be there, God willing, this coming Friday. We stay overnight, because you're not supposed to drive on the Sabbath. We stay with them and we observe everything that they observe. I try to observe certain things at home, but it doesn't always happen. But when we're with our son and daughter-in-law, we observe it. And I thank God. I am so proud of them. I was so proud of our daughter, to be living this tradition, which she did for many, many years until it became impossible for her, which is one of my heartaches. But it's wonderful that they're doing it. 106:00And I don't hesitate to tell these things the way they are to my Jewish friends who aren't observing, if it should come up. I don't condemn anybody, but if somebody comes up to me, in a sense, where I have to defend myself, I don't hesitate to defend myself. I do. But here's a funny one: just a few weeks ago, when I was talking to our granddaughter out in Bellingham, where she goes to college -- she's very active. She and our grandson David, her brother, are very active with the Chabad movement out there. They were in Spokane when they lived there, and now they're just even more active, out at the college campus, doing wonderful things. And she said -- something had come up. I believe it was last 107:00semester where she was taking a course. And she referred to us, her bubbie and zeyde, as being Orthodox. I said, "Jessica, you shouldn't say that. In all honesty, you know we're not Orthodox. We do things we shouldn't be doing, and that's it." She said, "Bubbie, if you ever saw what's doing out here and the people I know, trust me, you and zeyde are Orthodox." I had to laugh when she said that. But I think if it weren't for the Orthodox movement, the Lubavitchers and the straight Orthodox, Judaism would be on its way out. But I say with lots of hope and determination, I think it's not on its way out, and these are the people we have to thank.

IM:As a parent and a grandparent, what decisions did you make about the type of 108:00home you created for your children and grandchildren?

ACS:Well, getting back to our children, there was lots of rebellion there, mostly with our older son. And ironically, I say, "It's payback time now, Lou." (laughs) Because here's his two children, so active and going in the right direction. But Louie had a lot of rebellious days in his life. Sherry never really had any, and I think Howard really didn't have any. There were times when they didn't totally observe the High Holidays, when Howard was out at school. And, Well, mom, I did this, but I didn't do that, and so forth. But there wasn't 109:00a lot of rebellion with the two younger children. Louie, I think, had his moments when he rebelled. But he has more than paid up for it these days, and we're very -- equally as proud of Louis as we are of Howard and as we were with our daughter, Sherry. Very proud of them. And we're extremely blessed with the four grandchildren, because, as I said, Jessica and David are extremely involved with Judaism, with tradition out at school. I'm so proud of them. And Shoshanna and Moshe, I don't even have to say, because they've always been Orthodox. They were raised Orthodox. They're very involved with the Lubavitch movement down here locally. And Shoshanna has since moved to California and rooms with three 110:00other very religious girls. And I'm so proud. To think that we have four grandchildren who are all in the tradition. And no one with intermarriages. I'm very strong about not feeling that intermarriage is the ideal for any of us. And so far, all of our children and grandchildren -- and I can proudly say that my parents had nine grandchildren. All of those, I believe, all of them have married Jewish girls, whether they're Conservative, Reform, doesn't matter. 111:00They're all Jewish. And now, all of the great-grandchildren are being brought up totally involved in our heritage. And that speaks well of my parents, that they really lucked out in that. Because you don't know what your children are going to do. You don't know what your grandchildren are going to do. You have to be fortunate. And I really think that my parents were fortunate in that respect.

IM:Were there any particular rituals or traditions that were most important for you to pass down to your children?

ACS:Yes. There's one that was -- you might think it's silly, and we do it to this day. And the last time we were able to do it with our daughter at the nursing home, we came down and we did it. It's called kappores. It may have 112:00different pronunciations. I think in one of the siddurs, it ends with a T-H, kapporeth, K-A-P-P-O-R-E-T-H. I remember from the time I was four years old on Leslie Avenue, my dad would wake me up early in the morning, and then even after school days, before it was time to go to school, he'd say, "Come on, come on, you have to shlog kapores [atonement ceremony involving a chicken, performed the day before Yom Kippur]." [BREAK IN RECORDING] When he'd get to a certain part of the prayer, I had to do this three times, holding the money in my hand. One, two, three. And we'd say the Hebrew words, which I can't remember right now. My husband remembers them and does it, and we do it to this day. And we always did it with our children, and when our grandchildren have been with us, which is not 113:00too often, they do it. But in the Lubavitch movement and in the very strong Young Israel, too, I believe, they do it with a live chicken. They literally swing the chicken around their heads, and then they chop off its head. And many people are going to eat those chickens. I know that. They don't go to waste. They don't go to waste. They might even be giving them to charity. I don't know. But they definitely don't go to waste. It's a crazy symbolic thing that we do, and we do it to this day. Other traditions? That was enough. (laughs)

IM:What does being Jewish mean to you today?

ACS:I think that being Jewish means, to me, today what it did for as long as I 114:00can remember. I cannot imagine having been born anything besides Jewish. I've always, always just been so proud of it, so proud of our heritage, and so involved in it that I can't imagine what life would be like under any other circumstances. I'm just very strong about my feeling of Judaism. I have no regrets. My only regrets are having lost both my parents, my big brother, and now our daughter. To me, those are huge regrets. And you're not supposed to ask yourself why any of these things happen. So, I really work at being strong. I have lots of moments when I'm not strong. But I try. I try to be strong. And I'm 115:00very -- I guess the word isn't happy, but that all of our friends are willing to share this, that I talk a lot about our daughter and everybody's very accepting of this. But I have talked to more people who, God forbid, have lost a grown child, one way or another. Some not in very good ways. I can proudly say that my daughter was somebody to really be proud of, and she lived her life as well as she could, and ended it very peacefully in hospice a year ago. So, other than losing dearest families, I have no other regrets.

IM:What do you think about Yiddish today?

ACS:The language? I am just so lazy about doing it, or I would go to a Yiddish class. They do have Yiddish classes. And I keep promising myself that I will, but I'm always so busy doing everything else. And when I'm not busy at four in the morning, then my mind is still going like this. But truthfully, I would like to find the time to take a real Yiddish-speaking class, because I am so thrilled that Yiddish is making a comeback. I'm very thrilled about that. And it's as it should be. I have little notations that my father wrote in Yiddish, and I can't read them. He did one on a card for our daughter's high school graduation, and he wrote his thoughts to her in Yiddish. So, I know he could write it as fluently. The only -- I couldn't call it a mistake, but it really was. I wish 117:00our father had taught us more of these things, and he didn't. One day, he went to the cemetery where my mother was, in Sarasota, and he came back and he said, "I read Tehillim to your mother, but she didn't answer me. I read Tehillim." And I said, "Daddy, what is Tehillim?" And he said, "Tehillim! Tehillim!." It was only after he died that I learned that tehillim means psalms. He was reading the psalms to my mother. So, he didn't teach us any of these things. The things our father taught us was by doing, and then we did. And my mother, also. We did what 118:00they did, and it was all truly honorable. But I wish they had taught us more, including the Yiddish language, which they only spoke when they didn't want us to understand what they were saying. So, I have a few expressions that I know, that's about it.

IM:So, we're nearing the end of our time, but I'd like to ask if you had any other stories or topics you would like to touch on before we close?

ACS:Oh, I just have so many that I'd have to do another one of these interviews. (laughs) But I do have pictures that I brought and other things that I brought that may be of interest.

IM:Great. Do you have a favorite word or song from your childhood that you would like to share?

ACS:Did you say psalm or songs?

IM:Song or expression --

ACS:Oh.

IM:-- or word that --

ACS:Oh. (laughs)

IM:-- brings back any memories?

ACS:One just came to mind. I don't think that's in my books, where my dad used to pick us up when we were little. He'd just pick us up, hold us, one at a time. And I remember my kid brother started doing it with his children and his grandchildren, mostly. So, daddy would pick us up and he would lightly dance around the room. And he would sing. I don't know if I remember even the tune. "It was a happy day the day you came along." And he would just do that, over and over again. So, that's the one thing I remember of his songs. (laughs)

IM:Thank you. I'll just end with this last question. What advice do you have for 120:00future generations about what it means to be Jewish in America?

ACS:Well, I would have my fervent hope that it means to be strong in your heritage, and don't give it up. Don't give it up because a young man meets a young woman, and I can't get along without her. She's so beautiful, she's so this and she's so that, and she'll convert. Be strong in your own heritage. Be strong in it. And I've always said to our kids and our grandkids, Seek and ye shall find. Because if you look hard enough, you will find the right person who's right for you, in our heritage, and willing to live it with you, 121:00comfortably. Really comfortably. Because intermarriage, I know very few people who are intermarried and it works. It works because somebody gives up something. They definitely give up something. Either the person who isn't Jewish gives up his side that he was raised with or the other person gives up. Somebody has to give up something. And although we all give up certain things when we're married -- just in the way of marriage, you give up things, things that you might want to do that you're not doing -- but you give up more when you give up your heritage or want somebody else to live that heritage. It's very difficult, and I 122:00always say, even to our grandkids, always remember, you don't just marry that one person. You marry the family of that person. And that's very important to remember. And I think I remember that so well because our family was so strong in our heritage. You definitely marry the family, so you have to be strong in your own heritage, and keep on doing it. You have to want to do it so badly that you're going to do it.

IM:Well, thank you for sharing your story with us --

ACS:You're welcome.

IM:-- and on behalf of the Yiddish Book Center, I'd like to say thank you, again.

ACS:Thank you. It's been a privilege. I've been to the Yiddish Book Center several times, and I find it just lovely that I was asked to do this today.

[END OF INTERVIEW]