GLORIA WEINER WEISS ORAL HISTORY

CHRISTA WHITNEY: This is Christa Whitney and today is November 20th, 2017. I am here in Manchester, Connecticut with Gloria Weiner Weiss. Is that pronounced correctly?

GLORIA WEINER WEISS: That's correct.

CW: And we're going to record an interview as part of the Yiddish Book Center's Wexler Oral History Project. Do I have your permission to record?

GWW: Yes, you do.

CW: Great. So, first, I wanted to ask: Do you know where your family came from before America?

GWW: Well, they came from Russia.

CW: And do you know the names of the towns or anything?

GWW: Yes. The town my mother came from -- very small town called Suldikov, 1:00S-U-L-D-I-K-O-V. And my father came from a neighboring town called Gritsev, G-R-I-V-I-T-Z. But I think they knew each other in Russia. They lived in neighboring small towns. But they weren't married until they came to America and they dated once they came here.

CW: And do you have any sense of what life was like for your parents in Russia?

GWW: Yes. It was very bad. I remember asking my mother frequently, "Tell me what it was like to live there. Describe your little house. Describe what it was like." I asked her that a lot. My mother had no fond memories of Russia. And although you do hear of a lot of people who go back, they want to see the shtetl 2:00[small town in Eastern Europe with a Jewish population] that their parents came from, my mother had no desire to go back to Russia. She used to say, "Why would I want to go back to Russia? My memories of pogroms and of the way -- her father died when -- I think he was killed in a pogrom when she was very little. And there were four girls left. And my grandmother had to be very poor, as they all were, of course, and had to raise these four girls by herself. And my mother had no fond memories and had no feeling, as many people do, that they want to go back. Or another generation wants to go back. She said she had no desire. She loved America. She was a great patriot. And she never missed a chance to vote and she instilled in us what a privilege it was to be in America. She thoroughly 3:00appreciated America and had no desire to go back. And she would describe the little hut, or wherever they lived. It had an earth floor, dirt floor. And I don’t really know too much about it. There was some kind of a central heating something or other. I don't know how they got the heat. But I really don't know too much of it except that her mother worked very hard to support -- she had some kind of a little -- she sold eggs or something to support her children.

CW: What about your father? Did he ever talk about Russia?

GWW: No. Now, my mother was a very gregarious person. And she ruled the roost. And she, like me, loved to talk and loved to communicate and all that kind of 4:00thing. My father, on the other hand, was very quiet. Very sweet, very quiet man. And he did very little talking. He was very interested in everything but he could sit in a room full of people and just listen and not say anything. But he was a very sweet man. My father was a tailor and he was a wonderful father and everyone loved him. But he didn't speak. He didn't tell stories about his background. My mother was the one who ruled the roost and he went along with whatever she decided to do, yeah.

CW: And do you know about how old they were when they came here?

GWW: I think my mother was eighteen. My father was probably about the same age. They didn't come together but my mother told stories of -- she had an older 5:00sister who preceded her here. And this was typical; they didn't bring all their children when they came. They came in shifts. So, when my mother made the journey, by boat, of course, she brought her older sister's child with her on the journey. And I heard stories of how my mother had one piece of bread and she gave it -- shared it or gave it to this little girl who she was responsible for bringing to America. And then, when she came to America, she lived with this older sister until she was married.

CW: And do you know anything else about the professions in either side of the family back in Russia, what your father's family did?

GWW: I think my father's family made talesim [prayer shawls]. You know what a talis is, right? And I think that he made talesim. I don't really know much 6:00about my father's family except I know he had two brothers in America. I think one was already here and one came shortly after he did. And he looked just like his brother. They just were the same, they were quiet, they had the same kind of personality, and we always used to say, all of us, how much they looked alike. And we were very close to my father's family, as we were to my mother's family. Family was very important and we had a wonderful family, wonderful good times. Company all the time. Our house was always filled with company, come for a cup of tea. No television and everybody had a good time. Nobody had to make appointments in advance (laughs), that they were coming. They just appeared, and 7:00always welcome. Yeah, I grew up in a family that -- lots of company and always tea and cookies and a lot of fun.

CW: And where in Boston did you grow up?

GWW: I grew up in Roxbury. And actually, my folks owned a house, also, in Dorchester. But the house in Roxbury was a three-decker and my aunt, that's my mother's sister, Violet, they lived, she and her family, lived on the third floor. And my mother and father and his family lived on the second floor. And they owned the house in partnerships and they rented the bottom floor. And, yeah, and we were brought up as one family. My aunt and uncle had two boys. 8:00Actually, there was a third one that was a product of a former marriage. And then, in my mother's family, there were two girls. But we were so close that if I walked down the street, one of the neighbors might say, "I just saw your brother," because we were raised really as one family. And I remember my cousin, Irving, when he'd come home from somewhere, he wouldn't go up the three flights of stairs directly into his apartment. He would go up the two flights, go into our apartment, walk down the hall, go in the front door, walk down the hall, and up the back steps. Always went home that way, through our apartment, never directly up to the third floor. We were really raised as one family, very close.

CW: Can you describe the building a little bit more? What was the layout inside?

GWW: Well, I think in New York, they call that kind of thing a railroad apartment. It seems to me when there's a long hall, isn't that term referred to as railroad? Yeah, so we'd go up the stairs and there'd be this long hall and the rooms would be off of the hall. You know, I just lost my sister. I had just this one sister and she was ninety-nine. And I feel as if I -- living in a different world now because now there's nobody -- when you're asking me to describe the apartment, there's no one that I can run anything by anymore, 'cause she's gone and all the rest are gone. And so, we would -- I'd call my sister every single day. She lived in Boston. And we would talk about everything 10:00under the sun, but now that -- she's just gone a couple of months. So, it's really a different world for me because I can no longer run anything by her and reinforce anything or ask about what happened here or there. There's nobody to ask anymore. When my sister died, the people here in Manchester, they had -- we had shivah [seven-day mourning period] here one night. There was a minyan. People here who came to the shivah didn't know my sister because the people who came are of a different generation -- when she was coming and visiting. And the people who were my peers, who knew my family, they're all gone or they're in places like this -- far away somewhere. But I wrote a little something for that shivah night because I didn't want her to be faceless and just a number. And I 11:00wanted the people who came to the shivah to know who -- why they came. [BREAK IN RECORDING] (reading) "Few of you knew my sister. Her name was Dorothy Smilg, my only sister, my only sibling. She lived ninety-nine years. She taught art in the Boston Public School System for twenty years, until she expected her son. And she headed up the art program for Temple Israel in Boston for about forty-five years. This was Boston's most prestigious temple." See, the people who were listening didn't know Boston, either, probably. "This was Boston's most prestigious temple, served by such famous rabbis as Dr. Joshua Loth Liebman, who wrote ‘Peace of Mind,’ and later by Roland Gittelsohn, who was the Jewish 12:00chaplain at Iwo Jima. In time, she became the temple's official calligrapher and she did all their beautiful documents, bar and bat mitzvahs, baby namings, graduations, etcetera, well into her nineties. Eventually, she taught calligraphy to seniors for the Newton, Massachusetts adult education program. She was given the comfort of being able to stay in her home in Newton because she lived with her son, who became her caregiver. He was determined to keep her out of a nursing home and his loving care and attention to her every need was beyond belief. I called her every day, right up to the day she died. It reached the point where she could hardly respond to me. But she could hear my voice and I could hear her voice, and that was all we could manage, eventually. My sister 13:00was a quiet and gentle person, but true blue, sincere, and loyal." So, I wanted them to know who they were saying shivah for. My sister's personality was very much like my father's. They were quiet. Didn't talk very much. But I was very much like my mother and much more outgoing, yeah.

CW: Can you just mention your parents' names, also?

GWW: Yeah. Their Yiddish names or their English names?

CW: Both.

GWW: All right. Well, my mother's name, Yiddish name, was Khayke and her name was Ida. And my father's name was Harry and his Yiddish name was Hershl.

CW: And what was your mother's family name? Do you remember?

GWW: (laughs) The family name was Spitaler. Nobody could ever pronounce that. S-P-I-T-A-L-E-R. I can remember, when I was very little, we were assigned -- I don't know what grade I was in. It was elementary school. And we were supposed to tell something about our parents. And we were supposed to tell what our mother's maiden names were. And I can remember trying to say that name every which way so that it didn't sound so strange. (laughs) I can still remember putting the accent on one syllable and then on a different syllable and trying to figure out how to make it sound less strange, (laughs) yeah, okay.

CW: So, in the home, when you were growing up, what was Jewish about your home?

GWW: Well, of course, both my mother and father were immigrants. And my mother 15:00was -- they both were raised in an Orthodox Jewish home. And their family were all Orthodox. The synagogues they went to were Orthodox. And so, my mother kept that tradition. She kept an Orthodox home. But my mother was very liberal about things. My husband did not come from an Orthodox home. Came from a Reformed home, but a Jewish home. And his mother kept many traditions. My husband was the youngest of seven children, five boys and the two older were the girls. And all five boys were bar mitzvahed even though it was not a really Orthodox home. But his mother kept the traditions. And they really had to work hard to keep the 16:00traditions because they lived in Medford, Massachusetts and there was not a Yiddish neighborhood. I was raised in a neighborhood many -- was mixed but there were many Jewish neighbors and things. But they lived in a neighborhood where there were no Jewish people. And nevertheless, in order to be bar mitzvahed, they didn't, at that time, have a temple in Medford. They had to take the streetcar in order to go to Somerville to be trained, so -- and she, their mother, saw to it that they did these things because it was important to her that they observe the Jewish -- even though their home was not Orthodox, she did not -- I think they may have even eaten ham and stuff like that. But still, the traditions were there.

CW: And so, in your own home growing up, was there a favorite yontev that you 17:00had, a favorite holiday growing up?

GWW: Well, my mother observed all the holidays. And, of course, in Jewish tradition, all the holidays come with food. (laughs) Food's a very big part of Jewish traditions and they were all observed. And she kept the traditions. I mean, Passover, she had the separate dishes and she worked very hard. And the dozens and dozens of eggs and all the things that were collected before Passover. And she kept all the traditions, did all the kind of cooking that you expected for the holidays. And they were all favorites -- we just had wonderful family life. We observed all these traditions, we had a good time, we had a lot of company, we -- I had a wonderful upbringing. Lots of cousins and lots of fun.

CW: So, we're just pretty close to Hanukkah right now. Do you remember how you used to celebrate Hanukkah as a child?

GWW: Well, one thing I remember about Hanukkah, and it's very different than the way Hanukkah has become, 'cause Hanukkah has been following more of the Christmas tradition as the years went by, and all the advertising and all the expensive toys and all of the things that made a big deal of it. But when I was a little girl growing up, my mother made a little velvet little pouch for me, a little drawstring. Not big. And the tradition was that everyone who came into the house put some coins into my little velvet little bag. And I can remember how every night, how excited I was and how I anticipated counting my coins. And 19:00I think I got much more pleasure out of counting my coins than the kids today get out of these big, fancy, expensive things. I can still remember the anticipation of counting my coins every night and what -- oh, how exciting that was. And that's all that we got, were just coins. And we got more pleasure out of that than all these big expensive things that people just get so much of. Now, for our children, I tried -- we tried very hard not to fall into the trap of material things, really. And those really were our true values. I don't have furs and I don't have diamonds and those things mean nothing to me. They really were never my values. So, we tried to instill that in the children. But we would give them something every night. So, it might be a new toothbrush, it might be, 20:00oh, it might be, of course, a pair of mittens or something like that. But it was just in the realm -- something they could use. And it was always under the pillow of this wing chair. That's where their gifts -- that's where they would go. Either that or would go underneath the desk. Those two places would be where they look for their nightly gifts. But we tried very hard not to have them expect things that they were advertising as the toy for the thing, 'cause our values were not that way.

CW: So, back to your childhood. What languages did you hear growing up?

GWW: Well, we were bilingual. I mean, we spoke Yiddish and we spoke English.

CW: When would you speak Yiddish versus English?

GWW: Yeah, first of all, if you were to ask many people of my generation if they 21:00knew Yiddish, they would say, My mother and father spoke Yiddish only when they didn't want us to know what they were saying. That was not the way it was in my house. As I got older, I realized my mother really had a difference to her in that many of the immigrants, when they came over, they wanted to be Yankees. They wanted to assimilate right away and be Yankees. Now, my mother used to say, "I am not worried." I had this one sister and she would say, "I don't worry that they're going to know English. But I also want them to know Yiddish and I want them to know their culture." So, they spoke Yiddish regularly in my house and there was no such thing as my parents or anybody saying things only when they 22:00didn't want us to hear it because they just spoke Yiddish. There was never the feeling that there was anything secretive about it. My mother was very proud of her Jewishness and she really instilled in us a great love of being Jewish and pride in being Jewish. She tells a story -- now my sister, well, I'll go back a minute. It wasn't enough that we knew the language. She wanted us to know the culture. So, after school, we went to what was called the Arbeter Ring folkshule [Yiddish secular school]. So, she would send us to this folkshul because she wanted us not just to know how to speak Yiddish but she wanted us to know the culture. She wanted us to know the literature and the music and the poetry and 23:00the bittersweet humor that was particularly Yiddish kind of humor. And then --

CW: So, can I ask where was the folkshul?

GWW: It was in Roxbury, not -- well, it was within walking -- my family did not have a car at that time but my aunt and uncle who lived upstairs, they had a car. So, when we traveled and things, we went as one family. But my dad did not have a car and my mother didn't drive. So, she had to walk everywhere. So, she would, hand-in-hand, after school, walk us to the folkshule and then come and pick us up and take us back. And she tells a story -- this shows how she instilled pride of Jewishness in us. She tells the story that -- my sister went to Girls’ Latin School, as did I. So, we had to take the streetcar and change in order to get from where we lived to where Girls’ Latin School was in Boston. So, 24:00my sister, one time, on the streetcar was doing her homework for -- her Jewish homework, 'cause you worked very hard when you went to Latin School and you didn't have much free time. They piled the homework on you and then we had the added homework of the Jewish school. So, she was doing her Jewish homework and there was somebody with her and I guess she was reading a Yiddish newspaper and this other girl said, "Aren't you embarrassed to be reading a Yiddish newspaper in public like this?" And my sister said, "No, why? Should I be? Why should I be?" And she told my mother the story. Now, my mother repeated that story with such pride in my sister because my sister said, "Why should I be?" And so, she made it very clear that it was a positive thing and that she was proud of her 25:00because this was her attitude and not embarrassed by it. So, that's how she instilled in us this really -- this pride in being Jewish. So, now --

CW: So, did you enjoy going to folkshule?

GWW: I don’t remember. I liked the music, I'm sure. I'm sure there were parts about it I liked. But I was pretty busy as a little girl, really. But, you know, then, when I didn’t go to folkshule anymore, in those days, girls were not bat mitzvahed. But my mother, at that point, brought a little old rebbe in who lived on the corner of our street because she wanted us to be able to learn Hebrew. And she wanted us to know the Tanakh. And so, it wasn't just enough that we went to folkshule, that was Yiddish. But she wanted us to know the Hebrew, too. So, 26:00this little rebbe, he was a little bit of a fellow, and he had a long, yellow beard. And he had a few teeth left and they were the same color as his beard. And he sat on the piano bench next to me to teach me, in the living room, and the stench was terrible. So, that didn't last too long. So, although I learned to read Hebrew, I don't know Hebrew and I don't know what I'm reading. And sometime, I thought maybe I would take classes and learn it. But I can read it, but doesn't really -- I can't understand it. But Yiddish was different. Yiddish, I was really bilingual. We all were. And the way I started in, okay?

CW: Sure.

GWW: Yeah? I was three years old and my father had a tailor shop in Boston where 27:00the Government Center is now. The Kennedy Center was where my dad's shop was. And he was in that little shop for fifty years, same place. Now, he had a customer who lived around the corner in one of these residential hotels. And this man was a bachelor and he was the producer of the Yiddish radio hour in Boston. So, he came in one day to my father's shop and he said, "I need to have a little girl on my radio show. I know you have a little girl," 'cause my mother used to go into the store on Saturday and bring me with her, of course. With her. So, he said, "I know you have a little girl. Ask your wife to bring her. We're going to have an audition next week," whatever day. "Ask your wife to 28:00bring your little girl in." So, he went back and he told my mother and my mother said, "No, not interested." And my father wasn't interested. But my aunts and uncles were very interested. (laughs) They said, Oh, yes, you must bring her down, yes. So, they convinced her to bring me down to this audition. And they tell me there were about a hundred little girls there and I recited "Twinkle, twinkle, little star," and they picked me to be the little girl for the radio show. Now, I never liked it. I never liked performing at all but I did it because, well, I was expected to do it and it was just the way of life. And at the age of three, I was able to read my scripts. I was just evidently beginning to learn to read. And my mother, I remember, was teaching me to read at that time, but I do remember reading the scripts. So, for four years, I was on the radio show. Now, they went to –- they had this one radio show at eleven o'clock 29:00in the morning and --

CW: On Sunday, right?

GWW: Huh?

CW: Sunday?

GWW: Sunday. Then, they enlarged it to two radio shows and the second one was at one o'clock. So, one of them was WEEI at the Hotel Touraine in Boston and the other one, I don’t remember the hotel, but it was -- oh, one was WHDH and one was WEEI. Can't remember which was which. And so, my mother, to amuse me in between the two shows would take me to the museums. I had just this little bit of time and I knew every lapis lazuli in the Museum of Natural History 'cause I used to go every week. (laughs) And that, the Museum of Natural History, was close to the Touraine. And that museum became Bonwit Teller's. It was a 30:00beautiful old Victorian building and that became Bonwit Teller's in Boston. And I don't know if the building is any longer there. It was just a beautiful old building. So, she would take me for rides on the swan boats, 'cause it was very close, the Public Gardens, and we would picnic in the Commons and we would go for rides on the swan boats and we would go to the museums. And she kept me very happy in between because she had to amuse me. So, I do have a funny story about the radio show. Radio, the timing has to be exact and you have a cue, you go on cue, and it has to come out exactly at the right time. Now, I didn't think about it then, but as I think about it now, three years old, and when the producer 31:00would go like that (points forward), that was my cue and I had to deliver right at that moment. So, they put me on a box, I was very little, and they put me on a box. In those days, they had the round microphone and that's how I reached the microphone. And they would just (points forward) give me the cue and I would do what they wanted me to do. Now, at this rehearsal this one time, they didn't play records. Everything was live, live orchestra. They had a three-piece orchestra and they had the soprano and they had this one -- there were about ten people at the rehearsals, which were held in the producer's apartment, this residential hotel. And so, I remember saying something. I was supposed to be doing something with the script and he said to me, "That's very good, sweetheart, but say it a little faster." And I remember saying -- I'm three 32:00years old, remember -- "My mother said no matter what Mr. Fisher says, you say it slow." This is in front of all these people. My poor mother! (laughs) She must have been terribly embarrassed. So, what did I do on the radio? Okay, I don't really remember my scripts at all. But I do remember advertising various things. So, my theme song was, (singing) "Looky, looky, looky, here comes Cookie, walking (laughs) down the street!" And that was my cue to advertise -- so, then I became Dolly Diamond and I advertised Diamond cream cheese when I was Dolly Diamond. And in some of these things that we saved, there is the original advertisement for Dolly Diamond. This is 1929. [BREAK IN RECORDING] Then, the 33:00other thing I advertised was I used to sign off one of the radio shows and that was -- and it was called "The Morrison & Schiff Radio Hour." And they’re no longer in business, but did you ever hear Morrison & Schiff? Well, the theme song for that was, (singing) "S’iz [it’s] Morrison & Schiff, kosher salami! And something corned beef and eykhet [also] pastrami! S’iz Morrison & Schiff, s’iz Morrison & Schiff!" And that's how that radio hour ended every Sunday, 'cause I signed it off by (laughs) singing about Morrison & Schiff. So, they are probably on here somewhere, too. But, okay, so I was on the radio and I really didn't 34:00like it because I had to go to rehearsals and I wanted to be downstairs playing hopscotch with my friends. I didn't want to go to rehearsal. But I just did it because it was expected of me and I guess I always had a sense of responsibility. And so --

CW: So, can I just ask --

GWW: Yeah.

CW: -- about Samuel Fisher?

GWW: Yes.

CW: That was the producer. So, what was he like?

GWW: He was a producer. He was very rigid. Very rigid and he was very strict and there was no nonsense with him. I mean, everybody was kind of afraid of him. He was kind of a tough guy about -- and he was the producer and he wanted things the way he wanted them and that's why, when he said, "Say it a little faster, sweetheart" -- because it had to go within the timing, you see? And that was his responsibility.

CW: Do you remember what he looked like?

GWW: Yeah, kind of, yeah. Nondescript. Average. Average size. Glasses. Not very warm. Not very warm, personal -- I don't have any memories of him, of feeling any closeness to him. He was just there.

CW: And then --

GWW: But there were other people on the show that I did feel close to, yeah.

CW: So, who were those other people?

GWW: Oh, the piano player for the orchestra and the other people, they had their own soprano. (laughs) Okay, here is the soprano. [BREAK IN RECORDING] So, here's the soprano and her name was Beatrice Baker. And here am I. And, of course, this was before the days of television. The way they used to entertain people -- well, you know how they now have these big rock concerts out in the big fields 36:00and the rock stars go and they entertain? Well, in those days, we entertained. We would go out to these big, open fields and we would put on a whole program. So, I would put on stuff, the soprano would put on her stuff, the orchestra would be there, and it would be a live performance. And this is how they entertained people in those days. Now, anything that was in the paper, they always described in the most extreme terms. For example, in the description of this one, this concert, in describing me, it said -- now, see, my first name then -- and that's another long story -- was Selma. My name was Selma Weiner. But in my grade in school, there was another Selma Weiner. And finally, they 37:00were getting so mixed up with our records, the teacher would say, "Selma," we'd both stand. Teacher would say, "Selma Weiner," we'd both keep standing. She'd say, "Which one of you has a middle name?" So, I did and my middle name was Gloria, so it became, from that time on -- but in here, I was very little, so it was still Selma. So, it says here, "Selma un di radio sensatsye. Di zibn-yerike selma vayn-- [Selma and the radio sensation. The seven-year-old Selma Wein-- ]" In other words, the radio sensation. (laughs) This is the way they wrote: I was sensation-- I was stupendous, I was vunderbar [magnificent] child, this always -- because that's the way they described everything. So, I remember, at one of these concerts, which were out in what would be one of the outlying little 38:00towns, like maybe it would be Sharon, Massachusetts. And I can remember, after this concert, trudging in the dirt to get to the bus where everybody was going to go home, the people who were performing. There was a bus for everyone. And I can remember, hand-in-hand with my mother, and walking in the dirt to go to the bus. And I'm still aware of a woman running up to my mother and saying to her, "Zi redt english eykhet?" Do you know what that means? "Does she speak English?" Because that's how well I spoke Yiddish. You know, you can speak Yiddish and then there's the Americanized speaking Yiddish. But I didn't speak the Americanized Yiddish. I was just a little kid and I spoke, really, the real European kind of Yiddish, I guess. So, she wanted to know if I could speak English. So, I do remember that. Now --

CW: Can you describe when you were recording in the hotel? I think it might be -- it's hard for people to imagine the setup in the studio. Do you remember all of that?

GWW: Well, the rehearsal? The rehearsal was not where the recording -- the program was in the hotel, in that Hotel Touraine. I don’t know, we had a room, they set up equipment like you guys do. And I don't really remember any technical part of it. All I do remember is being put on a big wooden crate on top of a chair. The box went on top of a chair so that I could reach the microphones around -- iron microphone. I do remember that. But I don't remember the technical part of --

CW: Right.

GWW: -- how they recorded. But there was always a mob there because, as I said, they always had the orchestra and soprano and this one and that one, yeah. So, 40:00then, how did I get from the radio to the Yiddish theater? So, now, I didn't remember or even think about any of this. It was really a life long ago and far away. And I never particularly cared for it. And my family didn't make a prima donna of me. No, I mean, it was just something I did and it was just expected. It was just a way of life and nobody made too much of it, to tell you the truth. But okay, so I was on the radio and this was the golden age of Yiddish theater. This was when they came out from New York, the New York stock, as they always referred to -- to entertain people in Boston. Now, they not only -- they used 41:00the term “played” in Boston but they would go to -- during the weekend, it was Boston. It was the Franklin Park Theatre. During the week, they would go to Providence, they would go to Hartford, and they would go to Springfield. Those three places -- [BREAK IN RECORDING] -- these very famous actors and actresses, by bus from New York. Now, the Yiddish theater was a great art form. Remember that these were immigrants who came from terrible life. They came from pogroms and terrible, terrible life. And they were -- most of them were poor and they didn't have much at all. But their escape was the Yiddish theater. So, they always played to sell-out -- and they used very large theaters. [BREAK IN 42:00RECORDING] Everything was so new. I mean, when we think of New Year's Eve and the revues and we don't think anything of it. But this is in English, so I can easily read it. I still can read Yiddish but I really have to struggle to read it now because I don't have anyone to talk with or to exchange it with anymore. So, it says here, "Last year, the Franklin Park Theatre introduced" -- that was the main theater for the weekend shows.

CW: And that was in Dorchester?

GWW: That was in Dorchester, right near Franklin Park, across the street from Franklin Park. "Last year, the Franklin Park Theatre introduced a new wrinkle in Yiddish show business in Boston by featuring a midnight show on New Year's Eve." This was novel! They had never done it before. And it said, "And the success of this new idea will be attested by the thousands of disappointed people who were 43:00turned away, unable to procure seats for this novel Yiddish performance." Thousands turned away! And that's how big the theaters were. And can you imagine thousands being turned away? Because, as I said, this was the escape for the immigrants who came. Yiddish theater was very, very popular. They always played to full houses.

CW: So -- yeah, go ahead.

GWW: Yeah. So, then, here it says, "On Christmas night, Wednesday evening, December 25th, a new play was born at the Franklin Park Theatre. A huge crowd was on hand to greet this new operetta, 'Khayke Becomes a Bride.' Little Albert Sheyngold" -- now he was my partner. He was about my age. I have a picture of 44:00him here. And he was my partner. They used to team us up together, yeah. So, "Little Albert Sheyngold with his co-partner, Baby Weiner," that's who I was, Baby Weiner, "brought the audience to their feet cheering at one of the most clever scenes ever enacted." Now, I can sing you -- the two of us -- here we were, about five years old, six years old. "Fun got a gliklekh por in oykh af lange yor. Veln mir beyde, nor beyde, zayn in a kleyn shtibele, shpiln a lidele. Mir veln zikh glaykh aybik dortn zayn. [God has blessed this happy couple and given them long years. We will both, just the two of us, be in a small house, singing our little song. We will just always be there.]" I probably forgot some of the words. Then, we would dance, the two of us, all the way down the front of the stage and back. Then, we would sing it again. And they really -- here are these old, older people, grandmas, grandpas, and here were these little kids 45:00saying all this in Yiddish and they just thought it was absolutely wonderful. I can remember we just had encore after encore after encore. And so, that was -- now, the interesting thing -- and, again, I'm ahead of myself -- about Yiddish theater, as I think about it, there were two kinds. One was -- one were these musicals and they were like “Oklahoma.” They were very elaborate and they went on for season after season. Now, one of them was called "Di tsegayner bande," "Gypsy Caravan," and that went on for many seasons because it was like “Oklahoma.” And it was wonderful and full of dancing and singing and very large cast. The other kind of the Yiddish theater were all tearjerkers. They were six-handkerchief theater. And you can tell from the names -- I don't know if you want me to say their names in Yiddish or in English. "Why Have Children?"

CW: Yeah, I think if you can --

GWW: "Darf men hobn kinder?" "Why Have Children?" "Khayke Becomes A Bride," that was the musical. "Rachel's Children," that was a heartbreaker. "Happiness in Old Age," I don't remember that one. But there were many -- they were either musicals or they were all very sad dramas and very -- oh, as I say, six-handkerchief one. Now, to show you how sad they were, (holds up newspaper clipping) this one, this was my part in it. But I was not in this. But this was his aunt, who was the prima donna, she was the main -- well, she was the prima donna of the theater at that time. So, this was the aunt and her nephew and this is my partner. Now, you can see by looking at them how sad this is and what 47:00they're wearing. And the words to the chorus -- well, first of all, the prologue, even, I'll just say the words as I read them. "A stormy night," this was all in Yiddish, "the stormy night," you’re gonna see how sad this is. "So tired and sick, a mother is sitting with her child. She's full of need and she doesn't even have a piece of bread. And she's just about blind from crying." And now, here's the chorus -- no, there's one more verse here. "Child, when you get older, when you get big, I hope you will think of your mother and how sad it was for her and how much she suffered. And with tears in your eyes, you will say, (singing) 'Mame, mame libe mayn, mama, mama, my dear mother, you must be holy. 48:00Haylik darfstu eybik zayn. You must be holy. Ikh vel elter vern, dan vel ikh farshteyn. When I get older, then I will understand, vi shver far a mame iz tsi zayn aleyn, how hard it is for a mother to be alone. Mame, mame, libe mayn, mama, mama my dear mother, eybik vel ikh mit dir zayn, I'll be with you forever. Gebensht fun got. God blesses -- is that one who has a libe getraye mamenyu -- God blesses someone if he has a dear, devoted mother." [BREAK IN RECORDING] So, they would come from New York by bus and they had a little girl with them from New York. And it got to be a nuisance for them to be traveling with a little girl on the bus all the time. So, they decided they wanted to have a Boston 49:00child. And they knew that I was on the radio, so it was a natural transition 'cause they knew I spoke Yiddish. So, it was just a natural transition to approach me, approach my mother, approach Sam Fisher, the producer, and to have me be their Boston child.

[BREAK IN RECORDING]

CW: Because these theaters don't exist anymore, can you describe what that theater looked like and what it was like to perform in the Dorchester theater?

GWW: Well, the Franklin Park Theatre was very large --neighborhood theater. But no, I say it was a neighborhood theater but they came from all over to it. And it was a very beautiful, beautiful theater. And they also used other theaters, too. The Franklin Park Theatre was the main one. But because I didn't enjoy 50:00doing this -- and as I went along in years, my resistance became more and more as I had my own thoughts on things, and so -- well, first of all, after I stopped, I was the New Year of 1937. And that was the last time I went on the stage. And I had been resisting all these years and I wanted, as I say, to play with my friends. After I stopped being on the stage, it was like a long ago, far away life and I didn't even think about it anymore. I mean, it was just something I did and it was not a part of my life anymore. It was secretive. I didn't want anyone to know that I was on the radio and particularly not on the 51:00stage. And I kept it a secret. And can you guess why?

CW: Why?

GWW: Guess.

CW: I don't know.

GWW: No? Okay, because somewhere along the line, I had heard of the child labor laws. But I really didn't know what they were. But I knew that by the name of the law, child labor, that if you were working as a child and they caught you, you went to jail, I thought. Therefore, I didn't want to go to jail and I never discussed this with my mother. I never told her that I didn't want anyone to know because I didn't want to go to jail. It just shows you how children keep things in their heads and they don't discuss them sometimes but they have these ideas. So, I would never tell anybody that I was on the stage or even on the 52:00radio. I was too little then to care, I think. But by the time I got to stage, I had heard of the child labor laws.

CW: So, how did you keep it a secret?

GWW: So, when we would play in different places, even like Providence or Hartford, I never -- and we'd come back by bus. The whole company would be transported by bus. I never missed a single day's school. We would come back, two o'clock in the morning from Providence, from Hartford, from Springfield and we lived on a very narrow street. And this big bus would be lumbering down at two o'clock in the morning and my mother would take this yucky Pond cold cream and take the makeup off my face. And I would go to school the next morning. I didn't want anyone to know what I was doing. So, how did I keep it a secret? I simply never told anyone. I think some people knew, but I didn't know people 53:00knew. And I remember one time, I think it was one of the second grade teachers, she was all smiles and she was all ready to engage me in conversation. She'd heard that I was on the stage and she said, "Oh," and she was all smiles. And I knew what she was going to talk about and I can remember turning away real fast and just walking away in the middle of her sentence. I would not engage in any conversation about the stage.

CW: And there's one time when there's a story that you have about one time that you didn't get all the makeup off?

GWW: And a little girl in my class said, "Are you wearing lipstick?" And I turned around fast and ran away. I didn't want to have any conversation with her about it. Never answered her question. Just walked away. I started to say I 54:00never thought about it again, never -- it was not part of my life anymore. In fact, I went to Girls’ Latin School, too, and they had a drama club. And I went to college and college had a drama club. Never joined the drama club because I really did not enjoy performing. I didn't like that part of the world at all. (laughs) So, okay --

CW: And can I ask --

GWW: Yeah.

CW: -- was there a particular reason that you didn't like it other than the child labor law?

GWW: No. There was no abuse of any kind. There was nothing made of it. Nobody promoted anything. It was just part of my life. I just didn’t –- I just wanted to play. I wanted to be with my friends. I wanted to play. I didn't want to go to rehearsal and have to get up and do these things. It wasn't my interest. And 55:00so, I began to resist it more and more. And then, they wanted me to be Miss New Year of 1937. Up until that time, I was in all these plays. Well, most of the plays were these very sad dramas and if they needed a boy, I was a boy. If they needed a girl -- most of them, I was a girl. [BREAK IN RECORDING] The outside says 1933. And this was a card that the radio hour received. It's addressed to "Morrison & Schiff Kosher Radio Hour," Radio Station WHDH, Hotel Touraine, Boston. "Gentlemen," this is from New Bedford, Massachusetts. "Gentlemen, I enjoyed your bar mitzvah program today, very much. As a matter of fact, I thought that the bar mitzvah speech by the little boy," -- me -- "was one of the 56:00very best I've heard yet. I would like very much to have a copy of it in either English or Jewish and will appreciate it if you will send me one. Thank you. Sincerely yours, Rosa Rifkin." And her address is here. So, that was, I don't know how that got -- now, I started to say I didn't think about any of this. I didn't have anything organized, my mother didn't make much of it, either. Nobody did. I mean, I was just doing it. But one day, my daughter-in-law was given an award for something she had done for Hadassah. And so, we all went to support her while she's getting this honor. And she introduced me to someone from her Hadassah group who was just going to start a study group on the Yiddish theater. 57:00So, she thought it would be of interest for this woman to meet me and for me to meet this woman. So, we had a nice conversation and she said, this woman, whose name is Ruth Kahn -- said, "Would you be willing to come and speak to my study group on the Yiddish theater, whatever experiences you had?" And I said, "Yeah, sure." But up until that time, I had no program set aside, I hadn't thought about anything, I didn't know what dates I had done anything. But when I got that assignment, I had some homework to do. And that was when I went looking in the drawers. My mother had taken a program randomly here and there, rolled it up, put it in the back of a drawer somewhere. So, I started to pull everything together. Then I sat down and I looked at the dates and I was able to pull together how old I was when I did what. Up until that time, I didn't have the 58:00slightest idea, 'cause I had no interest in it. I wouldn't have any of this if it weren't for the fact that I was asked to speak to the group. So, we never saved any posters. Those would have really been of interest, historically. Never saved anything except a few of the programs, and some of them were beaten up. And so, I went hunting for these rolled-up posters. And it is then that I had things laminated and put them in a position where, in a situation where I could refer to them.

CW: So, when you went back and had this, as you say, the homework assignment to dig all this up --

GWW: Oh, I did it in one session. I sat at the desk and it really surprised me. I just sat down and wrote my memories in one session and I didn't really change it. I didn't change it at all. It just came. Just all the memories. Now, see, 59:00these were the days of -- I don't know if it'll mean anything to you: Menasha Skulnik, he was a comedian. I used to love to imitate the way he walked. He had a rock. He used to walk with a rock. Very distinctive and I used to love to imitate that. I say I didn't care about it but I had fun with it, too and -- at times. I sat on everyone's lap. Molly Picon, the Adlers. The Adlers were the Barrymores of the Yiddish theater. There were a number of generations of Adlers. And on the programs, you will see that the Adlers were a part of -- that was, as I referred to as, the golden age of Yiddish theater. And so, I was a little kid. So, I was like the mascot. Three, four, five years old. So, I sat on everyone's lap and that kind of thing.

CW: And how did they treat you as a kid in the midst of these --

GWW: Oh, it was just --

CW: -- established performers?

GWW: Yeah, I was a cute little girl, a little kid, and I was -- they treated me well. I mean, everybody was very nice to me. But my mother was with me every minute. Every second, and --

CW: Do you remember receiving any training, people giving you instructions?

GWW: Never had any training. Well, I mean except that Mr. Fisher said, "Say it faster." (laughs) But I, no, I never had any kind of training except that I just -- I would be told -- you know that if you get up in front of hundreds and hundreds of people that your voice has to reach the person in the last row. You know that when you're getting up. That's the whole idea. So, I never really received any training but just common sense. Or somebody might sit in the back and say, "I can't hear you." So, then you know what you have to do. Now, when it 61:00reached 1937, the New Year, that was not at the Franklin Park Theatre. That was probably in a bigger theater because it was the New Year revue. And then, they changed my name, then, to Miss Weiner. Then I became --

CW: At eleven, you became Miss.

GWW: I was no longer Baby Weiner. When I was the New Year, I was Miss Weiner. [BREAK IN RECORDING] All the others, I was Baby Weiner. And usually, I was in the prologue or I was in the first act because then my character grew up. And that was the style. That was the way they did -- so, my character would become grown-up and then that would be that. But my mother had a cold that day that I was supposed to be Miss New Year of 1937. And my aunt Violet, who lived upstairs, went to the theater to get the script the very day that I was supposed 62:00to do it. And by then, I was really rebelling. So, I took the script and I tore it up in pieces and threw it in the wastebasket. But I always had a sense of responsibility. I tore it up big enough so I knew I could put it together again because I knew they were depending on me to be the New Year of 1937. And down deep, I had that sense of responsibility. But still, I was rebelling. So, what happened was, and I hated it, I was wearing this white satin tank, bare arms, bare legs, with a ribbon saying “1937” across my chest and a crown. And they put me in this big gold frame, all very elaborate, gold frame, and the frame was lined with this crinkly royal blue velvet. (laughs) And I'm standing in the frame and there's a prompter. There's always a prompter on these shows. So, the prompter has my script and she reads one line and I say it after her, 'cause I 63:00never learned it, 'cause remember, I tore it up. And then, she reads the next line. I say the next line. Until the bitter end, she read one line at a time and I recited one line. And that was the last of (laughs) my being on the Yiddish stage. Then my mother knew I really meant business and wasn't going to do it anymore. So, that was the end of it. And so, as I say, I had no interest. And if it weren't for my daughter-in-law, Jan, introducing me to someone who was doing a study group, this would still be rolled up in drawers. So, was a whole part of my life that I really never paid any attention to. And an interesting thing is nobody made anything special. I never felt it was anything special. I really didn’t. I mean, I was expected to behave as I behaved, to be a nice human being 64:00and nothing special. (laughs)

CW: And when you look back on it now or when you were preparing for that class, what do you notice now looking back all these years on that time?

GWW: Well, one thing, I think I realized that you learn from everything you do in life. You learn good and you learn bad, of course. And certainly, it was, in the final analysis, it was a good experience because nothing bad ever happened to me. And I was comfortable getting up in front of people and still am. I mean, I don't have a problem with speaking and with being comfortable with doing that. And I know that there are many grown-ups who go through absolute hell if they have to get up and speak in front of people. And I'm comfortable because it was part of my growing up. And so, oh, and (laughs) we laugh, as I think about it 65:00afterwards -- I used to say -- my sister, she was nine years older than I. And so, I used to say she had fun. She was nine years older, so she had fun with all the teenage ushers because the kids who ushered, they were sixteen, seventeen years old. So, she had fun there. Everyone in my family got in for free, so that was nice for them. And I was doing all the work, (laughs) at two dollars a performance. And my mother would put it all very conscientiously away in a separate account for me and handed me my bank account one day. (laughs) Yeah.

CW: Can I ask a specific question about --

GWW: Sure.

CW: -- the prompter, 'cause the people might not know that that was a part of the Yiddish theater. So, you said there was a prompter at every --

GWW: Well, I don't think it's just the Yiddish theater, I think. I think all theaters have prompters, yeah. Yeah, she would be in the wings. She would just be right in the wings or there was a special box for prompters. Sometimes, the prompter was in front of you, where the orchestra was, underneath, but -- and you could see her and you could hear her, but nobody else was supposed to hear her. But yeah, all theater has prompters, I believe, today, I don’t know.

CW: And maybe you don't remember but how long would you rehearse a play before you performed it?

GWW: Oh, I really don't know how long. It would take -- long time. We'd do a lot of rehearsing. I mean, we -- they were a very professional group and they really -– they were prepared when they were ready to perform. They knew their stuff.

CW: And what was the group called when you were performing on the stage?

GWW: I don't know what they were called, if they were called anything. Well, they had the separate plays. But then, remember these are the new things. They had the revues, the New Year's revue. So, that's entirely novel. Really, isn't it something interesting to think that the revue was such a novel thing, 1937? [BREAK IN RECORDING] After I wrote this one day, it seemed as I read it that it looked like my mother was a stage mother because why was she doing this? Why was I doing this when I didn't really care to do it? We lived in Boston and in the middle of the winter, in snow and ice and we had no car and we had to change streetcars and I'd come home so late at night and she'd have to work at getting 68:00me cleaned up and going out of town. Why did she bother? My mother was no stage mother. And my sister and I discussed this and we thought why did she do it? Why was she willing to do this? And I figured it out one day. I figured, and this was an epilogue. And no, I didn't write this on the epilogue. The epilogue I wrote about my mother was different. But I'd like to tell you why my mother did this. This isn't written down anywhere. At that time, Yiddishkayt was fading out. And after that, this was before the days of Aaron Lansky. Aaron Lansky came in on this at a period of time when people were throwing away their Yiddish books, when there was nobody, no generation to read the Yiddish anymore, and they were being put into dumpsters, thrown away. Nobody cared about -- and there 69:00was that period of time. And in Israel, they did not want Yiddish spoken. They wanted Hebrew as the language. And they were very adamant about it. And I can remember at a dinner party I went to, there was an Israeli who had come for a year to teach at UConn. And I was very upset with him because he was of that mind, very strong. He said, "We don't want to hear Yiddish. Hebrew is the language for Israel and we want everyone to speak Hebrew." Well, this was just at the period of time when the books were being thrown away, when nobody -- when the immigrants came over and they wanted to be Yankees and they didn't want their children to know Yiddish. They wanted them to know English. And that's why I'm kind of weaving this back and forth. My mother was different because she wanted us to know Yiddish and she was very proud of it. And she felt very badly 70:00that Yiddish was fading out. She read the Yiddish literature and she loved it. And she wanted, if she could contribute at that period of time to anything that was Yiddishkayt, she wanted to. And that's why she was supporting the Yiddish theater, because it was her opportunity to contribute to Yiddishkayt. And that's why she did it and I know that. And that was the legacy she left with me, a love of Yiddishkayt. [BREAK IN RECORDING] I'm going to go back to when the Israeli navy came to Boston because that is a part of how we felt. Did you ever hear the expression “dos pintele yid [the essence of a Jew]”? The expression “dos pintele yid.” Lot of people don't know what the reference is. But the “yid,” or the “yud” as you might pronounce it, is just a dot. It's the smallest letter in the 71:00alphabet, in the Jewish and Hebrew alphabet. But it has such an emotional wallop to that little, tiny dot, 'cause it is such a strong -- that little tiny dot has such a strong emotional pull. It's an idiom that -- I'll describe it. We learned that the Israeli navy, this must have been 1948, '47. The Israeli navy was coming to Boston. So, we all went down to Boston Harbor. The Israeli navy is one ship and we went down to see the Israeli navy. And when they unfurled the Israeli flag on this one ship, I still feel the goosebumps, even as I describe 72:00it now. Seeing that Israeli flag unfurled on this ship, the tears just streamed down my cheeks. And my mother, who was standing next to my aunt Violet, nudged her and said, "dos pintele yid." [BREAK IN RECORDING] “Dos pintele yud,” it's such a tiny little thing, this “yud.” But the emotion that I felt as a Jew, seeing the Israeli flag, that's what this “pintele yud” -- it's such a tiny little thing but the wallop, the emotional wallop of my pride and how I felt about that flag was so strong, I don't know if I can really explain it.

CW: What was so moving about seeing the ship?

GWW: About the what?

CW: What was moving to you about seeing the ship?

GWW: Well, because for the first time, Israel was declared a state and had a flag and had a country. This was the beginning. It was in 1947, I believe, '47, '48. I think it was '47 that Israel became a state. So, here was its own country, never -- I mean, here were the Jews going from pillar to post on the ships, not being allowed to escape Germany, going from country to country. America wouldn't take 'em in, Cuba wouldn't take 'em in, they're going back and forth on the ships. If they had had a country, they would've gone to Israel. But -- so, here was the beginning of Israel. Even to have a navy, one ship, and to have the flag, of course, and I'd see the flag unfurled on the ship, it was just 74:00very, very emotional. And my mother caught it. [BREAK IN RECORDING] As strong as she was about Judaism and Yiddishkayt, she was that strong about America. As I said, she would never miss voting. And she used to talk about how -- always how fortunate, how wonderful America was and the gifts that America gave us and -- [BREAK IN RECORDING]. She had such a strong desire that Yiddish be perpetuated that when she came to visit for overnights, she would bring the "Forverts," that's the Yiddish newspaper, and she would snuggle up -- bed with my daughter, Wendy, who was probably two at the time and she would always add a lesson in Yiddish to her along with bedtime stories in English. And then, when Peter and 75:00Jay, our sons, were little, my husband and I used to go off to a lot of conferences because he was manager and I had nutrition conferences. So, we used to leave the children with my folks in Boston quite a bit. They spent a lot of extended time with their grandparents. And so, when they were little, in order to free the children up, in order to free us up, they would spend time with their grandparents. And they also received the full treatment of Yiddishkayt. I encouraged it. I loved to have her do that. And, I mean, she did it. She felt that way but she got encouragement from me. And they, the children, could speak Yiddish when they were little. But now, I don't know. (laughs) I don't know what they understand anymore. But as I said –- but she was not one-sided. It wasn't 76:00just Yiddish. She felt just as strong about America, yeah.

CW: So, what do you think about Yiddish nowadays?

GWW: Well, I think it's wonderful what's been going on. They now, I know, teach it in the universities. The books, the literature has been -- you studied it and you know it's become part of the culture again. And it's really awful to think that it almost died out. And doesn't Aaron Lansky deserve an awful lot of credit? And it just shows you what one person can do for good and what one person can do for bad. Look at the people. One person, Hitler, what he could do for evil. And look at one person, Aaron Lansky, what he could do for good. It 77:00can take just one person to start things rolling and to make a difference in the world. I'm very encouraged by what I see going on with Yiddishkayt now. I love Yiddishkayt.

CW: How would you -- that's a word that -- how would you define that word, Yiddishkayt?

GWW: Judaism? But it's Judaism, but it's a culture. It's a whole culture. It's the music, it's the poetry, it's the humor, it's the sarcasm. It's a culture. [BREAK IN RECORDING] As I look back on it, I think I was a good little girl. I did what I was supposed to do. I was a little kid. And so, I was supposed to be going onstage, so I did. But, see, a few things entered into it. If I couldn't 78:00read, I probably couldn't have done it. But I could read when I was three, so I never even thought about it. But once I went back to these things, I realized that I had to be able to read or I wouldn't know my scripts. I don't know. Everybody was very nice to me. I mean, all the performers. I guess that you can say I was like a mascot, 'cause I was the little –- I was the only child except for this boy from New York. But he went back and forth. He was part of the New York --

CW: Did you ever --

GWW: He was part -- actually, they were all part of -- the Adler family, I think, as I said, you can compare them to the Barrymores. They were all kind of related.

CW: Were there any actors in particular that you remember meeting or working with?

GWW: Oh, yeah. I do. Yeah. As I said, I sat on their laps. They were sweet to 79:00me. I was a little kid and so, they were -- everybody was very nice. Oh, but then, at one point, you ever hear of the Roxy Theatre in New York? Did you, Liz, ever hear of the Roxy Theatre? That was a big -- my son looked it up yesterday. We wondered if it was still in existence. And I think it went out of existence in the '60s. But it was the big theater in New York. Huge. And he showed me a picture of it on the internet and it was beautiful, one of these really beautiful, beautiful buildings. Anyhow, the producer, the one who put the shows on there, approached my mother and he wanted her to bring me to New York and to be at the Roxy Theatre and perform there. (laughs) And I remember hearing her tell the story. She said, "What, does he think I'm crazy? I'm going to leave Boston? And my husband has a tailor shop here and we have a little business and 80:00this is -- and all my family's here. I don't want her to be an actress!" She saw firsthand how they lived and she didn't think it was a very good life. She didn't want her daughter living the life of actors or actresses. Oh, she wouldn't even consider having me further my career (laughs) as an actress, no way. I remember that story.

CW: Well, thank you!

[END OF INTERVIEW]

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