Helen Weinberg Blumenthal was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin on May 5, 1923 to parents of Russian and Polish descent. She interrupted her studies to become a doctor to enter military service during the Second World War. She served as a Navy nurse at Bethesda Naval Hospital near Washington, where she became friends with Eleanor Roosevelt. Helen …
Read MoreKathryn Kahn Blumenfeld was born in Boise, Idaho around 1921 to a family that had been in the United States for a generation already. Her father Charles Kahn’s family started Kahn Bros. Hide and Wool business in Portland. Charles was born in Portland. He married Barbara Lauer, the daughter of a pioneering Jewish family in …
Read MoreStan Blauer, born September 19, 1935, is the only child of Meyer and Rose Stein Blauer. His father came from Austria-Hungary at age 13 (date unstated); his mother was born in Portland in 1914. His father worked mostly as a traveling salesman for a variety of clothing lines until the founding of the umbrella company. …
Read MoreJudy Blauer was born on March 17, 1941, the second daughter of Sol and Mildred Albert Sax. Judy’s maternal grandfather, Louis Albert, had immigrated from Russia as a young man and settled in Portland. He was well-known in Portland as the “Soda Pop King” as he invented and marketed several popular flavors of soda. Judy and …
Read MorePhil Blank was the last of seven children and the only child born in America to parents who came to Portland in 1914 via New York from Blagapol, Russia (near Kiev). They arrived with five sons: Sam, Abe, Joe, Lou, Ted, and one daughter, who died in Portland at age 11. Phil, who born in Portland …
Read MoreJeremiah Jerome “Jimmy” Berg was born in Edmonton, Alberta on June 25, 1914. His family lived in Great Falls, Montana until 1919 when they moved to Portland. In 1920, Jimmy’s father purchased the Grant Street Theater, the Kearney Theater, and the Sunnyside Theater. He later owned the Lincoln Theater. The whole family worked at the theaters. …
Read MoreCharles “Ted” Baum (1905-1979) was born to a family of Austrian and Bavarian descent. His maternal Grandfather, Charles Lauer, came west from New York with the wagon train of Eugene Skinner (for whom the city of Eugene is named) in the 1850s.. He became an important citizen in Eugene and a banker. Baum’s paternal grandfather, …
Read MoreIrene Balk was one of six children born to Peter and Rebecca Goldbaum, who had immigrated to Portland in 1911 through Argentina from a small village near Odessa. Her siblings included Al (Tom and Michael Grant’s father, also a vaudevillian performer), Larry (both brothers changed their last name from Goldbaum to Grant), Betty Stone (Marilyn …
Read MoreGertrude Rosumny Bachman was born in 1900 in Lidvingka, Ukraine. In 1905, her family came to Old South Portland, where her oldest brother was living, and her father opened the Zion (later Star) Bakery. Gertrude attended both Failing and Shattuck elementary schools, as well as Lincoln High School. After graduation in 1917 she went to business …
Read MoreHarry Arnsberg was born in 1911 in Republic, Washington to immigrant parents from Grodno gubernia, Russia (which is sometimes in Poland). Harry’s parents met in England and married in Liverpool in 1900. They had their first child, Harry’s oldest sister Mildred, in England before moving to South Africa, where they had their second child, Harry’s …
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