Charles “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 MoreTillie Baderman, nee Cohen, was born on August 23, 1922 to Hymen Cohen and Yetta (Danzker) Cohen. Her mother was born Yetta Katz in Kiev, Russia in 1890, and was married to a Herschel Danzker, with whom she had two children: Irving Danzker and Lenore (Danzker) Liebrich. Herschel Danzker died in Russia and afterward, Yetta …
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 …
Read MoreJoy Levy Alkalay was born in 1920 in Vienna, Austria, the only child in a Sephardic family. Perceiving the German threat, the family was permitted to leave Austria because they were Yugoslav nationals. Joy’s family went first to Zagreb and from there to Sarajevo and Split. Later she was interned by the Italians on the island …
Read MoreDora Ail was born in the small village of Ugrain, near the larger town of Echelanislov in Poland in 1901. Fearing the pogroms then prevalent in that area, the family traveled a circuitous route through Siberia, Vladivostok, and Yokohama, finally reaching Harbin, Manchuria when Dora was 15 years old. Her memories of Harbin are mostly …
Read MoreMiriam Aiken (nee Boskowitz), born July 3, 1886, was the second daughter of Sarah Bloch and Isaac Boskowitz. Her paternal grandparents came west from New York after the Civil War in search of opportunity and were among the first Jewish families to settle in Oregon. Miriam’s father ran a general store in Union, Oregon when she …
Read MoreArthur Ira Zuckerman was born in Brooklyn, New York on July 18, 1953, to Max and Sylvia Zuckerman. He grew up in an Orthodox home, and was part of a Zionist youth group called B’nai Akiva. After high school, he moved to Israel, living on a kibbutz before joining the Israeli army to fight in the …
Read MoreMin Mudrick Zidell was born in Washington, D.C. on December 12, 1923. She was the last of seven children of Russian immigrants Max and Rebecca Mudrick. Her father died before she was born, and her mother settled in Portland, Oregon, as she had a few brothers living there. Min grew up in Congregation Shaarie Torah but …
Read More