Belle Bloom Gevurtz

Meyer: Mrs. Gevurtz, do you remember where your grandparents came from? 
GEVURTZ: My grandparents, no. I never knew anything about any of my grandparents. Well no, wait just a minute. My mother said that her parents died very young. They were in Riga [Latvia] which was a part of Poland. And my father’s family, I didn’t ever get to see any of them. I didn’t meet them. They never were here; they were in Russia. They died there a long, long time ago. 

Meyer: When did your parents come to this country? 
GEVURTZ: I can’t tell you the date, but I know they were married in the United States. 

Meyer: In the United States. And where were they married? 
GEVURTZ: In New York. 

Meyer: What were their names? 
GEVURTZ: My father was Max Blum and my mother’s name was Mary Nachamovitch. That’s quite a name. 

Meyer: Yes, do you want to spell it? 
GEVURTZ: [Spells out]. I had to use it when I got a new passport, a brand new one. I can’t use it now. 

Meyer: They were married in New York and were you born in New York? 
GEVURTZ: No, in Taunton, Massachusetts. 

Meyer: What kind of work did your father do in Taunton? 
GEVURTZ: He was in the shoe business. He had a shoe store in Taunton and every place we moved to, he was in the shoe business. 

Meyer: How long did you live in Taunton?
GEVURTZ: I think we left there when I was…

Meyer: You were a very young child when you left? 
GEVURTZ: Yes. What was the year that McKinley was assassinated? 

Meyer: 1898? 
GEVURTZ: 1898. Well we were living then already in Waterbury, Connecticut, so we didn’t live in Taunton too long after I was born. 

Meyer: I see, and he was still in the shoe business there? Did you remain in New England for a long time? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, we remained in New England until not too long before the earthquake in San Francisco, which was 1908. 

Meyer: And you had moved to the West Coast before the earthquake? 
GEVURTZ: Yes. 

Meyer: What reason motivated the family’s move? 
GEVURTZ: Well, I think my mother always wanted to get away from that cold climate back there and my father was quite adventuresome and he liked moving around. But it was awfully hard on my sister and me because every time we moved to another city we got put back a grade in school. 

Meyer: So your whole family moved. You said you had just one sister? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, there were two children. 

Meyer: I see, the two of you. And do you remember coming to the West Coast? How did you come to the West Coast? By train? 
GEVURTZ: By train.

Meyer: Do you remember much about the trip? 
GEVURTZ: Not too much. My father came on ahead and my mother and my sister and I came a short time later. 

Meyer: And you had said to San Francisco? 
GEVURTZ: We moved right to San Francisco. 

Meyer: And he was in the shoe business in San Francisco? 
GEVURTZ: That’s right. He had several shoe stores in San Francisco. I wouldn’t know where they were. I wouldn’t know the location, because at the time of the earthquake one burned to the ground and the other was looted. And then we moved. Of course we had no home because our home burned. Our home was destroyed. They dynamited it. There was a water shortage and they had a lot of trouble containing the fire because the gas mains broke and every place where anybody lit a match there was a fire. So they dynamited blocks and blocks of property in the hopes that the fire would stop it, but it didn’t and everything burned right down. 

Meyer: Tell me what other vivid memories you have of the earthquake? 
GEVURTZ: Well, about six o’clock in the morning, or a little bit before, everything just shook, that’s all. We lived in, and I can’t recall the name of the street we lived on, but many of the houses were built right up to the sidewalk. The sidewalk had heaved up and we had a lot of trouble getting out of them and my father and my sister and my mother and I got separated. He thought that he would like to try to get a conveyance of some kind and see if he could save same of our furniture, so he took my sister and he went in search of a horse and buggy or whatever he could get and my mother and I stayed in the house until the time that we had to move. Somebody came and told us we had to get out of there, because they were going to dynamite that block and we wandered around and finally ended up at Nob Hill where many of the people who had lost their homes were staying. 

The city got tents for us and we all camped out. My mother and I were together but my father had taken my sister with him and we had no way of reaching each other. We thought that they went back in the house and got killed and there was a period of about two or three days before [we knew]. My mother dressed us alike. We were about the same height. We had navy blue coats with brass buttons and she wandered the streets asking if anybody saw a little girl with a coat like that and finally somebody did and we were united. But she had a paralytic stroke very shortly after that and by this time they got tents for us and there was no way of getting her into a hospital, and I was just a very young child for me to take care of her. 

The neighbors were very nice. They helped, but it was a dreadful situation. The only thing that I really recall about the earthquake itself was there was a violent shock which lasted I think for about an hour, but it didn’t. It was under a minute, 56 seconds, or something like that. But when we were up on the hill, I recall that about the third night, seeing the outline of the city hall. It had all burned away, excepting the metal frame and that was red hot and that’s all really that I recall about the earthquake itself. I know there were streets where there was a lot of looting and I heard my father tell somebody that there was one street near Van Ness Avenue where men had broken into saloons and gotten so drunk that they were laid out on the sidewalk like cords of wood, and the fire came along and burned them, because there was no way they could get them out of there. It was a very, very tragic thing. The bank paid. This bank could handle it; no insurance company could handle a loss like this. Most of my father’s funds were in the California State Deposited Trust Company, and they paid a very, very small portion some years later so he was ruined. But everybody else was too. 

Meyer: Did you stay in San Francisco? 
GEVURTZ: We stayed in San Francisco until about a year after the earthquake, maybe a year and a half. That earthquake was in April, 1905, wasn’t it? 

Meyer: I think it was 1906. 
GEVURTZ: We came here in the fall of 1907, it seems to me. 

Meyer: You came to Oregon? 
GEVURTZ: We came to Portland. No, wait a minute. We came to Salem and we lived there a whole year. 

Meyer: And what brought you to Salem? 
GEVURTZ: Well, we were just looking for a place. My mother was determined to get out of San Francisco. First of all, it was not a very healthy place to live. There were lots of fleas, and as I recall, about a year after the earthquake, there was a break out of bubonic plague and my mother had had plenty of problems already, because after the earthquake we moved into one of the stores. We moved into the back room of the store. You couldn’t light a fire in anybody’s house. The stove was out on the sidewalk and I had to do all the cooking and take care of my mother and my sister. I don’t recall too much, but I know I worked awfully hard and it was a great traumatic time. I was a youngster. 

Meyer: You did what you had to do. You had no choice. 
GEVURTZ: That’s right. 

Meyer: Before we talk about your moving, was there any kind of Jewish life that you were involved in in San Francisco? At that time? 
GEVURTZ: My mother was very, very Jewish. I remember the night before the earthquake, she and I were up until way after midnight putting away the Passover dishes because that happened exactly the morning after the last night of Passover. My father wasn’t so religiously inclined but my mother was. During this time she lost her hearing. She had a stroke (or whatever it was that she had) and a number of abdominal operations. She was a very sick woman after that. She was having a lot of trouble functioning because, I have concluded, the deaf are more unhappy than the blind. She was the most unhappy person in the world. She only wished to be dead. She would sit in a room and people would be sitting around talking. She was sure that they were talking about her. If anybody laughed she thought that they were laughing at her. It was a serious thing, so when I was about 12 years old someone (I don’t recall who it was) suggested that I learn to speak so that she could read my lips and I taught her lip reading. 

Meyer: In English, I presume? 
GEVURTZ: In English. She wanted to speak English. She didn’t want to speak Yiddish; She just wanted to speak English. So I finally worked at it and she could be in a room with me and I would whisper to her, nobody had to know that she was deaf and she became very, very dependent upon me. I broke my engagement in later years, to somebody who I was very much in love with who lived in Washington, D.C. My mother said if I moved away she didn’t want to be alive, so I broke my engagement and I stayed. She was very dependent on me. 

Meyer: Was your sister younger than you? 
GEVURTZ: My sister was younger than me. Three years younger, and a very, very young child. She wasn’t very old to begin with. My father, after the earthquake, lost all his business and he went out on the road and, of course, he felt very insecure leaving my sick mother and these two kids. He insisted that I take charge of everything. He said, “She’s the baby, don’t ask her to do anything,” and that went on all through our life. She was the baby and I had the responsibility. I don’t really remember all of the things that she remembered about those early times because it was a very traumatic time for me during the time of growing up. 

Meyer: So your whole family came to Salem. I presume your father came first, or did you come together? 
GEVURTZ: I can’t recall that. I think we all came together. Maybe my father came first. We went to Salem and stayed there for a year. 

Meyer: Was he on the road then, too or was he in the shoe business? 
GEVURTZ: No, I think he had a little store in Salem but my mother wasn’t happy there because she was the religious one. We couldn’t get kosher meat there; it had to be shipped in. She was very unhappy so then we moved to Portland which was a larger city and we lived here ever since. 

Meyer: Where did you move to when you came to Portland? 
GEVURTZ: It was in the area. It was on Southwest Harrison in the area of the Shattuck School and that’s where we started school, my sister and I. 

Meyer: Then did he have a store here in Portland? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, he finally had a store. I think at one time he had two stores. He had one on Sixth and Alder. He called it the Portland Bootery. By that time he had already stopped travelling and he stayed in Portland. Then we went to school here and we never moved away from here. 

Meyer: Did you go to high school after going to Shattuck School?
GEVURTZ: Yes, I went to Lincoln High. I went to Shattuck School and then to Lincoln High. 

Meyer: Tell me, did you have any relatives in Portland at all? 
GEVURTZ: Well, let’s see, my mother had a half-brother. He lived in Boston. He came to live with us for a short while. I can’t give you those dates. He was with us for a couple of years. 

Meyer: But there were no distant cousins living in Portland? Did you join a synagogue in Portland? 
GEVURTZ: We didn’t at first, because my mother was so incapacitated and my father didn’t care. But later on, when we started growing up, we joined a synagogue. It was the Ahavai Sholom at that time and I think there was Rabbi Abramson. We always belonged to it, all these years. And when I married, my husband’s family all belonged to the Temple [Beth Israel]. His mother was German and his father was Polish and he always was more happy in the [Ahavai Sholom] synagogue than he was in the temple [Temple Beth Israel], so we went to the synagogue Sunday school, and now I’m digressing. I’m talking about my father and we joined the Ahavai Sholom. And when I married Louis Gevurtz, his family were members of the Temple. He felt very close to his father who belonged. His father was on the board of both of them. In fact he liked the Ahavai Sholom better, but my mother-in-law was really German so they belonged to both. We never did. My husband never belonged. I guess before we were married he did but I don’t think we ever had a membership in the Temple. 

Meyer: During your growing up years did you have Hebrew instruction outside the home? 
GEVURTZ: Well, I learned to write Yiddish because, you see, before I taught my mother to read lips I had to write everything to her. And as I remember her English wasn’t that good, so I had to write everything in Yiddish. I had a pretty good understanding. I couldn’t read it now to save my soul. 

Meyer: But you still speak Yiddish? 
GEVURTZ: I can understand it. I’ll say that, but I don’t have many people that I can speak it to. After so many years I am sure that I couldn’t hold an intelligent conversation but I do understand it. 

Meyer: I’m still talking about the time before you were married. Did you have much involvement in any social groups in the Jewish community? 
GEVURTZ: Well it was very difficult, you see, because my mother was so sick and it was all I could do to run the house and go to school. There wasn’t very much involvement. Our closest friends in those days were the Goodmans. Morton Goodman, do you know who he is? Well, it was his mother and father and all his sisters and brothers. We were all very, very close to them. Mrs. Goodman was always just an angel. She was so kind to my mother. She could write Yiddish to her too, and they had a very beautiful, close relationship. And of course, my sister and I were close to the girls. There were two daughters and two boys, Morton and Louie. The boys were younger than we were and the girls were about our age, so it was a very, very close friendship. But I can’t recall many other friends that we had made. It was difficult for my mother. She couldn’t communicate and I was trying to go to school and it was a very difficult time. 

Meyer: And your father was running his store? 
GEVURTZ: My father was running his business and trying to make both ends meet and my mother was… There wasn’t any such thing as Medicare. She was in and out of hospitals and she had all kinds of surgery. She had internal troubles. Just everything. She was a very, very sick woman. A most unhappy person. 

Meyer: Did you move around or did you stay in that one location? 
GEVURTZ: We didn’t move around too much. We lived on Harrison and Fourth for awhile and then we lived on Park Street in a flat, and by this time my father had bought a piece of property in South Portland on Gibbs, just south of Gibbs. The name of the street was Curry Street. There were a couple of flats that he kept and rented and somehow or another we lived on Gibbs. No it was Curry, just south of Gibbs. And we lived there for a good many years. I don’t know. It seems to me that we lived there at the time that I was married, it’s a funny thing, I can’t see why I can’t recall, but I think that we did. 

Meyer: Did you work after you graduated from Lincoln High School? 
GEVURTZ: I couldn’t. I couldn’t be away from my mother. 

Meyer: Her health was failing. 
GEVURTZ: Her health was bad, and I stayed home. I didn’t go on to school, but I did study voice. At the time the First World War broke out I had just graduated from high school and I was just ready. My father was going to go to Russia to visit his brother who he hadn’t seen for many years. He was going to take me and I was going and he was going to leave me in Milan, because the voice coach that I had was very, very anxious for me. It was not possible to get voice training in the United States at that time and he was sending me to his maestro in Milan, and that’s when the World War broke out. I had known Mr. Gevurtz for some time, but never had any intention of marrying him. I wasn’t going to marry anybody and I didn’t want any money. I would have scrubbed floors. I just wanted to sing. But there was no way at that time that an American girl could go to Italy and get voice training. The war was on and they had Mussolini there and there was no opportunity in the United States at all and so I never did. But anyway, I had known Mr. Gevurtz for a long time. He was about nine years older than I and I had a lot of respect for him. I never wanted to marry anybody. This just broke my heart because my coach, his name was G. Tyler, was the top voice coach. He said that he had three students, “One’s got the brains, not the voice; one’s got the voice and not the brains and there’s only one that’s got both.” And when he heard that I was going to get married he swore at me in five different languages, three of which I understood. But it just didn’t work out and I’ve been frustrated ever since. I think that’s what’s the matter with me. So I married him. 

Meyer: What year was that? 
GEVURTZ: We were married, I think it was 1919 that we were married. 

Meyer: And where were you married, Mrs. Gevurtz? 
GEVURTZ: In Portland. 

Meyer: No, do you remember, was it at the Ahavai Sholom or at home? 
GEVURTZ: No, we were married at the Benson Hotel. 

Meyer: At the Benson. Did you have a large wedding? 
GEVURTZ: No, a small wedding. 

Meyer: Was your husband’s family from Portland? Had they been living here for a long time? 
GEVURTZ: They had been living here for a long time. My husband was born here. He was born right in Portland. His father had been married before. He came here from San Francisco, with three children, one was just a baby in arms. Hehad to get married, because you know the poor man, he was newly divorced and he got custody of the children. 

Meyer: That’s most unusual for those days. 
GEVURTZ: Yes, most unusual. And he met my mother-in-law. She was a German girl who had a bunch of older sisters. She couldn’t go out and have any fun so she stowed away on a boat and came to New York to her brother, Mr. Gerson, who used to be in the cigar business. She just wanted to get away from home, that’s all. She came here, she had a distant relationship with the Durkheimer family and they also knew Isaac Gevurtz who had just come here from San Francisco with three little children. And before you knew it they were married and the next year they had twins. When she came here she could hardly speak English and she had five children, so she had a busy time. 

Meyer: Was your husband in business when you got married? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, he was in business. He was in business with his brother-in-law, his twin sister’s husband, Sanford Brant. They had been a very successful family financially. They built the Multnomah Hotel, you know. They owned a lot of property downtown, but his eldest brother, Phil (who seemed to be the bright one in the family) had trouble and embezzled a quarter of a million dollars. He did so many wrong things that the business went into bankruptcy and at the time we were married my husband had a little second-hand furniture store with his brother-in-law Sanford Brant. I think it was on Alder Street, maybe Second and Alder. They started right from scratch. 

Meyer: What was the name of the store? Did it have a name? 
GEVURTZ: Gevurtz Furniture Company, I imagine. That’s what it was. 

Meyer: Then it grew from there? 
GEVURTZ: That’s right. It became a large family business. Mr. Brant died quite young and my husband ran the business and our children came along. We had three girls and the youngest was a boy. I think he really wanted to go to law school but by this time his father was getting older. He wanted to keep working and he wanted his son in the business, so Bud enlisted in the Navy as a Navy pilot. He really never flew for the Navy. He had problems with his carrier landings and they refused to graduate him so he came home and went into the business. 

Meyer: Let’s backtrack a little bit to the time when you were first married. Where did you live? 
GEVURTZ: Let me think. Where did we live? Isn’t that strange? Oh, I remember now, yes! It was difficult. It was right after the war and there was no way to find an apartment but a friend of my husband’s had a flat right near the Broadway Bridge. I think it was on Ross Street. Is there such a street as Ross? 

Meyer: Not down there, but there may have been. 
GEVURTZ: These people said that they would like to move to their country place for a year and try it and my husband knew him and he really didn’t want to rent his flat excepting to somebody he knew. So he rented his flat to us and we stayed there a year. 

Meyer: Was your mother alive at the time you were married? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, my mother was alive and my sister, of course, had grown up by this time. She was able to help to get married herself a short time later. But by this time my mother was feeling a little bit better and we were able to get help to take care of her. Our first child was born shortly before we were married a year (about two or three weeks before). We had four children, and my husband wasn’t so young and he really wanted a family and so did I. That was one of the things we wanted and we had four children. 

Meyer: What were their names? 
GEVURTZ: There was Irma who was born almost a year after we were married. We were married in 1919 and she must have been born in 1920, because she just celebrated a big birthday, and she is now Mrs. Irvin Robbins. Then there was Jane and she is about two and a half years younger than Irma. Then came Sue, Sue Itkin. And then came Burton. We moved around a little bit, because by this time my husband’s business was doing very well. We had a wonderful marriage; he was a wonderful husband. He was a very, very kind person. It was an excellent marriage. 

Meyer: I know that over the years he was very much involved in community life. Did both of you become involved in community life shortly after you were married? 
GEVURTZ: No, I couldn’t. I had little children and there was no such thing as help until the children were very much older. We couldn’t afford it anyway. But he was the involved one. I finally got involved too but it was after the children were all gone. I served as president of the Neveh Shalom synagogue Sisterhood, I think for two seasons. I didn’t want to. He was so involved in it I thought it was kind of silly for both of us to be tied up with it, but our children all went to the Sunday School there and we knew the rabbis who came and went there intimately. And my husband was a very… you see, his mother was so German, but he wasn’t. He was very close to his mother; he was a wonderful son but he also admired his father tremendously. His father was Polish and Lou seemed to feel more at home in the synagogue than he did in the Temple. 

Meyer: When was he president of the synagogue? 
GEVURTZ: Oh boy, don’t ask me that question. Ask me when he wasn’t! I don’t know how many terms he served, but at least five or six terms. And when he finally got somebody to take over, before you knew it, he was in again. 

Meyer: Was he also involved in any of the self-help agencies in the community, helping people? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t think he had very much time for that, because he was very, very much involved with the synagogue. 

Meyer: That was his major involvement? 
GEVURTZ: That was it and he was very generous, over and above the call of duty in his generosity to the synagogue. He thought there would be plenty of people who would take care of the Temple, but that little shul was the apple of his eye. 

Meyer: He was very involved in the religious school, wasn’t he? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, he taught in the religious school for almost 40 years. I’m glad that you mentioned that. 

Meyer: Yes, because I know it’s important, because every year at Hanukkah time, Rabbi Stampfer hands out the little pamphlet and it has your husband’s name on it, so we know ever since we’ve been in Portland that he had been involved in that. 
GEVURTZ: Yes. He was very, very instrumental in getting this site up there. 

Meyer: You mean where the old Center used to be on 13th, or the new one? 
GEVURTZ: The new one and the one on Jefferson Street. You know there was a Neveh Shalom, the Ahavai Sholom on Jefferson Street and at the time the freeway went in, it was not on Jefferson. It was near Jefferson on 13th. 

Meyer: Across from where the old Center was? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, that’s right. And then when the freeway went in there they had to demolish that building and look for another site and he was very active in that. He was on all of the committees. Between the synagogue and his business he didn’t have very much time for any outside activities. We had a large family and we had a very beautiful family life. 

Meyer: Where were you living at this time, during the years that your children were growing up? What neighborhood did you live in? 
GEVURTZ: We lived in Laurelhurst when they were little and then we bought a large (a tremendously large) house when Bud was a baby (that was the fourth child), in Dolph Park. That was a new area then on 31st and Thompson. It was a beautiful home, but we needed a large home and we lived there until Bud was… Of course during that time, that was the era of live-in help and with four children, it was not too bad because we had an electric dishwasher, all the latest in conveniences. We had an electric door on our garage that would work sometimes. But when it didn’t work that could be a trauma. But anyway we lived there and finally when the children grew up, it became very difficult to get live-in help. I decided one day that I had vacuumed something like an acre of carpets (a tremendous house). So we talked it over and we thought we had better get out. We sold that house and we bought a lovely little home in Raleigh Hills and we lived there until he died. 

Meyer: Where was the house in Raleigh Hills? 
GEVURTZ: You know where Fred Meyer is, is that 78th? It was a block up from there. It was right on the comer there, a block up from Fred Meyer’s on 78th. We lived there, I guess 10 years. 

Meyer: What high school did the children go to? 
GEVURTZ: Lou graduated from Lincoln High School and so did I. Well the children went to Grant High and when we moved away from there they were no longer in high school anymore. They went to Fernwood Grade School and Grant High. 

Meyer: You did mention that you had become involved with the Sisterhood at Ahavai Sholom. Were you involved with Hadassah or the National Council of Jewish Women? 
GEVURTZ: Yes. I was a member of the National Council of Jewish Women for years and years and I also held office in Hadassah. I was very, very devoted to Hadassah. 

Meyer: Were you the president of Hadassah? 
GEVURTZ: No, I never was president, because my sister became president one time and at that time when she took the presidency I was fund raising chairman. It used to worry the life out of me. I didn’t sleep half the night. And when she became president some of the people thought that I ought to resign that office because we were sisters. They didn’t think it looked good. So after that I was always very active in Hadassah, but I never held office after that. I didn’t hold office while she was president and then later on I think I held several chairmanships, but no office. 

Meyer: Were you ever an officer in the National Council of Jewish Women? 
GEVURTZ: No, I never held office, but I was active. I was on committees. 

Meyer: Were there other of the Jewish organizations that you worked in, that you were involved in? 
GEVURTZ: I’m trying to think. 

Meyer: The Robison Home? 
GEVURTZ: Oh yes. 

Meyer: You’ve been a member of the Sisterhood? 
GEVURTZ: I’ve been a member and when we lived up there I used to be very active. I never was on the board. I don’t know why. I think I was on the board of the synagogue at that time, and I had enough boards, but I used to spend a lot of time going there because I didn’t live very far from there. I did drive and I used to go and play Bingo with the people and tried to help them amuse themselves. When I lived near there I was very active there, but I didn’t hold office because by this time I felt that between my husband and me, we had enough all this time. 

Meyer: Were your friends also involved in these same kinds of activities? 
GEVURTZ: Some of them were. Many of them weren’t. I just don’t recall. Isn’t that funny? We had a large circle of friends but most of them belonged to the Temple. My husband never felt at home in the Temple as he did in the synagogue on account of his father. He was very close to his father. 

Meyer: Were you involved in any other community organizations or were you just so busy within the Jewish community? 
GEVURTZ: I’m trying to think. I’m sure I was. All of our children went to Reed College. 

Meyer: All four of them? 
GEVURTZ: Yes. They went there for two years and then they all left for other schools. All three of the girls went to Washington University for a time, for the last two years. And naturally, I lived in Portland and I couldn’t really serve on any of the committees up there, but I did get roped into the Mother’s Day Speech every summer. I never could figure out how it happened, but it just crept up on me, that’s all. 

Meyer: When you were living up in Dolph Park were there any other Jewish people in that area? 
GEVURTZ: Not too many. Really not too many Jewish people there. There were not too many homes there yet. It was a very new area. I wanted to live there because I wanted my children to come home for lunches and I wanted to be near the grade school and high school. 

Meyer: When you moved to Raleigh Hills, probably there weren’t many Jewish people out in that area at that time? 
GEVURTZ: No, there weren’t. But by this time, we were older and we had a large circle of friends, and everybody had cars and so we were able to get around. And my husband loved to play bridge. We had a nice little circle of friends. 

Meyer: I’m sure that during the late ‘40s and ‘50s you must have been very involved in fund raising for Israel? 
GEVURTZ: I had the Jewish National Fund chairmanship for I don’t know how many years. 

Meyer: That was something you hadn’t told me about. Do you remember any of the years? Or the general time? 
GEVURTZ: I’m trying to think. It was when Mr. Olds….

Meyer: Jack Olds? 
GEVURTZ: No, not Jack Olds. It was Jack’s father I guess. He was very active in the Jewish National Fund and I had that chairmanship for Hadassah, for a long, long time. 

Meyer: Were you also the chairman for the dinners that they had? Did they have dinners at that time for Jewish National Fund? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t recall. I never was very good at big dinners. I had had big dinners at home and I had a big family. I think, though, that there was a time when I was very active in the synagogue. I couldn’t avoid getting involved in the dinners but it was mostly in the synagogue. It was almost always in the chairmanship or the presidency.

Meyer: Do you remember any specific events during those times that were especially important? 
GEVURTZ: I think it is awfully hard for me to. I can’t understand why it is difficult for me to recall that time, but my children were growing up, I guess. 

Meyer: You had mentioned before that you had had a busy and happy family life. You must have had lots of Passover dinners, and Rosh Hashanah? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, I always had the whole family. My husband’s family always came to my house for Passover and there were a lot of them. And my sister’s family, because her husband was not particularly interested in any kind of religion. He is the only man that I ever met who is an out-and-out atheist and is happy with it. I’ve never met anybody before that had it straightened out and was happy with it but he came from that kind of a family group. 

Meyer: Was he from Portland? 
GEVURTZ: No, his family lived in Seattle. 

Meyer: I don’t think you’ve told me what her married name was? 
GEVURTZ: Goodman, George Goodman. She just passed away this last year. 

Meyer: So you were the one who had all the wonderful family celebrations? 
GEVURTZ: Yes, yes, I was always the one. It was my husband’s family and my sister’s family. 

Meyer: And you had mentioned that keeping kosher was very important to your mother. Did you ever keep kosher? 
GEVURTZ: No, I never did. Lou’s family didn’t. My mother-in-law was never very interested in it and it became quite a hassle. And keeping help and four little children, it just wasn’t feasible at all and I had a lot of religious involvement and I felt that that was all I could handle. 

Meyer: You’ve lived in Portland for so many years. How do you feel about changes that have taken place in the Jewish community? 
GEVURTZ: Well, I just don’t know. In what area are you speaking of? 

Meyer: Well, as the population has shifted. People’s involvement. Do you feel that there is a difference in the Jewish life in Portland today?
GEVURTZ: Well, I think all life was different in those days than it is now. And I don’t feel (and I could be wrong), I think that Jewish people, and there was a time when we didn’t go with very many non-Jewish people, but now we do and we belong to organizations. We all do. It’s a different life style, but I think perhaps that you’re right, that we Jewish people were closer to one another in those early days that I lived here. 

Meyer: Do you feel, for instance, after Urban Renewal came to South Portland and the Center was moved, do you feel that that might have provided some of the changes? 
GEVURTZ: Well, it might have. When our synagogue moved out there, there were a lot of problems because, you see, by this time we had quite a membership. And in order to build a building you had to have enough space, enough grounds to accommodate a certain number of cars relating to your membership. And nobody wanted to move up there. My husband was chairman of that committee. They found that site and I know you know where it is, and you know about that little church on top there. They found that site and made the down payment on it because they wanted to hold it, because there was no place in Portland where they could find enough space to accommodate these many cars and they had done a pretty good job. Lou Rosenberg was on that committee with him and several of the other men and they combed the city, all over. And when the membership met, they voted it down. They lost their deposit and Lou and Mr. Rosenberg, Lou Rosenberg resigned as chairman and co-chairman of the committee and they said, alright we’ll find a place. 

By the time that they discovered that there was no other place, the property had been sold to the people who built that little church and they finally induced them to sell it back to them for the same amount that they paid. That little knoll where that little church was, was where the synagogue was going to be. That was what they planned on. I had had second thoughts about it. They have a very nice relationship with that little church, but I’ve heard people say, in fact I felt maybe it’s me, that if … well some people may feel that it looks pretty bad, for this big prosperous looking synagogue to be on this piece of property with that little church. I thought that maybe some day they may have to decide to buy that property and build them a church some place, because, now, this is my own personal opinion, I think it’s bad public relations although we have no problems with them. They’re very nice and the parking works out beautifully, but this is just my special opinion and I feel that way and I can’t help it. 

Meyer: Well, you know, right now, that little church, it’s a new congregation and they’ve actually added on to that little building and there are a lot of people working on it, so I guess the new congregation is happy with that particular site. 
GEVURTZ: I imagine they’re happy, but that’s just my personal feeling. I don’t know why I feel that way about it. 

Meyer: One of the things that we didn’t talk about at all is the Depression. Do you remember very much about the Depression? 
GEVURTZ: What year was that? 

Meyer: 1930. 
GEVURTZ: Yes, I remember plenty about it. My children were growing up and we just didn’t spend money like we do now. There wasn’t that much money. I’m trying to think when they moved to the larger store, and I don’t recall that date at all, I’m sorry. 

Meyer: Well, that’s OK. 
GEVURTZ: But we had to be very careful. That was in the 1930s and that was the time that Bud was born, our son. Our youngest child was born in 1929 and that was the problem with the big house. I never wanted that house. I was afraid of the investment, of the debt that we went into. I would have been satisfied with a great deal less. My husband struggled under that financial burden for years. It was never my idea, but we had a large family and he was looking towards the future. He thought we could handle it and it was very, very difficult. 

Meyer: Did you have much involvement with the Jewish Community Center? 
GEVURTZ: Where was that Center? 

Meyer: First, the Neighborhood House. 
GEVURTZ: Yes, my children always went to dances there and it seems to me that Hadassah used to meet in the Neighborhood House for a while, didn’t they? 

Meyer: I think a lot of the organizations did, and then of course it moved up to 13th. 
GEVURTZ: That right. Now wait a minute, where was that old Neighborhood House? 

Meyer:;  It’s over, just off Barbur Blvd. 
GEVURTZ: Off Barbur. What’s there now? 

Meyer: The Neighborhood House is still there. It’s near the park. 
GEVURTZ: I know where it was. Yes. What do they do in there? They do have activities there? 

Meyer: Yes, well the Council of Jewish Women still owns the building. 
GEVURTZ: Yes, I used to go there. When we first came to Portland that was the Neighborhood House. 

Meyer: And did you spend much time there when you first came? Did you take classes there? 
GEVURTZ: Yes. I took some classes there. And then when that influx of German people came from Germany I was part of the motor corps. I used to take them there for classes. Pick them up and bring them home and had to do things for them. 

Meyer: Were you involved when the Russian immigrants came? 
GEVURTZ: Well, this is what I’m telling you. 

Meyer: You said Germans, but you meant the Russian immigrants? 
GEVURTZ: Wait a minute now. The Russian immigrants I never was involved in. I don’t know why. That’s really recent and my husband was sick for many years and I wasn’t getting any younger. I don’t know, I think I was feeling at that time that I had done my part and I was ready to retire. I think that was the time I was so involved with the synagogue too. 

Meyer: Are you talking about the time of the Second World War, when you were most involved in the synagogue? 
GEVURTZ: Let me think about that Second World War. What were those years? 

Meyer: The ‘30s, ‘40s. 
GEVURTZ: Well, now let’s see, yes, probably. You know I have a very vague recollection of the things I did. I know I was very busy. Of course, when you have four children you are going to be busy anyway and you don’t have too much time for outside activities. But I know I had committees and I had chairmanships and I think that was about the time I took the presidency of the Sisterhood, the Neveh Shalom Sisterhood. 

Meyer: How do you feel today, as a Jew, living in Oregon? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t know anything but being a Jew…. I don’t know how I would feel as a Jew living anywhere else, because I’ve lived here for so many years. I was so young when we moved here and my whole life has been revolved around the things I’ve done in Oregon, and I think it’s a beautiful state. I have no comparison to make between other Jewish communities because I didn’t live in another one during my adult life. 

Meyer: Yes, that’s right. You’ve been here for a very long time. Are there any things you might have done differently besides continuing with your voice career, which you had mentioned before? 
GEVURTZ: I don’t know. 

Meyer: I think you really enjoyed your involvement in the Jewish community. 
GEVURTZ: Oh, I loved it. I couldn’t help it. I would have enjoyed it anyway. But you see, I was oriented towards it, because my husband was very, very much involved. We had a good marriage and we were interested in a lot of the same things, the same projects. I think I gave him plenty of problems. He was older than I was. I don’t know. He was just very patient, that’s all I know. 

Meyer: Was he involved with the Jewish Welfare Federation when it started, any aspect of that? Working for the UJA? Raising money? 
GEVURTZ: And how he was! He was involved in every Jewish money fund raising activity. You name it – he was there. 

Meyer: Was he chairman of anything, of any particular ones that you member? 
GEVURTZ: I can’t recall now. I’m sure he had a few chairmanships. You know, you can’t avoid chairmanships. All you have to do is express an opinion and you’ve got yourself a chairmanship. The problem is avoiding involvement, but he had plenty of chairmanships. 

Meyer: I know that he did over the years, but I thought that there was one specific that you can remember. 
GEVURTZ: There was the Robison Home, he and Sanford Brant. I think they were instrumental in buying that piece of property out there to begin with. 

Meyer: You mean the one down in South Portland? Was it in South Portland? 
GEVURTZ: You’re talking about the Robison Home aren’t you? The one I’m talking about is the one out in Raleigh Hills because he was very much interested in it when it was down in South Portland. His brother-in-law Sanford was president of that for a while. I don’t think Lou ever was but he was very, very intimately involved with it. 

Meyer: Well, you both were very interested in helping people over the years. 
GEVURTZ: Well, he was the one. I had four little children with my nose to the grindstone. 

Meyer: Thank you very much.