Jeremiah 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 MoreJan Baross was born on February 5, 1943 in Bakersfield, California; she had one brother, Dr. Thomas Meadoff. Her fatherDr. Nathan Meadoff was born in Gomel (now in Belarus) and came to the US as a young child. Her mother Estelle Kaplan Meadoff was born in Memphis, Tennessee. They metat UCLA. The household was a secular …
Read MoreEvelyn Diamont Banko was born January 21, 1936 in Vienna, Austria. Her father, Joseph, was an engineer and her mother, Frieda, a housewife. In March 1938, when the Nazi’s annexed Austria and enacted numerous anti-Jewish laws, it became increasingly clear to Evelyn’s family that they could not remain in Austria. In August 1938, a Nazi who …
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 MoreElizabeth Baer was born to Sam and Sally (Hirsch) Baer, both of German origin in Baker, Oregon. She graduated from high school in Baker and attended two years at the University of Oregon before transferring to Wellesley College in Massachusetts. After graduation she taught mathematics and German at Baker High School until her retirement. Elizabeth’s father …
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 MoreAlfred Apsler was born in Vienna, Austria to Hermann and Helene Pasternak Apsler. Hermann was an accountant. He studied German and history at the Matura on Erzherzog-Rainer-Gymnasium and received a PhD in education in 1930 from the University of Vienna’s College of Education. While still in high school, Alfred became very active with a group of Socialist students …
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