Rosalie Horenstein Goodman

Frankel: I will begin by asking you to state your full name, date and place of your birth.
GOODMAN: Rosalie Horenstein Goodman, February 5, 1929, Portland, Oregon.

Frankel: Tell me about your family. Who was in your household when you were growing up?
GOODMAN: My mother, Sadie Horenstein, my father, Mike Horenstein. “Mike the Barber.”

Frankel: Your father was a barber?
GOODMAN: Yes. My sister Loraine Horenstein Lippoff, who was four years older than I.

Frankel: Where did you live?
GOODMAN: At 627 SW Lincoln Street we rented a small house from Yankel Holzman, who was the grandfather of Arlene Schnitzer. We rented that for several years. My sister and I shared a bedroom. I remember that house completely. The door that led to the bathroom was on my side of the room. It had a living room and a dining room and a kitchen and a front porch and a little back porch. It had a yard large enough to have some roses. We didn’t have to keep up the roses though. I don’t remember my family trimming roses. They just grew. There was a grape bush in the back (they were sour grapes) and a lilac bush. I have very, very happy memories there. That is where I remember playing. Did you want to ask another question?

Frankel: I would like to know where your parents were born.
GOODMAN: They were born in Russia. My mother came in about 1912 and I think my father’s family must have come around the same time.

Frankel: Did they come directly to Portland? 
GOODMAN: No, my mother’s family came to Philadelphia where her family was. The name that they came with from Russia was Decklebaum but they came to relatives in Philadelphia and my grandmother’s sister married a Schwartz so they took the name Schwartz, which was what a lot of families did at that time. My grandfather had come several years earlier.

Frankel: Was that your maternal grandfather?
GOODMAN: Yes. And he brought my uncle Sam, his son (that is Sylvia Pearlman and Jack Schwartz’s father) when he was very young. He did not send for the rest of the family, my grandmother, my uncle Nate, my aunt Flora (Marcus) and mother, until several years later. That is another story – a novel.

Frankel: And they all came to Philadelphia?
GOODMAN: My grandfather and my uncle came to Philadelphia first, that is when the name was changed. Then my grandmother came to her sister, who was also living in Philadelphia (she was the one married to the Schwartz). Then they came to Portland because my grandfather was in Portland. They came here and settled someplace else first; I think they were on Second and Jackson or something like that. That is where my sister was born; maybe it was Fourth and Jackson.

Frankel: What did your grandfather do that brought him to Portland?
GOODMAN: He was a peddler, when he wanted to work. He was a very sweet man. He became Americanized but my grandmother never did. My Babba never did. The children catered to her. My grandmother and grandfather separated but they never got divorced. My Babba’s life was the synagogue. I can remember her in her flat at the window, davening. She could have lived her life in a shtetl. I don’t remember her ever going to a movie (maybe she did). I don’t remember her eating ice cream. I remember her potato latkes and her family dinners. She was a wonderful woman but she just never could become Americanized.

Frankel: Did she ever learn English?
GOODMAN: Yes, she did learn English, but she would rather speak Yiddish. She was very loving. But I didn’t really know my grandfather until my uncle passed away (Sylvia Pearlman’s father). They called him then. I wasn’t allowed to talk to him when I saw him at synagogue. The children were very bitter and they all took my grandmother’s side. After that, my mother started letting him come over. By that time, 1941, he came to Lincoln Street, I think. It was right before the war that we moved to Jackson Street and we rented a flat that was owned by the Rosen family. We were in the upstairs flat because Yankel Holzman wanted the house for him and Molly. And that was fine. I remember my very young “play days” were on Lincoln Street. I became friends with Mary Babani when I was three and she was two.

Frankel: Did you spend Friday nights at your grandma’s house?
GOODMAN: Yes, we used to go to my grandmother’s… not really on Shabbos, I think my mother made Shabbos. I remember her working very hard on Fridays. We would be outside playing until it was time to come in and take a bath and get ready for Shabbos.

Frankel: Were your parents observant?
GOODMAN: Oh yes, my mother and father kept kosher in and out of the home. My father would have gone either way but it was Mother’s kitchen and Daddy was very, very helpful to her in everything. They had separate dish towels – the whole thing.

Frankel: What synagogue did your family belong to?
GOODMAN: Shaarie Torah down on First Street. I have happy memories of then. Rabbi Fain was the rabbi, “The Roite Rav.”

Frankel: Why did they call him that?
GOODMAN: Because he had red hair! Until he had white hair [laughs]

Frankel: Was there a cantor there too?
GOODMAN: Yes there was. Cantor …. I will have to think of that. I know who it was.

Frankel: What do you recall from services at Shaarie Torah. 
GOODMAN: Oh I have memories of synagogue. We went on the High Holidays, that is when we children went. When we were very young the women sat upstairs and the men sat downstairs. I remember, before the Holidays, my uncle Sam and my dad would take us while the women were getting ready with the dinner at my Babba’s house, to synagogue. My uncle Sam conducted the service. In the afternoon we would play outside. I guess we were there all day while the women were working. My auntie Flora wasn’t in town. It was probably just my mother, my auntie Ceil, and my Babba. They would be doing the cooking and we would be playing. We played Red Rover and Rosalie would go over and try to break through. Every year it was the same. I was clumsy and I would fall down. I can remember spending the dinnertime at my Babba’s during the Holidays on her “fainting couch.” It was a leather couch in the dining room and I was hurting.

Frankel: It was called a “fainting couch?”
GOODMAN: Yes, it was the fainting couch, the leather couch. My grandmother didn’t have any money, I don’t want it to sound like a Leather Fainting Couch. No. She lived in an upstairs flat. Once we got a call that Babba had gone to bed and the Shabbos candles had started a fire. From then on, when my mother lit candles, if they were going away for any time she put them in the kitchen sink.
But we played during services. It was happy times then. When my uncle Sam passed away, for some reason my mother started having the holidays at our house.

Frankel: Was he your mother’s brother?
GOODMAN: The oldest brother, and adored. My uncle Sam was the oldest, then my mother, then my uncle Nate Schwartz (who is not the same as Charlotte’s father), and then my auntie Flora Marcus.

Frankel: What language was spoken in your house?
GOODMAN: English, except for when my parents didn’t want us to know what they were talking about. But my sister understood Yiddish. The little colloquialisms I understand.

Frankel: You have told me about your mother’s side. What about your father’s side?
GOODMAN: My daddy’s parents. My grandmother lived on Hooker Street. My Babba and Zaide Horenstein lived on Gibbs Street. They had a big house that they owned. It is still there. My father was the oldest and then was, I believe, my auntie Mary Rogoway and then the brother Sam Horenstein, and then Lee Westerman, then my auntie Bella Hoffman and uncle Jack Horenstein.

Frankel: Big family. Did they all get together?
GOODMAN: I don’t remember any of the holidays at my Babba Horenstein’s because she had – I’m pretty sure it was a skin cancer on her legs.  I always remember my Babba Horenstein. She was beautiful. I have pictures. My earliest memories are of her in bed being cared for. We would go over to see her. My Zaide was like my Daddy. He was robust and fun. I have a memory of sitting on his lap for some reason. He must have smoked because I think he put a cigarette in my mouth, just for a joke.

Frankel: What did he do?
GOODMAN: He was a tailor.

Frankel: Where did you go to school?
GOODMAN: I went to Shattuck School. I went for seven and a half year. At that time there was a January class and a June class graduating, There was 1a and 1b, 2a and 2b etc. That was all the way through high school. I went to Shattuck School and I came home for lunch every single day, even when we lived on Lincoln Street. My mother would have lunch.  One of my favorites was cream of tomato soup and potato latkes. Mother was always home. When we were at school, in the afternoon she would go out. She was home in the mornings. Monday was wash day, Tuesday was ironing day, Wednesday was something else. She always cooked dinner. We only went out to eat on special occasions. Mother and Daddy shared: anniversaries were shared with us; birthdays were shared with us. We would go to the Bohemian for dinner, on Washington Street.

Frankel: Can you tell me a little about that restaurant?
GOODMAN: It was on about 10th and Washington, right on Washington. 

Frankel: Who owned it?
GOODMAN: Who was the Governor? … My dad was the barber and he was downtown, so George O’Neil did not own it but he managed it and he knew Daddy really well. The Bohemian was a very nice restaurant downtown. The prices were medium but it was very popular and very clean. I remember all the waiters were Philippino. It took me a long time to get away from just eating plain peanut butter sandwiches. We went there for special occasions. Then we would go to a movie and then we would go to Schapp’s for ice cream after that. That was a restaurant about a block down from the Paramount Theater. That was owned by Hochfeld. My parents shared everything. We were a very, very close family. The only time I remember my mother and father having any type of argument at all, and this is a stupid memory, I was very little. This was on Lincoln Street. My folks were very active in South Parkway Club and Sisterhood. My father never danced and my mother wanted to go to the dance or something and my father didn’t want to go. I remember thinking (because my mother had soap operas on all the time), “Are they going to get a divorce?” which of course was ridiculous. My mother never called my father Mike and my father never called my mother Sadie. It was always, “Honey.” It was “Honey” all the time. And they kissed in front of us and they hugged in front of us. Having come from a dysfunctional family (my mother’s side), there was no dysfunction in their own.

Frankel: What was the South Parkway Club?
GOODMAN: My mother was interviewed years ago about that. The South Parkway Men’s Group was formed by the immigrant boys, mostly newspaper boys, just as a get-together.

Frankel: Were they all Jewish?
GOODMAN: Yes, all Jewish. They met on Tuesday nights and as they started to get married, their wives didn’t want to stay at home so they formed a Sisterhood that met the same night.  They got babysitters at that time. Mrs. Fried is who I remember sitting with me. But Bev Eastern’s mother evidently babysat for us as well. It is so cute; she always said my mother didn’t pay her so I always told her, “I owe you one. I’m going to take you to lunch.” But Mrs. Fried was our main babysitter on Lincoln Street. By the time we moved to Jackson we didn’t need a babysitter. I think my mother paid her ten cents an hour. My folks went out. If they had someplace to go, the money was meant…. my father wanted my mother to…. they had a social life. They had a lot of friends.  hey didn’t take vacations.

Frankel: What was Jewish life like in your home?
GOODMAN: Well, keeping kosher, making sure we had the right dish towel and everything. It was so automatic to me. I knew when the holidays were. I knew when Shabbos was because we had Shabbos dinner. My sister went to Hebrew School at the Neighborhood House. And when I was supposed to start going to Hebrew School, there were no bat mitzvahs at that time.… I started taking piano lessons at nine years old, but they were building the new highway at that time, which was Fourth Street. My parents did not want me to cross the highway so I never went to Hebrew School. When you think about it, we lived on Lincoln Street and how many cars went up and down Lincoln Street in the early 1930s?  The vegetable man came, very few cars went down the street. We played ball. Can I tell you this now?

When we lived on Lincoln Street we had games. We had four or five or six steps.  The ball was our main toy. We would throw the ball against the steps. If you hit the corner and it came back right away and you caught it you had so many points. We also played Roly-poly on the sidewalk. We didn’t have a lot of toys like the kids have today, of course. But the ball was all-important. I remember Daddy bringing home, when my sister had her tonsils out, a checker game to play. There was never this rush to get well and run back to school because the parents had to go out and play golf and that kind of stuff. We stayed home until we were well. I remember Daddy also bringing home a cardboard doll house that he put together for me. Cardboard, not wood. And paper dolls and pick-up sticks. But mainly the paper dolls and saving pictures of movie stars for scrapbooks and trading.

Frankel: So your sister went to religious school after school. Did you ever learn to read Hebrew?
GOODMAN: No.

Frankel: How many years did she go?
GOODMAN: Until she graduated.

Frankel: After Shattuck, where did you go next?
GOODMAN: I went to Commerce because I knew that I wasn’t going to college. I never thought about working a year and saving money. I went to work.

Frankel: What was Commerce School?
GOODMAN: Commerce High School. It is Cleveland High School now. You had training to be a bookkeeper or a secretary. I took the secretarial course and learned typing. That was fine.

Frankel: Did your sister go there too?
GOODMAN: Yes, she graduated from grade school. Lorraine graduated from high school when she was 16. It was hard to get a job at 16 but my father in the barber shop, having known a lot of professional men downtown…One of his customers was Mr. Barnett, Mr. Markee from the gas company and my sister got a job then.

Frankel: Did your family own a car?
GOODMAN: Never. We were bus and street car people all the way. Walking everywhere.

Frankel: Can you describe your neighborhood?
GOODMAN: Well, the one on Jackson Street had – now there was a gulch. I for some reason can’t remember the gulch right across the street that separated Lincoln from Grant but then I remember that they built these parks, kind of like they are now, crossing the freeway. On Grant Street lived the Benveniste family, the Feinstein family, many Jewish families there. Across Broadway lived the Babani family and the Policar family. On our block there were some Policars, Perkels, around the block were some more Babanis, Mary’s family. We all knew each other. It was a wonderful, mixed neighborhood. There were Greeks (Jimmy Katsaikis), Jews, Italians, there were no black people that I can remember at that time. We were lower income families. We always knew the story, have you heard of the Jewish Free Loan Society?

Frankel: Yes.
GOODMAN: Well my father evidently didn’t have the money to pay his share of the rent in the barber shop so my mother went to the Jewish Free Loan Society and wanted to give them her wedding rings as collateral for the loan. And they told her, “No, Mrs. Horenstein, you keep your rings. We will give you the money and when you can pay us back you pay us back.” It was a wonderful agency. Lorraine and I never felt like we didn’t have anything. My folks never discussed money in front of us and there was never an argument about money. My mother lived on what they had. On Lincoln Street she hung her clothes outside. It was fresher that way. My mother never had a washing machine until they moved to a house that they bought. My mother was a hard worker. I remember her wringing out clothes with her hands before she hung them up on the line. She always looked nice. My father always wanted my mother to dress nicely, with whatever they could afford. I remember a fur coat. They still saved, and they had insurance, but he wanted my mother to have nice things. Her dresses may have come from Meier & Frank’s basement, but the money that he saved would go for my mother to have nice things. The love was always there. That is how I learned love.

Frankel: Can you describe the stores in your neighborhood?
GOODMAN: There was a grocery store on the corner, on Lincoln Street, it was Breslow’s Grocery Store. Mr. Breslow had a daughter named Eva who married Al Veecy, who also lived across the street. We would go sit in the booth in the grocery store and talk. I couldn’t cross the street. I ran away from home one time, but I couldn’t get very far because I couldn’t cross the street. Around the corner from the grocery store was an Italian man named Leo who had a shoe-shine shop and we could go in there. Next door to Leo’s was the Catholic Tooth society that printed the newspaper. Next door to that (this is all on 6th Street) was an empty lot that the truck probably went into. At night when they were closed (and this is when I was very little because we were still on Lincoln Street) Mr. Ankeles, who lived on the corner in a four-plex, would come out. He was the Daddy who would play with us. We played softball or something, we little kids. 

Let’s see, in the four-plex lived the older Enkelis, there was a Mrs. hmm, she was raising her granddaughter because the father was off working someplace (it was the Depression Days) and there was no mother. And then Charlotte Schwartz’s grandparents lived there and Molly Blumenthal lived there. I used to watch her. Molly always looked stunning when she went to work. Then farther down the block, Donna Jackson’s (Donna Silver’s) family lived there. Rabbi Kleinman lived on Jackson Street around the block and across from him was Leonard Goldberg and Vivienne’s (Bonnin) family. Crossing back to the street where Rabbi Kleinman was, on the corner on Jackson Street was the Goldstein House. That was where Bill Goldstein was raised and Edith Kamin and Morrie Galen. So we were all around that whole block when I was a little girl.

Frankel: Were your parents involved politically?
GOODMAN: No. My father knew a lot of politicians because of where his shop was downtown, but if he discussed things with my mother, we never knew. He was very ethical.

Frankel: What about Zionism?
GOODMAN: I knew nothing from Zionism until I was older and joined Junior Hadassah. But before that, no. I knew there was Palestine. I still have cousins in Haifa but they were the ones that escaped the camps. My folks always sent money to them. I remember the family always getting together and sending money to “the cousins.”

Frankel: Did you have blue boxes?
GOODMAN: Yes, my mother always had one and they always came around to collect them.

Frankel: Did you know where the money went to?
GOODMAN: To Palestine.

Frankel: When you grew up, what do you recall about the war years?
GOODMAN: Well, I had no brothers. Nobody in my immediate family was in the service. None of my mother’s brothers. My uncle Sam and Uncle Nate might have been in the first World War. I’m not sure. But in World War II, I had cousins who joined the Navy. During the war days I was involved in my high school clubs. We had Jewish clubs. We were involved in different ways; working for the Red Cross or giving our time to something like that.  I was too young to go to USO dances but we had our own dances. Those were fun years for me, when I was fourteen and went to high school. The war broke out in December of ’41 and I graduated from grade school in June of ’42. I was old enough to go to the Center. I lived at the Center! I started out at the old Jewish Community Center with a summer membership when I was very young. We used to go up there and go swimming. I had so many friends at the Center. East side, west side, not too many from the northwest. I think that Sue Friedman probably told you that she didn’t spend too much time at the Center. I am not sure how I met Sue. We probably met in high school. I don’t remember her coming to the Center very much. It was mostly northeast, southeast, and southwest.

Frankel: Did the neighborhood house figure in your life?
GOODMAN: No, it was not a part of my life; it was in my parents’ life because South Parkway Club met there all the time. My grandmother lived catty corner from Failing School. Oh, what am I saying? I went to kindergarten at the Neighborhood House. This picture is across the street. I was one of the fairy queens in this picture. I was picked up everyday to go to the Neighborhood House kindergarten. Lots of Jewish kids went there.

Frankel: Do you happen to remember the name of your teacher?
GOODMAN: Miss Frances.

Frankel: You graduated from Shattuck in 1942. When did you become aware of what was going on in Europe during the war?
GOODMAN: Oh, I knew what was going on. That we talked about at home. It was on the radio. I never heard my family talk about leaving family (and they had to have left family in Russia). I am not aware of them saying, “Oh maybe they were lost.” If they talked about those things it was not in front of my sister and me.

Frankel: Do you remember receiving letters growing up from overseas?
GOODMAN: Yes, always from my cousins who were already in Palestine.

Frankel: But that was after the war.
GOODMAN: It had to be also during the war, too. I have memories of that.

Frankel: And when the United Nations voted in favor of the partition of Palestine, do you have memories of that?
GOODMAN: Do you mean the creation of the State of Israel?

Frankel: When the United Nations decided.
GOODMAN: Yes, I was in Junior Hadassah then. When Israel became a state, I was president of Junior Hadassah. It was very, very exciting for us. There was excitement at the Jewish Community Center and excitement that we had someplace to go. But the partition came first, didn’t it?

Frankel: Yes, in 1947.
GOODMAN: Right, but we knew it was coming. We were very aware that this was all coming together.

Frankel: Did you also notice that there were refugees coming because of the war?
GOODMAN: Oh yes. I was in grade school one rainy day (I used to tell Beatrice Sheuer Chusid this story). I was sitting in Shattuck School on a rainy day and this little girl was introduced to us. It was Beatrice Sheuer.

Frankel: Where had she come from?
GOODMAN: Germany. I remember the story. I remember how her brother was killed. We all knew that Mr. Sheuer, Fred Sheuer was sent ahead and Mrs. Sheuer came to find out that her son had been killed, here in Portland. He was on his bicycle and he was on one of the bridges and was killed. That has always remained in my life. I didn’t know him, but I knew Bea. Mrs. Sheuer was separated from her husband. I don’t know if they ever divorced. That was always a sadness in Bea’s heart.      

But I remember Fred Rosenbaum. I remember other kids starting to come too. They came. They got jobs right away. Somehow they found a way to make a living. Pride was in making a living, it was not what you did it was that you were working.

Frankel: Did they tell stories of what they had left behind?
GOODMAN: No, I never heard them.

Frankel: Now they came during or before the war. What about those who came after the war? Were there people who had survived the camps?
GOODMAN: Oh yes. I remember meeting people who had survived the camp. I knew people who came from Shanghai, the Hamburgers, Janie Rosenbaum. We met at the Center.

Frankel: And did they talk about their experiences?
GOODMAN: No, not to us. Probably amongst themselves but not to us.

Frankel: So what did you do after you had graduated from Commerce High School?
GOODMAN: I went to work for Zidell Machinery and Supply. I took Minnie Zidell’s job. Minnie was married to Emory. She and my sister were very good friends. She wanted to quit and get pregnant so I immediately got the job. I was interviewed by Lilly Kugel (she was Lilly Sacks at the time, I adored her). She always told the story…. I was very naïve, very naïve. I had worked at the Center and I had worked for Meier & Frank in high school Lilly always told the story that she told me I was going to have to wash the windows, too and that I believed her. I don’t think I believed her, but it was a good story.

Frankel: What did you do there?
GOODMAN: I first answered the switchboard and I was the stenographer and secretary to Mr. Zidell, Sam, and to Emory who I called “Emory.” I loved working there. I was on the switchboard and the filing and stenography all at the same time. Then, all of a sudden one day I came in and there were cockroaches running across the top of the switchboard and that was enough. That night I had a nightmare and when I got to work I looked up at the switchboard and I started to cry. Then they got more help so that I didn’t have to do everything all the time.

Frankel: What years did you work there?
GOODMAN: From about 1946, when I graduated from high school until 1949 when I went to Brandeis Camp.  I quit only because I didn’t want to have to work half-day Saturdays. I wanted to be with my friends and be dressed up and go shopping and go to the movies so I quit my job there.

Frankel: Tell me about Brandeis Camp. Where was it and for how long?
GOODMAN: I was president of Junior Hadassah, and I was the third one to go to Brandeis Camp in California, San Susanna. It was a Zionist Camp; Hadassah was a Zionist organization.  That was my introduction to Zionism. They sent me off to Brandeis Camp to come back as a leader and start a Young Judea group. That was very difficult because these girls were starting to get interested in boys and they could have cared less about Zionism at that age. But my marriage to my husband, my children, and Brandeis Camp are three of the most important things in my lifetime. Brandeis Camp was very high. I was there for a month. It was like living on a kibbutz. At that time we lived in tents. I loved it. It was just like living on a kibbutz.

Frankel: Do you remember some of the names of the counselors?
GOODMAN: Max Helfman was in charge of the music. And Dr. Bardeen, of course, was still alive.

Frankel: Do you remember him?
GOODMAN: Oh yes, him and his wife. I liked them very much. I can picture him in my mind. He was a very dominant personality. I found him to be a leader in every way – kind. He was a superior man and I am proud to have known him. And Max Helfman too, who was a lot of fun.

Frankel: Did you study with them?
GOODMAN: Oh yes, we had classes during the day.

Frankel: With Bardeen?
GOODMAN: You know, I can’t actually remember Bardeen teaching us. No, we had different leaders come. I should have written them down. I have a list of everybody. Max Helman did not know where to place me in the choir. I could carry a tune but I was neither Soprano, Alto, or Bass.

Frankel: What year did you go?
GOODMAN: July of 1949.

Frankel: Were you the only one from Portland?
GOODMAN: Yes, the ZOA could only afford to send one person at a time. Usually they wanted somebody from college and I never went to college. But being that I was president of Junior Hadassah they thought they should send me.

Frankel: While you were working at Zidell’s you were still living at home?
GOODMAN: I always lived at home until the day I got married.

Frankel: So what happened when you got back form camp?
GOODMAN: I got back and I was all eager to start a Young Judea group. I was starting it with Shirley, she was Shirley Schliffman and then she became Benson. We tried to get a group started but the kids were all interested in boys. They were too young for dances and whatever projects we set for them, they just flopped. It didn’t continue. I kept active in the community. In high school the organizations I belonged to were Jewish. I went to Commerce and my friends during school there were not Jewish.

Frankel: We are back, you had quit your job before leaving for camp and then what did you do when you came back?
GOODMAN: I got a job at a place called Woodbury Hardware in northwest Portland. I probably saw it advertised in the paper. I lived at home, on Jackson Street and took two buses to work everyday, through rain, shine, sleet, whatever it was. That was how I got to work. It was just a job. It wasn’t something that I loved. There was one person that I worked across the desk from. She was not Jewish. I stayed in touch with her. I was there until I got married in 1951. Then I quit my job.

Frankel: How did you meet your husband?
GOODMAN: I met my husband in 1948. He saw me at the Jewish Community Center. I had just come back from someplace and I was nice and tan. I didn’t meet him there. It was a few weeks later, I was on a double-date with somebody else and we went to a party at his cousin’s house. I was introduced to him there. I could remember seeing him before. I wasn’t even 21, you know and we were drinking – in a social way. I learned drinking in the house. It was never a bad thing; it was sensible. We left to go dancing at Jantzen Beach and Harold, of course, was with a date at the party. Victoria Bercovitz was sitting on his lap. She was this beautiful girl. I liked the look of him. There was something there right away.        

Later I got a call from his cousin. There was going to be a birthday party across the street from where Harold lived and he wanted to know if I would go with him if he called me. So I said, “Yes, if he calls me, I will go with him.” He picked me up to go to the party. I had a gift for Rosadelle (Rosadelle Mazurosky; she is married to Ed Cogan. They live in Israel). And we got across the bridge and I had forgotten the gift, so we had to go back and pick up the gift. Harold’s tolerance for something like that was very low but he was a gentleman about it. We went to the party and we socialized. We didn’t play games, that I remember. I do remember that he got a telephone call. He lived right across the street. His mother was ironing or something, which seems strange for a Saturday night to think of it now. But something was wrong with the iron and she called to see if he could come and fix it. So he asked me if I wanted to go with him. Of course I did. I think she probably wanted to meet me, but that was OK. I loved the fact that he could fix an iron. That was very appealing to me. After the party he asked if I wanted to go out and have something to eat and I said, “No thank you.” And he took me home and didn’t kiss me good night at the door (he didn’t try, but I probably wouldn’t have let him anyway). The reason I didn’t let him take me out to eat was that I didn’t want him to think that I was the word, “golddigger.” We had eaten at the party and I didn’t want him to think that I would take advantage of him that way. He was going to college and was just home for the summer. Anyway, he came in for a couple of things for Junior Hadassah that we went to socially. He still never kissed me goodnight. Then my cousin was getting married. It was going to be a big wedding. At the time, you could ask a date to come for the dance at the wedding but not for the dinner. I asked him if he would come and he said yes. So we were dancing at the dance, and my father did not dance. He didn’t know how to dance and my mother loved to dance. So here it is, a family wedding and I asked Harold if he would dance with my mother. I wasn’t thinking of getting married or anything like that. It was just so that my mother could have a dance. My brother-in-law danced with her. But Harold was very shy but very strong. He took me home and said goodnight and that was it. I didn’t see him again. He took some of my girlfriends out. I didn’t see him again. I went out on dates after that. I was not what you would call “popular” but I had my share of dates.  

Two years later, this was in 1950, Junior Hadassah was giving a tea dance (I say “Tea Dance” in quotes because they were really cocktail dances) at Amado’s which was on top of the Broadway Theater downtown. By that time Harold had graduated from college and was working for his uncle and his cousin down at Scharff’s furniture. That was Dave Scharff.  I saw him sitting with his sister Lorraine, who was a friend of mine through Junior Hadassah, and his cousin Harold. I had probably just enough to drink that I could go to the table and say “Hello.” If I hadn’t had just that much to drink I probably wouldn’t have had the nerve to do it. I went to the table and said “hello” and they asked me to sit down. Then they asked me if I would like to go out to eat afterwards with them, which I did. Then Harold called me and asked me if I liked football. I said, “I love football.” And so we went to a football game with Dave and Blanche Scharff here in town and he asked me if I would like to go to a hockey game. I went to the hockey game and at the hockey game he asked me would I like to have a cup of coffee. Then we really started dating, and I was dating somebody else at the time but I knew this was going to come to something. We liked to go dancing; he liked the symphony. He was very sweet and quiet. It took him a long time to kiss me, though, but once he started he didn’t stop. We got engaged. He always said it was an April Fool’s joke. Kids now tell each other they love each other on the first date. I think for our generation you didn’t say “I love you” until you really felt you loved a person. When he told me he loved me, I told him I loved him too. Then his sister and I were working at a place called The Filter Center. That was after the war. They had a place up above Broadway. They had big tables and you filtered the airplanes coming in and you learned in case there was another war you would be able to trace the airplanes coming in.

Frankel: Was that a paid job?
GOODMAN: No, it was just a volunteer thing that we did on Monday nights. Harold would pick us up and take Lorraine home and we would neck a little bit. After he told me he loved me that Saturday night, he picked me up on Monday and we took Lorraine home. We parked by Grant High School and I said to him, “When you told me you loved me, what did that mean?” and he said, “I want to marry you.” And that is how we became engaged. But he always said April the first, when he told me he loved me, that was supposed to be an April Fool’s joke. That night we were engaged, we didn’t have a ring yet, but we tried to figure out how much he could save working and I could save working to save a certain amount of money to be able to get married and go on a honeymoon. So we could afford to do it. We figured out that we could do it by November. Then, when I got my ring we went to tell my folks and we went to tell his folks. He didn’t have to ask my father. My folks knew his folks and my mother went to school with his father. Everyone was very happy for us. My mother took her sons-in-law in; they were sons. They loved my parents and I loved my in-laws. Nobody could ever call me Rosie, I was always Rosalie. If they called me Rosie it was unacceptable to me. But my father-in-law said Rosie in such a way, with such love that I would never tell him not to.