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AL34AB Page 1
Side 1A
M: This is Joyce Miller interviewing Mr. and Mrs. Rudderman in their home, Gainesville
Golf Estates at 3:30 in the afternoon on December 16, 1976. And I'd like to start
by asking Mrs. Rudderman where she was born and some of her early history prior to
coming to Gainesville.
R: Well, I hate to say how long back it was when I was born, but it was in the early
1900Ps, and I was born in Atlanta. And the unusual thing about my birth is that my
husband was born around the corner from where I was born in the same year, and our
mothers had the same midwife that brought both of us when we, when we were born. And
of course we didn't meet till we were in high school, but we always felt like we had
an association because we were born such close neighbors and through the same person
handling us when we were both babies. But we both lived in Atlanta until we were, when
wNe were married and we went to school together.
M: What year were you married?
R: We were married in 1924. But we were sweethearts front 1918 on. We were next door
neighbors and Ike used to go to Tech High School and I went to CO(n4er1C'I. High
School. And we'd ride the street car or walk. He'd walk me to my school most of the
time, and then walk on for miles and miles to Tech High School. And then most of the
time he'd make some kind of arrangement, but he'd be back when I got out of school, and
we'd walk back home together. Of course, in those days, thereAwere no cars and the,
the only thing you could do if you wanted to be together was walk or take the street
cars, and the street car cost a nickel. We didn't always have those extra nickels to
ride the street car, so we did a lot of walking in our courting days. And Ike
graduated in Georgia Tech and he went on to Tech High School.
[R:
R: I mean, Tech,...
UR: I graduated from prep school and then from there I went to Georgia Tech for a short
while.
AL34AB
R: And then, when I graduated from Coynierctij I went into business. I went to work
at the, at a newspaper office when I was seventeen years old. I worked at the Hearst
paper in Atlanta, the Atlanta Georgian. And I worked in the advertising department
So
for a while. And then I became secretary for the publisher. Btt I worked there a
number of years and really enjoyed working there and had a lot of good experience
working for a newspaper office. As I told the reporter the other day t-hey interviewed
me, I had a marvelous time there, because I had a chance to meetaprominent people.
I remember very well William Randolph Hearst, the owner of the newspaper, coming to
a convention in Atlanta. And since I was in the publisher's office, he had a few
of -Hid"1_
letters and thingsAhe wanted done, and I took care of that for him and I thought it
was just the most marvelous thing to be associated with the man that owned so many
newspapers and was such a prominent man. At the time, the Hearst newspapers were just
all over the country at that time, and very popular and sensational papers. TheyA all
their news was put out in a very sensational way.A The Atlanta, other Atlanta news-
papers were moderate papers, but Hearst was always, he'd always look for the big
sensations, and then another time I met John D. Rockefeller, the first John D. Rock-
efeller, and he, these people came in on either business conventions or some compli-
cation with the newspaper people. And I had a lot of fun with Mr. Rockefeller. He
uk--he would
wouldAtease me alot because of my southern accent. I've always been teased because I
speak with such a Georgia drawla. uA)....
M: That's the in thing to do now, though.
When we--wh~en ,,e-- I. oIO-' o -"
R: A~~s he left, I went down the elevator with him to, sort of a eseor .a-echttgh, and
I said to him, "Well, Mr. Rockefeller, I think you ought to give me one of your famous
jk7ey'lj SCe6 krm
dimes." He was famous for giving the little street urchins a dime whenever 4cd-eeL-,
.-these Mcvw-
and they'd find out who he was and follow him. But he'd give* them theseAbrand new
dimes he used to carry around in his pocket. And he'd give it to them, and they'd
leave him alone. They knew that they eetd- get a dime if they followed him around a
little bit. He was very famous even all the way down into Florida. He came to
Page 2
AL34AB
live in Daytona Beach for a long while. Had a lovely home there.
M: It's too bad the city knocked it down.
R: Yes. So I said to him, "I think you ought to give me one of your dimes for memory,
to remember you by." And he said, "No, I can't do that. I just give that to the poor
little street boys." And I bet I was so disappointed because I thought would be a
wonderful thing to put in my souvenir box.
IR: Actually that home wasn't in Daytona Beach but was in Ormond Beach and is still in
existence as far as I know.
M: I thought, I knew they closed it. I thought they were in the process of tearing it
down. I could be incorrect; I know it's directly across from the Ormond Hotel.
IR:-OZ- hotel, that's right.
M: That Flagler had bought, and the two of them had associated together at the turn of
the century.
R: There's a very interesting story that my daughter-in-law tells about John D. Rockefeller.
HerAgrandfather was John D. Rockefeller's tailor in New York, and when the Rockefeller's
moved to Daytona, Rockefeller himself wanted Mr. Sherman to come down to Daytona to
continue taking care of his clothes. And he persuaded Mr. Sherman to come down to
live in Daytona. And he helped him get a little house and Mr. Sherman said I can't
make a living down there in the South tailoring because there's no, there's really no
place for it at the present time. So Mr. Rockefeller bought him a camera and he set
him up to taking pictures of families...one of these old time, is it stereo-type
cameras? You remember, the old, old type, ten-type, the tsn-type camera. And he, he
set this up in front of his house and he used to take family pictures. But in the
back of his house, he had a room where he did the tailoring. And he still took care of
Mr. Rockefeller's home-. Well, he lived there many, many years and he became a very
prominent and wealthy man living in Daytona, having been brought there by the Rockefeller
family. We always thought that the Rockefeller's sort of belonged to our family.
M: When did you leave the business of working for the newspaper?
Page 3
AL34AB
R: Well, I went to New York in 1923. I wanted to, wanted to see a little bit of different
things than Atlanta. I'd lived in Atlanta all my life, but I had a sister living in
New York, so I went up there. And I went to work at City College in New York. There
was a peculiar thing how I got that job. I was looking through the want ad section
to see where I could go to work, and I found several jobs that sounded like, that
would appeal to me, and I thought, well, I'd call. They gave the phone number in
those days for you to call. So I called and each place I called they'd say, "Well,
come in to see me, I want to interview you." So when I called City College, it was
closer to the neighborhood that I was living in so I thought, well, I'll go down there
first because it's closer and I'll be able to get around there. So I went down there
and interviewedAthe lady, and it was in the Registrar's office, and she gave me the
.5 a1 ay
job. And in fact, I got a higher saar y than I'd even asked for. So I was just
real thrilled when I got that job. And I asked her, I said, "I'm just amazed that
I got this job so quickly. I'd heard it was kind of difficult to get a position."
She said, "well, when I heard your voice on the telephone, I knew I wanted you to work
tEhere." So my southern accent has paid off for me in a lot of different ways.
M: Did you only work there for a year until you came back and got married?
R: Uh huh, came back and got married then.
M: And you got married in Atlanta?
R: Uh huh.
M: And then what did you do from '24 until 1936?
R: Well, that was the time that belonged to my husband. He started making plans for
us, for our family, for us, because we were only married a year before our little
daughter was born. So he always had plans that someday he would be in business for
himself, because he was the kind of man that wanted to be his own, his own boss, is
what he used to say. Isn't that right, honey? Tell about a little bit, about those
early years.
Page 4
Page 5
IR: Well, I couldn't make a living in Atlanta, to tell you the truth about it, so I
accepted a position in one of the small towns in Georgia. And, well, we switched
from one town to another; in fact I stayed in oh, might say swampholes in the
southern part of Georgia. But being a big city boy, I didn't particularly like it.
It took me along time to become accustomed toAsmall towns. Every opportunity I had,
you might say every couple of weeks, well, I used to rush back to Atlanta. Until
t4he-i t B dwqv-e, O I really belonged wit t-e i A A '"tr_ .
So I decided, after leaving south Georgia and coming back to Atlanta, I was through
with it, and someone persuaded me to move to .J1O 4 Georgia for a change. And I
stayed in, before we lived, -we'-trom one extreme to the other, from a hot climate--
Syou can say the southern cities of Georgia are hot--to a place in north Georgia called
Cornelia where we lived there in the snow part of the time. It was .a-c unusual for
us.
R: It was up in the mountains, mountains of north Georgia.
I acr
IR: And then after a year or so, we moved back to Atlanta and thenAhad the opportunity
again to work in...
R: Florida.
IR: Back in the state of Florida. We selected Florida because I was suffering a little
bit from asthma:and thy I could get somewhere near the water, 1- VwIOUd
Le hmPeI,- nr "l& And I took evouj of 4kh-; +Cke+r -ihi vk/f-t oTveyr 4o I \ _____4
JrcX jemc oai rtA Wiil uh,
)i A malaria. When I say ctuaiiFcje I got it, good. Really got it good. So I pulled
out of there and finally went to live in, I had my own fresh business in a
town called Monticello. Are you familiar with it?
M: Yes sir.
IR: We lived there for eight years, all during the Depression years...19..
R: 4-2-1ertVny ne.
IR: Well, it was started in about 1928 and it was a hand-to-mouth existence until I had
my opportunity to move to Gainesville. I was always going to go. By that time, we
AL34AB
Page 6
had another member of the family. One boy, one girl and then we had another little
girl. My wife's sister's child was living with us for a while. And I was always
or
lookingAa little bit larger place that had a little bit of, what I would say, culture,
but I would n l- ifl associations with people of their own religion.
That's why we landed here in May of 1936, when the population, as far as I'm concerned,
was 11, 500A people.
R: Let me tell a little more about Georgia before you get to Florida. Have you got
enough on that?
M: Um hum.
R: I'd like to tell you some of the early experiences that we had living in the country
towns in Georgia. We lived in the country town called Lumber City, Georgia. I
3oo00
don't think there were over three-hundred people in the town.
IR: About 500 supposedly.
R: Well, it was a small amount of people any And there was a retail store, and he
was hired as the manager for this store. Now this town didn't have any electricity.
The store that he was operating had a Delco system to put lights in his store, and it
also took care of the street lights on the corner, the one little downtown corner that
we lived in, of the town that we lived in. And when we went to Lumber City, Georgia,
there were no roads that lead into the town and no bridge over the, over the river.
And we were on the truck and we forded the river on a raft, on the, on the truck with
our belongings. Ike and I and our baby, and all our little belongings were loaded onto
this truck and this man forded us across the river to the little town. And we lived
there for about a year. We didn't have any lights in the house. We used kerosene
lamps] O4nd no indoor plumbing,, Od, and there was no heat in the housed We used
fireplaces with big logs to heat the house. And yet, I guess, we were the happiest
people you ever saw. I guess actually because we were young. I think you don't feel
like you have any privation when you're young and happy and enjoying life, and you
don't have any, too many demands. There was not anything that we thought we were
AL34AB
Page 7
lacking, because we were enjoying what we were doing. We didn't look for any
fine things; we didn't have any, but we didn't look for them. So we were contented
with what we had. But, of course, we always had the hope that someday we would
accomplish more. The main thing we always wanted was to be able to own an automobile.
That was the thing that we always hoped for.
M: When was the first "' *
.three
R: Well, when we finally, it was about, it took us about three-'years more. In 1927, I
think, we were able then to buy a car. We moved up to north Georgia then and that year
he was very fortunate. He worked on a- commission basis and the store did well that
year, and they gave him a bonus of $700f,0'and we bought our first car with that bonus
that he got that year.
IR: Imagine buying a Pontiac for around $ff2= 700O.00
M: Um hum. As compared to maybe five or six thousand today.
R:A
able to buy an automobile. Then we felt we were really on the road up. And of course,
then going to Monticello and going into business for ourselves was the big thing, because
then we felt like we wouldn't have to keep moving every year. Every year he'd move
because somebody else would offer him atittle bit more salary. So we'd pick up and go
because we felt like that was the advancement that we were getting. But we were very
unhappy changing places of living year, you know, stay in one place a year and move.
It just wasn't a happy situation with us. And we're really home people. We like to
establish a home and keep it.
your
M: Now, you say you moved to Gainesville because of people of \4e-same background.
R: Um hum.
M: How did you know that that was the situation in Gainesville?
IR: We weren't aware of it at the time, but we knew it was a much larger town and of
course we knew that the town had a synagogue which we were very much interested in
and the opportunities for the children were here too.
AL34AB
AL34AB Page 8
R: The.- the schools, mainly, vere what we were interested in. And the university being
here had a lot to do with it because we felt like there would be opportunities for us
to learn from the university as well as chances for our children to grow up and go to
the university. We didn't know whether we could ever afford to send our children
away to school, so knowing that we were going to a university town gave us hopes then.
IR: But we did, even we ex ~r=3g in Monticello, we sent our daughter$ to the University
of Wisconsin.
R: No, we lived here then. She didn't go till 1940.
IR: Oh, you're right. I'm ahead of myself.
R: We were able to afford to send them to school but in those years we didn't know whether
we would be. That's why we mainly came to Gainesville, because of the opportunities
we saw here. And of course the chance to get the business was something that was just
aApiece of luck for us. We were fortunate to have a friend that was a banker in
Monticello and he lent us the money to come over to Gainesville to open our first
place of business.
M: And you mentioned one of the things that you knew was here was the synagogue. Is that
the synagogue that was located, oh, about three blocks -off of downtown?
IR: Second Place.
M: Three Second.
TR: Mnv ^m-,.ThxAi IJa it.
R: SW 2nd Place.
M: And about how many members were there when you came? f; y-fiV
A
IR: I think that the amount of families that they had here, would you say there were-35-or
-For-v
49-/Jewish families?
R: I think that or less.
M: And that would have included Beekanm s-. iVkuM 2
IR: That's right.
IR: Who's that?
IR: Who's that?
AL34AB Page 9
M: R Ae--ls. They might have gone by...
R: Robbin:q family. Th had been-o~pb family, were here longer than any of the
Jewish families that we ) that we knew of. Kopliwitz family and the Grossman family
lived here.
IR: Round"Bl'stine -io,-h e it.
R: The LeboVitz family. The Brownstein who's store we, we bought. They moved away when
we came here. And the Bunce family was here. I think that's about as many as were
here. He says 35-families but...
IR: No, there was more than that. I can think of them, I'm trying to think of the names
as you're going along. One was an attorney. Do you remember the one who passed away?
He lived here and his father had a place of business on the ...
R: Sobol, the Sobol family.
IR: Sobol family.
R: They were a very old, ol1-time family here. Very fine family that lived here. And
the Edlestein family lived here. But...
IR: And the Grossman group were here.
/et47, T Co-'A {k+^.
R:A But we, when we belonged to the synagogue, it was right after the Depression and it was
very difficult supporting the synagogue. Actually there would be about +i- people that
paid synagogue dues. The rest of them, maybe, would come once in a while, or maybe
Wje re- -twe.e-
War2-e not too interested. But there was about -3- families.
M: Do you recall what those dues were?
Tv'nI y- QiLe Idolr.s
IR:A 5'a year.
M: For the whole family.
R: Uh huh, for the whole family. And besides that, the city had, had paved the sidewalk
in front of that, and we had to pay sidewalk fees, and that was another thing that was
very difficult to collect enough money up to pay for -he sidewalk fee that we had to
pay, in addition to the mortgage. They had a big mortgage on the synagogue.
M: Well, who led the services? There was no rabbi at that time.
Page 10
IR: No, you know, as far as the Jewish religion is concerned, you don't particularly have
to have a rabbi. Anyone who's capable of leading to the satisfaction of the group,
and at the time, I think we had...
R: Mr. Grossman.
IR: ...Mr. Grossman...
R: Sidne Grossman's father was our leader for many years.
IR: And t~L-f the years we were, we were able to get the services of students who were
pretty doggone good as far as handling the services was concerned, and we got along Ver
well.
M: I must remember to look up Mr. Grossman himself, the younger Mr. Grossman.
a bo'Vd A
R: Yeah, he would have some wonderful stories of -trat Gainesville because...
IR: That's Sidney.
R: ...he-s been in business. In fact...
IR: Gourse there's a younger one here now, his son. Now Sidney has retired and turned
the business over, I think, to his son, and his son-in-law.
M: Now he was in...
R: Scrap iron.
M: ...a junk business or something.
R: Scrap iron.
M: When we first came up here, almost the first month we were here, we met him at the
University Inn. He used to go there alot for breakfast and sit and talk to my father.
R: Yes. Well, he's a very popular man -a=eg the young, sporting fellows here in Gainesville.
Sidney is considered a real big sport and a football enthusiast. He goes on all the,
all the football trips and everything.tj
IR: All types of sports.
R: ;',He and Ike used to go to the World Series years ago. And Sidney liked to go to
everything in the field of sports.
IR: Still does.
AL34AB
Page 11
R: So, they used to have real good times together when they were young men.
M: Did you ever go on the train to football games with him?
IR: No, I never cared much for that.
R: We went on the train to football games. We went to a game, to Miami, when they
had the special, football game special, but that wasn't that, that many years ago.
That probably was in the -5 when we took the football special to Miami. But...
M: Now getting back to the synagogue, what kind of activities would there be? Would there
be Friday service and Saturday morning service or was there also teaching?
IR: Friday services mostly and it was difficult to have Saturday services, just as, it is
just as difficult today.
M: Today. Because of the lack of eminr.?4 m& 'i0on
R: That's right.
IR: And of course when we had the High Holidays we -5Wore a IVIle skoa, used to be crowded
with so many students. I remember several occasions where the place was so crowded.
a+d-particularly because of the students that we had more on the outside than we had
on the inside, just listening.
R: And we'd open the windows and open the door, and they'd stand in the doors and the
windows and listen to the service because there just wasn't room for everybody to get
in.
M: Now during the High Holy days, would they hire a rabbi from outside?
IR: On occasion.
R: Not in those early years;after, after a few years after we paid off the mortgage and
people got in better circumstances, then we were able to hire a rabbi for the, for the
Holy days.
IR: We forgot to mention Dean Weils, family.
R: Yes.
IR: On \d-r on. en g re CfIaicr one5 here.
R: The dean of the engineering college. He was actually one, one of the Jewish families
AL34AB
Page 12
that had been here longer that was still living when we came here. He had been here,
I think, way earlier than 1926, I'm not sure how early he came, but he was the dean
of the engineering college. And he did a lot of, lot of things for Gainesville.
M: Well, what was the reaction of the non-Jewish community to the Jews in town, being
that they were in prominent positions, both as you mentioned, Dean Weil's as well
as merchants? Was there any kind of resentment?
IR: No, not that I'm aware of.
R: Well, I feel like there was. There was a lot of things, I think, that came up. Now
Dean Weil was very well respected, and I doubt if he ever had any problems of, I don't
like to say antisemitism, but a lot of times Jewish people not being accepted in certain
areas. But, I could see a lot of it when we first came here. In the first place,
there were very few Jewish professors working at the university. And there were even
a quota on Jewish students, so there was a problem that had to be overcome. And then
other things happened. I, when I first came here, I wanted to join the Woman's Club.
And I was, my name was put up by Mrs. Weil and...
IR: You were already a member from Monticello so she just wanted to transfer.
R: But when my name came up, they turned it down, and so we...Mrs. Weil tried to find out,
and they said well, they just didn't think they wanted to have Jewish women in the club.
M: But Mrs. Weil was already in and she was Jewish.
R: Mrs. Weil was Jewish, but they didn't want to start having groups of Jewish women &40 '"
Well, at that time, they didn't understand Jewish women. They understood Mrs. Weil.
She was a very refined lady, and they had heard, and probably had seen or been told
about Jewish families. You know, in those years, even in Miami, there were signs out
"restricted clientele", and...
M: It was still true in the 50&- in Miami, such as the Kenworth Hotel.
R: Yes. And the people just heard all these things. They didn't know what Jewish people
were, but they just heard all these rumors, andAthey were afraid to accept Jewish
people because they didn't know anything about them. And, they didn't know anything
AL34AB
Page 13
about me when I first came there, except that I had a Jewish name, that's the only
thing they knew about me. And, so, Mrs. Well went to bat with the president of the
Woman's Club at that time. She was a Mrs. Neville, that was, herhusband also was-
connected with the university. And they made a talk before the group and told them
that they just didn't see how they could refuse to accept a person on account of their
religious belief. And said if they, if they knew me, they would like me. So they
of the.
invited me to come to the Club. And I got acquainted with all a ladies, and they
thought I wasn't any different than they were. That, I'm sure, maybe speaking with an
accent might have made a difference, but I didn't speak with an accent. I was just
a southern girl, just like they were. And they accepted me just beautifully from then
on. And from that day on, there was never any discussion about accepting a lady whether
she was, according to what her religion was.
M: What year did you become a member?
+iir-{y- ix.
R: In '- I came immediately, as soon as I came in I wanted to join the Woman's Club.
IR: Something along those lines too, is when I was invited to become a member of the
synagogue. I think the same day that Dean Well asked me in, to be a member, that very
same day I was elected president and I had the presidency for about three years.
Couldn't get rid of it.
M: Of the synagogue?
R: Yes.
, ye h.
M: They were definitely looking for leadership.
R: Yes, they were looking for...and he was a young, aggressive man in those days, with a
lot of good ideas, qnd willing to help.
END OF 5tbE 1A
AL34AB
AL34AB Page 14
Side 1B
M: Was there a separate woman's organization?
R: Yes.
M: Or, and was there Sunday school or Hebrew school for the children?
R: It was during ea the first year that we came here. I don't know 0 whether it was
when I was president of the sisterhood, but it was close to those years that we started
a Sunday school for the children in the synagogue. And we'd have it on Sundays. And
we didn't have separate classrooms, so we had to divide the benches up. Each group of
benches would be a different class, and the mothers would come and teach the Sunday
school classes. And we did that for many years. In fact, there were a lot of hard-
uje--theqret wem,
ships, because there wasn't any way to heat the synagogue, and we hated having the
children come there when it was cold. Finally, Ike and another group of men got together,
and they put a little coal heater in the synagogue. But then somebody had to go down
there early in the morning to light this coal heater so it would warm up by the time
the children got there. So there were a lot of hardships, but nobody seemed to mind.
Everybody had a good time doing, doing their share, and the mothers all pitched in and
came and taught Sunday school. And of course they learned themselves too, because
they had prepared themselves for what they wanted to teach the children.
M: Well, what year did you belong to the Gainesville Country Club?
R: Well, I think we moved out to the Golfview subdivision in 1937. We were very lucky
when we came here. We got into a business that, maybe the town was waiting for some-
thing like we were doing. And we got into it and worked real hard and it's like a
Horatio Alger story-if you keep trying and trying and trying, you're going finally hit-
you keep saying I can do it, I can do it, and then finally you do it. And our first
year that we came here, we did very well. And it seemed like the people were looking
for the type of store that we put in. And so we did very well that first year. The
next year...we only rented a house for one year. The next year we bought a house out
in the Golfview subdivision. Of course, we bought a house that was very beautiful, but
we only paid $9000.4for it. This last couple of months ago, that house sold for $78,000.00
Page 15
That same house that we lived in.
5eca(use of
IR: w-BtAwe had added...
R: We'd added a lot of things.
IR: ...quite a bit of territory to the adjoining lots, oh, about...
R: We bought three extra lots around the house, and remodeled the house. But it was a
t4-
beautiful house to start with. AndAthe time we bought it, it was considered one of
the nicest homes in Gainesville, because at that time people were building homes that
cost $3,000.00.
IR: $3-.OO1I believe.
R: And if you built a $6,000.ohome, you really had a very nice home. And a $9,00oQawas really
50 -4o SZ~, o?
considered like a mansion. Like what they consider now the 4QiOS homes.
M: So did you immediately associate with the country club, being that it was almost across
the street?
R: I believe we joined immediately because we were just three doors, three houses from the
country club. We joined immediately. It didn't cost but-0l. to join. And vJe wVerc....
M: Was that per year or was thatAjust the mandatory...
R: The initiation.
IR: That was for4certificate.
R: Yes, initiation fee. Aind u .....
IR: The dues were very high.
R:...I don't know who put, who put our name ontit, but I imagine it was Dean Weil.
M: Well, did you have any difficulty getting in there...
R: No.
M: ...because of being Jewish.
R: No, because there were alreadyAone or two Jewish members, and I think when the ice
is broken the first time, then it's not as difficult for the ensuing people to get in.
IR: Our very close friend was a member and he lived...
R: WhoGwas that?
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Page 16
IR: Marcus.
R: Oh, Marcus Edlestein.
IR: Marcus Edlestein, and that was the reason primarily for us even considering moving out
near the club.
R: They had a home out there. We were very good friends.
M: And so the Jewish families in town were scattered. There wasn't one particular section
they lived in.
IR: No.
R: No, uh uh. Most of them lived out in the east part of town.
IR: Around the Highlands.
real
R: And a few of them were in the Highlands. Lebowitz family always had a pretty home
out in the Highlands. He used to have the L & L Men's Shop there, the original
L & L Men's Shop downtown. And the family, the Rob6in's family now,
was really one of the pioneer families of Gainesville, as far as living here a long time,
but being associated with everything that occurred in the university town. The
university boysthat wanted to live in a Jewish family would board with Mrs.
And she was very famous for her good meals.
M: Where did she...where was her guest home?
R: Her first home was on University Avenue where the, I guess it's still there, the
Strike's bicycle place, andAshe had a big, old-fashioned home set back off the road
on University Avenue with a big porch all the way around, and she was a very, very
kind lady. And she loved the students. She had three, I guess, three or four big
boys; how many more is in the Robbin's...
IR: Four. + ""re
R: Four boys, and they were all university students. She didn't have any girls.AAnnd she
was just really famous...like a housemother. Whenever the boys wanted to go to eat,
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they'd, they'd either be invited or they'd offer to pay for a meal there at the
home. They, they were a very fine family. And then we had, finally,
we were able to get a Hillel house here. And it was in a rented house right off the
University Avenue. And...
M: Do you recall what year that was that Hillel came?
+h;ir+ie.
R: I believe it was in the, in the later "-'O. Maybe about 1938, and they sent a rabbi
down here, and then we were really happy, because we had a young Jewish family and a
\c-\e'5 46)
very fine rabbi and speaker, Rabbi he is the rabbi now in, I think,
Dallas, Texas, is that is, is that his, I'm not sure that that's where he is now, but
he's, he has become a very prominent rabbi in this country. But this was his first
parish, and he and his very attractive young wife came here to live. And they lived
in this big home, and then we made a Hillel foundation out of the other parts of the
house. So we used to have meetings there, oh, more than once or twice a week. All
the t fro eLe used to entertain for the students, Jewish students there. We'd
give suppers there and we'd have Hanakkah parties and whatever occasion came up, we'd
go to the Hillel house and have the students, and we were very close to the students,
and whatever Jewish professors were here. Now in the early years, a lot of professors
didn't want to acknowledge that they were Jewish. They would just, they felt likethere
was some kind of stigma attached to.being Jewish, or you couldn't have advanced as fast
if you were. So they didn't associate themselves very much with the Jewish people. Of
course a few of them did, and I'm sure that they had a very happy life, those that did
join the congregation. Well$ now, we have the most prominent Jewish doctors and
professors that belong to our synagogue that are really the background and the backbone
itS
of our congregation now. And it seems like to meAsuch a miracle that we could build
up our congregation to have what we have now in comparison to what we used to have
in those early years.
M: Let's go back and talk about your store some more. You mentioned that you bought
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Page 18
the store from another gentleman who left town. What was his name again?
IR: Brownstein.
M: Brownstein.
IR: I didn't buy the store from him. He was, he was moving out to a larger operation in
Jacksonville. And I just came in to the store that he been in...
R: Yeah, but you bought all the equipment and everything.
IR: I bought part of the equipment that he had, and part of the fixtures.
M: And where was this store located?
fhee
IR: It was located on the south side of the square downtown. AndACox's furniture, after
the fire on the square, finally moved over next to us, RtuddJ And you know
that Coxs*p now -tand to where we used to have a store.
M: So that section that they've added was your store?
R: Dale's now, Dale's Gift Shop is now where Rudder's used to be. But at that time, in
those early years is when we had the old courthouse, the original, old courthouse, and
the whole courthouse square was covered with tremendous oak trees, on both sides of the
street, all the way around the square. The trees were higher than the two-story
buildings that, that our store was in. They were huge trees and beautiful and the
whole street was a shaded street, a gorgeous situation there where you really felt like
you werejactually in the woods more than you were in, in the downtown area.
M: What kinds of things did your store sell? Did it sell all clothing, for men and women?
R: We sold clothing for men and women and children. But the things that we sold that's
unusual was heavy underwear. I'll never forget the hundreds of dozens of men's union
suits that we used to buy) Cknd ladie's long underwear; Ihe kind of underwear that 4,h/
-hahad legs in them, that they used to pull their stockings up over this underwear. And
children's underwear. And children's long stockings. They wore stockings up over
their knees. Now that's even in the '"es, Athose were the interesting things that...
we sold what we called tobacco cloth. The farmers used to cover their tobacco fields
to make shade tobacco. And they used to put stakes out on the fields and come to our
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Page 19
store and buy tobacco cloth. It looked like a gauze, and we sold it in tremendous
bales. And they used to come and buy hundreds of bales, hundreds of yards of tobacco
cloth in great big bales.
IR: Not here.
R: Yes, we did, when we first came here.
IR: Did we?
R: And in addition to tobacco cloth, we sold, let me see what I was going to say, was
muslin. People used to make all their sheets and children's clothes and aprons and
housedresses out of unbleached muslin. And we used to sell that by the yard. But
at that/time, it used to be ten or twelve cents a yard.
IR: She's got a retentive memory to tell you; about a lot of the things she's telling you,
I'm a little bit surprised at myself. I'd completely forgotten about it.
R: Well, this is why I'm writing my story, because I love all these memories. And I
could talk about the tobacco cloth, or I could talk about the muslin and I could make
up a whole story about a family that used the muslin.
M: That's OK, this is fine.
R: And what else...and then high-topped shoes. Mostly men's. I don't think we sold
women's high-topped shoes here in Gainesville.
IR: No, we did the smaller towns though.
R: We did that before we came to Gainesville. We used to sell high-topped shoes. In
fact, when we were in this town of Lumber City, we sold high-topped shoes that were
button shoes that you used to have to have a button hook to pull through and pull the
button through the button, through the button hole. But when we came here, we sold
mostly, it was, work shoes. We sold a lot of work shoes for men. And you could sell
a pair of men's heavy brogan work shoes for $1.99.
M: Well, was your store just one level?
J;ke u
R: At first. But, in fact, it was a real old-fashioned looking store. Like real
country store. It had, it had a stairway that went up ratbetwen the middle of the
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Page 20
store, and upstairs was the old Oddfellow's Lodge. It was a great big hall. And
we had, we had the two underneath sections with the stairway splitting the store. And
we used to have to run around the stairway to wait on people in the otherApart of the
store. We had that only for a few years, but we realized it wasAhurting our business,
so we had the stairway taken down. And we put an inside stairway, and used it for a
storeroom for a few years. And then that opened up the whole front of the store, but
-for,4-, C-
it was still one floor for a good many years. It was not until about, in the "S& that
we added the second floor as a retail space.
M: What would your...would you say your competition was Wilson's or which particular
stores did...
R: Well, Wilson's was really not our competition because it was considered the high-
class store, and that's where everybody went to buy their fine clothes and everything.
Our store was more or less like a country store and we catered to the people that wanted
popular priced merchandise. We sold housedresses for $1.98 and even ladies' shoes
were in that price range. Well, that's in the early years. Of course, we built up
the store till where we became a very fine store too, But in the early years, we started
off, because it was right after the Depression, and people just didn't have any money.
And we were able, by traveling mostly...Ike was a very fine merchant, and he knew
how to find out where, where things were available. He'd go to all the mill towns in
Georgia. And whatever leftover things that they had that were not on order, he would
buy up in bulk lots. And then he became friends with a lot of people that were in the
wholesale business that would give him extended credits. He always had the kind of
personality that people felt like they could trust him.
IR: Well, at this point I'11 leave...you continue.
M: You sure you don't want to stay?
IR: No.
M: enK. oo cut
R: D't hin k -ore ,eng io a .. dcntuckedm
IR: Don't you think you're getting enough information? You don't need me.
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AL 34AB
R: Well, we like having you.
IR: Well I like listening and uh after you get through with that tape I'd like to
listen to it myself, maybe I can a few things about vYle.
R: Well let's see, what else can . .
M: I was going to ask you about the advertising, did you advertise in the Gaines-
ville Sun or um did you ever advertise in the alligator?
JIR: No, I'll tell you our form of advertising was entirely different. We never, we only
used the newspaper to print us large sheets, and then we used to hire boys to take
ji
the sheets out and put them in all the cars, andAthe wagons I imagine. I don't
remember there was too many wagons around, and spread 'em around town.
I:And deliver them to the houses.
1RKf And deliver, and put 'em in the, well I don't think we put them in the mailboxeS.
R; No, we delivered 'em to the houses.
JIR: But we had uh full page, I don't think I see to many of them lately/but it was a
little bit larger than our present sheet, and perhaps two times or three times
a year we'd have a, we'd put on a big sale. And uh just prior to that why pro-
bably I would go to the markets for promotions where I could pick up merchandise
to put out-on the price. And those were the days when we really used to have the
crowds, in fact of the matter they would be crowding the entrance of the store
before we even opened up.
MA #: Were you open six days a week?
KR~f'+his was interesting, our hours . .
M: What hours were you open?
Rd: Hours were very interesting. We'd open at e4jht-o4-c +ek in the morning but we
10:o0
stayed in the store till tefn-.-e-cek every day, and on Saturday we would stay
+111 rn:-T\welve in +ne V Cvii~l? R;:TwJet f. Xv'-ist.
-unti4 twelve. And the amazing thing is.that the people would come to buy, to make
purchases in, that late at night. We never could understand why people came so late.
M: The groceries were open on Saturday night also.
R4:'A Uh huh, and uh,
AL 34AB
JK4:A See, Saturday used to be a payday, payday used to be once a week, and of course
a lot of the turce that we catered to, particularly the blacks, they'd
get payed off on Saturday, and uh they'd spend their money on clothes or groceries, 0YVc
things of that sort and by Monday they were broke again. So Saturday was always
our big day for business. And we used to hire a lot of students, give them a
13.00 or posirby t5.o
flat salary, maybe thre- detrs-. the tonp 'old-fve fie-dOthhs, and a per-
centage on top of that.
M: Would that be per week?
IR1 : Per day.
M: Three dollars a day?
K: For r.nri .
R: On Saturday, mostly,
R-: Feo-SaturdayW Tat was our, but they worked long hours, they worked till the store
w 4
closed. And they were a big help to us, we made friends -i- so many students.
19;: We were a big help to them to because that was their only source For getting
additional money.
M: Um hum, and that was a good salary.
IR?: And a lot of them were, a lot of them were sons of merchants, and they were
familiar with that type of business. We help any, a doctor and a lawyer through
their college years.
KR: We still are in contact with many of the students that worked for us when they
we" here at the University that are very, very prominent people now, and they still
have the nicest affection for us. We got a letter yesterday from a lawyer in
Miami that used to keep books for us in our early years, and he had uh, my
daughter had sent them the write-up in the paper.
M: And who was that?
1l': This is Gary Rosen, he's a, in fact he's a judge he's Judge Rosen in Miami
now .a l wit thc 'rt'~'tfe
Page 22
And he wrote the sweetest, dearest letter. When it came yesterday, it brought tears
to our eyes when we realized how much this fellow thought of us. It was such a good
feeling to know that a young man from that many years back would remember us and have
such a good feeling.
M: How many years ago did he work for you?
R: Well, they'v"been married over -rears. They married the same length of time as
MimidjMitchell.
IR: Oh, -39fyears?
R: Uh huh. So I guess it was years ago that he worked for us.
IR: He kept our books for us.
R: He kept, he did the bookkeeping for us. Before he came, we used to do the bookwork.
We used to go to work on Sundays and do our bookwork. We worked all day, every day
rVV eIve-
of the week till 10:00 at night. -42-on Saturday then go back Sunday after breakfast
and do our bookwork and get ready for...
M: While the store was closed on Sunday?
R: ...and get ready for the next week. But the most exciting things in our store was on
Saturday nights, around 8:00, it seemed like everybody that was in town would congregate
in our store. And it used to be like a carnival. People in there buying like they
were afraid the things were going to get bought up, that they wouldn't have a chance to
buy. And all you had to do was go around and ask a person what did they want, and
they'd ask you to wrap this up. It was not, you just didn't even have to try to sell
or
or show themA just either give them their size or, the cutest thing I remember was
selling ladies' hats. They used to love hats, because they went to church, everybody
went to church-they still do I'm sure-but they'd wear hats and gloves to church.
And on Saturday nights it was the cutest thing. They had their money with them and
the biggest thing seemed to me, to them was to come to get a new hat and a pair of
gloves to wear to church. Course we sold a lot of other things, but those things were,
it just stuck in my mind that these were the vain things that people wanted. That is
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Page 23
when the time came that they could have a little extra money over there.
M: So the store was very prosperous then, right from the start.
R: Right from the start, we were very fortunate to get it off to a good start. And then
as time went along, we added better and a little more nicer merchandise. And we began
to get the town trade'and we finally built up to where we had a very, very fine
old
department store, but we never lost ourAcustomers. They always came back, so we
accumulated the..,we had our old customers and then we had the townspeople. And...
WeUA the
M:: rou say you had the old customers and thenAtownspeople. Were most of your old cus-
tomers then university people?
R: No.
M: Or students?
R: The newer:people were the university people that we would get.ARIBut our first customers
were the, were the black people and the people that had to buy for very low and
popular merchandise, because Wilson's then sold what we considered the high-class
goods. And then when we, when we could uptrade, trade up some, why, then we began
having...but the thing that I used to love in our store--whenever I'd buy anything, I'd
always buy something one price higher than was our popular price. Since I was selling
the item for $2.00, I'd say, well, I'll buy one or two pieces that sell for $5.00.
And those $5.00 pieces always went so fast. I'd make that my next standard. I'd buy
the $5.00 pieces and then I'd say, well, I'll try a $10.00 piece and see how this would
go. This is all learning, learning how to merchandise. And when I'd see the $10.00
pieces go, I kept increasing until I find out what the demands were. And that's how
we finally accomplished getting into a better bracket. And we have people now in
Gainesville that tell us, I used to buy all my clothes in your store and I loved your
store when you had it, and young kids would come in and tell Ike even now that my
mother used to take me up.- We finally had a children's department on the second floor.-
and fit me up in the beautiful clothes that you used to carry. We did carry a very
fine children's department, finally. In fact, Gainesville has never had a real fine
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Page 24
children's store since we, since we gave ours up. Course Maas Brothers has nice
things now, but it was never a real classy children's store like we had. We had the
Boy Scout department up there, and made it, dressed it up to a very fine store, and the
children were real proud to have their parents bring them up there and buy their
clothes.
M: Well, do you recall the 1938 fire that was on the west side of the square.
R: Oh, yes, that was...uh huh...that was, that was, we were very close to that fire
because my sister, at that time, had come to Gainesville and met one of the Edlestein
bachelors, and she was married to him. And he had a shop on the square and they both
worked in the shop. One of my older sisters.
M: Where was that shop?
R: That was on the, where the Miller building is now, where the L & L used to be, whatever's
in there now. I don't even know what the name of the store that's in there now. But
in was in that, that square where...
IR: Next door to where Stag and Drag was.
R: Yeah. Stag and Drag is the one I'm thinking of, in that, in that...
IR: I think it was called the Fashion Shop.
R: Yeah. And it was, it's now the Miller block. But it was, it was called the 100ifo r ce1-
location of downtown Gainesville. All the nicest stores were in that, were in that
block, in that square. And where Baker's is now, was Conoga's Drugstore. And next
to Conoga's was Oscar Thomas' hardware store. And the fire started in the hardware
sttre. It was, he had a lot of paint in the back of the store andAI'm not, I couldn't
b 4_
say definitely what, what combustion startedA but we always understood it was a lot
of rags and paint and wires lying around, and that, that's the way that the fire
started. And we immediately heard that there was a fire downtown and came down...
M: How did you hear? Did you hear it on the radio or bells?
R: No, someone called us up.
M: Called you.
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Page 25
R: They called us up and said there's a fire downtown. It may have even been the
police that called us, because we had a business downtown. And it was in the evening
and I think it was close to about 9:00 at night. And we took our two children and
we came downtown to see where the fire was and what was happening. Well, when we came,
half of the block was already burning, and the fire was, flamed right up into the
sky. And then the fire, the frightening thing was to see it turn the corner. It
turned that corner going down to where Cox Furniture Store was. They had a big
furniture store down in the center of that block, and next door to Cox's Furniture
was Judge Tench had a shoestore, and it was, the fire was just traveling. You could
see the, you could see the flames, and the fire, the wind, it must have been a windy
day. I compare it a lot to a big fire that I saw in Atlanta when I was a, when I was
a child, when half of the city of Atlanta was destroyed. And most of the problem was
that the wind was blowing so strong, and carrying the flames. And the fire, the
chars of fire were being swept over the buildings, and blowing into the, into the stores
on down the street. And we, we stood there and watched the flames just go through the
whole buildings. They could see the roofs of the buildings collapse. To me, that
was the most horrifying thing to see, to see the.....
END OF SIDE ~ AND TAPE A
AL34AB
AL34AB Page 26
Side 1B
R: ...equipment, whoever had equipment; I'm pretty sure there was some from Archer and
from, I think it was Newberry too, but they sent their firefighters, the volunteers
and so we had a lot of help. And everybody in Gainesville--the men volunteered carrying
buckets of water and doing things;..it was absolutely amazing to see how many people
were working to try to help to control the fire. When they came, were getting down
to -Te[ehS Store, they made a brigade of people; formed a line and they went into
his store and starting carrying out the shoes, and they'd give a stack of shoes to
people so they carried it out to the courthouse lawn and stacked all his, his stock out
on the courthouse lawn. They tried to do that in Cox's Furniture store. You'd see
three or four men carryingAicebox; I don't know if we had refridgenators in those
days. And carrying out pieces of furniture. The whole courthouse was loaded. The
courthouse lawn, with things that they were trying to save for these merchants. Every-
body was trying to help, and of course we had the fear that the wind would blow the
fire over the corner of the street and get towards our block. We were fortunate that
it didn't. The fire that I wrote about in Atlanta, it just blew over the corners and
took squares, one square after another by the wind blowing the flames and the burning
embers across the roads.
M: Well, how long would you say it took before the square was cleaned up and building
began again?
R: Oh, it took a long time. The town was so desolate, it looked so bad. I'm sure it
must have been more than a year before Gainesville overcame that fire. The, my
sister and her husband were able to get a little tiny store down there where J. C.
Penney!s is now. There were a lot of delapidated stores in that block. Tiny, little
cubbyholes. Used to be littleAcoffee shops and little restaurants and newsstands and
things of that sort in that block. And they were able to get one in there. Course
their, their store was destroyed entirely. There wasn't anything that...
M: Did they have any insurance?
Page 27
R: Yes, they had some insurance. Enough to give them a little start to be able to buy
some more stock. And they had, they did a big credit business. And their books were
destroyed. And the most marvelous thing happened that people were so kind that those
that owed him money came and told him what they owed him and people paid their bills.
They just didn't say because the books were destroyed we're not going to pay up. And
h m
many people helped them out by coming along and saying I know how much I owe you and
I'll pay you and this will help you get started again. So it, just the kindness of
people, the good heartedness of people that really make this world, that give people
a beautiful picture of what humanity can be.
M: What happened to their second shop?
R: Well, their second shop, they did very well. They build it up and when the new
building was put up where it is now, then they were able to go back in their old
location. And they had a very, very classy shop. It was called the Fashion Shop.
I think he told you. And they carried real high-class, very fine clothes, where you
could pay fifty or sixty dollars for a dress or go in and get a formal for $75.41nd
things of that sort. And they, they, most of their business was on credit because in
those days everybody, well, now, it's the same thing. You buy things on charge accounts.
M: Could people buy, could they buy on credit at your store also?
R: Not at, no, not, I don't think we ever did have a, we never did have a charge business.
I never remember that we had a charge business. Now we do, in our little shop, but it
was always on a cash basis, and people seemed to accept that. They knew that when they
came to the store that they had to have the cash to pay for it. I guess they under-
stood that if we didn't have the money we couldn't buy new things to add on.
M: What about the Fellow and other shops that were around the square? Do you recall
Otto Stock Store or Chittey's or some of the grocery stores around the square? pell's,
Hunter's...
R: Well, Chittey's and Stock's were also the real fine men's shops. Well, Mr. Stock
actually, he was a tailor when heAfirst started in his shop. And he started selling the
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Page 28
fabric to make tailor-made clothes. He was a very fine tailor. And eventually he
into
started adding in ready-made things 4ai his shop, but when you bought a, a man bought
a suit from Stock's, he was supposed to be buying ,e- very, very fine suit and if he
had tailor-made clothes from Stock's, he was really considered a very well-dressed man.
And most of the doctors and the university professors, the deans or the president of
the university, would get their clothes from Stock's. And Chittey's store was the
businessman's store. The well-dressed businessmen used to go to Chittey's to get
their clothes. And the old man Chittey ran the store and his young sonahelped him
out in that store. And they always carried real fine name brand things, And the
thing that I remember about Chittey's that I used to always think it was such a great
thing if I could afford to go in there and buy Ike a shirt or a bathrobe. I used to
love to buy pretty bathrobes and get it at Chittey's store. I thought that was,Areally
something to be able to buy something along in that. But...
What about the grocery stores? Do you recall the grocery stores down there?
Oh, yes, the grocery stores were around the square. And that's one thing that brought
people to town a lot, was coming to town to do their grocery shopping. And the
their
people that lived out in the country would come into town and buy at least 4 whole week's
groceries at one time, because they didn't, a lot of times they didn't come back again
during the week. Saturday was the big day where everybody came to town. And over on
the, where the plaza is now, there used to be a Piggly Wiggly store there. And you'd
go in there on Saturday nights and it would be just jammed with people. And they'd
buy big things like big sacks of flour and big sacks of sugar and supply themselves.
grits and bacon was a very big, big deal--to buy big slabs of bacon. You didn't
buy bacon in packages; you'd buy these big slabs of bacon. And you didn't, you, there
mo t
were very few chickens that you bought. It was, it was amazing, in those* days, Most
everybody used to buy live chickens and they'd take care of slaughtering them and picking
the chickens themselves. Used to buy, they used to have chicken coops on the outside
of the store and you'd go and pick out the chicken that you wanted and take a live
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chicken home.
M: Oh, it would be live when you took it home and then you'd kill it yourself?
R: Yeah, uh huh, and kill it yourself. That was the hardest thing for me. Of course
I never could learn to do it, but in those days I had a maid that worked for me, because
I had to go to business and I had two children. So I had a girl that worked for me, and
she took care of that chore for me. And at that time I used to pay her $3.00 a week,
and she would come at 8:00 in the morning and stay till 6:30 in the evening. And fix oar
fij the meals,4take care of the children when they came home from school, and looked
after the house, took care of the house and everything. And that same girl worked for
6erVenteeiC or eigteen
me for at leastAl7--~-k& years, and when she quit, she was making $35. week. Every
week, as the times went along better, I'd raise her as conditions got better. And
when she quit she was making .= -i'rfy- Five.
M: Do you recall a shop owned by Mr. Berkum or was he the studebaker by.the time you got
here? -'
R: Well, they had a store downtown called Berkum's, but itAdidn't stay in, didn't stay
in operation very long after we came here. He went into the automobile business from
that, from that store. Actually, I think it was Louis Berkum's father that ran the
store, and then when his father passed away, Louis went into the automobile business.
M: Now, this was after you already here that this happened?
a
R: After we were already here. And he had a sister, Ida Berkum, that waskvery kind,
lovely lady. She was a maiden lady, she never did get married, but she was sweet and
kind and everybody in Gainesville loved Miss Ida. They lived on North Main Street in
one of the real old, old Gainesville homes. In fact, the house may be still there;
I think it was one of the houses that finally became a private school. And she was,
she was a very fine lady and a refined lady. The things that I remember that she did
for me is when I first wanted to entertain, I needed help fixing up and entertaining,
how to
and Miss Ida used to always come and help me and show me how tofdecorate the tables
and make fancy dishes for me. At first I didn't pay, I always would give her a gift
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but eventually it got to where I would call on her help a lot of times and then I
got to where I was able to repay her in some way for it. But she was the one that
really helped me start entertaining here in Gainesville. We used to have cocktail
parties where,at that time there was very few cocktail parties given in Gainesville,...
M: Was this as early as the '-3s? +ir-iIe
R: Yeah, it was in the late '-"a that we started doing this. And since I had the big
home it was our pleasure and privilegeAto do a lot of the entertaining, particularly
for the Jewish people and when we'd have out-of-town Jewish guests and everything.
So we had a little crowd that we used to meet together nearly every, every Saturday
night. But one thing I got to tell you about is the juke joints here in Gainesville.
M: Let me just ask you one other thing about the Berkum's first. About Sophie Berkum.
Was she Louis Berkum's...
R: Sister.
M: Sister. And she was the style, fashion editor, I guess, on the newspaper.
R: Yes, yeah, um hum. She was very well thought of and they were considered the aris-
tocracy of Gainesville, along with a lot of other people at that time. Everybody
considered the Berkum's as one of the real fine old families here in Gainesville.
R: Have you ever heardA ....there's two other people I wanted to ask you about, and someone
mentioned this name to me and I don't know anything about them two brothers and a
sister named Selly.
R: Selly. Yeah, they're a prominent family here now. In fact Paul Selly was the one
that built the home that we bought in Golfview.
M: Well, what was Paul and, I guess it was John, were the brothers.
R: Paul and John and...I +ryf v +o +ik of....
M: Adaleide was the little...
R: Adaleide Selly, yes. They started off when I got acquainted with them, they had what
we called a moss factory. You know, all this moss that grows around? They used to
collect that and sterilize it and dry it and whatever process they used, and used to
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sell it for fillings for sofas and chairs and probably even mattresses. But that was
their business was the moss factory.
M: What was the name of the business, do you recall?
R: No, I think we just called Shelly's Moss Factory, and it was on South Main Street.
And it was set way back, sort of, in the woodsy-looking area. You could always
pass there and see big piles of that moss out on the ground drying.
M: So they were very successful then in the '-%3shirtieS.
R: They were a very successful family and very well thought of. Adaleide was, I'm pretty
sure she was a school teacher and everybody really loved her. And John and Paul were
very distinguished men. The/ihouse that we bought, John practically built it all him-
self. It had a beam ceiling in the living room that each beam was at least a foot
deep, and he hand-carved all that. It was cyprus wood and he used a blower to blow out
the designs of the pattern of the wood. The design in the wood was brought out in dark
by him burning it. And the house was absolutely one of the most unusual things you
ever saw.
M: Well, did he build just that house or did he do building on the side?
R: He built that house, no, he built it for himself.
M: I see.
R: And then he lived in it for about two years, and decided he wanted to build something
else. And he sold us the house. We bought the house without seeing the inside of it.
-_tkey Neren'+
We loved where the location of it, and we loved the outside. They weren't4home when
we went to look at it and the next daywe saw it from the outside)and the next day we
called him up and told him we'd buy it. And then we went in and looked at it. But
we knew that was what we wanted. We loved the location and where it was sitting, the
type of house it was.
M: Also, did you ever know Irving Caldman?
R: No, I'm not familiar with Caldman.
M: Now, you wanted to mention something just a minute ago, I'm sorry.'O0h yes, I wanted
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to tell you about the Prohibition days here. And the entertainment that the people
used to go out for. There was very little entertainment except going to the movies.
And the big thing every night, are we taking too much time?
M: No, I was just, the only reason I'm checking is I don't want the tape to run out while
we're talking.
R: Well, I got to tell you these little incidents.
M: No, I'm not cutting you short.
R: The big thing was going to the movies and everybody)everytime the movie would change,
and it would be most every day,, a movie would stay over two days, but the
movies would change everyday, and nearly every family in town would go to the movies)
every night. And I think if you missed the movie you were really heartbroken. Course
+hirt+ cevit
it didn't cost much to go to the movies i+ was aboutA\-4 in those days, so you could
afford to take your family. But the entertainment was going to what we called the
juke joints. And that was the big thing everytime you'd meet a crowd, you'd say,
ore-
well,Ayou going juking Saturday night?
M: How do you spell that-juking?
R: J-U-K-E, it's juke like a jukebox? The reason it's called juking is because we had
those jukeboxes to give us the music. And out on the Hawthorne-Road there was a great
big barn. a Luge barn. And inside that barn was the dance hall. And they, in those
days you couldn't, they couldn't sell liquor. So everybody could bring their bottle.
Everybody knew where you could go to a bootlegger and get a bottle. And you'd take
your bottles out there and there were tables sitting around the dance floor and you
could buy set-ups. Could get ice and glasses and ginger ale and those places used
to be crowded on the weekends. Everybody in town went juking, and we'd have this, all
the popular music on the jukebox. And dance and have fun and really wild parties.
M: What would the charge be to get in?
R: I don't think there was any charge. You just paying for your set-ups was the way
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they made the money. And I think you had to put your money in the machine.
M: In the jukebox?
R: To keep the box going. And whoever was sitting around was closest, or whatever selection
you wanted, you'd go up and put your nickel in and get the record that you wanted to
dance by or listen to. And there were a lot of real wild parties. There was a lot
-the mXn +cLdt WAM5)
of drinking and a lot of fights.A One fellow was getting somebody else's girl and before
you'd know it there'd be a fight in the middle of the floor. And a lot of switchblades
and knives brought out, even amongst the white people in those days. It was, it was
kinda risky to go to some of those.
M: Was it mostly townspeople who went or did university professors go also?
R: Yes, yeah it was the townspeople and the professors would go. A lot of people connected
with the university used to go. There was not any entertainment. People didn't give
a lot of parties.4~ U I....
Well wouIc
M: /Weid people go if they didn't have a husband or a wife also, if they were single they
might go also?
R: Yes, yes, a lot of single people went. Lot of single people. There weren't too many
students that I remember. The students would congregate around the university, mostly
on the streets. They were, well, of course, there were fraternities, some fraternities,
not many. But they would play around on the streets. The thing that I remember mostly
a
was the pajama parades that the students used to have beforekfootball game, the night
before a football game, used to all dress in their pajamas and go down University Avenue
singing and shouting all the university songs. "We are the boys from old Florida" and
all that. And we got to win and down with the Owls, and all these slogans that they
would ... -&A hen the big thing was down at West University Avenue and 13th
Street, they used to always build a bonfire, right in the middle of that section. And
all the traffic and everything would have to find ways to get around it.
M: Right on the pavement, it was paved by that time.
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R: Right in the middle of the road the built a bonfire. And the people that lived in
that neighborhood had to really watch their property because they'd come and tear
anything to get a piece of wood to add on to that bonfire. And there were a lot of
of
old houses and the rails on the porches. They used to steal the rails offAthe porches,
anything they could get their hands on to add to that bonfire. Course some years they
really got kind of wild. I remember one time they got hold of somebody's car and
pushed it into the middle of the bonfire. It got to be... Eck cc kiee
M: That's wild.
R: But the students in those days seemed to have a good time because they created their
own fun. And it wasn't too much that they were seeking. There wasn't a lot of
drinking among the students, knd there was no, no dope at all. You never did hear of
any of them taking, taking anything. But they just had a good time. You'd walk
along the streets around the campus, and you'd see just droves of them walking along
and singing and having, just having a young, joyous time together. And the big thing
that we remember is when they used to win the football game. They used to come downtown
then. Most of the time a student didn't come downtown except maybe to shop. We used
to have a lot of them shopping. But when win a football game, the big shock
to us was they'd come downtown and they'd form a snake parade, holding, each one holding
on to the shoulders of the boy ahead of him. And they used to go through all the stores
just dash in and out, make this snake all through every store.
M: They were doing this by the '*e -hir +lcS
R: Yeah. And finally, when they'd have a football game, we'd close our store the hour
that the football game was over because we knew we couldn't control the crowds coming
in the store. So we'd close for a couple of hours till the, till the, all the eagerness
subsided and the town calmed down a little bit. But football was really the great
thing, course it is now too, but they really showed a lot of enthusiasm for football
-+hey Were.
in those early days. But they were very,Avery happy days, even though there were
only about 11,000 people in this town. But everybody had pride in Gainesville. This
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Page 35
is one thing that I've always admired about this city. People always wanted to see it
get better, and I'm still hoping now that downtown will get a rebirth, because now that
they've put the mall up, not the mall, the plaza, and all the new buildings going to
go in :town, I really see a good future for Gainesville downtown. A lot of people are
discouraged about it, but I really have a vision that it's going to come back to be
a fine little town. It may not ever be, what you would call, a real prosperous business
section, but it's going to be a beautiful little town. I have some real good ideas of, for
rebuilding some of the stores downtown, and I'm real anxious to get with some of the
architects or people that are interested in redoing some of the downtown buildings.
M: is one of them, yeah.
R: Have some great ideas that I believe I could tell them about. They wouldn't be too
'4o)
costly to make downtown look like a real pretty little city. -Bt I'm hoping that pretty
soon I can get with somebody and kindof do something with these ideas that I have.
But I just see a wonderful future for Gainesville. Course the university has been the
big drawing card.L--.s. grown so much. I love going to the university. I have such a
good time with the students, and I have such a rapport with them, you would never believe
that I'm three times as old as some of the students the way we sit.:around and talk and
have such a good time together. But I just enjoy them so much and they seem to enjoy
me>Go we ....
me)_ "
M: I can see that. Well, I've thoroughly enjoyed talking to you and I'd like to ask that
I be able to use this material on my research se that's OK with you.
R: That'd be fine.
M: It's OK?
R: Because the book that I'm writing contains a lot of these items, so it'll sort of
corraborate what I've been saying to you. E $Np OF I TERVi\E V3
am C? -TtAPE
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