Rose Zale
Rose Zale was born in 1910 in Shedrin, a small town in Russia that she likened to the village in Fiddler on the Roof. Her mother, Shima Finkelstein, was a strong-willed and modern woman who had been involved with the socialist movement opposing the Tsar, while her father, Chaim Sorkin, was a cobbler. Her parents' marriage had been arranged by a matchmaker, and her father emigrated to America, aided by HIAS, before the family could follow. Rose's mother later set out with Rose and her sister to join him. When war broke out at the German border, the family instead traveled east across the Trans-Siberian route through Siberia and China to Japan, sailing from Yokohama and arriving in Seattle before crossing the country to Philadelphia.
The family lived in Philadelphia for a few years, where Rose's brother was born, and later settled in Brooklyn. Because money was scarce, Rose left high school in her sophomore year and, with her mother's help, completed business school, learning bookkeeping and typing. She worked a series of jobs, beginning in her father's factory and later in Manhattan, including a fabric-shrinking firm and a wholesale meat market where she learned automated billing. Determined to secure her own status, she spent years navigating immigration paperwork to obtain her citizenship rather than relying on a derivative claim. She married Abe Zale, originally Zalevsky and born in Poland, in Brooklyn on January 17, 1931.
Abe was a first cousin of Morris Zale, and after selling his soda distributing business, he began working for the Zale Corporation in New York. In 1973 the couple moved to Dallas to be close to their sons, Stanley and Paul, and their grandchildren. Rose worked in the Zale Corporation's Gil Division, learning to work with computers, while her sons also worked for the company. Though she was homesick for New York at first, she came to love Dallas. The couple belonged to Tiferet Israel synagogue, and after retirement Rose became active at the Jewish Community Center, enjoying its library and tours. Her mother lived to nearly 90 in New York. Rose remembered her marriage as a love story and cherished her family above all.
Full Transcript
This is Sunday, January the 8th, 1995. This is Rose Biederman and I'm talking with Rose Zale in her apartment at 11226A Park Central Place, Dallas, Texas. Rose, I'm interested to hear a little bit about your early history. And I think you were born in Russia. Yes. What was the name of the town? Shedrin. S-C-H-E-D-R-I-N. And where in Russia is that? It's south. It's in the area of Babrask in Kiev. Oh, okay. Auntie Edward is a very well-known city. Right. Was this a small town? Very small. Very small. If you have seen Fiddler on the Roof, it's similar to that. Is that where your family lived?
My mother's family. Your mother's family? Yeah. My father's family lived in Kapustina. Oh, my. which was many miles away and that's where the matchmaker came from for my mother a request from my father's mother see the father's mother was a matriarch and if he i pleased that if my mother pleased them then it was okay for my husband my father to get married oh he never saw his bride but then they got an invitation her mother my my grandmother got an invitation they would like to see the girl so they went and bundled her up in a straw wagon somewhere and uh and they made the trip with with my grandmother my maternal grandmother that's my mother's mother and when she got there of course they looked her over and my mother was a very beautiful woman and uh she had all kinds of questions about kashris the virginity and all Then she says, well, yes, I like you or whatever the equivalent was, I like you.
And she said, well, the first thing you have to do is you have to cut all your hair off. And my mother had hair down to her waist below her waist Oh wow Good beautiful hair And my grandmother who was very feisty I understand says no you will take the shoes back but not the horse And she remained that way, but she had a heart from my father. You shouldn't see her. Then after she got married, And they lived in Isidrin. My mother had a little house opposite my grandmother's house, little wooden house. And then... Why didn't they live where these... It was too old, more old-fashioned than my mother's.
Oh! My mother was a very, very modern woman. Now, what time period? When did they get married? What are we talking about? Well, I was born in 1910. and say give or take three years or something she had her first child so you can that's the era the early 19th century 1900s 1900s i see and then my sister was born 15 months later and my father left for year for america because they were conscripting it seemed that he went to see his mother and she went and maimed his toe Oh, uh-huh. So he shouldn't be able to serve. Yeah, I've read of that. And a lot of them, they all did that in order to keep their men home.
Of course, it was a six-year term, and the cautious would not be upheld. Of course. And he went to America. Now, let me ask, was it, you say, a six-year term, could they, was it possible that they might remain in the Army longer? It might be. It might be for longer. Yeah. they deem it to be sent but anyway he went did he have any relatives already in america yes we did okay had cousins and but he did not go through his relatives he went through hayas oh really he grew in against a society right and they put the bond up you know like yeah and they they bring in hundreds at a time so when he when he left russia how did he leave What did he have to do?
They sent the papers from here. So he had papers. So where did he have to go? He probably had to go to Germany to get a boat Do you know where he No Okay I don know where he emigrated from or anything Okay Tell me his name My father name is Chaim And Last name Sorkin All right So my maiden name was Sorkin And your mother name My mother maiden name was Finkelstein and so my mother's maiden name was Finkelstein. And her first name? Shima. Shima, okay. And she was with the Socialist Party to overthrow the Tsar. Oh. How old was she when she got married?
I don't know. She never gave her age. Okay. But look at the picture on the tombstone. I don't know. And I have all those pictures for the kids. Right, right. So what did she do in the social media? They met in the woods. They met in the woods. And they laid out strategies that never occurred. But they were very, very vehement about overthrowing the Tsar because the pogroms were terrible. When he married Eugenia, was her from Germany? The Tsar, Nikolai? I think so, Nikolai. When he married this young girl from Germany, she was a prince, she made an upheaval in Russia. They didn't want a young girl, 14 years old, but she was smarter than they were.
She was steeped in art and music. And she instilled in the Russians art and science. Really? Yes. And did you go to the Russian fair when they had it here? I didn't. Oh, it was beautiful. I mean, sure. It was beautiful. And there were all those, what my mother told me, the story. Oh, okay. All the pictures and everything that they, of course it was the Faberge collection we went also. Did you go to Kimball? Yes. The Faberge collection. Yes. And, uh, is it Faberge? Yes. Yeah. And then he en masse enough money doing, he was a cobbler by trade. Your father. My father. And when your mother married, was she still part of the socialist group?
She was part of everything. She was, I understand she was a rebel. And when people would come through the town she asked for newspapers and things And she was very very deep in the Hebrewish She knew, if you walked in the Shoe, she knew exactly where to open the book. I don't think she taught the Hebrewish, but... Anyhow, your father was a cobbler. He was a cobbler, came here, and times were very bad right before the First World War. and so he did all jobs around and he landed in philadelphia with my mother's sister i see and over there he couldn't get a job either but he went to the railroad and after the train passed with the coal stokers and all a lot of coal was left on the track the bed of the track whatever and uh he used to pick it up in a in a canvas bag or whatever and that was his job.
I see. Then he mastered enough money he sent my mother private papers. Oh, uh-huh. So we went first class all the way. So, wait a minute, who is we? My mother, my sister, and I. Okay. We started out from Russia and we were fine. We had our visas and whatever else had to be done with the high arts. Yes. In the meantime, in her town was another lady who also got papers from her husband, and they were supposed to go out at the same time from Shudrin. She had two boys. So my mother with the two girls, and this lady with the two boys, started on their journey.
When they get to Germany to go in to get the boat, they declared war. Oh. And we were stuck at the German-Russian border. Oh, my. And my mother says, I'm not going back. So at that time my brother found out through the library, wait a minute, oh, oh, okay. Later on in life, that there was, it was called a railroad, um, the Russian Trans-Siberian, yeah, and it only had one track going and then one track coming back. But the gauge was not that, no other train could get on of the wheels. And so she took the train and went east. Oh, did the other lady also?
Four of them with their sacks with bread and cheese and a feather bed because they were very Very kosher. And they'll give a hose, you know, to knead out the, roll out the dough. Oh my goodness. They brought everything they needed. Candles, everything you needed. And the little girls and the little boys were like intermediaries for them because we were very jolly and the conductors liked us I see but she didn't have to hide us because we were traveling right right so we went through all these support Russia where we Siberia and all the way down until we reach China over on that area she had a bribe so she gave this one a lady's doily and whatever my mother and the Finally they get on a boat train and we had separate rooms.
We were traveling first class. And the hotel where we were stationed when we got off the train in Yokohama. There was a man there to receive us who married a Japanese lady and he was a Jewish so he opened up a hotel. Oh my goodness. For these people who were coming. Who were coming. To make connections to the United States. Oh my goodness. Well, and we were there, and she let my father know where we were, I guess along the way too. And, um, he sent more money. Uh-huh. And they, he made reservations, this man, on the boat. Uh-huh. But they had to get from China to Japan.
My mother insisted that they went onto the train and with the bunk, you know, and the next morning they get up and it's time to go and she stepped off the train onto a platform. And she all these years kept saying I was on a train. I had my son and my brother say, Mama, you can't, there's a sea in between, there's water, how did you get there? But we went deeper than that. We finally found that. Then they made arrangements for us and we got onto the boat in Yokohama I even have the name of the boat I have the manifest where our names are and everything We stayed in Philadelphia for two three years Wait a minute, wait a minute.
After you got on the boat, where did you come? We came to Seattle, to Seattle, Washington. And from there we went across by train to the Pennsylvania Railroad in New York. Oh my goodness. We went to Philadelphia and the other lady went to Canada. Uh-huh. So you traveled across Russia and across the United States? Across Russia, yes. To get to Philadelphia? To get to Philadelphia. How long do you know? How long? I don't know. I don't know. I really don't know. And then, I'll spend a lot of years when we came back to New York, because it was very hard getting work, and my mother's uh well did you live in philadelphia yes we lived two three years my brother was born there and my sister was born in brooklyn okay then the alien registration act came on and roseville said gotta register and here i know i'm not a citizen and i was already married So I went to the nearest post office to register.
My sister goes to her post office in Flatbush there, and I went to Brownsville, where I live, and hers they accepted, derivative of my mother. Of course, the immigration law changed in 1927 or 28, I don't know. And she already had her citizenship papers because she went to school. my mother and he refuses me I'm sorry ma'am you are not eligible or you're whatever so I went out and she telephombs I called Abe and Abe had a friend who was a lawyer and Nadine called me back at the number and he says Rose you go in there and have your name registered under protest And I did that and I caused them a lot of stern looks for me.
And from there on in I decided I want my own citizenship papers. I don want to go in some derivative of this and they look it up and blah blah blah It took me two three years with paperwork to get my citizenship papers I had to go to the Russian consulate and they claimed they didn have my baptismal signatures and their birth certificates. The archives were burned down. And then I went to Japan and... very sorry. Well, it got to a point where I finally, finally got my papers. But they contacted my whole family. I don't know how they got them. And one uncle said I wasn't even, my sister wasn't even married then.
You know, they know Jewish dates. My other uncle said she must be illegitimate. So when I was called to Columbus Circle to the Immigration Bureau, they tell me this here. I said, I beg your pardon. I said, I have my mother with me. I'll take my mother's dates and names. She said, I'm not saying this. Your uncle said this. Well, anyway, I went about another year or two for paperwork, and I got my citizenship papers. Then I contacted the Russian, the Japanese consulate. I found out the manifest of that boat. I even have the date on that, and my citizenship papers. I had the whole packet.
Then I was so happy my picture was on there and I felt like it was a treasure to have that and I was so grateful to have that a piece of paper but that little paper is so important. And then of course the I instilled my mother was she was she She knew every president, she knew every vice president. Well, now did she, how did she learn English? Through us. We would come home from school and we would say, uh, CAT, C-A-T. And she would sit in the dining room with the big desk light over the table. And that's how she learned. Then she went to school.
She registered in the Hayat building, the Hebrew Educational Society, H-E-S. And she went to Philadelphia. No, this was already in New York. Okay. And she said she wanted to enhance her reading, so she went in there and showed her slip of paper and there was nobody in the room so she sat down in the first little seat And a lady came in and said Excuse me Mrs Das is mine seat So she says, Oh, Sieleinwitschke, Finifjahr, Das is mine seat. So she says to her, She said, And she didn't go back and she learned by herself. English, she wrote English. And everything she learned was for myself, for my children, and schooling.
and she knew from her mayor where she lived, contemporary. The day she lived, the year she voted, who was president, she had everything on her head here. And argued with my brother, politics, everything. She was very civic-minded. Did she become active in this country in any... No, in her shul. Just in the shul. Yeah, no socialist organization. Oh, God, no. And she hated the communists with a passion. I can imagine. But they were better, she didn't. Sometimes they were a little better, so they wrote her from there and whatever. That's the story of my life. Now, did you go to school in Philadelphia? Yes, I showed you the article.
And then you finished in New York. That's right, in Brooklyn. Uh-huh. Yeah. And where did you get married? I got married in Brooklyn. In Brooklyn. in January 17, 1931. And who did you marry? I married Abe. Tell your name. And his name was Abe Zale. Okay. It was Zalevsky. Okay. And where was he born? He was born in Poland in, um... Okay, we can come back to that. Near Przyskne. Oh. Near Przyskne. Now where is that? Poland. I don't know where. Okay. I think it's more or less on the borderline of Russia and Poland, but I think it was all... it was Poland. And then Russia, I think, I'm not very good at history, but he was born there.
And so you married in New York in 1931. Right. And how many children do you have? I have two sons, bless their hearts. One is Stanley, his Jewish name is Schmerl, named after my mother's father. and my second one is Paul and his Jewish name is Pesach and he was named after my my husband's mother whose name was Peshe and of course they are the most wonderful children in the world and how many grandchildren do you have? I have five grandchildren plus two additionally in-laws that's seven and I have two great-grandchildren one is a little girl named Allison and one is a little boy named Aaron well that's wonderful tell me what you did after you were married and what was life like in New York when I really when you say New York you are Now, you mean Manhattan.
Okay. Because Manhattan is the hub of all the five boroughs of New York. That's true. And each borough has its own mayor. That's true. And we never came to Manhattan. We went straight to Brooklyn. Now, the people that came from Manhattan to Brooklyn were the ones that were very, very stressed. What do you mean? They didn't have what to eat. They didn't have an apartment, and all the immigrants would come in, maybe ten in an apartment. One would get out of bed, the other one would get, and looking for jobs, and it was very, and they peddled fruits and whatever they could from the pushcarts.
Very, very clever people came from those hard-working pushcart families. And then, but the Russian Jewish people, Eastern Jewish, they came, they were the Sephardic, and they ruled New York Jewish people community They were very very rich very very educated Sephardic Sephardic That from the Spanish Inquisition They all went to Turkey and they separated all over the world. But you weren't Sephardic. No, but they ruled as a Jewish. They didn't want to help the Jews. We were beneath them. But you say the Russian Jews were Sephardic. No, the So the Sephardic preceded us in immigration. Right. So you're, I'm sorry. Upper New York, I misunderstood you.
Those were the early settlers. Right. But they were really early. Right. Right. And then it came to a point. So they didn't, they were not sympathetic to it. Not at all. Okay. And that was a great big setback for them. But I didn't go through all that. We went, those people all have already made their supposedly called money. And they moved to better themselves for their families. Of course, seven people on the floor using one bathroom was very bad. We didn't have that. We had our own bathroom and our own water. But we had a stove. When you were a child or after you were married?
No. Married was way later. Okay, when you were a child. A child. We went to public school in that area. Okay. And then when I went to high school, we had already moved. But then I started working. Was that still in Brooklyn? Yes. Okay. Did you live in a Jewish neighborhood? Yes. My father worked very, very hard, but he never made the success that the Golden and Medina promised me. And my mother didn't work, and I had to work. My sister had to work. We had to drop out of school. Oh, really? I dropped out in my sophomore year, and my sister maybe the year before.
And my mother immediately scraped up whatever she could and she sent me to business school. My contract was for nine months. I was taught business, bookie bing, typing, and everything pertains to business. And they give you the book and you go from the book, you fill in the questions you study. But I went through the whole book in four months instead of nine months And when she went to the school and she says Mr My daughter finished already Why I have to pay you five months And she got her way So he says, well, she has to have a diploma after nine. She says, you can keep the diploma.
And she pulled me out and my first job was in my father's factory. We had a little business. They didn't pay me any money because I could walk home for lunch. My next job was, I don't even remember anymore. Then I was about 17. I got a job in New York, and God was I scared to go to New York. I never went out. You mean Manhattan? Manhattan. How did you get there? We had to go by subway train, which was already in effect years before that. And I went with a little brown bag with lunch, because God forbid I should eat anything trace. So your mother kept a kosher home.
And don't look at anybody and don't talk to strangers with my first pair of silk stockings. And when I look back at it, it's an adventure. Then I went up to the factory on a freight elevator. I was scared. And they weren't even working yet. I had to get there early. Of course, by 12 or not, if you didn't get a job, you've got to go home. You've got to go from uptown, downtown. And that's the way he operates. They tell me all this. And this man comes in and he says, for the Jewish accent, what are you doing here? I said, I'm looking for a job.
It's in the paper. He says, you know, I have three more partners. And I didn't even know what I was thinking. I'm not that clever. I figured, oh, either I'll get raped. I don't even know how I was raped twice. Anyhow, to make a long story short, this, does it sound funny? No. And he says to me, you're hired. So I said, well, what about your three partners? He says, the helmet then. You remind me of my daughter. She died when she was very young. That's all I had to hear. And I like you. And he says, you're hired. Then the other three came in.
Warren didn't like the other boys He says why are you hiring My daughter was here first Why did you fire my daughter Well anyhow I remained there for three years and I was married from there And what were you like secretary A bookkeeper. Oh, the bookkeeper. Liabilities, assets, trial balance. And you were there three years? Three years. And they watched me, and they catered to me, And they, it was a shrinking place, which they used to shrink men's cloth. What do you mean, shrinking? They, from the mail, they used to send a bowl to us. We used to shrink them in hot water and vats, roll them in.
Yeah. And then when they rolled back and they're nice and dry, I used to look at them for insuffections. And they used to write the mail, we'd give this customer, so and so clothing manufacturer, give him ten yards credit. I see. But the men in the back, it was so hot they had to work in shorts. Well, I didn't know they worked in shorts. I never went in the back, so I asked this fourth, where is the bathroom? And I didn't know they worked in the back because they have to work from thumb up. Oh, my. So you get a northern light, you know, the northern light.
Oh, I see, I see. I look and there I came running back. I said, they're in their underwear. So they gave me a bell. And every time I had to go to the bed, they were wonderful. When I got married, they carried me around on their shoulders and their little girl. And then from there on in, I did not work. Oh, I see. I didn't work until Stanley was called, registered for the Army. And then I worked a half a year, I couldn't stand the house. There was one missing. I see. And Paul cried all the time for his brother. Oh my. So I went to work in an art store.
We paid it to the college for paints and things and measles and canvas. And then I got another job, Utica Avenue, Utica off Kings Highway. There was a propane gas company. They sold the tanks, will you look up for your grills now? Uh-huh. Then I got another job, and this is the job that really put me on. into the business world. I got a job on the west side near the West Side Highway at that time, down 10th Avenue and Gansevoort Street. There was a meat market, the wholesale meat market, and they sold. I got a job on the west side near the West Side Highway at that time, down 10th Avenue and Gansevoort Street there was the meat market, the wholesale meat market.
And they sold to the fanciest restaurants and Waldorf and all those. And we sold anything that flew. But it was not kosher. But they had other kosher butchers along the line. And there I was, that's when I learned automation. I learned how to bill on the machine. Oh, I see. And then... So you were still working as a bookkeeper? Yes. Then, my husband was in his own business, soda distributing, and there was so much... He sold his business, I should say. I was 63 at the time. It was 1971 or 70. And he goes around, and I don't want you to work outdoors, don't get any more jobs, rest a while.
So he says, you know, I never saw the Statue of Liberty. I never looked in Manhattan, he never had time, he worked so hard. And he says, I think I'm going to go in. So he went to the United Nations, and he went to Lincoln Center, and he caught up on Manhattan. and as he was going home he says, you know, Marvin Zale has their place here, I think I'll go to see him. He went up to Zale Corporation, they were on Madison, I think, up at that end somewhere. And he walks in and he says to his cousin, he says, what are you doing here?
He says, well, I told my business, he told them the story. He says, I'm looking for a little side job, I can't stay home. He said do you want to work here He said I be I love it He said oh yeah so when do I start He said now I was thrilled I was really thrilled And that what started us with the Zale Corporation which was one of the highlights of my life and age And then we came here Well, what brought you to Dallas? The children. Well, how? Paul, Stanley worked there since he was 16 in the summertime, and in the daytime, school time, he worked school and offices for the hours.
For Zale Corporation? Yes. was already in college and so he bided his time school and college. Yeah. His school and work. And then he wants to go. Stanley was already in Dallas working for Zale. I see. In the meantime he had gone to the army and he served three years in the army and he was the secretive either fbi or cia or whatever and he never told me what he did but when he was going over to to the pacific coast i knew he was going to go to korea but as it happened god was very good to us they dropped him off at hawaii and they registered him in hawaii in their secretive place and he was there a year and a half and he served three years for that no comeback then he came back and got married and came here to dallas and they was hankering to go to dallas meanwhile my other son got married in the interim and i was already working And he marries this girl from Queens, and he goes to Dallas to work for the jail couple.
So then Stanley says, I'm going, the children aren't here. And Rose, it's ridiculous. The children were being born, the grandchildren. And he says, Rose, why are we doing here? We're not going for the children, we're going for the grandchildren. So when we die, they shouldn't say, oh, that's my grandma who brought me a doll one year, and that's my grandpa who took me to McDonald's or something. I want to go They should know who we are before we die Now let me stop you That why Let me stop you a minute and ask how was your husband related to the Zale family here Mr. Morris Zale's father and my husband's father were brothers.
So, Stanley, Abe and Morris were first cousins. And then the children were the second. Right. And then we came here. What year did you come to Dallas? I came here in 73. And what did you think of Dallas after living in New York? I hated it. I was miserable for two years. I cry. I left my old mother there in New York with my other siblings. And it's so slow-paced. According to New York, everything in New York gets done. One, two, three. And the council doesn't have to wait for years to pass the roads. I said, I want you to take a bus, and they told me I have to walk two miles, three miles to get a bus.
And here I'm stuck in the house without transportation. Anyway, it took me a while. And then I got a job. Abe got a job first. And I had to stay a whole month at home until they cleared me for a job. Where did you work? Well, a corporation. Oh, oh, okay. Yeah, I loved it there. What did you do? Well, they put me in with the GIL Division, and the GIL Division was the Tiffany of the Zale Corporation. In New York I worked for the Zales too before I came here. And they put me in the Diamond Room. When I saw the Diamond Room in here I suffered an accident with my eyes and they were very bad.
But anyway, I got out of there and we went to Dallas. They put me into the skill division and then they automated. They put in computers and I started to learn that. The CRT, feeding the computer. And I loved every minute of it. We were anxious to go to work. That's how we loved it. Stanley worked in the same building and Paul was in the stores. He was a salesman, then a manager. And I was very happy here. I had my grandchildren and they are the light of things, the love of my life. And Abe was beaming and he became sick We got there in 73 December and in August of 74 he got his first heart attack And every month after, that's for 18 years he was sick.
But it was so slow paced they didn't rush him. And he loved it, loved every minute of it. And then he retired. He wanted to retire because he didn't want to work part time. When did he retire? We retired when I was 75. I was 78. Then we joined the center, which was my home away from home. And I got right into the library. And I loved the tours. We learned things. We never went abroad anywhere or out of the country. And we went on all the tours. And I loved the things. Canada, we went to. I learned about Texas, the hill country, and down in Galveston.
And it was beautiful. And I had never seen that. But our vacation, we went to New York with the family. Oh, I see. But when I used to go back and forth and go to the theater and go to the lovely restaurants or whatever, I started comparing the life I was living now to there. The city was deteriorating, and my neighborhood wasn't like it used to be, and my family started moving out of there. And the only one I have there now is my brother, who works with NYC. When did your mother pass away? My mother passed away two years after I came here. Oh.
Stanley had gone on a convention from his company, and he came back and he says, I saw Grandma. And he says, She's not feeling so well, but she looks wonderful. You know Grandma, he says. You can't keep her down. She's complaining of the men who are always sidling up to her. Do you want coffee? And she used to tell... Mom, you know what she used to tell them? Tell me. she said to me they have dirty shoes they never clean their fingernails you think i'm going to go with them well anyhow he says i enjoy grandma but i would like you to go see her that was about april May I went there a week before Mother's Day.
I heard she was in the hospital and she wasn't feeling well. So I went to my sister's house and from my sister in the morning, she used to drop me off at the car at the hospital and be there all day. She was sleeping and I stood at the foot of the bed and there's a nurse there. 24 hours a day, she had a nurse three shifts. But the nurse was complaining to me that, your mother is very hard to get along. She hollers at me, and you know she curses me. I'm Jewish, but I don't understand what you're saying. It's better you don't know.
Anyway, she opens up her eyes, and she sees me standing at the foot of the bed, and she's squinting her eyes, and she says, that is us. So I didn't answer her. So she does like this again, and she's propping Trotty with her elbows. She says, Rosalie, what's this the door? Do you have to come and do the same with the man? I said, well, who's up a bank? And you go and she says, answer for Mother's Day. Oh, wonderful. I said, how are you? I'm alright, but just Kenneth, just Kenneth Leighton was a doing, doing to me. They wash me, well will they wash me.
Can I have a line wash me? She was already 88. Uh huh. She died at 89 and a half. Uh huh. And she signed herself into the home. Is that right? Because the water was overflowing in the sink, the gas light was not turned off, she fell out of bed. Uh huh. And she called my sister-in-law, I'm ready. Uh huh. Uh huh. My other sister came rushing in from Manhattan and within two hours she was there. She dressed beautifully. Is that right? And the children all supported her with, I think she got something like $20. She was a children, not for other. But she was a very, very independent woman.
And then she died in August and I was there in May. So I got the justice on. That's good. The next day I come there, I'm dropped off. My mother is sitting in a chair and she lets herself be fed And they combed her hair and washed her hair and a nice nightgown I said Mama you look absolutely beautiful She a puya big She was really... they always talk about her. When family gets together, the two boys sit in the corner, and they talk about Mama. It's such a wonderful relationship, a grandmother and a grandchild. And my younger sister also knew my mother at her later years.
I got her, she lived with me for 13 years with my sister. But then later on when I left she took care of my, they all did. And then she was in the home. I had a, thank God I had a good life, pretty healthy. The adverse part of it was a death here and there and some little sickness here and there, but that's natural. Well, you've spanned quite a time from Russia to Texas. Yes, and the other day we were talking and my older son said, You know, Mother, I'm thinking, you know what happened in all the years that you came from Russia? There weren't any horses pulling the fire engines and the steam was coming out from the stove, from the water.
There weren't any, they're not, now they go by electric wires. We had gas lights when we came here and we didn't have just the thing. Grandma My ma always thought to it that we had those fancy little, they call them mentelachs, it's like a little mantle. And it was made like of gossamer wings. And as a lady upstairs stamped her foot, it was like a thistle, it blew away and we had to buy another one. What is that? That looked like a flame. The lamp? The chandelier over the, wherever we went. Oh. Little globes. Uh huh. And it shouldn't look like a flame and nobody should be burned.
I see. they would turn it down. We saw out the first car, my cousin would come in with a Studebaker and the whole street would come around it and he would stay in and watch them. We went through telephone we never had a telephone and he named so many things radio and then television He says you know Mom you span you were really in the inception of all these beautiful things we have today. Yeah. And I really did. When your mother went with her mother to make the shitter, how did they travel? horse and wagon? Yes, with a straw on the bottom. They didn't have a Surrey with a fringe on the top.
But my grandfather and grandmother were not peasants. They owned lands. Oh, really? And they hired people to till or do whatever they had to. And he used to trade horses and cows and fruit, whatever to the fair. And then he would handle. Were they allowed that? Then they were allowed to own land. At that time they owned their own land. They owned land. And my mother, she was the only one left at home. My other, her other sister went to Kiev. They doted on my mother. She had free lessons to how to sew, how to free draw patterns. And my mother had a man who used to come in to teach her Hebrew.
She didn't have to go to a chela because they were all boys. So she had a good Jewish background, education plus. She wrote Jewish not one letter at a time. I could never read her Jewish. Well, anyhow, that's how I learned. I didn't learn Jewish from my mother, but I learned to read the foreword from my mother, and I used to read the Bintel Brif for her to see that I'm reading correctly. I see. But when I met Abe, his mother said to me, You know how to... They switch to the edition of that. But can they switch to the edition? I said, no. The wills to head it in my own.
You know, for the men, God forbid they should marry people that are less educated than them. So she was putting her stamp on me. I said, no. She says, I will tell it in my own. That's the edition of the edition. Oh. So she got me a book, like a primer. Uh And I learned how to read the Aliphate and everything Then I wrote for my mother to Europe to show them how I could write it But I wrote each letter separately And I got by until this day. I write to my cousins in Israel, but they don't understand me. But my cousins read the English part.
So as I said, I had a very good life. my life with my husband was just like a love story I'm not getting too sentimental but it's the truth he doted on me he loved me, he worshipped me nothing was too good but yet he didn't have enough money in the beginning but we lived a very happy life without riches and it was a good, clean, innocent life Uh-huh, uh-huh. And then we came here, of course, the children were the love lights of my life, really the highlights of my life. Did you join any Jewish organizations in Dallas? Yes. No. I did not. The Hadassah is the only thing I joined.
In Brooklyn I was a member of the American Jewish Congress. Oh, uh-huh. But then I dropped out of that. Years ago maybe I didn't understand too much about the American Jewish Congress, that it wasn't really all the Jewish. They did for everybody. Uh-huh. And they asked a question which I did not like. With blank paper, no names, I wrote what I thought. Uh-huh. And that's the one, that's why I dropped out of there. Uh-huh. And when I came here, I was happy, except for the first two years I cried a river. But after that, I came used to it. My Giselle family were very, very understanding and very nice and very gentle.
And they're gentile people. I went to all the weddings and bar mitzvahs and socials, you know, things like that. And then we joined the Jace. Oh, incidentally, the minute we came here, we joined the shul because we had joined the shul. We were in the shul in Europe. In Europe. In New York. In New York. What shul did you belong to in New York? Well, first of all, we... belonged to a shul, was a shuler. What is that? A little shuler was a das ha-shuren, a das ha-shuren. And he got to the point where he was treasurer. First he was vice president, then he, no treasurer, then he was vice president.
Then he was in the army. And Paul and I bought him a palace as a present. I remember that so clearly. We were so proud of him. Then we moved out of the neighborhood. It was too far to walk. So we joined one near our shul, near our house. It was a big one. They had a choir and all that. I was never used to that before. But you get used to everything. It was very nice. It was orthodox. We came here and we said, how can we do without a shul if you did? So we joined Tepherah Israel. And I was never accessed. Only when we retired, we started going Saturday mornings for sure, and that's what's doing until.
Always happening. Yeah. Okay. Anyway, as I said, I'm happy. I thank God for everything that he's given to me, good and bad. And now I'm here talking with Rose Biedemann, who is a delight. And that's about it. Well, that's a wonderful story. Thank you so much. Oh, thank you. Thank you.